The camp rose out of the badlands like a wound that had learned to organize itself.
Ringed with ward-poles set at asured intervals, each pole was engraved with law-runes that pulsed faintly.
Between them hung chains of sensing-thread, invisible unless you stared with intent. They’re ant to feel for sudden manifestations and unauthorized breaches.
The disguised five approached at the pace of victors returning from a successful hunt.
They did not hurry.
They let the camp see them coming.
They let the camp accept them before it questioned them.
At the outer gate, three Eternals stepped forward to et them.
The first had skin like petrified resin and eyes that never fully blinked. The second carried a mantle of cracked bone plates that clicked when it breathed. The third was slender, pale, and too clean for a place like this.
Their gazes moved in a practiced sweep.
First the "twins."
Then the Chainmane.
Then the Gravewing.
Then the Riftglass.
And finally, the captive draped over the Gravewing’s shoulder.
Aerolith’s bruises looked fresh. The blood on her sleeve looked real.
The three Eternals’ attention sharpened.
One of them spoke, voice dry and suspicious.
"Why only the child? Where are the others running with her?"
Morveth, wearing the Riftglass shell like a cold mask, answered without pause.
His tone held the quiet impatience of soone used to being obeyed.
"They are fast," Morveth said. "Fast enough that chasing them deeper wastes ti."
He lifted his chin toward Aerolith.
"But we took what matters."
The Eternal’s eyes flicked again to Aerolith.
Morveth continued, as if explaining sothing obvious to slow minds.
"This one is the anchor. The one they will not abandon. They will circle back for her. If we pretend we are careless, they will co closer."
A beat.
"Open the way."
The nearest guard Eternal frowned.
"You are certain they will return?"
Morveth let a sliver of disdain show, as if the question itself insulted him.
"Do you think a pack that risks itself for humans will abandon a child."
His words landed the way a hamr landed.
Certain.
The guards hesitated. Then Morveth stepped forward and brushed past them, shoulder bumping shoulder.
The touch was deliberate.
A reminder of authority.
The guard Eternal’s jaw tightened, but it did not retaliate.
Interdict was a Law people avoided offending. It was one of the Laws they classified among the superior tier.
Morveth walked through the gate as if it already belonged to him.
The others followed.
The ward-poles did not scream.
The sensing-threads were avoided.
Origin Rewrite held.
And the compound swallowed them whole.
•••
Inside, the camp was worse than Morveth had described.
In scale.
Tents layered into streets. Cages built into rows. Stalls set beside pens like this was comrce instead of captivity. Platforms of carved stone held chains and hooks and instrunts.
Eternals stood everywhere.
Morveth felt it.
His heart did not race. He was not built for panic.
’More than before.’
His gaze sharpened, but his face did not change.
They could not afford even a flicker.
If soone observant was present, a flicker would be blood in water.
Soon...
The inner ring opened.
They were waved through without challenge, because the outer guards had already accepted the narrative.
Victory returning.
A child taken.
A chase unfinished.
•••
Near the heart of the compound, another Eternal stepped into their path.
His aura was folded inward like a knife kept in a sheath. His eyes moved once and took in every detail in a single sweep, then moved again and made the sweep look casual.
This was the acting commander.
The twins had described him accurately.
A mind first. A Law second.
He did not speak imdiately.
He watched.
Morveth spoke before the silence could beco interrogation.
"The enemy will circle back. Prepare for contact."
He gestured with a tilt of his chin toward Aerolith.
"They will co for the child... and the other captives."
The commander’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"Which enemy."
Morveth answered smoothly.
"They appear to be an organized pack. They protect humans as if those lives truly matter to them."
The commander’s gaze slid, testing.
"Are you suggesting they might be connected to the Celestial Race?"
Anvil-Horn stepped forward half a pace. His Chainmane guise made the motion look predatory rather than respectful.
"It slled like that," Anvil-Horn said. "They moved as if guided. As if answering to a higher banner."
