Moon reached into his storage ring.
He had been carrying this secret for months. Nobody knew. Although Selene had her own ideas about it, she didn't have any conclusive evidence.
The teammates he had returned from the gate with had no memory of the final fight, no recollection of how it ended, no idea what had been hidden inside the chamber where their deaths had nearly become permanent.
Only Moon knew.
But Alaric had just shown him something rare.
Trust from the first encounter. The Light Sword Saint had walked into Moon's neighbourhood at night, dropped one of the kingdom's most carefully guarded operational secrets at his feet, and told him about a spy embedded in the highest reaches of the Association. He had done it because he believed Moon deserved to know.
Moon could do the same.
He withdrew the core from his ring and held it in his palm.
"Do you know what this is?"
Alaric's brows furrowed as he looked down at the object resting in Moon's hand.
