The days that followed Elias's capture blurred together in a haze of strategy sessions, interrogations, and restless nights.

I spent hours with him, sitting across the table in that small office, asking the same questions in different ways, trying to piece together the full scope of the hunters' plans. He answered everything—his voice flat, his eyes empty, the darkness that had once burned behind them reduced to dying embers.

But the information he gave us was terrifying.

"The main force is camped in the old mining tunnels beneath Mount Harrow," he said on the third day, tracing a path on the map spread between us. "Three hundred hunters, fully armed....