The night bled on, thick and suffocating like a wet shroud smothering the city. The marble floor of the war room was slick with rainwater tracked in by boots that refused to heed the silence. Evelyn Mara stood amid the fractured remnants of strategy boards, shimmering screens that flickered weakly, their final messages consumed by static. Her eyes, sharp and flint-hard, scanned the shadows pooling at the edges of the room. The air still trembled with cold dread and bitter aftermath.

Three faces circled her, tight-knit and strained—her inner circle, once unbreakable, now riddled with tension as rancid as the stagnant air. None dared to speak first.

“I want every word you said during last night’s briefing. Every detail.” Evelyn’s voice cut through the silence like a scalpel—precise, relentless.

Jax, her closest confidant and a storm of restless energy, shifted under the unyielding gaze. His jaw clenched, fingers twitching as if itching to strike or flee—it was impossible to tell which. “Eve, you think one of us—”

“If you want to keep breathing, you stop all that," she snapped, stepping forward, a predator loosening her grip. “There is poison here. In my blood, in this room. And I will find it.”

Mara tilted her head, lips thinning. “We were ambushed,” Pia said softly, eyes flickering with exhaustion that ran beneath fury. “They knew everything — every move, every plan. Someone fed them.”

“Lies leak from weak veins,” Evelyn murmured, voice taut. “But not just lies. Betrayal.”

Kai, the steel-nerved strategist, clasped his hands behind his back. “There’s no room for suspects. We need facts. Who was near the war room last? Who had access?”

“Me,” Jax answered too quickly. “I was there. And so was Pia.”

“You were playing your own game, Jax. With the mercenary deal last week,” Evelyn said, lip curling in disdain. “You crossed us—soft lines on a minefield. I wonder if you wanted this to happen.”

His face darkened. “You think I want you dead?”

“No. I think you wanted the Castle to fall so you could grab a bloody throne of your own.”

Jax’s mouth went dry. He spat, “I’m not your enemy.”

“Not yet.” Evelyn’s eyes blazed. “But every second you hide, every lie you tell, drags you closer to the noose.”

Pia’s voice broke through the threat like a cold blade. “Stop this with accusations. We have a leak. And until we expose it, we’re sitting ducks.”

“The surveillance logs.” Kai pulled a battered tablet from his jacket, tapping furiously. “They were wiped—someone knew exactly what to erase.”

Evelyn pressed her palms onto the table, fingers splayed. “That means the traitor has clearance beyond any of us. This is internal, and damned close.”

A chill crept over her fingers, a cold pulse echoing the betrayal gnawing at her bones.

She thought of Damien — the shadow looming behind every fractured alliance.

“Someone left a message,” Pia said. “A hidden signal I found near the supply vault. It’s cryptic... but familiar.”

Evelyn’s eyes narrowed. “Show me.”

Pia stepped over, producing a small folded note, edges sharpened with hurried creases. Evelyn’s fingers closed over it with a sudden urgency, heart hammering like a war drum against her ribs. The scrawl was tight, cold—a cipher only a Mara could wield.

“The throne is secured when the lion wears the wolf’s skin.”

Evelyn’s breath hitched, the words fracturing the fragile walls she’d built around trust and loyalty.

That was Damien’s signature—a message wrapped in riddles but soaked in threat. He was closer than any of them dared imagine.

Her gaze swept the room, sharp and unforgiving.

“The lion wears the wolf’s skin,” she repeated, voice barely a whisper. Her eyes locked on Kai, a spark of fury and suspicion igniting. “Or maybe the wolf wears our skin—and we’ve been bleeding beneath its fangs this whole time.”

The room stilled, the weight of that realization crashing down like a tidal wave of ice and fire.

No one moved. No one spoke.

Outside, the city groaned beneath the weight of the night.

And Evelyn Mara understood—her war was no longer against shadows.

It was against blood.