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”You... traitorous dog,” Veylara spat, her body shaking as she tried to force her legs to lift her. She applied a sudden, frantic burst of physical pressure to the spear shaft, but her muscles simply refused to obey. The dead weight of her own flesh felt like a mountain pinning her down.

”To dare betray your own tribe... on the field of war... the ancestors will turn your bones to ash!”

”The ancestors?” Thorne mocked, his voice rising in an ecstatic, unhinged sneer as he stepped a fraction closer, still not daring to step close, even though he was in the wall of shields his personal guards maintained around him.

”The ancestors are dead, Veylara! They died the moment you let that black-armored monster turn our valley into his personal playground! Look at him!”

Thorne pointed a long, gnarled finger toward the center of the flats, where Sol remained leaning heavily on his sapphire blade, entirely drained.

”You threw away our only hope of our survival away, you insulted the Zharun, you refused to sacrifice your daughter for the tribe and you even brought an unknown demon into our sacred huts!

You think the Veynar could survive a war against the entire Great Orrath Coalition? No. I saved us. I bargained for our survival while you were busy dreaming of glory!”

”You bargained... with the beasts who were dreaming of slaughtering us day and night?” High Shaman Zephyra’s voice came as a harsh, rattling whisper from the high ridge.

She was clutching her chest with one hand, her face completely pale as she glared down at the traitorous elder. ”You think Coalition will let you live once we are gone? You fool... you miserable fool...”

”He will let me lead the remnants of the Veynar under the protection of the Coalition!” Thorne roared back, his face turning a mottled, ugly purple-red as his lifelong mask of conservative caution completely dissolved into raw, unchecked ambition.

”I will be the one to guide our people into the new era, not a stubborn warchief and a dying relic!”

Thorne’s face twisted with fury and desperation as he pointed a trembling finger straight at Zephyra, the veins in his neck bulging as years of repressed malice came spilling out in a desperate, defensive screech.

”Do you think I wanted this?!” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth and his arm sweeping wide across the corpse-strewn valley, pointing a trembling, accusatory finger directly at the kneeling Warchief and then shifting it violently up toward the ridge.

”It is you both who are responsible for all of this! From the very beginning, it should never have been her who became the chief! It should have been her elder brother... the rightful heir, the one explicitly designated by the previous chief!”

Thorne’s chest heaved, his eyes wide and bloodshot as he focused the entirety of his fury on the high ridge, screaming up at the sky. ”It is all your fault!” he shouted, pointing rigidly at Zephyra.

”If you hadn’t supported her in the beginning... if you hadn’t provided her your protection and used your spiritual authority to sway the council, it never would have come to this! He would be leading us, and we wouldn’t be bleeding out in an ambush! So the only ones to blame for the current state of the Veynar are you two!”

A heavy, dangerous silence fell over the battlefield.

Up on the sharp limestone ledge, High Shaman Zephyra slowly wiped a smear of dark, toxic blood from her chin.

Despite her agonizing pain, wracking her body, she refused the help and dragged her frail upper body up against a large broken rock, her eyes carrying the weight of decades of wisdom and authority, locking onto the traitor with a chilling, absolute disgust.

”You old fool,” Zephyra’s voice echoed through the silence, not with the roaring thunder of her cyclones, but with a cold, piercing clarity.

”Did you really think that egoistic coward could have led our tribe? He was arrogant, he was weak, and he cared only for personal glory while utterly despising the crushing weight of responsibility.

Did you truly believe, in that twisted mind of yours, that our tribe would have survived for even a single winter under his direction?”

She let out a harsh, rattling breath that sounded like grinding flint, her gaze boring straight into Thorne’s panicked soul.

”And let us speak the truth, Thorne... wasn’t it because you had been his mentor? You didn’t care about the previous chief’s wishes. You wanted a puppet. You wanted to control the entire Veynar tribe through his foolishness! Did you really think we were fools? Did you think the council was blind to your little games?”

Thorne flinched, his face flushed a deep, mottled red. His mask of caution and feigned loyalty finally shattered completely, revealing the raw ambition beneath.

”He would have let me lead the Veynar!” Thorne roared back, his voice cracking with fury. ”I would have been the one to guide our people into the new era... not some stubborn, bloodthirsty Warchief!

Zephyra stared at him for a long moment, her expression shifting from contempt to something colder... almost pitying.

”So that’s what this was all about,” she whispered. ”All your talk of tradition, all your so-called concern for the tribe... it was never about Veynar’s survival. It was always about your own pathetic thirst for power.”

She shook her head slowly, blood still staining the corner of her mouth.

”The only reason you have survived to grow old and gray, Thorne, is because of Veylara’s mercy,” Zephyra hissed, her voice dipping into a dangerous, maternal venom.

”Because she respected you as her late father’s friend, and as a senior elder who once bled for our tribe.

Did you really think she didn’t know? Did you truly believe she was ignorant of all your traitorous deeds, your secret correspondence, and your quiet sabotage throughout the years?”

Down in the dirt, Veylara didn’t say anything, her teeth clenched so hard they cracked as she fought the poison in her veins.

”The only reason she chose to overlook your treason,” Zephyra stated, her silver hair whipping like a shroud of judgment around her pale face, ”was out of remaining respect for your past achievements and the sacrifices you made for the tribe. She felt sorry for your sons who sacrificed their lives for the tribe.

She gave you a peaceful old age you never earned. Otherwise... your sins throughout these years deserve a thousand agonizing deaths!”