We all whipped our heads around, startled by the abrupt intrusion. Standing in the doorway, framed by the dying light of the setting sun, was a cloaked figure shrouded in black leather. My breath hitched in my throat. The figure was tall and lean, a silhouette that vaguely resembled Caleb. But reason scoffed at the notion. Caleb was still weak, confined to his bed.

  Just as quickly, the figure lifted its hood, revealing a head of onyx black hair and a face etched with weariness – Erin. The rogue who had stormed out of the quarters over a week ago after a heated argument with Caleb.

  A wave of surprise washed over me, tinged with a touch of annoyance. "Erin?" I blurted, my voice barely above a whisper. "What are you doing here?"

  The corners of her lips twitched upwards in a sardonic smile. "Saving your asses, apparently," she replied, her voice rough and edged with exhaustion. Her gaze swept over the room, taking in the tense postures and wary expressions around the table. Her hand rested on the hilt of her sword, Wraithcaller, fingers poised in an unspoken warning. The weapon, forged with a blade that seemed to drink in the light, radiated an aura as cold and unyielding as Erin herself.

  Marcus, however, wasn't so easily swayed. His gaze remained wary. "We thought you were gone for good, Erin."

  Erin's smile faltered for a brief moment. "Plans changed," she muttered, her gaze darting towards Marcus for a fleeting moment.

  Marcus, his brow furrowed in concern, spoke before anything else could happen. "There's a lot to unpack, Erin. Caleb was attacked. On a mission." He shot a pointed look at her, his voice laced with a hint of accusation. "We almost lost him."

  Erin's stoic expression remained unchanged. A flicker of something – defiance, perhaps, or maybe a well-guarded vulnerability – danced in her eyes. She met Marcus' gaze head-on, the accusation hanging heavy between them.

  "I know," she finally replied, her voice a low rumble. "That's why I'm here."

  Finn, forever oblivious to tension, tilted his head in confusion.

  "Who do you think dragged him all the way back to Isaac?" Erin added. The question hung in the air, a rhetorical barb dipped in despair. "He was barely clinging to life when I found him," she rasped, her voice tight with emotion. "There's no way he could have made it back here on his own."

  Marcus’ face fell. "You knew?!" he roared, his voice a guttural growl that echoed in the confined space. "You knew Caleb was hurt, maybe even dying, and you waltzed back out of here like nothing happened?"

  His face contorted in fury, veins pulsing in his temples. "Days you were gone, Erin! Days we were here, worried sick, wondering if he'd even pull through, and you..." His voice trailed off, choked with a mixture of anger and disbelief.

  Erin flinched at his outburst, but her gaze held firm. "It wasn't that simple, Marcus," she retorted, her voice laced with a quiet defiance that only fueled his anger further. "There were things I had to do, things I couldn't explain then."

  "Explain now, then!" Marcus bellowed, taking a menacing step forward. "Explain how you could just abandon us, abandon him, knowing he was barely clinging to life!"

  Erin’s grip on Wraithcaller shifted ever so slightly, a warning in her posture. "Careful," she said softly, her voice edged with steel. "I came back to help, not to fight you. Don’t make me regret it."

  Suddenly, Marcus lunged towards her, fists clenched.

  Erin moved in a flash. Her hand left the hilt of her sword as she twisted her body, dodging his clumsy lunge. With practiced ease, her hand shot out to grab his wrist, locking him in place. A gasp escaped Marcus’s lips as Erin applied a precise pressure point, momentarily disarming him.

  She didn't attack further, using only enough force to disarm him. They stood there, chest heaving, locked in a tense standoff. The rest of us, mere observers moments ago, scrambled back against the wall, our eyes wide with shock.

  Marcus stumbled back, bewildered, his face contorted in a mixture of pain and fury. Erin, however, remained poised, her stance firm, a single dagger glinting in her hand, the tip barely an inch from his throat.

  "Don't make this harder than it has to be, Marcus," she said, her voice low and dangerous, a stark contrast to the tremor that had betrayed her earlier. "There's more to this story than you know."

  Just as the tension threatened to snap, a small voice cut through the air. Finn, bless his naive optimism, stepped forward, his voice trembling but firm, pleading with Erin not to hurt Marcus. His words, spoken with such genuine concern, seemed to break the spell.

  Sensing the shift, I stepped forward as well, placing a calming hand on Marcus' arm. The tension in the room remained thick, but a flicker of understanding seemed to spark in Marcus' eyes as he met Finn's sincere gaze.

  Erin, her movements sharp and controlled moments ago, seemed to deflate. The fight seemed to drain out of her, replaced by a deep weariness that settled over her features like a shroud.

