Haidra stood with Delaia atop the high tower, shoulder to shoulder, their eyes like knives tracing the battle below.
Jerome had smashed the main gate open; a gaping wound now held by their own men like stitches.
Thousands of Mountain Bandits still skulked inside, yet they were no more than trash swept toward the drain.
“How’s it going?” asked Haidra, his voice quiet but cold as moonlight, to a scout ready to report.
The scout bowed, voice tight like a drawn bowstring: “Report! Most bandits inside are cleared. Within an hour, we’ll finish.”
Delaia nodded, calm as a stone in rain; the pace matched her expectations.
“You may go,” she said. “Anyone ranked Tiger‑Mask and above, capture alive. Kill the rest. Let none slip. POW rules don’t apply to livestock.”
“Yes.” The scout answered, then withdrew like a shadow sliding down a wall.
...
On 11/15, at 11:34 a.m., the last bandit was stabbed in a dim corner, and the war’s curtain finally fell.
Haidra’s voice carried in like a cold wind: “Medith, Powell killed himself. The werewolf dug out his own heart.”
“He left a letter, naming you to read it,” Haidra added, rumor-smoke still curling in his mind.
Medith’s breath hitched, then softened; she stroked the Emerald Hawk’s clueless little head, a green sprout under her palm.
“I should’ve guessed,” she murmured, regret washing through her like rain.
“You should’ve?” Delaia frowned, confusion like static in her chest. “You knew he wrote that intel?”
“We were all there that day. No one saw a hint. Even a trap, we’d accept in that kind of despair.”
Medith pointed at the map, her jade-bright fingers gliding like a river toward a marked symbol.
“Emerald Hawk warned us that day, but it looked at the map upside down. It nodded toward here—when it meant there.”
Delaia blinked, then smacked her forehead, realization sparking. “Powell’s manor? Damn... I missed it. The two directions mirror each other.”
“Emerald Hawk can’t read maps. It didn’t know we held ours reversed, so it marked the wrong place.”
Milia’s brows knit, doubt cresting like a wave. “But why would Powell do that? He’s Segireneto’s chief collaborator—no doubt.”
“Why betray them? Did his conscience flare mid‑march, a lantern in storm?”
Sais thought aloud, her flame-red hair and eyes burning like twin embers.
“Maybe he was forced from the start. Forced men act in contradictions, like rivers dammed.”
“Civilians who escaped the POW camp said Powell saved them.” Rumor flew like sparrows.
“On the field, the Blackblood War Chariot refused to launch—likely his doing, a beast balking its rider.”
“The city had ample resources, yet they never used them, like grain locked behind shutters.”
“He probably hid the intel or moved the war stores early, like ants before flood.”
“And the basement secret—he must’ve helped us cover it, or they’d have guarded against our Bonecrusher Arrow.”
Sais’s chain of logic stunned them; instinct murmured the truth lay there, like a vein of ore under rock.
Medith grinned, half-teasing, mood lightening like dawn. “Hah, you. I thought you were curves over cunning, long hair, short insight.”
“Hmph! Sister, I won’t bother with you. I know plenty,” Sais huffed, yet her pride warmed like wine under praise.
The women recalled how the two clung through life and death last night; understanding fell into place like snow on pine.
Nira spoke, her face tangled like threads. “I did hear the Marquis say war stores needed servicing.”
“He told the captains to hand them over for safekeeping. I didn’t think it connected. Now the pattern shows.”
“Marquis... did he truly not betray us?” Her certainty cracked like thin ice.
Haidra’s gaze darkened, a storm bank over sea. “No. His betrayal is ironclad.”
“He deserves a thousand deaths. He knew if Segireneto lost, he’d die anyway.”
“So he chose suicide—no one expected a method that brutal, a blade turned inward.”
Medith sighed, the breath long as a night river. “This war began with him—and ended with him.”
“Without his opening the gate with Sinis, we might never have breached the city.”
“And without his intel, tactics, and safeguards laid before the storm, we’d have fallen before Haidra arrived.”
“How did you even get here?” Medith asked, disbelieving like a traveler staring at a mirage.
“Sia City was cut off. The carrier pigeons all died. Three days isn’t enough, like sand through fingers.”
Haidra nodded, a tired smile like worn leather. “Your merchant ship was the key.”
“Our garrison lay near their route. Counting their messages, three days fit, like an hourglass flipped twice.”
“If they hadn’t sprinted straight to us from the first moment...” He left it hanging, the rest dark as unspoken rain.
The women sighed, gratitude rising like warm smoke. The captain didn’t run with the goods; he ran straight for Haidra.
Medith’s voice lowered, grief heavy as wet cloth. “A pity... the city guard is annihilated. All five thousand.”
“A good commander cherishes her soldiers. I gave everything, yet saved few, like hands grasping water.”
“We even forced suicide strikes to break the line, sparks thrown into storm.”
“If the gate hadn’t fallen, trapped in that kind of choke, I had confidence to hold against fifty thousand.”
“Now the war’s end is only the beginning, ashes cooling, ledgers opening.”
“Loss counts, corpse recovery, property tallies, repairs, headcounts—the tasks bite like wolves after the battle.”
“In war, win or lose, the people always suffer; their losses sprawl beyond any imagination, like a field of broken mirrors.”
