They stepped out onto the shadowed overhang of the commander’s balcony. Below them, the courtyard was a canvas of chaos. The Vanguard garrison had spent the last four hours drinking away their discipline. Now, men stumbled through the mud, half-armored, kicking over ale casks as they scrambled for their polearms in the dark.

  "We need to move before the guard changes," Arjun said, the words tearing painfully from his ruined throat. "The corridor is clear."

  "We aren't running, General," Greta said. She leaned her forearms against the stone rail. Her eyes weren't dead; they burned with a quiet, devastating pride. "We need them exactly where they are. Drunk. Unarmored. Blind."

  Arjun looked down at the overwhelming numbers. Even disorganized, it was a slaughter waiting to happen. "Why?" he rasped. "I broke your lines. I brought order to the valley so the rest of the province wouldn't burn. You lost the war. Why throw yourselves at Vanguard steel?"

  "I lost a riot," Greta corrected softly. She turned her head to look at him, and there was no mockery in her face—only a profound, heavy sorrow. "Those who marched yesterday were bakers. Field hands. People who had already lost their farms to the Queen’s levies. They couldn't win a pitched fight against crossbows, but they wanted to fight until their last breath against the tyranny."

  The words slipped past Arjun's armor and struck the hollow center of his chest.

  "They used their burning desire and their sheer numbers to launch the rebellion," Greta continued, her voice hardening into iron. "They knew they would die against your shield wall, General. But they also knew that a quiet death from the Queen's starvation is still a death. They chose to break themselves against you so the rest of the realm would see that the Vanguard can bleed."

  The truth of it landed on Arjun heavier than any physical blow. He looked at his own trembling hands, remembering the rusted sickle, the desperate child in the mud, the ghost of the girl on the cobblestones.

  He had spent a decade believing he was the shield of the realm. He had told himself that by acting as the Queen's ruthless enforcer, he was stopping prolonged civil wars, saving thousands of lives through swift, terrifying order. But looking at Greta, his entire utilitarian philosophy collapsed. His "order" was just a cage, and the "peace" he enforced was already worse than death for the people living in it.

  "They weren't an army," Arjun whispered, the realization fracturing what was left of his soul. "They were a pyre. And I lit the match."

  "They chose to burn," Greta said fiercely. "And they gave their lives to make your men strip off their plate and celebrate a hollow victory. Now, we finish what they started."

  From the dark edge of the tree line, a bone whistle shrieked—a single, piercing note.

  The camp did not explode into chaos. It ruptured cleanly.

  Two figures darted through the shadows of the supply tents, moving with terrifying synchronization. Francesca and Katja didn’t draw steel; they threw clay. Small pouches shattered against stacked weapon racks and wooden posts. With a flick of flint, they lit the fuses.

  Resin spat hot, bright orange, flinging burning splinters through the camp. Men who had been laughing half a breath before were suddenly alight and falling into the mud.

  "Form up!" the Vanguard lieutenant roared, slamming a greatsword against a splintering rack to draw attention. He was a massive man, and unlike his subordinates, he had kept his breastplate on. The discordant, heavy ring of his command still held authority.

  Then, the air above him folded.

  Frederick and Isabella dropped from the canopy without a shout, landing in the mud with absolute silence. The lieutenant spun, bringing his greatsword around in a brutal, horizontal arc meant to cleave Isabella in half.

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  She didn't dodge. She stepped directly into the blade’s path.

  Isabella pressed her bare palm against the flat of the speeding steel. The air warped. The world shuddered with a deep, concussive boom, like a massive bell being struck underwater. The kinetic force of the giant's swing was absorbed, redirected, and fired straight back into his own arms.

  The lieutenant's armor cracked. His knees gave out, his bones vibrating with the recoil of his own strength.

  Isabella drew a short, curved blade. Her movement was a single, clean sentence. The decapitation was flawless. There was no cruelty in her eyes, no cheering—only the quiet efficiency of duty being done and put away.

