# Chapter 226: The Test of Trust
The city no longer felt like a cage; it felt like a chessboard, and he was no longer a pawn. But as he walked back toward the lower wards, a cold, practical thought cut through his newfound clarity. Elara had given him the truth, but the truth was useless if he couldn't protect it. The Synod and the League weren't just playing with prophecies; they had spies. They had eyes and ears everywhere. And as he thought of the small, fragile circle of people he relied on, a chilling certainty settled in his gut. The leak wasn't just in the Sable League. It was in his room. He had to find out who it was, before his choice was taken away from him for good.
The command center was a converted storeroom in the cellar of a defunct tannery. The air was thick with the ghosts of old chemicals and damp earth, a scent that clung to the back of the throat. A single, bare lumen-bulb cast a jaundiced light over a scarred wooden table where a map of the city's industrial sector was spread. This was his sanctuary, his fortress, and now, his interrogation chamber. The weight of Elara's revelation, the choice between shattering and forging, sat on his shoulders like a physical mantle. He couldn't afford to make that choice while a viper was nestled in his midst.
He found Finn first, polishing a set of gauntlets near the makeshift armory rack. The young man's face, still soft with the last traces of youth, lit up when Soren entered. "Soren! You're back. Did you... did you find anything out?"
Soren let a carefully constructed weariness settle into his posture. He leaned against the wall, the Bloom-forged bracers on his wrists a dull, throbbing ache. "Maybe. I've been thinking. We can't keep reacting. We need to hit them where it hurts. Make them bleed resources."
Finn's eyes gleamed with the prospect of action. "What do you need? Just say the word."
Soren gestured him over to the map. He traced a finger along a route marked in red ink, a path that snaked from the Synod's main fortress to a remote supply depot. "There's a convoy leaving tomorrow night. Low guard, high-value cargo. Alchemical reagents, refined cinder-core stabilizers. The kind of stuff that powers their war machine. We hit it here." He tapped a spot where the route passed through a narrow canyon known as the Warden's Cut. "A small team, a quick strike, and we're gone before they can muster a response. It's a risk, but it's a clean one."
He watched Finn's face, saw the way the boy's knuckles went white as he gripped the edge of the table. It was a perfect reflection of the eagerness Soren had expected. Pure, unadulterated loyalty, without a shred of guile. "I'm in," Finn said, his voice a low, determined whisper. "Whatever you need."
"Good," Soren said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Keep this to yourself for now. I'll talk to the others."
Next was Captain Bren. The old soldier was in the corner, meticulously cleaning the firing mechanism of a heavy-caliber slug-thrower. The scent of gun oil and metal was sharp and clean in the musty cellar. He didn't look up as Soren approached, his focus absolute. "You look like you've seen a ghost, kid."
"Worse," Soren said, his voice flat. "I've seen a plan." He laid out the same story, the same map, the same target. But this time, he altered the details. "The convoy is heavily armored," he said, pointing to a different section of the map. "A frontal assault is suicide. We need to hit the lead vehicle here, create a bottleneck, and use the canyon walls for cover. It'll be a protracted fight. We'll need Boro's shield and Lyra's illusions to hold the line."
Bren finally looked up, his pale blue eyes missing nothing. He scanned the map, then Soren's face. His expression was a mask of professional skepticism. "The Warden's Cut," he grunted, the name like a stone in his mouth. "That's a kill box. They'd have to be idiots to send anything valuable through there without air support. And the Synod are many things, but they aren't idiots." He leaned back, the old leather of his chair creaking in protest. "What's the real play, Soren? This feels too simple, too neat."
"It's a target of opportunity, Captain. That's all."
"Targets of opportunity are usually traps," Bren countered, his voice low and gravelly. "And we're in no shape to be walking into one. Your intel... where's it from?"
Soren met his gaze, letting a flicker of the old, haunted anger show. "Does it matter? We sit here, we rot. We do something, we might die, but we die on our feet. I thought that was your way."
Bren held his stare for a long moment, the silence stretching between them, thick with unspoken questions. Finally, he gave a slow, deliberate nod. "If this is the hill you choose to die on, I'll see you're well-armed for the climb. But I don't like it. Not one bit." He turned back to his weapon, the conversation clearly over, but Soren could feel the old soldier's eyes on him, assessing, weighing.
The final, and most difficult, conversation was with Nyra. She was standing by the table, studying the map when he returned, her silhouette sharp against the dim light. The air between them was frigid, a landscape of broken promises and unspoken accusations. She didn't turn as he approached.
"I need to talk to you," he said, his voice devoid of warmth.
"I'm listening." Her tone was equally cold, a shield of polished ice.
He laid out the plan a third time, weaving a new set of specifics. "The convoy's route is a feint," he said, his voice low and conspiratorial. "The real cargo is being moved via the old sewer tunnels beneath the Warden's Cut. The convoy is a distraction. We hit the tunnels, take the cargo, and collapse the entrance behind us. Minimal contact, maximum confusion."
He watched her, searching for any crack in her composure. She listened without moving, her fingers tracing the lines on the map with an unnerving stillness. When he finished, she didn't react with Finn's enthusiasm or Bren's suspicion. She analyzed.
"The sewer tunnels," she said, her voice a soft, dangerous purr. "Clever. It bypasses the choke point. But the tunnels are unstable. A collapse could trap us. And the Synod would have seismic sensors on any route that valuable. They'd know the moment we breached the wall." She looked up at him, her dark eyes unreadable. "It's a bold plan. Risky. But it has a higher probability of success than a direct assault. What's the cargo?"
"Something that will make the League sit up and take notice," Soren lied, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "A bargaining chip."
