Kael's POV
"The guards change in three minutes," Tom whispered through the cage bars. "That's your window."
My heart hammered so hard I thought it would break through my ribs. Around our cage, six young soldiers stood in the shadows—boys I barely knew, risking their lives for me and Ashira.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked.
A freckled kid named Marcus answered. "Because I got a little sister back home. Same age as that orc girl I killed in the village raid. I can't... I can't keep being that person."
"We all got reasons," another added quietly. "Yours are just the only ones we're saying out loud."
Beside me, Ashira tensed, ready to fight or run—whatever came next.
"When we move, head east," Tom said, pressing something through the bars. A small knife. "There's a ravine half a mile out. We'll meet you there with supplies. After that, you're on your own."
"Tom, they'll execute you for this—"
"Then they execute me." His eyes were hard. "But I'm not watching another innocent person die. Not anymore."
Footsteps. The guards approaching for the shift change.
"NOW!" Tom hissed.
Everything happened at once.
The boys attacked the guards—not to kill, just to knock them out. One guard went down with a punch to the throat. The other got a sword pommel to the head.
Tom yanked the cage door open. The lock had already been picked.
"GO!"
Ashira and I ran.
My legs felt like jelly, my heart trying to escape. Behind us, shouts erupted as someone discovered the unconscious guards.
"PRISONERS ESCAPING! SOUND THE ALARM!"
Bells clanged across the camp. Men poured from tents, grabbing weapons.
"There!" Someone pointed at us.
Arrows whistled past my head. One grazed Ashira's shoulder, making her stumble. I caught her, and we kept running.
The forest loomed ahead—dark, dangerous, but better than here.
"STOP THEM!"
We crashed into the trees just as twenty soldiers reached the forest edge. I heard Captain Markus bellowing orders: "FIND THEM! I WANT THEM ALIVE SO I CAN HANG THEM SLOWLY!"
Ashira pulled me deeper into the darkness. Despite her wounds, she moved like a ghost, navigating by instinct. I crashed through bushes, loud as a drunk bear.
"Quiet!" she hissed.
"I'm not a hunter!"
"Obviously!"
We ran until my lungs burned and my legs gave out. I collapsed behind a fallen tree, gasping.
Ashira dropped beside me, pressing her hand against the arrow wound. Blood seeped through her fingers.
"Are you—"
"Fine," she lied. "We need to keep moving. They'll be tracking us."
"I can't. I need—" I gulped air. "—a minute."
She grabbed my collar, amber eyes fierce. "You don't GET a minute! You hear those dogs? They've released the hunting hounds. We stop, we die. So GET UP!"
Her intensity shocked me upright. We stumbled onward, following what I hoped was east.
Behind us, the baying of hounds grew louder.
We found the ravine by falling into it.
One second we were running, the next the ground vanished and we were tumbling down a steep slope. Rocks tore at my skin. Branches whipped my face.
We hit the bottom hard. Pain exploded through my body.
"Kael?" Tom's voice!
I looked up. Tom and the six soldiers stood on the opposite ravine edge, thirty feet up. They'd made it out safely.
"Here!" Tom dropped a pack. It landed near us with a thud. "Food, water, medicine, two weeks' worth if you ration. There's a map to the Ironpeak territories. Head north through the Whisper Forest."
"Tom, come with us!" I called up.
"Can't. Someone has to stay and misdirect the search." He smiled, but it was sad. "Besides, you need witnesses, remember? Someone to tell the truth when this is over."
"They'll kill you for helping us!"
"Maybe. But I'm smart enough to play dumb." He glanced over his shoulder. "Hounds are getting closer. You need to go. NOW."
"Tom—"
"GO, KAEL! And keep her alive. She's the proof. She's the truth." He looked at Ashira. "Get him to your people. Make him tell them what he knows. Maybe we can still stop this war."
Before I could respond, he and the others vanished.
Seconds later, I heard shouting above. The hounds had arrived.
"They went west!" Tom's voice, loud and convincing. "I saw them cross the river!"
"You sure, boy?" Captain Markus.
"Yes, sir! The bastard's trying to reach the human settlements, probably thinks he can hide there!"
"Fool. He'll hang wherever he runs. Move out! West toward the river!"
The sounds faded. Tom had bought us time.
Ashira grabbed the pack, and we ran deeper into the ravine. My body screamed with pain, but terror kept me moving.
We ran until the ravine opened into a dark forest thick with mist. No moonlight penetrated here. This was the Whisper Forest—named because people who entered sometimes never came out.
"We're not seriously going in there," I panted.
"You want to die out here?" Ashira was already moving into the mist. "The Whisper Forest will hide us. If we survive it."
"If?"
"Lots of things hunt in there. Not all of them are animals."
"That's not comforting!"
"Good. Comfort makes you careless."
We entered the mist, and the world changed. Sounds became muffled. Visibility dropped to a few feet. The trees here were ancient, twisted things with roots like grasping fingers.
"Stay close," Ashira whispered. "Don't wander. Don't follow voices that aren't mine."
"What voices—"
"Kael..." A whisper in the darkness. My father's voice. "Kael, where are you?"
I froze. "Father?"
Ashira slapped me. Hard. "That's NOT your father! It's the forest. It pulls voices from your memory to lure you away. Ignore everything except my voice."
"How do I know you're real?"
She grabbed my hand. Squeezed hard enough to hurt. "Because I'm annoying and won't let go. Now move."
