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Sol raised his eyebrows, a dark, cynical smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Suicide,” Sol repeated dryly. “At such an incredibly convenient time. Before he could name any names to the Warchief. How tragic.”

He didn’t believe that for a single second, and judging by the look on Kira and Zeyra’s faces, neither did they. Someone had gotten into the heavily guarded detention cells… someone with enough authority or stealth to bypass the guards… and silenced the only loose end that could tie the sabotage back to Thorne.

In the cutthroat, paranoid world of politics, the ’suicide’ of a key witness in a secure, guarded cell was the oldest, dirtiest trick in the book. It was an assassination to tie up a loose end. Someone had slipped into the cells, ruptured the old man’s core, strung him up, and walked out without triggering a single alarm.

Which meant Thorne’s reach wasn’t just limited to his political faction. He had killers inside the tribe.

“Why isn’t there an uproar?” Sol asked, looking around the busy settlement. The tribesmen seemed exhausted, grieving, but completely oblivious to the fact that they had been betrayed from the inside. “If a respected elder dies in a cell, the tribe should be tearing itself apart demanding answers.”

“Because they don’t know, except for the elders, my mother, and us, no one in the tribe knows yet,” Kira continued, looking around the settlement at the working tribesmen. “Because that elder had been incredibly well-respected. He was an instructor to many of the current Spirit Warriors. He had been a ’good’ man for decades before this.”

She let out a frustrated breath. “To avoid morale completely collapsing before the upcoming territorial skirmishes, the Warchief decided not to inform the people yet. Most people will be informed in a few days, and the official story will be that he is in deep, secluded meditation to recover from his injuries incurred due to an accident in mediation. When the walls are fully rebuilt, he will quietly ’succumb’ to his wounds.”

Sol leaned his back against the wooden railing, crossing his arms over his chest as he processed the massive data dump.

The pieces were rapidly clicking into place, forming a terrifying, undeniable picture and the situation was actually far worse than he had initially thought.

Thanks to his encounter with Elyndra (though he adapted the knowledge in his head to fit what he was supposed to know), he already knew the beast tide wasn’t an accident. It was a targeted, manufactured strike orchestrated by the enemy tribes using some kind of smuggled stuff.

But now, he knew the enemy tribes didn’t just have a weapon pointing at the Veynar walls from the outside. They had deep, entrenched, highly capable agents operating right here on the inside. Elder Thorne, or whoever silenced the armory guard, was a rotting cancer sitting right in the middle of the tribe.

“How about we finish Thorne quietly?” Zeyra suddenly whispered leaning close.

Kira looked at her in surprise, but thinking about Thorne’s usual behavior, she couldn’t help nod too.

Hearing this Sol didn’t say anything, instead his silver-crimson eyes darkened, his mind racing through a dozen different tactical scenarios.

His first instinct, the hot-blooded, aggressive urge born from his roaring Sun Core, was also to march straight into the High Hall, kick the heavy doors off their hinges, and drag Elder Thorne out by his throat. He was a Layer 2 Spirit Warrior now. He had the raw, brutal strength to simply crush the old man’s skull in front of the entire Vanguard.

But the cold, pragmatic guy sitting behind the wheel of his brain immediately slammed the brakes on that idea.

No, Sol thought, his jaw tightening. That would be really foolish.

If Sol went to Warchief Veylara right now and pointed a finger without a single shred of hard, undeniable physical evidence, it would be an absolute, unmitigated disaster.

Thorne wasn’t just some easily discarded political hack. He had heavy, deep-rooted influence over a massive number of Vanguard warriors. Even though he looked like a cynical, scheming prick now, that hadn’t always been the case. From his information, he knew that decades ago, in his prime, Thorne had been a notoriously brave frontline soldier. He had bled for the Veynar walls. He had stood in the mud and held the line against beast tides just like the one they had just survived.

But the Great Orrath didn’t let you retire gracefully. As Thorne slowly grew older, as his pathways started to struggle due to countless hidden battle injuries and his physical strength faded, the creeping fear of uselessness had set in. His behavior started to get stranger and stranger. He grew paranoid, bitter, and overwhelmingly cynical.

Yet, in the eyes of the tribe, he was still a respected elder. A man who had fought countless battles and made brutal sacrifices for the Great Heartwood.

It was a well-known, quietly whispered rumor that the reason Thorne completely turned a blind eye to Vurok’s absolute garbage behavior… the reason he blatantly protected and doted on that arrogant, talentless bully despite his outrageous acts… was because of the heavy blood debt the tribe owed him.

In fact, Thorne used to have two more older sons. Both of them had been full-fledged, highly respected Spirit Warriors. But both of them had been torn apart by beasts, giving their lives to protect the tribe on different occasions. Vurok was all he had left of his bloodline.

Because of that tragedy, the tribe gave Thorne an incredibly wide berth. The common people pitied him and respected his loss.

But it was the veteran Spirit Warriors who were his true shield. They were the ones who truly sympathized with him. Spirit Warriors lived their entire lives balancing on a razor’s edge, fighting in a rotting jungle where tomorrow was never guaranteed. When they looked at Thorne, they didn’t just see a bitter old man; they saw their own shared trauma.