The walls of Eldermere stood strong.
Reinforced with sharpened stakes, patched where the rebellion had once broken through, lined with archers ready to fire at a moment's notice. Every able-bodied man had been given a weapon—some barely more than sharpened farm tools, others the scavenged swords of the fallen.
The village was as ready as it could be.
Yet Aric could feel it.
Something was wrong.
The enemy had not moved.
Not a single knight of House Margrave had broken formation.
They stood in the valley like sentinels, unmoving, watching.
And waiting.
Lira tightened the grip on her dagger as she stood beside him. "Why aren't they attacking?"
Kael, leaning against the barricade, flicked a knife between his fingers. "Maybe they're just enjoying the show."
Aric exhaled slowly, scanning the enemy formation. No banners were raised. No siege engines had been brought forward.
It wasn't a delay.
It was patience.
They weren't waiting for an opportunity.
They already had one.
And the realization hit him like a blade to the gut.
"They're already inside."
The first sign of the sabotage came at dawn.
A thick, acrid smell filled the village square, curling through the air like something foul had been left to rot.
Aric followed the scent, boots crunching over damp earth. Villagers had begun to gather outside one of the storage cellars, their faces twisted in confusion and growing horror.
A woman—one of the elders in charge of food distribution—wrung her hands as she turned to Aric. "Lord Aric, something's wrong."
She stepped aside, revealing the opened cellar door.
The moment Aric descended the wooden steps, the stench hit him in full force.
Rot.
Not from neglect. Not from spoiled food left too long.
Deliberate.
Every barrel of grain had been split open, the contents drenched in a foul-smelling black liquid. Meat that had been cured and stored had been torn apart as if something had clawed through it.
Lira crouched, running a gloved hand across the ruined grain. Her expression hardened. "This wasn't an accident."
Kael kicked a shattered barrel over, watching as the last of its ruined contents spilled onto the floor. His voice was low, grim.
"Somebody did this on purpose."
Aric's fingers curled into a tight fist.
They were being starved before the war had even begun.
The discovery of the poisoned water sent a fresh wave of panic through the village.
It started with one man.
A blacksmith named Roland.
He had drunk from a barrel near the west well, where most of the village stored its clean water. Within minutes, his lips turned pale, his body convulsed.
By the time Lira arrived, he was dead.
His veins blackened as if something had eaten him from the inside out.
Aric stood over the body, rage simmering beneath the surface.
This was not a sickness.
This was warfare.
One of the village hunters—an old man named Bram—stood in the square, his voice raised in a quavering shout.
"There's a traitor among us!"
The words rippled through the crowd like a lit torch to dry kindling.
People turned on each other.
Suspicious glances were exchanged.
The panic was spreading.
Kael's voice cut through the rising noise, sharp and cold. "No one moves. Not until we figure out who did this."
But the damage had already begun.
House Margrave hadn't needed to breach the walls.
They were rotting Eldermere from the inside.
And no one knew who to trust.
----
The village was on edge.
Everywhere Aric turned, he saw fear.
Men gripped their weapons too tightly. Mothers held their children close. People who had fought side by side against Garrick's rebellion now whispered behind closed doors, casting suspicious glances at their neighbors.
House Margrave had not stormed the gates.
They had done something far worse.
They had turned the people of Eldermere against each other.
And now, Aric had to root out the enemy before it was too late.
The first step was containment.
"We shut down the wells," Aric ordered, standing at the center of the square. "No one drinks unless we know it's safe. The same goes for food. We ration what remains."
The villagers grumbled, but no one argued.
Not after they had seen Roland's corpse.
"Everyone will be searched," Lira added, her voice sharp. "We're looking for anything—poisons, stolen supplies, strange weapons. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
Kael leaned against a wooden post, arms crossed. "And if they do?"
Aric's jaw tightened.
"Then we make an example of them."
The search began immediately.
Lira led a group of trusted fighters through the village, turning over crates, barrels, and beds of straw.
Kael worked his way through the tavern and merchant stalls, checking for unfamiliar faces, anyone who shouldn't be there.
Aric moved through the storage buildings, his mind racing.
If House Margrave had a spy here, they weren't just trying to starve them out.
They were weakening Eldermere for something bigger.
A single saboteur couldn't have poisoned multiple water barrels overnight.
Which meant—
They weren't working alone.
It wasn't until nightfall that the first lead appeared.
One of Lira's scouts—a wiry teenager named Fen—came running from the south side of the village.
"Lord Aric!" He skidded to a stop, breathing hard. "I found something."
He led them to a small storage hut, one of the older ones near the outer wall.
Inside, the air reeked.
A pile of clothes, mismatched and ragged, lay in one corner, as if someone had changed outfits in a hurry.
Scattered on the floor were small vials of a thick black liquid.
Lira crouched, picking one up. "This is the same poison we found in the wells."
Kael knelt beside her, picking up a thin dagger. The blade was oddly shaped, curved in a way that suggested something ceremonial.
His expression darkened. "That's not a normal knife."
Aric reached down, flipping over one of the discarded tunics.
Stitched into the inner lining—barely visible—was a sigil.
A three-eyed raven.
House Margrave's mark.
"Found you," Aric murmured.
The spy did not run.
They must have known discovery was inevitable.
Because when Aric and his fighters returned to the village square, the enemy was already waiting.
A man in his early forties, clad in merchant's clothes, stood calmly near the center well.
His face was plain, forgettable.
But his eyes—his eyes were silver.
Not like a man's.
Like the noble emissary's.
Like the knights standing in the valley.
Aric drew his sword immediately. "You."
The man smiled.
"Me," he said pleasantly.
Lira was the first to move.
Her dagger flashed in the torchlight, a blur of silver cutting through the night.
The blade struck home, sinking deep into the man's chest.
He did not flinch.
Did not stagger.
Did not bleed.
Lira's expression twisted. "What—"
The man's silver eyes glowed.
Then, he opened his mouth.
And the sound that came out was not human.
It was a whisper and a wail, an echoing voice that came from somewhere far away.
Somewhere not of this world.
"We are already inside."
The firelight around them flickered.
A sudden, sharp gust of wind howled through the village.
Somewhere in the darkness—
Something laughed.
The spy collapsed.
Not like a man falling dead.
Like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
His body twitched, convulsed—then stilled.
For a long, horrible moment, no one spoke.
Then Kael let out a slow breath.
"Well," he muttered. "That was horrifying."
Lira was already stepping back. "Burn it."
Aric did not argue.
Because the thing that had just died in Eldermere had not been a man.
And whatever had been inside of him—
It was still out there.
Watching.
Waiting.
And laughing in the dark.