Eleanor was still confined to her quarters in Bastion. Since the incident with Kruger, she had lost even the pretense of freedom. The last time she’d seen him, his backhand had sent her into darkness, her cheekbone splitting under the blow, her body crumpling as the world faded. When she woke, the fortress walls had become her cage.

From then on, she was treated less like an officer and more like a problem no one knew how to solve. Her record of loyalty complicated matters; she had provided too much intelligence to be discarded outright. And yet the stain of betrayal clung to her.

She had been the one to identify every woman Luke had gifted with a necklace. Each of them had been Bastion soldiers. That single act bought her time, though it also set tongues wagging. No one could make sense of Luke’s motives, no logic tied the gifts together. As far as the fortress could tell, Eleanor’s only real “crime” had been loosing an arrow into Kruger’s side, supposedly by accident.

The women had been released under certain conditions and restrictions. They were all demoted and reassigned, and they were also being kept under watch. But without a doubt, the one most affected was Eleanor.

The door to her quarters groaned open. A soldier filled the frame, helmet shadowing his face. He jerked his chin, summoning her.

“Again?” she muttered.

The man said nothing. They walked the fortress corridors, stone swallowing the sound of their boots. She recognized the heavy door ahead before they reached it. It opened, and there he was, Kruger, rigid as iron, a vacant chair waiting before him. Another figure lingered in the shadows.

“Sit,” Kruger barked.

Eleanor stepped inside, closing the door softly behind her. She lowered herself into the chair with deliberate calm, refusing to show the tension coiled in her gut.

“Start from the top,” Kruger ordered. His voice was a growl. “Your daily routine, from the moment you were ordered to capture or kill the man calling himself James.”

“Sir, again?” she asked, forcing boredom into her tone like a mask.

His fist tightened. In a flash, a blade was at her throat, cold steel kissing her skin.

“Enough.” The command was deep, sharp, coming from the other man. He stepped forward, revealing himself. Ronan. Bastion’s second-in-command. Bartholomew’s right hand. The one who had first seen her potential, the reason she had risen at all.

Eleanor held perfectly still, the knife pressing close enough to draw a bead of heat. Her face betrayed nothing. Kruger lowered the weapon reluctantly, his jaw clenched so tight a vein throbbed at his temple.

“I told you not to handle my soldiers like that,” Ronan said, his voice level but heavy with authority.

“I can do whatever the hell I want,” Kruger snapped back, his fury only half contained.

“Not when I’m involved,” Ronan countered, the cold edge in his tone enough to slice deeper than any blade.

Kruger clicked his tongue, bitter. “That day, she shot me. Don’t tell me it was an accident.”

“And that same woman saved my life from Luke,” Ronan reminded him coolly. “She even put an arrow through his chest.”

Everyone in Bastion knew of their rivalry, the unspoken war between them. The air seemed to thicken with it.

“Sir,” Eleanor cut in, seizing the narrow window. “My record speaks for itself. I’ve risked everything for Bastion. Four years defending this Safe Zone. Dozens of missions. More close calls than I can count. I’ve nearly died for this place.”

Ronan tossed a file onto the table. It slid to a stop in front of Kruger. “These are the names she provided. Every one of them checked against Luke’s movements. No one has given us more than Eleanor. She built an entire dossier on him during her investigation.”

Eleanor’s expression stayed perfectly neutral, but inside, her heart was iron and fire. Every name she had given had been chosen carefully. Not one of those women had truly helped Luke, only been drawn close to James, the mask he wore. The entire investigation had spiraled into dead ends, and in the end, the women were dismissed as deceived. Just as she was.

And in the shadows of her work, she had managed something more. She had steered suspicion away from Jack entirely, burying him among the false trail of names.

“I’ve told you more than once. The information I gathered was valuable. No one else put together a dossier like mine,” she said evenly, her voice carrying a steadiness that belied the pounding of her heart. “With it, you can trace the entire network of that criminal’s movements.”

It was both truth and deception. Luke was already gone. He had no reason to return to the Safe Zone, and the women he had flirted with or gifted necklaces to had no real ties to him. Passing encounters, nothing more. The trail was smoke, and Eleanor had made sure of it.

