Chapter 20 #3
"We are being watched," she says, her voice dropping to a whisper so faint the OathCoil barely captures it.
The human's head whips around, panic flashing across his features. "What? Where? Is it the Crownward Guard?”
"Something far more interesting,” she replies, her smile widening to reveal fangs that gleam in the moonlight. “A little stone serpent with crystal eyes."
She moves with startling speed, her body uncoiling like a released spring, surging toward the OathCoil's hiding place. Her hand darts forward with incredible speed to seize the statue by the tail. The image lurches violently, spinning as the construct is yanked from its position.
For a sickening moment, we see the night sky, then the ground, the image shifting wildly before slamming against the stone path with bone-shattering force.
The projection splinters, fractures of light shooting through the war chamber as the recording crystal within cracks under the impact.
Once more she lifts it, and once more the statue smacks against unyielding stone.
For several heartbeats, none of us speak. The betrayal hanging in the air between us like smoke after fire.
Sareth exhales slowly, the sound harsh in the echoing room. “To receive two of what?” he mutters. “Whatever the arrangement was…it may have been accelerated the moment she found the OathCoil.”
“Or abandoned,” Traven counters, jaw tight. “If the human feared the Crownward Guard, then not all of them support Thorne’s intent. But that female—whoever she is—she has already vanished.”
“She was able to leave Vessan-Kar without notice,” I say darkly, gliding to the edge of the war table. “In and out of the city without passing through the obsidian gate.”
Sareth’s eyes widen. “That is impossible. I saw to the collapse of every tunnel—”
“That female proved there is at least one exit,” I cut in. “An old passage. Something forgotten during the Sundering.”
A ripple of unease passes between my two commanders.
Traven clears his throat. “What of the garden, Sovereign? If a healer or guardian supplied gloomroot—”
“It will be sealed,” I snap. “Permanently. Eira the Elder alone will have access. No healers. No guardians. No exceptions.”
Sareth nods sharply. “I will inform Eira.”
I dig my claws into the table, the weight of betrayal pressing down from all sides. Humans arranged with naga traitors, a faction most likely led by Lurok. A healer working against us. Poison in enemy hands. Explosives potentially hidden in Vessan-Kar.
And those weapons—those arc launchers tipped with gloomroot—they must be destroyed.
But crossing the border would shatter the treaty. Even a single naga seen in human territory would give Thorne exactly what he wants—an excuse to reignite the war and claim innocence.
“We must retrieve those weapons,” Traven says quietly, reading the storm in my eyes.
“We cannot,” I growl.
Molten fury surges through my veins like liquid gold, igniting beneath my scales.
My forearms erupt into brilliant crimson flames that dance and lick upward, casting savage shadows across the war chamber's ancient stone.
The sudden inferno births a scorching wind that sweeps through the room, rattling the war table beneath my palms. Sareth and Traven recoil instinctively, their powerful bodies slithering backward, pupils narrowing to vertical slits as primal fear momentarily overrides centuries of battlefield brotherhood.
I drag in a slow breath until the flare dims.
“What about using your elemental power to incinerate the weapons?" Sareth asks, his tail tip twitching with barely contained agitation.
"Even lobbing fireballs across the border would violate the treaty," I reply, dragging a claw across the war table's surface.
"Then how do we reach the weapons if we cannot cross the border to reach them?" Sareth presses, his massive shoulders tensing. "They are entrenched in human camps."
Traven’s brow furrows. “Unless…they do not see us coming.”
I turn to him.
“Sovereign, you know what my team accomplished during the Sundering. We slipped into camps far better guarded than these. Sabotaged their cannons and left without a trace.”
Sareth lifts a brow. “You think your team could do it again?”
“My wraiths are always ready.” A faint, fierce grin touches Traven’s face. “Give me one night. We will take the arc launchers and the tipped arrows and be gone before their sentries even blink.”
The chamber stills.
“We cannot give Thorne the war he is salivating for.” I meet his gaze. “If they see you…”
“They will not,” Traven replies. “You have my word.”
“Send word to Malikor. He must be informed of the traitor we witnessed. Tell him to watch for a russet-scaled naga among the human ranks. If she surfaces again, he is to report at once.”
I turn to Sareth. “Rally the Talons. I want the tunnel she used uncovered. Tear through Vessan-Kar if you must—every chamber, corridor, hollow, and service shaft is to be searched for explosives, detonators, and anything out of place. Your Talons will sweep the inner wards and the palace proper. Detain all healers. Their dens are to be searched for gloomroot; bring them to the interrogation hall.”
My gaze shifts to Traven. “Assemble your wraiths. You move the moment darkness falls. Tell no one. The traitors among us might get wind of what you plan and tip off the humans.”
"And your den keeper?" Sareth asks, his eyes watching me carefully. "Severa has served your household for centuries. If we bring her in with the others, she will know she is suspected."
The question strikes a painful chord. Severa has indeed been present through some of the darkest moments of my life—silent, efficient, always there yet never truly seen.
The thought that those same hands that prepared my meals and tended my wounds might be plotting my death creates a cold knot in my gut that not even my inner fire can warm.
"I will handle Severa personally," I say after a moment's consideration. "But not yet. If she is our traitor, I want her to believe herself unsuspected until we can determine the full extent of this conspiracy."
Both commanders bow their heads in acknowledgment, turning to leave with the focused urgency of warriors given clear purpose. As the door solidifies behind them, I remain motionless, staring at the darkened crystal where betrayal played out before our eyes.
The threads of conspiracy pull tighter with each passing hour.
I feel them constricting around Vessan-Kar, around the fragile peace we have built, around Leira and the future her presence in my life has suddenly made possible.
Someone seeks to strangle that future before it can fully form—and they have placed their agents perilously close to everything I am sworn to protect.
I lay my palm over the crystal and replay the OathCoil’s last transmission, hoping to find something, anything, that might lend clues as to the female’s identity. Once we find her, we will find the head of this new faction.