Fenric closed his eyes. He tilted his head toward the cave ceiling as if the answer he needed might be carved among the dripping stone. His half-black, half-brown fur shivered when the wind pushed through the cave mouth. His ears drooped low, weighed down by doubt, by fear, by a question he was not ready to face.

  Vierna watched him carefully. A part of her, the part that still remembered what it was like to want a home, truly did want peace for Rolbart. Truly did want to spare them from the consequences already creeping toward them like a noose tightening in the dark.

  She reached out and took Fenric’s hand.

  “Fenric… maybe me and Lina can help Rolbart.”

  Thunder rolled somewhere far beyond the cave, low and heavy. A sudden gust carried dead onyx like leaves inside, scattering them across the floor. Several landed in the hearth, hissing violently as the fire devoured their damp edges. The sound was too sharp, too loud, almost as if the world itself was warning them.

  Fenric laughed. It was a hollow, broken sound crushed into something that was not humor at all.

  “Haha… I am sorry, Vierna. I fail to see how the two of you are going to save Rolbart.”

  “We work for Duke Leopold himself,” Vierna said. “I cannot promise he will listen to us, but me and Lina will try our hardest to persuade him to spare this place.”

  “Yeah, right.” Fenric’s tail did not even flick. “Nice try. But Lina was right. We are already complicit in the eyes of the Reich. We are standing inside our own grave.”

  “So you just want to give up?”

  The words froze him. His gaze remained glued to the ceiling, unmoving, as if the idea of giving up had turned his bones to stone.

  “Fenric,” she whispered, and gently moved his chin until he faced her. His eyes were glassy and drained. The firelight reflected in them like dying embers. “Look at me.”

  He did not blink.

  “I will not sweeten anything,” she said. “I cannot guarantee anything. But right now it is either this or Rolbart walks into certain doom. And even if you give up, I will not. I will try my best to save this place. I will kneel in front of Leopold if I have to. I will swear my life to him if that is what it takes.”

  Fenric’s eyes were hollow, emptied out by the weight of a future he could not escape.

  “So all you have to do,” Vierna continued softly, “is not report me and Lina to Loran’del. Let me handle the rest.”

  She did not forget her own damnation, the fact that she had mistakenly killed Leopold’s agent, that she herself was already walking toward a gallows she could never outrun. But that did not stop her. If she had to die, fine. She would still fight for Rolbart’s salvation even when the noose was already settling around her neck like a necklace. Even if the chance was almost nonexistent, even if the world had already decided their fate, she would fight it.

  “But why would you do that? I mean every thing you did, you did it for your mission only right?”

  “You’re right, Fenric. Up until now, everything I did was meant to deceive you and let me and Lina in. That part is true.” She exhaled, the words rough in her throat. “But it would also be a lie if I said I felt nothing for any of you.

  I did like you all. More than I should have. I liked how Rolbart felt… how you talked to each other, how you lived, how you argued, even. And I hated that I was only here to use that.

  I even caught myself thinking it wouldn’t be so bad if I were assigned here for real, not just for a mission. That maybe I could stay, even though I knew I couldn’t.”

  She looked away for a moment, jaw tight. “I love what you have here, Fenric. And I want to defend it. But I can’t pretend my intentions were pure. Everything I’ve done had an ulterior motive. I just… wish that wasn’t true.”

  In that moment, she realized how liberating it was to speak the truth, to let her intentions stand without any mask. If only she could do this every time she spoke. But truth was a privilege reserved for people with power, the kind who did not care about consequences. She wondered if Leopold was one of them. Was he able to say whatever he pleased? Was he an honest man?

  In a way, he had never lied to her. Even when he “adopted” her, he never softened the blow. He told her directly that she was going to be an experiment. And that was exactly what happened. When she proved herself, she was trained. Now she was sent on a mission.

  How long would she have to climb to reach that kind of place? To live without lying at all?

  Fenric looked at her, observing her every move. How she breath, how her eyes shine as she said those word. He then exhaled, that lusterless eyes of his were gone, replaced by the same tenderness he usually show.

  “You really are something, you know,” he said calmly.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Vierna only smiled. But she could see it in Fenric all the same. His ears stayed low, his tail unmoving, and his fingers kept rubbing the same spot on his wrist as if trying to scrape off a thought he couldn’t bear to keep. Even while he stood there listening to her, his gaze kept drifting toward the cave mouth, toward the storm, toward Rolbart. He was still troubled by the fate waiting for his village.

  “But is that your whole strategy? Begging the Duke?”

  Vierna looked at Lina.

  “Hey, don’t look at me. You’re usually the brain of this thing.”

  Vierna paused. She knew Leopold better. He was reasonable, yes, but to convince him she would need leverage, a clear reason why he should spare Rolbart even if complicity was proven.

  Then again, was Rolbart’s fate even in his hands? He was a duke, sure, but above him stood a prince-elector and the Magierkonklave. If the verdict was treason, it would be strange if they did not involve both of them.

  “Right now, yes, Fenric. I need an angle to convince Herr Leopold. And I don’t have one.”

  “Maybe if we finish the mission really well,” Lina said, “he’ll consider that as a reward for us?”

