(Ayaka Rin's Point of View)
They thought I wouldn't notice.
A supply convoy, barely guarded. Rich with food, tools, weapon crates, and just enough magical interference to feel like an accident.
If I were the woman I used to be, desperate, reckless, I might've lunged at it like a starving rat.
But I'm not that girl anymore.
"Interesting", I whispered, leaning over the war table carved from black obsidian. "They've begun to mimic me."
Kaleid frowned. "The Holy Alliance?"
"No. Him." I tapped the region where the bait convoy was staged. "General Caelum Thorne."
His name lingered on my tongue like old smoke.
Undead fingers curled at my side. General Kael stepped from the shadows. "I've fought him before. A child of codes and dreams."
"Not a fool, then", I murmured. "But perhaps… idealistic enough to gamble."
I stared at the convoy reports again. Even the dust patterns gave it away. Too clean. Too neat.
He's setting a table for me.
How polite.
I paced slowly through my command tent. The demon soldiers quieted when I passed, bowing, not from fear, but reverence. I had earned that. Blood by blood, lie by lie.
Liora entered with a grin. "I've scouted their decoy wagons. Mages hidden under the tarp. There's even a 'civilian' cart."
"Traps under every wheel", I said.
"So?" she tilted her head. "We spring it or not?"
"No", I tapped the edge of my lip with a gloved finger. "We mirror the move."
Kaleid blinked. "Meaning?"
"We set our own trap. Not to destroy, but to recruit."
That night, I called my inner circle.
"The convoy is a decoy", I began. "But it's also a signal. Thorne is trying to play me. And I respect that."
Liora huffed. "I don't."
"You will", I said. "Because we're going to use his bait against him."
I laid out a new plan, detailed, ruthless, subtle.
We wouldn't touch his convoy.
We'd let him believe we were watching it.
We'd pull back, create a phantom raid elsewhere, something too chaotic for a straight-laced general like Thorne to ignore. He'd have to choose, protect the convoy or redirect his men.
And when he moves his forces?
We'll intercept not his supplies… but his messengers.
Break the chain of command. Let doubt stew. And when his own captains start questioning the righteousness of their "virtue", we'll offer them something else.
Me.
Later, alone beneath my darkened canopy, I allowed myself to remember.
A young boy, years ago, collapsed near a ruined temple during a skirmish.
Blood in his mouth. Ash on his cheek. I had passed him by.
But I turned back.
Bandaged his arm. Left without a word.
He never knew my name.
And now he leads armies against me.
Perhaps it's poetic.
Perhaps I created him.
And now I will undo him.
As I stared into the low-burning flame, a whisper of an old lesson returned, one my teacher from the slums had drilled into my skull.
"You don't fight a lion in his den, Ayaka. You poison his food and wait for him to lie down."
Caelum, your food is ready.
Sleep well.