Deep down, Orren had figured out Auren's location.
It was clear to him already, maybe even before it should have been - pieces clicking together through shipping records, the way officers passed messages near camp, then how leaders always shift when closing in on an objective. Silence held longer than words simply because he needed to watch whether Kael would step into that same truth without help.
Kael had.
Across the wooden table, Orren laid out his map inside their makeshift office. His finger landed on a spot three days' walk east of Vethara. There stood Dorn's Crossing - not large, yet built where trails met. Trade kept it fed. Roads reached far. Supplies piled high. A place like this could run orders after battles ended.
"Coalition command will establish a formal presence here for the treaty phase," Orren said. "The final phase battle is over or nearly over. The political machinery follows the military machinery. Auren will be present for the transition - the treaty work requires his signature as commanding general."
Three days passed, though it felt like four. Ysse sat upright, one hand bracing her injured side, speaking through slow breaths. "You can reach him," she said, voice steady despite the pain. Time stretched unevenly around them.
"Within the formal structure, no. He will have security, staff, the full apparatus of a general receiving the end of a successful campaign." Orren paused. "Outside the formal structure, possibly. Generals of his experience tend to conduct personal assessments of their engagements. They walk ground. It's a professional habit."
"He'll visit the front," Kael said.
"He'll visit the aftermath. The northern territory. Probably without a large retinue - that's not how personal assessments work."
Kael studied the map. Eastward would take three full days. Past Dorn's Crossing, then two more toward the cold upper lands.
"We'd be going back toward the war," Bren said.
"Toward the edge of it," Orren said. "The engagement is over. The northern territory is in post-phase transition. We would be four people in a large area being reorganized, which provides cover that the active front did not."
"And if Auren is part of the design," Ysse said. "If Kael is wrong about him."
"Then we're four deserters with stolen documents in the presence of the commanding general of the coalition that wants us either in front line positions or not existing," Kael said. "Which is bad."
"But you're not wrong about him," Bren said.
Kael turned his gaze toward the man.
"You're not," Bren said simply. "I was there. I saw the pause. That wasn't the way someone looks at a resource."
For just a breath, Kael stood still, map in hand, remembering how light caught the edge of a cliff. A commander's gaze had slid down rows of soldiers, then paused - something clicking behind his stare.
"Three days," he said. "Ysse, can you - "
"I said three," she said.