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He wasn’t cheering, nor was he joining the other elders in rebuking Sol. He was just standing there, his hands resting on his belt, watching the scene unfold with a cold, almost bored detachment.

He isn’t surprised by any of this, Sol realized, the pieces finally clicking together in his mind with absolute, terrifying clarity. Thorne’s confident posture earlier... could it be he knew the Zharun were going to march here? Sol shifted his gaze to Warchief Veylara.

The savage leader was standing perfectly still. She hadn’t joined the elders in praising Vane, nor had she explicitly agreed with Sol’s dismissal.

She looked deeply conflicted. Her warrior’s instinct, honed by decades of survival in the Orrath, was screaming the exact same warning as Sol’s logic: The Zharun are too clean, and their timing is too perfect.

But as a Chieftain responsible for the survival of her entire bloodline, the sheer, crushing weight of the Coalition army marching at their backs was forcing her hand.

Turning away a thousand allied warriors right before a major battle based purely on suspicion could be the very decision that doomed her tribe to extinction.

The Veynar were already stretched thin. They had lost good warriors in the night raids. Their supplies were limited. Their young were marching as bait.

Rejecting the Zharun now, when the enemy numbered in the thousands, might mean the difference between victory and total annihilation.

And turning Zharun away would mean turning their belief away, which could cause the warriors to rebel and join forces with Zharun without her. Yes, their belief was this strong.

Sol watched the internal war raging behind her eyes, and he knew she wasn’t going to raise her spear against Vane.

For a while, Veylara listened to them with a thoughtful expression, though Sol could see the faint lines of doubt still etched on her face.

Even she wasn’t fully convinced, but the weight of tradition and desperation was heavy.

The Sacred Pact held too much mythological power over these tribal humans. It wasn’t just a treaty... it was a divine covenant, an oath blessed by the ancestors themselves.

Breaking it, or even questioning it too openly, wasn’t far off from being branded a heretic.

If she really sided with Sol right now, it would mean disregarding their most sacred cultural belief at the worst possible moment.

The tribe’s morale, already fragile after the betrayals and night attacks, might shatter completely.

Maybe I am overthinking it, Sol forced the thought into his conscious mind, trying to view it from their primitive perspective. Maybe the Sacred Pact really does have some absolute, psychological binding power over these people that prevents them from openly lying about it. Maybe Vane really did just fight a beast tide and magically rushed here in time.

But deep in the cold, mechanical center of his brain, his intuition was screaming like a blaring siren. The molten Golden Silver pool inside his ribs was reacting violently to Vane’s aura, and it wasn’t a reaction of kinship or alliance.

It was the biological response of a predator sensing another predator entering its striking range.

Sol slowly exhaled, his face returning to a mask of complete, unreadable calm. He didn’t say anything more to the elders.

He simply let his right hand fall naturally to his side, his fingers resting millimeters away from the sapphire hilt of his blade.

He widened his internal Golden Dominion grid to its maximum concealed range, mapping the exact positions of Vane, and the surrounding Zharun force.

If the elders wanted to open the gates to the vultures, he couldn’t stop them with words. But he would keep his guard up to the absolute maximum.

The moment a single spear shifted toward a Veynar back, Sol was prepared to unleash hell, Sacred Pact be damned.

...

The hot, dry wind of the dead flats swept through the narrow mouth of the mountain pass, rattling the edges of the clothes and carrying the heavy, sulfurous stench of the skinless Grave-Hounds across the white limestone gravel.

The silence stretching between the two tribes grew so heavy that even the dry wind seemed to have slowed down.

Veylara stood perfectly still.

The weight of the entire tribe seemed to press down on her shoulders like the mountain itself. Her eyes remained locked on Chief Vane, but inside, a violent storm was raging.

She could feel it... the fragile unity of her people hanging by a thread. The elders were already murmuring in agreement, their voices growing stronger with every word.

In fact, the elders weren’t just advising her; they were teetering on the absolute edge of a panicked rebellion.

In the primitive hierarchy of the Veynar, a Chieftain’s authority was absolute only as long as she protected the bloodline and honored the ancient laws of the ancestors.

The Sacred Pact was the highest, most unyielding law of the human tribes. To openly reject a Layer 4 ally who had just bowed in the dirt, invoked the sacred oath, and offered a thousand spears to save their children... solely based on the ”suspicion” of a black-armored outsider... would be seen as absolute madness.

The warriors, terrified and desperate for any sign of hope, were watching her every move. If she rejected the Zharun now... if she openly questioned the Sacred Pact in front of everyone... it could spark rebellion. Not open mutiny, perhaps, but quiet resentment. Doubt. Division at the worst possible moment.

The Veynar had already suffered betrayal after betrayal. Their trust was paper-thin. To dismiss a thousand potential allies because of suspicion alone could break them completely.

And if the tribe fractured now, with the Coalition army marching toward them... it would be the end.

Veylara’s grip on her spear tightened until the wood creaked.

She hated this.

Every instinct she had honed through decades of brutal survival screamed that something was deeply wrong. The timing was too perfect. The excuse too convenient.

But... as Warchief, she couldn’t afford to be just a warrior. She had to be the pillar. The one who made the impossible decisions to keep her people alive.