For a breath she hesitated... pride and suspicion tangled in her throat. Then rage pushed her hand forward. She knelt on the trampled earth, fingers fumbling at the seam. The chain creaked above, the bonfire slumped toward sleep, and for a second the forest held its breath with her.

Her fingers closed on something cold and small. She drew it out. It was a disc of tarnished bronze, thumb-sized and heavy with years.... an old campaign medallion, its edge nicked, its surface worn by handling. In the center, a raised sigil: a crowned wolf's head, teeth bared, circled by a wreath of laurel. Around the rim, a string of numbers and letters stamped in a neat, official hand. Someone had scrubbed it until the shine was gone, but not enough to erase the mark.

Dasha stared as if the medallion burned her palm. Recognition came slow and then like a bite: she had seen that sigil before, on the standards carried by Narzanian scouts who had once raided the ridge. The emblem belonged she remembered now.... to the special units, the one that marched with the name that made tribe elders hush their children in the dark.

Her mouth opened. A sound that was not a laugh, not a cry, not quite a choked curse, left her. For the first time since uncertainty crept into the lines of her face.

"You—" she began, then stopped. She turned the medallion over. On the back, a tiny inscription had been hammered in by hand: a single name Miasha... and a mark. Veythor watched her eyes trace the letters until the syllables landed in her head and shattered something along the way.

She did not say the name aloud. Her throat worked. Her hand trembled as she held the bronze between finger and thumb, as if it might burn her.

"You've brought an army badge," she whispered finally, disbelief and accusation braided together. "Where? how? who gave you this?"

Veythor's smile softened like steel warmed by a small, private flame. "It tells a story," he said. "Not the whole story. But enough to make a night interesting."

Dasha rose slowly, the medallion clutched like a confession. The forest around them seemed to step back. Even the moonlight looked sharper, as if it had learned a new cruelty.

Outside, a hidden current shifted. Somewhere in the tribe, in a hut or a shadow near the bonefire, a shape might have moved. The night, which had felt flat and final, acquired an edge.

"Who are you… to this person whom the badge actually belongs to?"

Dasha's voice trembled. Her body too.... every breath felt like a tremor. Her eyes refused to believe what they saw; her throat felt hollow, emptied of all strength.

If he's telling the truth, she thought, then we are in grave danger. The tribe is in a horrific danger. To capture a child who is connected to the Narzanian army… not only that, but to their special unit, and even carrying an official badge

Her mind faltered. This boy must be someone special to the woman this badge belongs to. And if this is true, then we'll be facing an all-out war against Narzan… a war we would be crushed in, erased within minutes.

Fear slithered through her heart like a serpent, tearing her mind apart from within. Veythor smirked at her question, the expression quiet and cruel.

"Who am I? Hm… complicated question," he said, voice carrying both softness and something unreadable. "But she loves me dearly. Almost like my own mother. My birth parents died when I was two. That is when…"

Tears welled up in his eyes... crocodile tears, perfectly timed, perfectly placed.

"That is when this person took me in. She adopted me, gave me a home… good food to eat, warmth, and the love I had always wanted. She never scolded me, no matter how many times I made mistakes."

Tears rolled down his face. Inside, he laughed.

Hahaha… what a great actor I am. Picture-perfect acting.

The tears in his eyes made Dasha's heart falter. The sharp edge of suspicion dulled; pity crept in like an unwelcome fog.

"One day," Veythor continued, voice hoarse with feigned sorrow, "as I was out at night, I met that man Bulz. He successfully abducted me and brought me here. After a while, Big Sister Miasha came to rescue me. She killed Bulz for abducting me. But she didn't stop there… she wanted to rescue all the other children who had been taken."

He paused, drawing in a shallow breath, eyes half-lidded in false remembrance.

"But in that meantime, some wild dogs attacked us. Though I and that boy Raika somehow escaped… but that girl.... Shimi couldn't. We rescued her later, but by then Darius and an another man had caught us."

He let his words hang in the still air like dying embers. Dasha's face twitched. Confusion and doubt warred within her. The rhythm of her heart had turned chaotic.

No—no, no, no… this can't be.

She murmured it like a prayer or a curse, and then her knees gave. Faces... every face from the tribe... floated before her eyes, unreal and too sharp, as if memory itself had betrayed her.

This can't be happening… this can't be happening… no… no… no.

Veythor swung gently on the bar. The night thinned, unmaking itself a little at a time; the moonlight bled away into shadow. If anyone had seen the shape of his smile as the world dwindled, they would have felt a colder fear than any spear or blade could bring—who expects a child to grin like that?

Oh hell yeah. She's broken now. Time to deal with her.

His smirk widened, small... patient and certain.

"Dasha," he said softly, the word a hook. "Don't lose hope. I can offer you a deal that will completely save the tribe with no damages."

Her head snapped up. For a moment just a sliver of a moment her chest fluttered with new life. The confidence, the arrogance she had worn at the start of the night lay in ruins; what remained was raw and naked and desperate.

"What deal?" she breathed.

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