Traitor! Pt. 3

ELSEWHERE…

In a word, they have been pretty busy.

Elisa and Kael were currently tucked away in a modest tavern bedroom—low ceilings, creaky floorboards, the faint scent of sawdust clinging to everything. The bed wasn’t much—flat mattress, scratchy blanket, one lopsided pillow between them.

Elisa flopped back onto it with a groan.

“Ugh… sore all over.” She rolled her shoulder with a wince. This was the makings of a trashy romance novel.

Kael sat on the edge of the bed, smirking as he unfastened his mahogany boots. “That’s what happens when you throw yourself into a mud pit voluntarily.”

“We are in where the Concordant’s best carpentry is made. The City of Doers. Woodpost. I had to; mud fighting is their bread and butter. Whenever a guest of import arrives, it is their obligation to go into the pits. They wouldn’t take me seriously otherwise.” She explained it like she was trying to convince herself. “Doesn’t mean I don’t hate it.”

“Then why volunteer?”

“Because you hate getting dirty,” she muttered. “Someone’s gotta protect my dainty husband.”

Kael snorted.

Didn’t take much shifting on the bed for her to groan again. “Gods, my back. I swear I’m getting bruises in places I didn’t know could bruise.”

Kael leaned back on his elbows, watching her with amused detachment. “Your cities have awful naming conventions, by the way.”

“Y’all wouldn’t be able to pronounce how the natives say it otherwise.”

“Oh?” He tilted his head, amused. “Try me.”

Elisa smirked, rolled onto her side, and drawled out, slow and syrupy: “Wuh’past’nawra.”

Kael blinked. “…Pardon?”

“Wuh. Past. Naw. Ruh.”

“That’s not a real word.”

“That’s how the locals say Woodpost Narrow Ridge. Slurred down after a few centuries of hard labor and no time for pretty syllables.”

“That sounds like someone falling down the stairs while trying to speak.”

“Dainty husband, soft ears. Can’t even wrap his tongue around hillfolk names, and you expect me to let you go mud fighting?”

“I could pronounce it if you’d stop mangling it on purpose.”

She looked at the map again.

Greypoint had gone better than expected. The infrastructure plan Kael pushed—against plenty of muttered warnings—was actually gaining traction. Chief Wandering Moon had stopped threatening to burn down the aqueduct by day three, which, in Highcliff terms, was a warm reception.

Dust, though… ticked off as ever. They hadn't even set foot there and yet somehow the villagers had managed to circulate two separate conspiracy pamphlets about demonkin crop-curses and blood rituals. She hadn’t the energy to chase ghosts through superstition anymore. Let them stew in paranoia until they ran out of clean grain.

Bellow’s Hollow, surprisingly pleasant. The mudslide cleanup had earned them a bit of goodwill. Even the chief—usually prickly as a thistle bush—had tried to offer them wine and a kiss on the hand. She’d dodged both.

All in all, not terrible. Of twenty villages on the map, only five remained actively against them, another half-dozen undecided but warming. It was progress all the same.

In more unfortunate news, Steed was running raggard, but this was a necessary venture that had been delayed for far too long. It also stems the bleeding and ensured no new rebel-to-bes would join the Obsidian Tide.

Some slipped through the cracks for sure… but the community wouldn’t turn a blind eye to such a decision to join a rebellion like before. It’s much easier to win the people’s favor when you actually show your face in front of their doorsteps.

It wasn’t an idea you hated anymore; it was the person. And it was much harder to hate something that you spoke and had banter with.

The floor creaked again—but not from Kael.

The door burst open.

“Sir, we have a developing situation.” Lieutenant Sanza’s voice rang sharp through the room. She didn’t wait for permission to enter, already halfway inside by the time Kael sat upright. Kael understood.

He buttoned up his dress shirt calmly. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

Sanza’s boots thudded across the wooden floor.

“Big problem. People are attacking each other in the street.” She glanced at Elisa, then back to Kael. “And they’re chanting your name. Both sides. Though one is calling out for your 'help'…”

Kael paused, stilling mid-button. “What did we do wrong this time?”

“‘Kael, come out!’ Over and over. It’s not an organized protest, at least I don't think—but it’s like something’s whipped them into a frenzy.”

