Lucas stood with his arms crossed, jaw tight, eyes scanning the semicircle of faces in the strategy room. The members of his squad—five of the highest-ranked trainees under his command—watched him with varying degrees of unease. None of them had slept since the alarm was raised. Neither had he.
The room was dim, lit only by the crystal lamps embedded in the stone walls. The long table between them was scattered with maps of the training compound, marked with sectors, exits, and guard routes. A blood-stained cloak—Kassian's—lay folded at one end, a silent accusation.
Lucas finally spoke.
"Explain to me," he said, voice low and dangerously calm, "how someone breaches the west wing without tripping a single ward or alert."
No one answered.
He turned his gaze on Jareth, the ward specialist. The man straightened instinctively. "The perimeter seals were intact as of evening inspection. I'd swear on my blood the intruder didn't come through the outer barriers."
"That leaves two options," Lucas said. "They were let in… or they were already inside."
A murmur rippled through the squad. Uneasy glances. Tightened shoulders.
Lucas continued, pacing slowly around the table. "Kassian said the attack came fast. He didn't recognize who hit him. But whoever it was knew the blind spots. They targeted where guards rotate every twelve minutes. That's not luck."
Mira, the quietest of the group, shifted forward. "You think it was one of ours?"
"I think," Lucas said, "that someone had inside knowledge—or help."
Silence pressed down like a weight.
But beneath his controlled anger, another thought gnawed at him—one he hadn't voiced, not even to himself.
Sereena.
He shoved the thought aside, but it lingered like a splinter under skin.
She was there. First on the scene. Blood on her hands, dragging Kassian through the dark like she already knew where he was. She said she found him by accident. Maybe she did.
Maybe.
But she always had a way of being in the wrong place at the exact wrong time.
Jareth broke the quiet. "If wards weren't broken, and doors weren't forced… then someone used a bypass key."
Lucas stopped pacing. "There are only six bypass keys to the inner wings." His eyes moved across them, one by one. "And all six are in this room."
A few breaths hitched.
"I'm not accusing any of you," he said, though the tension in his shoulders said otherwise. "But we are dealing with either infiltration or betrayal, and I'm not ruling out anything until I know exactly what we're dealing with."
Riven, who had been leaning back in his chair, spoke for the first time. "What about the girl? The archer. She was with you."
Lucas's gaze snapped to him, sharp as a drawn blade. "Sereena didn't attack Kassian."
Riven held up his hands. "Didn't say she did. But she was out there before you. Nobody else even knew anything was wrong yet. Either she's lucky… or she knew."
A muscle in Lucas's jaw twitched. He hated that he couldn't dismiss it outright.
Because Sereena had secrets. He'd seen them in the way she watched people, in the way she trained like survival was second nature, not sport. She wasn't average. She wasn't predictable.
And trust wasn't something Lucas gave easily.
But blaming her felt… wrong. Like forcing a piece into the wrong place on a board.
He turned back to the group. "We're not pointing fingers at anyone without proof. Not her. Not each other. For now, we assume a hostile party is still within the compound."
A cold hush settled over the room.
"Double guard shifts. Full sweep of all sectors. Anyone moves without authorization, I want to know." He paused, then added, quieter, "And no word of this gets outside the squad. Panic is the last thing we need."
The others gave nods of agreement, but unease lingered in their eyes.
As they filed out, Lucas remained by the table, staring at the blood on Kassian's cloak.
His mind betrayed him with a memory—Sereena's face in the dim hallway, shadows clinging to her like they knew her name. The way she'd leaned on him only when Kassian needed both their strength.
She'd reacted like someone used to crisis.
He didn't know if that made her trustworthy—or dangerous.
Either way… he would watch her.
And if she was hiding something?
He'd find out.
Even if he didn't want the answer.