She walked among the dead, her stomach knotted.

The uniforms of Martissant — that familiar gray — were torn, stained with mud and blood.

A young soldier, barely eighteen, lay on his back, eyes wide open, staring at the dead canopy above. In his clenched hand, he still held the small medallion every Martissant recruit received — a silver falcon identical to the one on their banners.

"Look what they make us do, Rika," growled a sergeant, kicking a corpse. "Children. They're sending us children to fight."

Alka turned away, but not fast enough. She recognized the boy — an apprentice who worked in the kitchens of Martissant's headquarters. Gaël was sending them all to die.

That night, around the campfire, the news spread — a mix of bitter victories and tragic losses. A Pilaf unit had wiped out a Martissant outpost, but another had been slaughtered by creatures soldiers described as mad — attacking without reason, immune to pain, as if possessed.

"It's this damned forest," cursed a soldier, wrapping a bandage around his arm. "It drives everyone insane."

But Alka knew better. She could feel the difference in the mental signatures of those creatures — a trace of manipulation like her own, but rougher, more invasive. Martissant had its own mind manipulators.

A few days later, as a fine rain turned the ground to mud, Alka was summoned to a meeting of officers. Under a vast tent, about twenty commanders from different units had gathered around a table littered with maps. Varek had brought her personally.

"Our ace," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Rika can sense their manipulations before they strike."

Eyes turned toward her — heavy with suspicion and hope. Then, a man in a decorated gold-trimmed coat — Commander Valerius, the leader of the operation — spoke up.

"The reports confirm what we suspected," he began, his voice sharp as a blade. "Their Awakened are fewer, but better trained. Ours…" He paused, scanning the crowd. "The anima gems we've recovered grant us an advantage they cannot comprehend. We have three times as many Awakened as they believe."

A murmur of approval rippled through the tent. Alka held her breath. The revelation was both shocking and terrifying. Pilaf was hiding its true strength — hundreds of marked soldiers, waiting for the right moment to strike.

"Their mistake," Valerius continued, "is thinking we play by the same rules. When the time comes, our hidden Awakened will crash down on them like a wave they never saw coming."

Alka felt her stigmate burn. This information was worth more than all the gems in Pilaf's vaults. Gaël needed to know. Yet part of her hesitated — sharing this would doom thousands of Pilaf soldiers, men she fought beside, ate beside, whose fears and hopes she could feel pulsing through their minds.

That evening, as she tried to meditate to calm the storm inside her, a violent psychic explosion knocked her to her knees. A battle had erupted several kilometers to the south — a real clash this time, not a skirmish.

The echoes reached her in waves — the terror of a Martissant youth watching his friend torn apart by a Molossus, the cold fury of a Pilaf sergeant shouting for the charge, the panicked confusion of the forest creatures, maddened by the fight.

And through it all, she felt them — two, maybe three other manipulators — working for Martissant.

Without thinking, she burst into Varek's tent. "Captain, they're attacking in the south. A full force."

Varek didn't hesitate. He rallied his unit, and they marched through the darkness, guided by flashes of explosions tearing the night apart.

The scene awaiting them was pure carnage. Beneath the black trees, soldiers from both armies tore into each other with feral savagery. Pilaf's Awakened — far more numerous than she'd imagined — wielded their powers with deadly precision. One man hurled shards of stone as sharp as blades; a woman conjured illusions that turned Martissant soldiers against their own ranks.

But Martissant answered with iron discipline. Their manipulators, fewer but synchronized, sowed chaos in Pilaf's lines, twisting their minds, making them strike at shadows or allies.

Alka plunged into the fray, her power exploding outward almost of its own accord. She struck minds not with subtlety now, but with brute, hammering force. A Martissant soldier collapsed, screaming he was burning alive. Another dropped his weapon, convinced venomous snakes slithered over the ground.

She advanced, Varek and his men covering her, carving out a pocket of resistance amid the chaos. Then she saw him — one of Martissant's manipulators, a gaunt-faced man whose eyes glowed silver. Their gazes locked, and a mental shockwave hurled them both backward.

For a brief instant, their minds clashed — and Alka felt the difference. Her power was wilder, greater, but his was sharper, more controlled. The man seemed startled, as if recognizing the signature of her mind.

"Traitor!" his voice thundered inside her skull, the accusation hitting like a physical blow.

She answered with a burst of raw energy that sent him staggering, then turned and vanished into the darkness.

When dawn finally broke, the battlefield was nothing but ruin. The dead of both sides lay tangled together, their blood mingling in the black mud.

Back at camp, Alka stood motionless as the wounded poured in. Her body was covered in soot and blood — none of it hers. Her mind was exhausted, but her stigmate burned with a new hunger.

War was no longer a distant threat. It was here — alive, breathing, consuming.

And amid that chaos, a single truth crystallized in her mind: whoever controlled the Awakened would control the outcome of this war.

She looked toward Commander Valerius's tent. The secret of Pilaf's Awakened was the key. And she was the only one — in either army — who understood its true weight.

The real battle, she realized, wasn't being fought on the field. It was waged in the shadows, between those who manipulated minds.

And she was no longer a bystander — she was a player in that deadly game.

Without a word, Alka returned to her tent, a decision hardening within her.

It was time to stop playing a role.

It was time to forge her own fate — even if it meant betraying everyone.

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