We walked for what felt like hours. The mist played tricks—showed me Aldric, Seraphina, dead children from the villages, the messenger with the arrow through his throat.
"None of it's real," Ashira kept saying. "Just the forest messing with your head."
But then she stopped suddenly. Her hand tightened on mine.
"That's real," she breathed.
Ahead, through the mist, I saw lights. Not torches—these were blue and cold, floating like ghostly lanterns.
And beneath them, figures moved. Tall, thin, wrong.
"What are those?" I whispered.
"Wraiths. Spirits that hunt in the Whisper Forest." She slowly pulled me backward. "Don't. Move. Fast."
The wraiths drifted closer. I could see them better now—faces that were almost human but stretched too long, eyes that glowed with sick light.
One turned toward us. Its mouth opened in a silent scream.
"RUN!"
We bolted. The wraiths gave chase, their cold lights burning through the mist. I felt ice on my back—one reaching for me.
Ashira yanked me left, and we tumbled down another slope. The wraiths shrieked—actual sound now, like metal scraping bone.
We crashed through undergrowth and fell into a stream. The icy water shocked my system.
"Under!" Ashira pulled me beneath the water.
We stayed submerged until my lungs burned. When we surfaced, gasping, the wraiths were gone. The blue lights had vanished.
"Water confuses them," Ashira explained, shivering. "They lose the scent."
We climbed out, soaked and freezing. The mist was thinner here. Dawn was breaking—we'd survived the night.
Ashira consulted Tom's map. "We're close to the forest edge. Half a day's walk to Ironpeak territory. If we're lucky, a patrol will find us before—"
An arrow slammed into the tree beside her head.
We whirled around.
Captain Markus stood there with twenty soldiers, all with bows drawn. Somehow they'd tracked us through the ravine, through the Whisper Forest, through everything.
"Did you really think you could escape?" Markus smiled. "We've been hunting orcs in this forest for months. We know every trail, every hiding spot." He notched another arrow. "End of the line, traitor."
"How did you—" I started.
"Your friend Tom is very convincing when properly motivated." Markus's smile turned cruel. "He's currently watching his fingers get removed one by one. Told us everything after the third one. Where you were heading, what supplies you had, even your route."
"You're lying!" But my voice cracked.
"Am I? Would you like to hear him scream? We brought him along for insurance."
Two soldiers dragged someone forward. Tom—barely conscious, his hand wrapped in bloody bandages, three fingers missing.
"Kael..." he sobbed. "I'm sorry... I couldn't... it hurt so much..."
Horror and betrayal crashed through me. But looking at Tom's tortured face, I couldn't blame him. Nobody could withstand that.
"Now then." Markus aimed at Ashira. "The orc dies first. Slowly. And you watch. Then we take you back for your execution. Your brother specifically requested we keep you alive until he arrives. Wants to watch you hang personally."
"Please," I begged, stepping in front of Ashira. "She's done nothing wrong. She's innocent—"
"She exists. That's crime enough." His finger tightened on the bowstring.
This was it. We'd escaped, survived wraiths and forest and everything, only to die here.
I closed my eyes, waiting for the arrow.
Instead, I heard screaming.
My eyes snapped open. The soldiers weren't screaming—something ELSE was screaming. A war cry that shook the trees.
Orc warriors exploded from the forest. Dozens of them, painted for battle, weapons gleaming.
"AMBUSH!" Markus yelled.
Chaos erupted. The orcs hit the human soldiers like an avalanche. Markus's men tried to fight back, but they were outnumbered and surrounded.
A massive orc—easily seven feet tall with scars covering his bronze skin—cut through soldiers like wheat. His eyes found Ashira and went wide.
"DAUGHTER!"
"FATHER!" Ashira's voice broke with relief.
This was Grimmar Ironmaw. The chieftain. And he'd come with an army.
He reached us in seconds, crushing Ashira in a hug that probably broke her ribs. Then he saw me.
His hand shot out, grabbed my throat, lifted me off my feet. Murder burned in his eyes.
"This is the human who captured you?"
"Father, NO!" Ashira grabbed his arm. "He saved me! He's the one who freed me, who helped me escape! He's... he's different!"
"Different?" Grimmar's voice was pure threat. "He wears their uniform. He fights in their army. He's killed our people!"
"He's also the only human who showed me mercy!" Ashira's voice carried desperation. "Father, please! He knows the truth about the war! He can help us prove it was all lies!"
Grimmar studied me with eyes that had seen too much death. I dangled from his grip, unable to breathe, waiting for him to snap my neck.
Finally, he dropped me.
I collapsed, gasping.
"If my daughter says you're worthy of life, I'll honor that. For now." He pointed at me. "But you're coming with us as a prisoner. If you prove false, if you betray us, I'll feed you to the wolves piece by piece. Understood?"
I nodded frantically.
"Good." He turned to his warriors. "Take the wounded human too! He might have useful information!"
They grabbed Tom, who looked at me with pain-filled, apologetic eyes.
The battle was ending. Markus and his men were either dead or fleeing. We'd survived.
But as the orcs led us deeper into their territory, toward the Ironpeak stronghold, I realized something terrifying:
I'd just become a prisoner of the people my army was trying to exterminate.
One wrong word, one mistake, and Grimmar would kill me.
And I'd have to convince an entire orc clan that humans weren't all monsters.
When I was wearing a human uniform soaked in orcish blood.
This was impossible.
But Ashira walked beside me, and when our eyes met, she nodded slightly. Trust.
I had to try.
Even if it killed me.