  "There's a lot to explain," she finally said, her voice hoarse. "But fighting won't solve anything. For now, at least, we need a truce."

  Marcus' muscles tensed beneath my touch. It was a language we both understood – a mixture of simmering anger and the grudging acceptance of a temporary ceasefire. He met Erin's gaze, a silent battle of wills playing out before finally conceding.

  "Fine," he said through gritted teeth. "Truce. You should go see Caleb in the infirmary. He might not be… himself right now, but he'll want to know you're back."

  The raw emotion that crossed Erin's face was unreadable. Gratitude, perhaps? Or maybe shame? Without another word, she turned and slipped out of the room, leaving behind a heavy silence.

  The next day stretched before me like a vast, empty canvas. Sunlight streamed through the high library windows, casting rectangles of warmth on the worn floorboards. But the usual comforting scent of aged paper and leather was overshadowed by a heavy silence that permeated the entire castle. No raised voices, no clatter of training in the courtyard – just a tense quietude that gnawed at my nerves.

  The events of the previous night replayed in my mind like a relentless film reel. Erin's unexpected arrival, the news of Caleb's attack, the raw desperation in her voice – it was all a maelstrom of emotions I was still struggling to process.

  Marcus, had retreated to his usual duties, his face an unreadable mask. Finn, his youthful optimism dimmed by the weight of the situation, tinkered away in his workshop, the rhythmic hammering the only sound to break the oppressive silence.

  I sought refuge in the library, hoping to lose myself in the familiar comfort of stories and forgotten lore. But even the fantastical tales on the shelves couldn't hold my attention. My gaze kept drifting to the heavy oak door, my mind churning with unanswered questions. What exactly happened to Caleb on that mission? Why did Erin leave, and what secrets did she bring back with her?

  As the hours crawled by, a sliver of unease grew into a full-blown worry. This wasn't just about mistrusting Erin – it was about the very foundation of our rebellion. Could we truly fight a war when doubt and suspicion festered within our ranks?

  A sudden clatter from the hallway startled me. I looked up, my heart leaping into my throat, before relaxing as I saw Kass emerge from the corridor, a basket of firewood balanced on her arm. Her normally bright smile was absent, replaced by a worried frown.

  "Still no word?" she asked softly, her voice barely a whisper.

  I shook my head, the weight of the unspoken question hanging heavy between us. We both knew what the other was thinking – had Erin revealed her story yet? Was there any hope of reconciliation?

  "I'm going to check on the infirmary," Kass said, her voice resolute. "Maybe Isaac has some news."

  With a nod, I watched her disappear down the hall, a flicker of hope igniting within me.

  Settling back into my chair, I forced myself to focus on the book in front of me. But the words blurred on the page, my thoughts constantly drifting back to the silent tension that gripped the rebel quarters. The day stretched on, punctuated only by the creak of floorboards and the distant echo of chopping wood. As the afternoon sun began to cast long shadows across the library floor, a sense of despair threatened to engulf me.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Just then, the heavy oak door creaked open, and a familiar figure stepped into the room. Erin. Her face was etched with exhaustion, but determination burned in her eyes. She looked around the library, her gaze finally settling on me.

  "We need to talk," Erin said, her voice strained. The weight of her words settled in the quiet library like a stone dropped into a still pond. I closed the book with a soft thud, the sound echoing in the tense silence. My gaze locked with Erin's, searching for any hint of what this conversation might hold.

  "We do," I finally replied, my voice barely above a whisper. "But where do we even begin?"

  Pain crossed her features, a fleeting glimpse of vulnerability beneath the usual fiery exterior. "With the truth," she said, her voice hoarse. "With what happened on Caleb's mission, and why I left."

  My jaw clenched. Truth? What truth? The truth of her cowardice, of abandoning Caleb when he needed her most? The truth of how she'd left us patching his wounds back together while she gallivanted off somewhere, guilt-free?

  Sure, there was a part of me, a tiny, traitorous part, that craved the truth. The truth about what had happened between them, about the unspoken tension I'd witnessed. But mostly, there was a burning anger, a resentment that had festered for weeks. Erin had left us both dangling, Caleb with a near-fatal injury and me with a tangled mess of emotions.

  And now, after all this time, she waltzed back in here, expecting me to swallow her explanations whole? As if the apology she hadn't even offered could erase the hours of worry, the nights spent tending to Caleb while he raved incoherently, his face pale and drawn.

  The image of Caleb, weak and vulnerable, flashed in my mind, and a fresh wave of anger washed over me.