  Across the yard, a fifth rebel was violently carving her way forward. Elena smashed a spearman’s guard with a heavy iron mace, clearing a bloody, desperate path straight toward the prison doors to rescue a leader she believed was in chains. In under three minutes, the courtyard had been transformed from a victory feast into a graveyard of burning resin, smoke, and silence.

  Greta stepped back from the balcony railing. Arjun looked at her, his shredded voice barely a whisper. "Your sister came to my perimeter to kill me. She thought she was alone. She traded her life because she didn't know your plan."

  Greta’s shoulders trembled once. When she opened her eyes again, they were dry, and the sister was gone. "She died in the raid," Greta said. Her voice was the absolute iron of orders. "A stray Vanguard arrow. You will tell anyone otherwise, and Elena will make a spectacle of your skull. I need you alive, General. I need your mind."

  She didn’t wait for his response. She turned and walked down the stairs into the burning courtyard. Arjun followed, a ghost trailing behind the dead he had sent.

  Elena smashed the heavy locking bar off the outer prison door and kicked it open, her mace raised to slaughter whoever was guarding the cells.

  She froze.

  The entire strike team stalled in the mud. They had come to break a siege, expecting to drag a battered, bleeding prisoner out of the deep cells. Instead, Greta walked calmly out of the smoke, entirely unharmed.

  Elena lowered her mace a fraction of an inch, her chest heaving, rain plastering hair to her face. "Leader? You're... we thought you were in the vault."

  "I was," Greta said, stepping fully into the light of the burning resin. "The situation has changed."

  Then, the massive shadow in the doorway detached itself and followed her out.

  The Queen's Gauntlet stepped into the courtyard.

  Elena’s momentary relief violently snapped into rage. The shock of seeing the Vanguard General walking freely behind her leader triggered pure survival instinct. She shoved past Greta, bringing the heavy iron mace up in a lethal, sweeping arc. "It's a trap! Get behind us, Leader!"

  Greta moved faster. She stepped directly into Elena's path, her hand shooting out to catch Elena's forearm before the mace could fall.

  "I said the situation has changed," Greta commanded, her voice cutting through the hiss of the rain. "Stand down, Elena."

  Elena stared at her, breathing hard, then looked over Greta's shoulder at the giant standing passively in the mud. Her grip on the mace went white-knuckled. Her mind struggled to connect the pieces: Greta was unhurt, the cell was open, and the commander of the royal army was just standing there, unarmored and watching them with dead eyes.

  "You're free," Elena hissed, her eyes darting frantically between them. "And the Vanguard General is just... walking behind you? Why isn't the butcher in chains?"

  "Because he unlocked my cuffs himself," Greta said, her voice entirely devoid of warmth. "He surrendered his sword."

  "He’s a snake," Elena spat, refusing to lower the weapon. "Give me the word, and I’ll cave his chest in."

  "Peace." Greta’s single word cut her down like a blade.

  Frederick and Isabella moved silently through the smoke, flanking the massive soldier. Isabella stopped three paces from Arjun. She did not look at his face; she looked at his empty hands, the exhausted slump of his massive shoulders, and the slow, mechanical rhythm of his breathing. She did not search for military symbols—she searched for the small betrayals a body keeps.

  "His crest is gone," Frederick said softly, noting the torn rivets on the armor.

  "More than that," Isabella murmured. Her dark eyes finally met Arjun’s, seeing straight through the shell. "The vessel is empty. He has surrendered."

  Elena did not lower her mace. Her look promised she would end his life if he breathed wrong. She stepped close enough that Arjun could smell the burning resin and sweat on her armor. "The Oracles say you’re empty," she hissed. "One wrong move—one look at Greta—and I’ll find out exactly how much blood you keep."

  "Understood," Arjun rasped, the ruined sound of his voice surprising her.

  Francesca and Katja jogged over, tossing spent clay pouches into the mud. Katja wiped soot from her cheek, looked at the furious Elena, the stoic Oracles, and the massive, broken General standing passively in the rain.

  "Well," Katja chirped, shattering the heavy tension like a thrown stone, "at least he doesn't talk as much as the lieutenant did."