“And what about that damned arrow? Because of you, I was forced to retreat from that fight!” Kruger’s fist knotted, his face twisting with fury, veins standing out at his temples.

“What I did only proves it was an accident,” she countered quickly. “It all happened so fast. The enemy rose to strike at you the same moment I loosed my shot, just as you were about to be hit by his weapon. If my arrow hadn’t thrown you off balance for that split second, the acid meant for your face would have done far worse. You’d be dead.”

She lifted her chin, steady. “And if I truly stood with the enemy, I wouldn’t have stopped at a single arrow. I would’ve aimed to kill you from the start. I would’ve joined him the moment you faltered, vanished without hesitation. I would never underestimate you, Kruger. I’d already be long gone. Instead, I came back here and gave you everything I knew.”

Spoken like that, her words wove logic into doubt, a thread strong enough to hold, at least for now. But the truth was that she never imagined Kruger had marked her with a tracking skill.

“You stayed silent about striking me,” Kruger growled. His blade rose again, the steel trembling near her throat. “Like the coward you are.”

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Eleanor swallowed hard, her pulse hammering against the edge of the knife. The room shrank to the circle of steel and breath between them.

“After Luke injured you, I rushed to your side to help, but you had already vanished. I assumed you had fallen back successfully. By choosing to search for you first, the enemy slipped away. From my perspective, I made two mistakes, one, hitting you, and two, letting him escape. So I kept looking. That’s when you intercepted me.”

Kruger’s breath rasped, harsh and uneven, as though her words only fanned his rage. “Still not enough.”

“With all due respect, sir,” she said quietly, summoning steel to her voice even as fear pressed against her ribs, “if I had come forward and confessed outright, knowing your history, that would have been nothing short of signing my own death sentence.”

For a moment, the torchlight flickered across Kruger’s face, highlighting nothing but raw hate. Then another presence cut through the tension.

Ronan stepped forward, his voice sharp and final. “She’s dismissed.”

The word carried more weight than any blade, and the air in the chamber shifted.

***

Luke shoved the doors wide and stormed into the corridor, his boots slamming against the stone floor.

“No!” His voice thundered down the passage, echoing off the cold walls.

Quick footsteps closed in from behind, Allison hurrying to catch him.

“Luke, think this through. It’s a good plan,” she insisted.

“No! Absolutely not. I’m not turning into a woman,” he shot back, lengthening his stride.

‘Oh, gods, this is going to be hilarious.’ Artemis’s laughter erupted in his head, shrill and merciless. ‘Finally! Thank you, universe. At last I get to see this scumbag punished.’

Shut the hell up! he snapped back at her mentally.

‘Karma, Luke. Sweet karma. This is going to be fucking priceless.’

He clicked his tongue in irritation, but her laughter only grew louder, rattling inside his skull.

‘Oh, Luke. This is justice. The playboy becomes the plaything. You manipulated women, toyed with hearts? Now you get to be one. It’s like a Greek tragedy, without the incest.’

Allison caught up, holding the pendant like a bargaining chip. “It’s temporary. You just have to go in, get the answer to the riddle, and get out.”

“And I’d have to turn into a woman for that. I’m not doing it.” He jabbed a finger at the pendant. “Keep that damn thing away from me.”

Mason and Evangeline appeared at the far end of the corridor, falling in behind them as Luke pressed forward. His shoulders were tight with rage.

“Stop following me,” he barked, spinning on them.

“Think about it,” Mason urged, calm but insistent. “It’s a perfect plan. No war, no bloodshed. You’d save lives by doing this.”

A vein throbbed across Luke’s temple. “I’d have to become a woman! No!”

‘Remember all those times you punished me by refusing to let me watch you bathe? Now the gods have punished you! All you had to do was let your sweet friend Artemis enjoy the view.’

That’s not even remotely related!

His fists clenched at his sides. He didn’t know what was worse, his allies circling him like vultures, or Artemis howling with laughter in the back of his mind.