  “I’m not sure though. Besides, the mission is only to locate their base and figure out how they are surviving Schattwald.”

  The trio fell silent. Fenric shifted his weight, his fingers absently combing through the fur at his neck while his ears flicked at the distant rumble outside.

  Lina crossed her arms and leaned back against the cave wall, her foot drawing inward each time the cold brushed it, her eyes narrowed in thought.

  Vierna wrapped her hands around her elbows, focusing on the damp stone beneath them as a thin draft slipped past her ankles.

  The storm outside hadn’t eased; wind pressed against the cave mouth in slow, heavy waves, carrying the smell of wet earth and distant lightning. Water dripped steadily somewhere deeper inside, a quiet rhythm that only made the silence between them heavier as all three tried to think their way out of a problem none of them were prepared for.

  “What if we destroy Yvlaine’s camp instead?”

  Vierna’s voice cut through the storm. It felt louder than the thunder still raging in the background.

  Fenric looked at her. “What? Are you crazy?”

  “Think about it. If we destroy her camp, that would count as a job done above Leopold’s expectations. That should give us the leverage to ask him for something.

  I mean… yes, I don’t have the slightest clue how, and I don’t even know where their camp is. But instead of only doing reconnaissance, we could erase the problem entirely. We could even say people from Rolbart helped.”

  “Haha… you’re out of your mind, Vierna. I don’t remember putting anything strange in your tea that would make you delusional like this.” Fenric stared into the fire as he spoke.

  “I’m just grasping at straws here.”

  “I saw her kill mana beasts with ease,” Fenric said. “They live in Schattwald. And that ‘little’ friend Lina made back then? It wasn’t special. Inside that forest, there are a lot of creatures like that from what I’ve heard. Not to mention the hunters and dwarves Yvlaine took from Rolbart. Some of them are war veterans. I don’t even know how you two are planning to get there in the first place.”

  “Do you have any better idea, deer boy?” Lina asked.

  “I don’t. That’s why I’m despairing over here.”

  Lina dragged herself closer to Vierna. She kissed her cheek and patted her hair.

  “My girlfriend here is wracking her brain trying to save Rolbart. The least you can do is help instead of shooting her ideas down.”

  Vierna didn’t protest the headpat and just enjoyed Lina’s affection.

  “Wait a minute… you two are a couple? Didn’t you say you were just friends?”

  Vierna scratched her head while smiling mischievously. “Hehe, sorry Fenric. I thought it would be easier to earn your trust if I lied about my relationship with Lina here.”

  “You really are sly, Vierna…”

  Lina laughed at Fenric. “Did you think you had a chance with her, antlers?”

  “No, I wasn’t thinking that way about her back then.”

  “Aw, so you don’t like me, Fenric? I mean, I could negotiate with Lina and ask her to let you join us,” Vierna joked lightly.

  She wasn’t just teasing; after everything that had unfolded, she still wasn’t completely sure Fenric would follow through on his promise about Loran’del. A bit of humor was the quickest way to ease the tension and push him toward accepting them again. If he relaxed—even a little—it would be much safer for all of them.

  “What are you talking about? Are you crazy?” Fenric sputtered.

  “Even after everything, you’re still too cute, Fenric,” Vierna laughed softly. “So… regarding Yvlaine. You think it’s possible, Lin?”

  “Not in a million years, My Moon,” Lina laughed.

  Vierna gave her a flat poker face, clearly pouting a little at Lina shooting down her suggestion too.

  “But let that problem be for later,” Lina said. “Maybe something will come up along the way. We don’t know what the future holds, right? But the first order of business is locating Yvlaine’s camp—and we don’t have the slightest idea where it is. And blindly searching inside that damned forest is the same as putting the noose around our own necks. So we need another way.”

  Fenric leaned in. “Didn’t you say Leopold would arrange a situation to make you guys believable to the whole village?”

  “Well, he did send those two people we killed to give us supplies so I could win the villagers’ trust.”

  Fenric’s body tensed as he heard that, his ears dropping even lower. “Wait… those weren’t cultists? They were Leopold’s agents and we killed them?”

  “Yes.”

  He slumped back against the wall, the breath leaving him in a harsh exhale. “Then how the hell can you two help Rolbart? You’re dead too.”

  “Fenric, they haven’t caught me yet. I don’t know why but as long as I’m not dead, I’ll keep trying—because that’s the only thing I can do.”

  Fenric watched her closely.

  There was conflict in her eyes—he could see it, faint but real. The guilt hadn’t left her; it just sat quiet, pushed somewhere deep enough not to interfere. But behind that weight was something else, something that didn’t move.

  She wasn’t calm, but she was certain.

  Even with the bruises on her arms and the cuts that hadn’t fully closed, she stood like someone who had already made peace with what she’d done. The regret was still there, yet it didn’t slow her down. If anything, it made her steadier.

  She looked like a person who had already decided how far she was willing to go—and was ready to live, or die, with it.

  For a brief moment Fenric wondered if Vierna even understood fear the way normal people did. Or if she’d simply learned how to bury it deeper than anyone he’d ever met.

  The kind of person who walked toward the gallows with her head high because running had never been an option.

  “Like it or not,” Lina said calmly, “we’re the only shot you have, no matter how you look at it.”