Each traitor carried away a different burden. One felt triumph curdled with fear, knowing that success would cost him the last remnants of his former life. Another clung to justification, rehearsing the story they would tell themselves when the blood finally stained their hands. A third felt nothing at all—an emptiness so complete it was almost a relief. Conscience, once eroded, did not protest loudly when abandoned.
Messages would soon move through hidden channels: a rider sent at dusk, a signal fire lit too early, a letter written in a cipher only three people still remembered. The machinery of betrayal was already in motion, smooth from years of quiet use. No single act would seem decisive, but together they would form an avalanche, unstoppable once begun.
