The scent hit Aria before she saw him.
Sharp. Clean. Too clean—like cologne masking rot.
She turned from the central firepit, eyes narrowing at the tall figure striding through the trees as if invited.
“Hold!” Zara barked, blade halfway unsheathed, but Aria raised a hand.
She knew that gait.
Those perfect boots weren’t made for dirt. The polished hair, the tailored coat—this was someone who thought war was won with words and wine.
“Elias,” she said, voice flat.
The man stopped ten feet from her, hands raised in mock surrender.
“Still charming as ever,” he said, smiling. “And yet somehow… even more terrifying.”
Aria said nothing.
Elias Greenwood—the snake behind Evelyn’s puppet rise, the whisperer in council shadows, the tactician who vanished when the war turned.
“I come in peace,” he said, pulling a scroll from his coat. “I swear it.”
Rannoch growled behind her. Min stood from the fire, clutching Elara tight.
Aria stepped forward slowly, storm-gray eyes unblinking. “You should be dead.”
“Believe me, many have tried,” Elias said, offering the scroll. “This isn’t a trick. It’s an offer.”
Aria didn’t take it.
“You orchestrated half the bloodshed we’re still cleaning up.”
“I advised,” he said. “Others acted.”
She snorted. “A coward’s excuse.”
“I’m here because I’m done hiding,” Elias said. “Greenwood is collapsing. Edrik’s gone soft. The remaining council factions are cannibalizing each other. The future? It’s here.” He gestured around. “This.”
Aria crossed her arms. “You think I’ll trust you?”
“No. I think you’ll listen—because I bring something no one else can.”
He reached into his coat and pulled out a silver disc. When he flipped it open, a projection shimmered into life: moving sigils, maps, names.
Aria’s breath caught.
Council kill orders.
“Evelyn’s personal archive,” Elias said. “Encrypted. Untouched. And only I can access it.”
Aria said nothing, but the weight of her silence was thunderous.
“This is my trade,” Elias continued. “I give you the archive. In return, I get sanctuary. A place here. No power. No title. Just safety.”
Zara snarled. “You think we’re fools?”
Elias didn’t flinch. “I think you’re survivors. And survivors know when a monster is more useful caged than dead.”
Later, inside her tent, Aria turned the disc over in her hand.
It thrummed with old magic and newer guilt.
Kael’s voice echoed from memory: “Sometimes mercy is a blade too.”
She hadn’t decided yet.
But she didn’t throw it away.