  "Why now, Erin?" I spat, my voice tight with barely controlled fury. "Why come crawling back now, when the damage is already done?" The question was a challenge, a silent dare for her to justify her actions, to explain the gaping hole she'd left in our fragile sense of security. Part of me hoped she wouldn't answer, that she'd simply slink away, leaving me with the bitter satisfaction of her unspoken shame. But another, more curious part, yearned to hear her side of the story, even if it meant reopening old wounds.

  "It's bigger than just Caleb's attack," she said, taking a hesitant step closer. "He stumbled onto something on that mission, something the enemy wouldn't want us to know. Something that could change everything."

  The cryptic warnings, the desperation in her voice – it all pointed to a revelation far greater than a simple mission gone wrong. "What is it?" I pressed, leaning forward in my chair.

  Erin hesitated, her gaze darting nervously towards the door. "Not here," she whispered. "The walls may have ears, even in this castle. We need a secure place to talk."

  I knew she was right. The library, with its towering bookshelves and hidden nooks, wasn't exactly the most secure location for a conversation of this magnitude. "The abandoned watchtower?" I suggested, remembering a deserted structure on the highest point of the castle grounds.

  The air grew cooler as we climbed up the spiral staircase, the wind whipping at my cloak. Finally, we reached the crumbling stone structure, its windows like empty eyes staring out across the darkening landscape.

  Erin stood by a broken window, her hair whipping around her face in the wind. Her silhouette was stark against the fading light. As I approached, she turned, her expression grim.

  "Okay, let’s talk. What the hell, Erin?" I spat, my voice tight. "You dropped him off here, half dead, and then just… vanish?"

  She met my gaze coldly. "Someone had to finish the job."

  My head snapped back. "The job?"

  "They left him for dead, Kira. You think I was just going to let them walk away?"

  I stared at her, a leaden weight settling in my chest. This wasn't the cold, calculating Erin I knew. There was… protectiveness? But it vanished as quickly as it came.

  "And Caleb?" Her voice was softer this time. "I knew Isaac and Elyse could handle him. He's survived worse."

  There it was again. The unwavering confidence in Caleb's resilience, in Isaac and Elyse's abilities. It surprised me. Erin wasn't known for trusting easily.

  She turned to me, her expression hard as stone. "Kira," she began, her voice a low murmur, barely audible over the rush of the wind, "what do you really know about the men who vanish without a trace?"

  I hesitated, a knot forming in my stomach. "They get recruited for the king's army," I answered carefully, my voice quiet but steady.

  Erin’s gaze darkened. "No. That’s what everyone believes, but it's not the truth."

  I frowned, confused. "What are you saying? What else could they be recruited for?"

  Erin took a breath, her eyes narrowing as she stared into the distance. "Alaric doesn’t recruit traitorous commoners to fight for him. He doesn't need soldiers. He has something far worse at his disposal."

  My heart skipped a beat. "What do you mean?"

  "The men who are taken don't become soldiers. They aren’t trained to fight. They’re imprisoned under the castle." She turned, her eyes locking with mine, intense and full of conviction. "Caleb found out on his mission. He stumbled across the dungeons… that’s why they attacked him."

  Shock coiled in my gut, a viper awakening from a slumber. Caleb's "mission" near the northern border, a tale we'd all believed without question, was a lie. A bitter truth Erin's words unveiled. He hadn't been scouting for enemy forces; he'd been scouting the very castle.

  "What?" My voice rasped, a whisper lost in the vast emptiness of the watchtower. "The northern border? That was a lie?"

  Erin nodded, her gaze resolute. "A necessary one, it seems. He found something, Kira. Something Alaric desperately wanted hidden."

  "What were you even doing out by the damn castle in the first place?"

  Erin uncrossed her arms. "Scouting the walls. I do it all the time."

  Her nonchalant response did little to quell my suspicion. "Scouting? You never mentioned scouting anything."

  A muscle ticked in her jaw. "There's a lot I don't mention, Kira. Doesn't mean it doesn't get done."

  There was a truth to her words, a reminder of the secrets Erin kept close to her chest. But the timing of it all, her being near the castle right when Caleb was attacked… it felt too coincidental.

  I swallowed hard. "Why would he imprison them? What’s he doing with them?"

  Erin’s voice dropped to a whisper, but it was still filled with a chilling certainty. "He has found a way to use these men. He keeps them alive—drains them of their very life force. When he's in battle, and a blow should have killed him, it’s not him who feels the pain. It’s one of them. He lets someone else bear the injury instead of him."

  I stared at her, unable to process what she was saying. "Why? How is that even possible?"