The commander’s eyes sharpened.
That possibility mattered.
If the Celestials were involved, then the ambush was far more than a simple raid.
The commander finally spoke again.
"Have you learned anything else?"
This was the real test.
Information.
Victory was believable. Survivors returning with new intelligence was believable.
Lucien and the others had already discussed this possibility earlier.
Anvil-Horn’s tone stayed level.
"We heard a rumor."
The commander’s gaze hardened. "Rumor is noise."
Kira’s Gravewing guise inclined its head, as if offering sothing fragile.
"Noise becos signal when it repeats across mouths that do not share a master."
The commander’s eyes flicked to her.
He did not like the phrasing.
Kira continued, carefully.
"Celestials are being spoken of again. Not as defeated."
Condoriano added with deliberate skepticism.
"So say the retreat was theatre. They wanted the East to hear their arrival."
Saber’s voice followed, completing the triangle of plausibility.
"People invent stories when frightened. That does not make the story useful."
Three angles.
One rumor.
A natural cluster of reactions that made the rumor feel real.
The commander watched them for a long breath.
Then Anvil-Horn delivered the seed.
"They say the Celestials have a cure," Anvil-Horn said. "A drug that can repair the miracle-drug’s side effects."
The air shifted.
Not because the commander reacted openly.
Because other ears were listening.
Eternals nearby, pretending not to.
So passing, slowed half a step.
So at a supply table, froze mid-count.
The phrase landed in the camp like a spark dropped into oil.
Cure.
A word that had no right to exist here.
Morveth snorted sharply. Riftglass arrogance was perfectly perford.
"A cure?" Morveth said. "If one existed, it would have been made long ago."
He let that dismissiveness sit for a beat.
Then he added, as if it were an afterthought.
"Still. Watch your people."
The commander’s gaze tightened.
Morveth’s voice did not rise.
It did not need to.
"Soone desperate will trade loyalty for hope. A stupid Eternal will trade it for rumor. Either way, you will not see the knife until it is in your back."
The words had to co from the Riftglass.
His arrogance irritated many in the camp, and just as many longed to prove him wrong.
If anyone else had said it, they would have agreed to it. But coming from him, it would sting.
And that sting would make them think.
It also made the commander believe two things at once.
First, that the rumor might be false.
Second, that the rumor was dangerous even if false.
He did not need certainty to act.
He only needed risk.
The commander’s face shifted into sothing complicated.
Control tightening around a potential crack.
He understood imdiately what kind of "betrayal" Morveth ant.
He also understood why Morveth would bring it up. Because Morveth was an Interdict user.
Interdict users hated uncontrolled variables.
The commander believed the advice precisely because it matched the personality wearing the Riftglass skin.
He nodded once.
"I’ll contain the rumor," the commander said quietly.
Soon, the commander’s orders rippled through the camp.
The camp responded instantly.
A net of control tightened against the camp’s own fractures.
Exactly as planned.
The commander turned back to them.
"You brought the child."
Morveth answered, tone flat.
"We brought bait."
The commander studied Aerolith’s bruises.
He did not reach to inspect.
"Put her with the captives," he said. "If the enemy cos, I want them to sll what they lost."
Kira inclined her head and moved.
The commander’s attention shifted again.
"You five," he said. "Stay ready. If this is indeed related to Celestials, we will not be allowed a second mistake."
Anvil-Horn bowed his head slightly.
Condoriano and Saber matched the motion in twin-perfect synchrony.
Morveth gave nothing but a cold stare that implied he was already bored.
Then the commander turned away to issue more orders, his mind already reorganizing the camp in response to the rumor-seed.
He hated uncertainty.
Lucien’s pack used that hatred like a key.
•••
As the compound tightened its defenses, the disguised five slipped deeper.
They moved with purpose as if heading to reinforce the captive wing.
No one stopped them.
The camp prepared for an ambush that was never coming.
While the real theft walked calmly through its ribs.
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