Elisa was already on her feet, reaching for her coat. “What kind of people?”

Sanza shook her head. “Locals, travellers, even a few Concordant settlers.”

Kael’s expression darkened.

He stepped toward the door, fingers tightening around his cuffs.

“Any signs of external manipulation?”

“Nothing obvious,” Sanza said.

A beat passed.

Elisa met Kael’s gaze. “It’s starting, isn’t it? Our actions having consequences?”

Kael didn’t answer.

\\

The moment Kael and Elisa stepped out of the tavern, the heat hit them—not from the sun, but from the crowd.

The street was seething.

Torches burned too brightly for daylight. Smoke clung to the air, curling around wooden beams and doorframes. Somewhere nearby, glass shattered.

The second they caught sight of them, the crowd's shouting took on a new tone—wilder, angrier, more personal.

It was one thing to rage against a distant ruler.

It was another to see one of their own standing beside him.

A hush fell—just briefly—as eyes locked on Elisa. That was all it took.

A woman near the front spat on the ground. "There she is."

"She was ours," another voice snapped. "Now she stands next to that."

"He turned her." It wasn’t shouted—and somehow it made the next voice crack like thunder: 

"He poisoned her mind!"

The shouting came back full force.

“She’s not Highcliff anymore!”

“She forgot us!”

“Jujilbarka smite you!!”

A bottle smashed near their feet.

"Split from him!" someone yelled. "Leave the leech behind!"

“Let us govern ourselves! We don’t need demons crawling through our fields, running our homes!”

The flames licking up a nearby stall cast the crowd in orange light, their faces warped with hate and fear.

Behind them, Kael stood still, composed. But he wasn’t looking at them.

His gaze drifted to the corner of the square, where a shopfront smoldered—wood scorched, windows shattered, a stand overturned.

A shopkeeper crying. The old man knelt in the debris. He tried to gather what little hadn’t burned with his hands but to no avail. His sobs were faint at first. 

Maybe the mob had screamed themselves hoarse.

Either way, for a moment, the street only heard the sound of one man's lifework gone in a blink of the eye.

One daring voice broke the silence. “Should’ve known better than to sell to demon lovers.”

That was it.

Elisa stepped forward before she could stop herself, voice rising above the roar.

“Your fight is with me, not him!” she snapped. “What did he ever do—other than stand too close to your outrage?"

Some in the crowd hesitated. Others shouted louder to drown her out.

Kael was still scanning the crowd, expression unreadable—until something caught in his periphery.

A glint. A flicker of violet light.

His eyes widened.

“Grenade!!”

Everything moved at once.

Screaming. Shoving. The mob broke like a wave. Bodies pushed in every direction, trampling over barrels, carts, each other.

Kael’s hands flared with heat, and with a flick of his arm, a wall of fire erupted across the cobblestones—a bright, searing line that cut them off from the crowd, forcing distance, forcing retreat.

People fled.

Smoke curled into the sky. Shouts faded behind stone walls.

Then, from the haze, a lone figure emerged.

Elisa squinted through the smoke—eyes stinging, lungs burning—and her breath caught.

Pauline.

Tears streaked her face, cutting clean paths through ash and soot. Her shoulders heaved like she'd run the whole way. She wasn’t holding a weapon—not yet—but there was no mistaking what this was.

She stepped forward.

“This is how you resolve things the Highcliff way, right?” Pauline's voice cracked. Num-chuks flopped onto the muddy ground. “A duel.”

Elisa froze.

Pauline stopped a few paces away, breathing hard. “No more politics. No more excuses. Just you and me.”

She wiped her face with the back of her hand, trembling.

“I challenge you, Elisa. No one else. You.”

Kael moved forward, but Pauline’s voice sharpened. “Stay out of this, devil. You’ve taken enough from us. All we have left is this.”

She looked at Elisa again, and for a moment, the fury fell away, revealing something else entirely. “Pick it up.”

Elisa’s fingers instinctively brushed the hilt at her belt.

“Pick. It. Up.”

“Pauli…”

“Fight for him.” Pauline’s voice cracked again. “Fight for your husband.”