Title: “Fire in the Snow”

Scene: Forest Ridge – Crash Site, 38 Kilometers West of Blackwood Border

POV: General Soren Vask

The trees were quiet—too quiet.

That meant we were surrounded.

And yet, Chris Blackwood stood in the open.

Unbent.

Unbothered.

Blood dried along the side of his neck like it belonged there.

I stood beside him, left leg dragging, rifle raised, eyes locked on the movement between the trees.

They thought they were ghosts—these rebels.

But I've killed better-trained ghosts for breakfast.

> "I count seventeen," I whispered to him.

> "There's twenty," he said without turning.

Of course there were.

Chris didn't need heat scans. He could feel when people wanted to kill him.

> "What's the play, sire?" I asked.

> "We don't run."

> "Understood."

Then the voice came again.

Same rebel. