The makeshift tent breathed urgency and fatigue. It wasn't built to shield from cold or rain, but to isolate this fragile fragment of strategy from the surrounding chaos. At its center, a massive tree served as a pillar; its gnarled trunk bore the map pinned roughly against it, the bark's fibers still visible behind the ink and charcoal marks. Around it, the taut canvas formed an alcove, saturated with the smell of wet leather, rusty metal, and sweat.

Élisa had slipped inside, silent, almost invisible. She wasn't supposed to attend this council, but Maggie was still resting, and Élisa needed to understand what would come next, needed to see with her own eyes where this forced march was leading.

Tonar dominated the tent as though he were its very framework. His gray skin, his long ears pulled back—these usually struck the eye first, but tonight they were nothing compared to his voice. It had the weight of a hammer falling, flat, without shine or fury, yet crushing everything it named.

"We have lost contact with two teams."

The words did not waver. They weren't cast like an alarm. They flowed like a statement, cold and worn, yet each syllable had the weight of a stone dropped in water. It was as though he had spoken this phrase a thousand times before, in a thousand other camps, before a thousand other faces.

Élisa studied the two other team leaders present: they were standing, but their slumped shoulders and shifty gazes betrayed only one desire—to flee this suffocating space, to rip themselves free of the atmosphere thickening around Tonar like a shroud.

On the map, small markings indicated the north. That was where the missing teams should have been. They had experience, skill, the instinct to survive. Their mission wasn't to fight, but to observe, to withdraw at the first sign of danger. They weren't supposed to vanish.

And so the thought pressed upon everyone, whispered in glances but never voiced aloud: it wasn't a simple beast that had taken them.

It was an outside hand. An enemy's will.

The name drifted through the tent like a shadow no one dared call too loudly. The County of Pilaf.

They had struck.

Zirel broke the silence, his tone heavier than usual:

"I didn't think they'd make their move so soon."

His eyes stayed fixed on the map, but Élisa saw his jaw tighten, as though he were containing a rage or a worry he refused to show.

Tonar didn't reply right away. He slowly traced a finger across the parchment, following a river drawn in ink. His silence weighed more than any word could.

Élisa felt her own temples tighten, a memory of the strain she had endured carrying Maggie. Only this time, the weight wasn't a body, but an uncertain future pressing down on them all.

The silence thickened again, until one of the team leaders broke. He was a lean man, his features drawn taut like a bowstring ready to snap. His fingers drummed nervously against the hilt of his weapon, and his voice burst out, strangled by the tension:

"We won't hold under these conditions. Look at our men: they're wounded, exhausted. We need reinforcements, not hollow orders."

He pointed at the map, his sharp gesture making the canvas shiver.

"Send messengers to the County of Martissant. They alone can send healers and support. Otherwise…" He stopped, swallowing with difficulty. "Otherwise we won't be able to go on. Not in this pitiful state."

The second leader, an older woman, backed him immediately, her deep voice trembling with restrained anger:

"He's right. If Pilaf has begun their moves, it means we're already late. But we won't take another step with an army of cripples. Martissant must be warned—and quickly. Otherwise this camp will end like the two vanished teams: swallowed in silence."

Their words struck the tent like blows, each phrase a brutal reminder of how fragile their forces were.

Élisa, tense, watched the shadows dance across the map. A frozen dread pressed against her chest: the wounded, Maggie, all those struggling to stand… they were the coin to be spent in this decision. And what if Martissant refused? What if Pilaf advanced faster than reinforcements could arrive?

Tonar finally raised his head. His dark eyes swept over the two leaders, then settled on Zirel, before flicking briefly toward Élisa—as though he had guessed she understood more than she should.

His silence held still, but it carried the weight of a judgment about to fall.

Tonar drew in a long breath, his shoulders rising like a mountain that refused to collapse. When he spoke at last, his voice held none of the others' supplication: it was a stone rolling, unbreakable.

"Send messengers to Martissant?"

He let the question linger, his eyes fixed on the map. His calloused hand slid slowly over the parchment, tracing a line of forest down to the swamps marked to the south. Then he abruptly raised his head, pinning the two leaders in place with his gaze.

"And how long before they answer? How many days before healers set foot here?"

The lean man swallowed hard, unable to reply. The woman held his gaze, but her clenched fist betrayed her impatience.

Tonar pressed on, relentless:

"By then, how many wounded will be dead? How many men will lose their courage—or worse, turn against each other? Martissant is no helping hand. It is a noble house. And like any noble worth its name, it won't stir for our wounds—only for its own interests."

A heavy silence followed. The two leaders looked as though they wanted to argue, but each phrase seemed to die before reaching their lips.

Élisa felt her palms damp, her fingers clenched in her tunic. She wanted to believe in aid from Martissant, but Tonar's tone carried the brutal force of truth.

Zirel finally spoke, his voice lower, but hard as beaten iron:

"What he says is true. Martissant won't intervene—not unless it sees an advantage. Pilaf strikes now because they know we have no one behind us."

Tonar nodded. His dark eyes returned to the map, then he set his closed fist against the trunk. The impact made the tent's canvas quiver.

"We have only one path: to hold. Hold, and understand what they're planning."

He straightened, his long ears twitching in the silence that followed.

"Those who want to wait for miracles from Martissant can leave. But those who stay…" His gaze swept across every face, lingering a moment on Élisa. "Those who stay know we will rely only on ourselves."

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