Escaping their own clan was more harrowing than infiltrating it. Every shadow in the maintenance tunnels felt like a threat.
Every distant patrol of the guard they had to evade felt like a personal betrayal. Kiera, now a traitor in her own home, moved with a grim, silent efficiency.
Her heart was a cold, heavy stone in her chest. The pride she once had in her clan had curdled into a bitter poison.
They slipped out of the Core Sector under the cover of a cargo transport, returning to the familiar squalor of the Outer Sector.
Joric led them to a new safehouse, one even more remote and forgotten than the last—a series of rooms carved out of the foundation of a colossal, decommissioned comms tower.
It was their new hole in the ground, fugitives from everyone.
"The Sunstone Jaguars," Kiera said, breaking the heavy silence.
"General Tarik. He's the one whose name was on the ledger. A hawk, known for his aggressive stance against the Onyx Serpents. The Vanguard has been feeding him misinformation for months, stoking his paranoia."
"And you want to hand him proof that his entire worldview is a lie, orchestrated by a third party that has also infiltrated his own clan?" Joric scoffed.
"He'll sooner execute you as a spy than listen to you."
"That's why we don't give him the whole truth," Ryu said, speaking with a newfound confidence. "Not at first. But we'll give him a taste. A single, verifiable piece of information that he can't ignore."
Kiera and Joric looked at him.
His strategic thinking had sharpened.
"The ledger mentioned supply routes," Ryu continued.
"Weapon shipments from the Vanguard to 'insurgent' groups on the border of Jaguar territory—insurgents the Jaguars believe are funded by the Onyx Serpents. If we give General Tarik the exact time and location of the next shipment, he can verify it himself. When he sees Vanguard tech instead of Serpent weapons, he'll be forced to listen to whatever else we have to say."
It was a solid plan.
A lure, just like the one they had used to catch the Vanguard.
Using their enemy's own methods against them.
Jin, remaining hidden within the Azure Dragon stronghold, became their remote intelligence asset.
He sliced into the Jaguars' encrypted comms network—a far less sophisticated system than his own clan's—and found a back-channel frequency used by General Tarik's personal retinue.
They crafted the message carefully.
It was anonymous, untraceable. It contained only the coordinates and a timestamp for a Vanguard weapon drop scheduled for the next day.
No explanations. No demands.
Just a single, explosive fact.
As they sent the message, Kiera felt a profound sense of loss. She was betraying a thousand years of clan loyalty, leaking strategic information to a rival.
But her loyalty was no longer to a name or a banner. It was to the truth.
The truth her brother had died for.
"It's done," she said, her voice heavy. "We've crossed the Rubicon."
Now, all they could do was wait.
They had thrown a spark into the heart of a rival clan's military leadership.
It would either illuminate the truth, or it would ignite a fire that would consume them all.