  Erin gave a bitter laugh, shaking her head. "You think the king would just let himself be vulnerable? He’s learned to shield himself from death, Kira. When a blade strikes, or a blow lands, it’s not him that dies. It’s one of the prisoners. Randomly chosen, their bodies absorb the damage, leaving the king virtually unharmed."

  My breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t imagine it—couldn’t wrap my mind around the horror of it. She continued, her gaze distant as if seeing something far darker than the ruins of the tower around us.

  "I’ve seen it with my own eyes. A sword pierces the king’s chest, another man dies," Erin murmured. "He doesn’t just stop at one prisoner at a time, either. He feeds off hundreds, all at once, to protect himself. It’s the only reason he’s still alive, Kira. It’s how he’s stayed in power for all these years."

  I stumbled back, my hand clutching the stone wall to steady myself. My mind whirled with what she had just revealed. "A hundred men?" I whispered, barely able to comprehend it. "A hundred lives... just to keep him alive?"

  Erin nodded grimly. "It doesn’t stop. It never does. The king constantly seeks new prisoners to replenish his shield—his way of life. As long as he has captives to drain, he can’t be killed."

  I could feel the bile rising in my throat, the weight of what she said pressing down on me like a suffocating force. The king was not just a tyrant, a man hungry for power. He was a monster, feeding off the lives of others. And this monster was immortal.

  I shook my head, my voice coming out in a choked breath. "How is he doing it? How can he drain them like that? How can he control it?"

  Erin sighed, her face etched with frustration. "I don’t know, Kira. I don’t know how he does it. But I came to you because I know you might be able to find out. You’ve read the books, you’ve learned things others don’t understand. You might be able to uncover how he’s doing it—and how we can stop him."

  My heart raced, uncertainty and dread flooding my veins. Could we even stop him? The king’s power wasn’t just in his army; it was in his twisted immortality, in the stolen lives of countless men beneath the castle. Could we find a way to break it?

  I met Erin’s gaze, my own eyes filled with a quiet resolve. "You’re asking me to take on the impossible," I said softly. "But I’ll try. I’ll do whatever it takes to make him pay for this. For everything he’s done."

  Erin gave a single nod, her face set with the same grim determination that had driven her for so long. "Then we start now," she said. "We find out what he’s hiding, and we end this once and for all."

  "We need to scour the library, every dusty book, every cryptic scroll. There has to be a way to disrupt the connection, to sever the bond between the king and his prisoners." I felt a surge of energy course through me. The library, once a place of quiet contemplation, now held the potential to be our greatest weapon.

  "And the prisoners," I added, a new thought forming in my mind. "What if they hold the key as well? Perhaps by weakening the bond from their end, disrupting it from within the dungeons…"

  The idea was risky, desperate even, but the alternative – letting the king remain immortal – was unthinkable. Erin's eyes widened.

  "It's a long shot," she admitted, "but one we can't afford to ignore. We need to access the dungeons, speak with the prisoners. They might be the key to unraveling the king’s dark magic, and to ending his reign of terror once and for all."

  The weight of the revelation settled on us both, a heavy cloak against the whipping night wind. We were on the precipice of something momentous, a discovery that could change the tides of the rebellion. Yet, a nagging question lingered in my mind.

  "Erin," I began, my voice hesitant, "why tell me all this? Why not share this information with the others, with Finn and Marcus?"

  Erin's gaze darted towards the distant castle, her expression unreadable for a moment. "There are reasons," she said finally, her voice low and laced with a hint of caution. "This knowledge is dangerous, Kira. The king’s reach extends far and wide, even within our own ranks. We can't be sure who we can trust."

  A sliver of fear snaked its way down my spine. The possibility of a traitor within our midst had always been a lurking suspicion, but to hear it voiced so openly sent chills down my spine. "But surely the others have a right to know," I pressed, torn between understanding her caution and the need for transparency. "How can we fight this enemy effectively if we're keeping secrets from each other?"

  Erin sighed, a weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of countless burdens. "You're right," she conceded, her fiery spirit momentarily dimmed. "Transparency is vital. But there's more to it than that. This… changes things. It throws everything we thought we knew about the king into question."

  "How so?"

  "The rebellion has always believed the king’s power stemmed from brute force, a vast army, and a ruthless cunning," Erin explained. "We've planned our strategies around those assumptions. But with this confirmed knowledge of his immortality… it changes the game entirely."

  The implications sank in, heavy and undeniable. Fighting a mortal enemy was one thing, but battling a tyrant who couldn't be killed? It was a daunting prospect, one that could crush the morale of even the most seasoned rebel.