She studied his face, her gaze so intense it felt like a physical touch. For a terrifying second, he thought she saw through it all, saw the test, the paranoia, the desperate gamble he was making with their fragile alliance. "And you're sure about this source of yours?" she asked, her voice laced with a subtle challenge.
"Never been more sure," he said, forcing a confidence he didn't feel.
A long silence stretched. Then, she gave a single, sharp nod. "Fine. I'll get you the schematics for the tunnel access points. But Soren," she added, her voice dropping to a near whisper, "if this goes wrong, if you're leading us into a trap based on a ghost's whisper... I won't be there to pull you out again."
The threat hung in the air, a final, sharp shard of ice between them. She turned and walked away, leaving him alone with the map and the three different versions of the lie he had just told. The test was set. The pieces were moving. All he could do now was wait, and watch the poison work its way through his own house.
The next twenty-four hours were an exercise in psychological torture. The command center, once a place of grim solidarity, was now a pressure cooker of unspoken tension. Finn bustled about, checking gear, his movements fueled by a naive, bright-eyed purpose that made Soren's stomach clench with guilt. Bren was a silent, brooding presence, his skepticism radiating from him in waves, a constant, silent judgment. He cleaned his weapons with a grim, methodical finality that spoke of a man preparing for the worst.
And Nyra... Nyra was the worst of all. She moved through the space like a phantom, her presence a constant, cold reminder of his betrayal. She worked at a separate terminal, her fingers flying across the keys as she pulled up the promised schematics. She didn't speak to him, didn't even look in his direction, but he felt her awareness of him like a physical weight. She was a mirror, reflecting his own deceit back at him, and the reflection was monstrous. Every clink of a metal plate, every rustle of a map, every footstep on the stone floor was amplified, twisted into a potential signal of betrayal. He found himself watching Finn's hands as he adjusted a strap on his pack, wondering if he was sending a coded message. He watched Bren's eyes as they scanned the room, searching for a sign of his true thoughts. He watched Nyra's stillness, her focus so absolute it seemed rehearsed.
The scent of stale bread and weak broth from their meager rations turned his stomach. The low hum of the lumen-bulb sounded like a drill against his skull. His bracers pulsed with a dull, persistent heat, a physical manifestation of the poison in his soul. He was becoming the thing he hated most: a manipulator, a user of people who trusted him. Elara's words about choice echoed in his mind. Was this what it meant to be a leader? To shatter the trust of others to protect a greater truth? Or was this the first step on the path to forging new, stronger chains, not for the world, but for himself?
He barely slept. When he did, he was haunted by dreams of the Warden's Cut, of a convoy burning, of faces he trusted turning away from him in disgust. He woke with a start, his heart hammering against his ribs, the phantom taste of ash in his mouth. The waiting was over. It was time.
He gathered them in the center of the room. Finn stood at attention, his jaw set with determination. Bren leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his face a stony mask. Nyra stood apart, her arms crossed, her expression unreadable. The air was thick with anticipation.
"Alright," Soren began, his voice rough. "The convoy moves out in an hour. We move out in thirty. Gear up."
He turned to the communications console, intending to run one last diagnostic on their short-range gear. As his fingers brushed the activation switch, a high-priority alert flashed across the screen, overriding the system. It was a public news feed from the Crownlands' official broadcaster. The image was shaky, filmed from a distance, but unmistakable.
It was the Warden's Cut.
A plume of black smoke billowed into the grey sky, staining the horizon. The voice of the announcer, slick and professional, crackled through the speaker. "...reports of a devastating ambush on a Radiant Synod supply convoy just moments ago in the Warden's Cut. Early reports suggest a coordinated attack by unknown insurgents. However, in a stunning turn of events, it appears the Synod was prepared for the assault. Our sources confirm the convoy was a decoy, heavily armed and serving as bait for a trap. The insurgents, believed to be associated with the rogue Gifted known as Soren Vale, walked directly into the kill box. Synod Inquisitors are now sweeping the area. There are no confirmed survivors among the attacking force."
Soren's blood ran cold. The room fell silent, the only sound the crackle of the news feed and the frantic pounding of his own heart. He stared at the screen, at the burning wreckage of a convoy that was supposed to be his target. But it wasn't just a trap. It was a specific, tailored trap. The announcer's words echoed in the sudden, suffocating silence. *The Synod was prepared for the assault.*
He had fed three different plans to three different people. The convoy was a trap, yes, but it was a trap laid for a specific attack. The news report mentioned a direct, frontal assault on the convoy itself—the exact plan he had given to Finn.
His gaze snapped from the screen to the young man standing across from him. Finn's face was ashen, his eyes wide with a horror that went beyond the news report. He looked from the screen to Soren, his mouth opening and closing like a fish on land. The bright-eyed eagerness from the day before was gone, replaced by a dawning, soul-crushing comprehension.
"Soren... I..." he stammered, his voice trembling. "I didn't... I swear..."
But Soren wasn't looking at him anymore. His eyes were fixed on Nyra. She stood perfectly still, her face pale but her expression not one of shock. It was one of grim, terrible understanding. She had known. Or suspected. Her analysis of the plan's flaws, her cold dismissal of his source—it wasn't skepticism. It was a warning he had been too arrogant to hear. She had tested him, and he had failed.
And then there was Bren. The old soldier hadn't moved. He was still leaning against the wall, but his eyes were closed, his face a mask of profound, weary disappointment. He hadn't been tricked. He had seen the lie for what it was from the beginning. His silence wasn't judgment; it was grief.
The leak was real. The test had worked. But it hadn't just exposed a traitor. It had shattered the last remnants of his fragile command, proving that in his desperate attempt to find the truth, he had become the architect of his own destruction. The Synod hadn't just set a trap for him; they had used his own paranoia, his own poison, to pull the trigger.