Lira wasn't alone.
Not completely.
One of the new recruits—a girl with ink-black hair and eyes like frozen glass—watched her. Always silent. Always in the corner. Too alert to be harmless. Too quiet to be forgettable.
Lira caught her name once in passing: Riven.
She never spoke unless spoken to. But her eyes met Lira's more than once during drills. There was something unspoken there. Curiosity, maybe. Or warning.
That night, Lira found a mark scratched into her wall. A symbol. Barely visible in the torchlight. Not rebellion. Not government.
Something older.
Riven passed her in the hall the next morning. Brushed her shoulder. Said nothing.
But something dropped into Lira's hand. A folded scrap of fabric. Inside, a single word inked in red:
"Trust no one."
Lira tucked it away before Seren could see.
Because Seren saw everything.
Even now, as Lira entered the training circle, she felt the weight of Seren's stare. Felt Kael's absence like a bruise.
The knife behind her back wasn't enough.
She needed eyes in the dark.
Allies no one else could see.
If Riven was offering something…
Lira would listen.
For now.
Because the deeper she fell into this web, the more she understood:
**Power wasn't in the weapons.
It was in knowing when not to use them.**