Elias gripped the parchment tighter, the paper rough beneath his numb fingers. His breath came slow and steady, though his heartbeat betrayed him—pounding heavier, slower, like the cold had crept inside him and settled deep.
He read the message again.
Then again.
The words did not change.
The outpost commander was to prepare for an incoming operation. The stronghold would move its forces north soon, and they were to eliminate all remaining resistance before the army arrived. The wording was clinical, precise. Efficient.
The kind of efficiency that left no survivors.
Elias swallowed against the tightness in his throat. He was no soldier, but even he could see the implications. The outpost's orders weren't just about securing the region. This wasn't an ordinary maneuver.
It was a purge.
And it wasn't the army that would do the dirty work.
They expected the outpost's forces to handle it before Caidren's men even arrived.
Elias's stomach twisted, nausea curling at the edges of his exhaustion.
How many people would die because of this single piece of parchment?
How many had they already decided were disposable?
He forced himself to fold the parchment again, tucking it back into his satchel with slow, careful movements. The act felt heavier than it should have.
As if, by carrying it, the deaths written into those orders were already pressing down on him.
Night Fell Like a Silent Threat
Elias remained in the hollow beneath the tree, curled as tightly as he could against the cold. His fingers had gone stiff long ago, his breath a faint ghost in the air.
He did not sleep.
Not really.
His body was too cold, his mind too restless. He drifted in and out of a half-conscious state, listening to the wind, the distant groan of tree branches weighed down by ice.
But something else stirred beneath his thoughts.
A memory.
The stronghold. The endless, bitter days. The bruises and the beatings and the quiet cruelty that had become his existence.
Caidren's absence had left a vacuum in that place. And in that vacuum, the soldiers had grown meaner, hungrier for something to fill the void.
For weeks, Elias had thought of nothing but survival. Of enduring, of keeping himself upright, of refusing to give them the satisfaction of breaking.
But now—
Now, he was out.
Now, he had a choice.
He could go to the outpost. Deliver the message. Follow orders.
Or he could disappear.
He could let the parchment rot in the snow, let the war machine stutter, if only for a moment.
But running meant something else, too.
It meant being hunted.
And he knew, without a doubt, that if Dain was ordered to track him down, he would.
And he would enjoy it.
Elias swallowed, his throat dry.
There was no good choice.
Only survival.
And survival, he had learned, often meant walking the path that hurt the least.
Dawn Came Slow and Gray
Elias forced himself to his feet, his limbs stiff, his breath sharp in the frozen air. The sky was a dull, lifeless gray, the kind of sky that warned of more snow to come.
He adjusted the satchel, pulling the cloak tighter, and stepped back onto the road.
He moved north.
Not because he had chosen a side.
Not because he had decided to follow orders.
But because, for now, moving forward was the only choice he had.
And if an opportunity came—
If the path ahead gave him a reason to change course—
Then he would take it.
But until then, he kept walking.
And he did not look back.