He broke into a run. “Stop chasing me, idiots. I’ll come up with something else. I always do.”

“We’ve got less than five days to come up with a plan that gets us into that banquet,” Allison called after him, breathless but firm. “Once Bartholomew finds out Mason and I activated the second mechanism, he won’t let us near that fortress again. This is our only shot. If we miss it, it’s over.”

‘Yes, Luke. Be our delicate maiden, the virgin sacrifice!’

“Goddammit!” He skidded to a stop, spinning back toward them. “Stay away from me. I’ll be back in a day with a better idea.”

“Where are you going?” Mason asked.

“Far away from all of you,” Luke growled.

Mason darted forward, cutting him off. “Don’t forget, you wouldn’t be the only one making a sacrifice. You’d be there as my date. I’ll be taking the risk with you.”

For a heartbeat, Luke froze. The blood drained from his face as horror dawned. “My god… I’d have to wear a ball gown.”

Evangeline bent double, laughter bursting out of her like a knife twist. “Hahahaha!”

‘Oh, this couldn’t get any better.’ Artemis howled. Picture it, flowing dress, those lovely legs on display, that tight little ass. Men drooling over your body. Gods, I need to see this.

“No! Absolutely not!” Luke roared, and in a flash of shadow, he vanished down the hall with Dark Dash.

“Don’t laugh at him,” Allison snapped, but Luke was already gone.

***

Luke tore through the Wild Zone, darting through crumbling structures, cutting across ruins, and slipping into patches of forest whenever the terrain allowed.

“Me? Turn into a woman? No. I’ll figure something out,” he muttered under his breath.

He kept climbing, always searching for higher ground. Eventually he reached a stretch of towering trees close to the Safe Zone. Driving his kukris into the bark, he hauled himself upward, inch by inch, until he finally broke through the canopy. From the top, Bastion loomed in the distance, its fortress stark and immovable against the horizon.

And he just stared. Hours passed with nothing but his eyes locked on that place, waiting for inspiration, for some plan that didn’t feel like madness. What they needed wasn’t complicated, the riddle’s answer.

According to Evangeline, the first mechanism had been activated by matching lunar phases to the riddle. The third worked the same way: decipher the clue, identify the right moon, trace its sequence, then enter it into the mechanism. Simple in theory. Devastatingly complex in practice.

Anyone else could walk in, take a glance, and be done in minutes. But the place was crawling with enemies. The tutorial wasn’t just a trial of strength, it was a design of cruelty. Either rulers cooperated, or they stole and bled each other dry for scraps of information. Nothing came easy here. Nothing ever did.

At last, Luke leapt down from the massive tree, his cloak snapping open as he landed.

“Luke, what’s the real problem with using that item?” Artemis’s voice was bubbling with barely restrained laughter.

“I think the problem’s obvious enough. I’d have to become a woman.”

“Didn’t you already disguise yourself as some blond guy with one eye missing? What’s the difference?”

He sighed. “That wasn’t the same. I was still a man.”

“Come on, you’ve got to try this sort of thing at least once in your life.”

Luke frowned. “Why do you suddenly sound like some creepy pervert?” He shook his head. “Never mind. You are a creepy pervert.”

He kept moving through the undergrowth, her laughter bouncing inside his skull.

“What if the item made you into a kid again, just for a while? You’d take that deal, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course. No problem with that.”

“Then seriously, Luke. You mortals are bizarre. Gods don’t care about appearance or gender. We’ve transcended all that, reshaping body and soul beyond anything common. Some can become animals, others pure concepts, like the Darkness you’ve already met. And you, of all people, can turn into mist. So what’s so strange about you becoming a woman?”

“There are doors a man just doesn’t open,” Luke muttered. “And don’t you dare start spouting wise like you’ve got noble intentions. I know what you’re after.”

“Do I want to see you in a dress? Hell yes! Will I etch that image into my eternal memory and laugh about it until the end of days? Absolutely! But when the time comes, I promise I won’t laugh at you… I mean, not too much.”

She didn’t even last a heartbeat before dissolving into hysterics again.

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