Chapter 159- Checkmate in Silence
Adrian
We are late. We are too fucking late.
Kael stood over the charred remains of the southern trail post, smoke curling around his boots, face set in stone. The summit firelight still flickered in the valley below, barely visible, now—dying embers of a game we’d just lost the opening round of.
“She moved it,” Kael said. “Lexy shifted the summit forward.”
I didn’t answer right away. I was still processing the fact that we were late
I had known she was clever. Cautious. But this… this was sharper than I gave her credit for. She hadn’t waited for us to act. She hadn’t even waited for full confirmation of our movements. She’d taken the gamble and closed the circle a day early—locking us out of an opportunity of attack entirely.
“She anticipated we’d try to make a move during the meeting,” Kael continued, “maybe stage something during the vote or intercept a key voice on the road.”
“She didn’t just anticipate,” I murmured. “She played us.”
He cursed under his breath. “They voted already. We missed the chance to fracture the alliance before it solidified.”
“No. What we missed was the illusion of control,” I said, turning away from the scorched post. “Now we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
Behind us, the others waited. Our circle was smaller than it had been days ago. A few had gone dark—captured or killed, we didn’t know which. Communication had to be done face to face now. Too risky otherwise.
Kael caught my arm as I passed him. “We need to hit something tonight. Show we’re not scared. Let them know unity has a cost.”
I stopped, stared him down. “No. We do nothing tonight.”
“What?”
“They’re expecting retaliation. Right now, their sentries are doubled, their eyes are peeled. They want us to strike so they can claim another win—prove their unity has teeth.”
Kael hesitated. “So, what do we do?”
“We let their confidence rise,” I said. “Let them get comfortable, then pull the rug.”
We returned to the cave—our current base of operations, tucked high in the stone cliffs, surrounded by false trails and dead-end scent lines. A natural fortress.
Dainn and two others were waiting near the central table, where a map of the tribal regions was spread, marked with faint sigils and slashes of red ink.
“They locked arms tonight,” Dainn reported. “Voted to stand as one against you, officially. Lexy presented evidence.”
I raised a brow. “What kind of evidence?”
Dainn frowned. “Tarria stood strongly at her side the whole time. But Lexy claimed to have proof of your sabotage plans. Said it came from your territory.”
That stung. Not the accusation—*the misdirection* of Lexy finding Tarria and her poisoning me. Tarria had always been one of Lexy’s strongest loyalists. But Lexy had used her silence and our absence to *paint the picture anyway*.
“She built a ghost out of you,” Kael said quietly, as if reading my thoughts.
“Not a ghost,” I said. “A villain.”
And worse—she’d done it without needing Tarria to actually speak at the last summit. She weaponized the *idea* of truth.
“Doesn’t matter,” I added. “If they believe it, they’ll act on it. And acting on it will crack them from within.”
Kael leaned on the table, tapping at the Windhowler region on the map. “They’re the weak link. If we sabotage their outer supply run and pin it on River Fang—”
“Too early,” I cut in. “Let them sleep. Let them debate next steps while they assume we’re licking our wounds.”
Kael scowled. “We *are* licking our wounds.”
“No,” I said calmly. “We’re *watching*.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but Dainn cut in. “There’s unrest already. Some of the younger Skyshard leaders are questioning Lexy’s move to change the summit day without prior consent. She called it an emergency, but it set a precedent—and not all of them like it.”
I nodded, satisfied. “She tightened the leash too fast. They’ll feel it.”
I sat at the far end of the cave, letting the map flicker in the low light. They thought tonight’s summit was a win. Let them. But the seeds of doubt had already been sown. Even unity forged in fear still carries resentment in its roots.
Lexy had made herself the torchbearer of justice. But holding a torch too long blinds you to what hides in the shadows.
One of the scouts entered a few minutes later, dust-covered and winded. “Update from the eastern edge: patrols are thinning. They pulled back their borders to protect the central meeting zone.”
Kael snorted. “They’re circling wagons. Good. Makes their outer shell softer.”
I stood, cracking the stiffness from my neck. “That’s where we begin. Not tonight, but soon. Quietly. One border at a time. No explosions. No signatures. Just absence.”
Kael gave me a skeptical look. “Absence?”
I turned to him. “People won’t fear you because you’re loud. They fear you when things start to disappear without explanation. A shipment here. A scouting party there. A trusted envoy found dead, no sign of who or why. That’s the kind of pressure that turns allies against each other.”
Kael finally smiled. “Fear by subtraction.”
“Exactly.”
As the others returned to their stations, I sat again, staring into the flames that licked the stone bowl at the center of the room. They danced in unpredictable patterns, reaching and receding.
Lexy thought she’d won. But she was chasing ghosts now—phantoms of a threat she’d only half-understood. And in doing so, she’d moved too quickly. Played too cleanly.
Because the real war wouldn’t be fought with swords or council votes.
It would be fought in the in-between spaces—in doubt, delay, and disappearance. They wouldn't know what's coming to them.
I would become a shadow they couldn’t catch.
Darkness worse than their nightmares. My reach would go farther than they could ever imagine or dream off.
And when they finally realized where I was aiming, it would already be too late.
It will be a bloodbath.
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