Chapter 697: A Traitor In The Pack

*Breathe.*

The word echoed through Sophia’s mind, soft but insistent, wrapping around the edges of her panic like a hand reaching through darkness. She had forgotten how to do it properly—the inhales came too fast, too shallow, her chest rising and falling with the rhythm of someone who had already stopped thinking and started simply surviving.

*Breathe, Sophia.*

She sucked in air.

It burned going down, cold and sharp, but it was air. It was something. She held it for a moment, then let it out slowly, forcing her shoulders to drop with the exhale.

*Again.*

She obeyed.

The second breath came easier than the first. The third easier than that. By the fourth, her heart had stopped trying to claw its way out of her chest, and her vision had cleared enough that she could see the smoke around her.

*It is not real,* Neoma said again, her voice steady and sure. *None of this has happened yet. We can prevent it.*

Sophia closed her eyes.

She let those words settle into her bones, let them push back against the grief that had tried to swallow her whole. Joren was alive. Dren was alive. The pack was still standing, its walls unbroken, its people still breathing. The vision was a warning, not a prophecy set in stone.

She repeated that to herself until she believed it.

When she opened her eyes again, the world around her had not changed—the fire still burned, the bodies still lay scattered across the snow—but something inside her had. The panic had loosened its grip, and in its place grew something harder, something more determined.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Neoma did not respond, but Sophia felt the warmth of her presence settle against her like a hand resting on her shoulder. It was enough.

The vision shifted.

---

The fire did not disappear, but it changed shape.

Sophia was no longer standing in the compound, surrounded by bodies and ash. She was inside a house—or at least what remained of one. The walls were scorched black, the roof partially collapsed, and the familiar layout had been reduced to rubble and memory.

She recognized it anyway.

Orion’s home.

Or what was left of it.

The furniture had been overturned, the windows shattered, and a cold wind swept through the gaps in the walls, carrying the scent of smoke and blood. But none of that was what caught her attention.

He was there.

Orion stood near what had once been the hearth, his back to the wall, his hand pressed against his side. Blood seeped between his fingers, dark and relentless, staining his tunic in a way that made Sophia’s stomach lurch. He was leaning slightly, his weight uneven, and yet his expression remained calm, almost irritatingly so, as if the wound were nothing more than an inconvenience.

As if he were not dying.

Sophia wanted to move toward him, wanted to press her hands against the wound herself, wanted to do something—anything—to stop the blood that refused to stop flowing. But she could not, because she was not truly here. She was watching.

Watching as another version of herself stood before him.

Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes red and swollen, her hands shaking where they hovered uselessly at her sides. She looked broken, hollowed out by grief she had not yet learned to carry.

"I’m sorry," Sophia watched herself say to him, her voice cracking on the words. "I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I should have—I could have—"

Orion chuckled.

The sound was wet, rough, and it cost him. He coughed once, twice, and Sophia saw the blood speckle his lips before he wiped it away with the back of his free hand.

"I have told you before," he said, his voice weaker than she had ever heard it, "stop apologizing."

Sophia shook her head, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks.

"But this is my fault."

"It is not."

"It is."

"It is not," Orion repeated, firmer this time despite the obvious effort it cost him. "What happened to the pack is not your fault. What happened to me is not your fault. None of this is your fault."

The other Sophia’s hands curled into fists at her sides.

Orion was quiet for a moment. His gaze drifted upward, toward the hole in the ceiling, toward the smoke that swirled against the gray sky. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, almost thoughtful.

"If anyone is to blame now, it is me. It’s my fault."

Sophia watched as she stared at him, her expression shifting from grief to confusion.

"What?"

"I should have done better," Orion said quietly. "I should have seen it coming. I should have prepared. I should have—"

"Orion, what are you talking about?"

He turned his head to look at her properly, and for a moment, his calm mask slipped. Beneath it, Sophia saw exhaustion, guilt, and something else—something that looked like defeat.

"The wall," he said. "It was breached."

"I know," the other Sophia said. "I saw—"

"It was not the beasts," Orion interrupted. "The wall did not fall because of them."

Sophia watched herself go still.

Orion coughed again, more blood this time, and his hand pressed harder against his side.

"There was a traitor," he said. "Someone inside the pack. Someone who let them in."

Sophia, watching this, paused.

Someone inside the pack was a traitor?

Her mind raced through possibilities, through faces and names, through every person she had come to know and trust since arriving in Nirvana.

But she arrived at one conclusion... no one she knew seemed like they could be traitors, not with how attached they were to the pack.

The idea that someone among them could have done this—could have opened the gates and let the beasts in, could have stood by while their pack burned—it did not fit. It did not belong.

And yet Orion was not lying.

"Who?" Sophia watched herself ask Orion.

Orion opened his mouth to answer, but before he could speak, he coughed again—a deep, rattling sound that shook his entire frame. Blood poured from his lips in a way that made Sophia’s stomach turn, and she watched herself lunge forward to catch him as he took his last breath.

And then the vision fractured.

Sophia was in the midst of rocks.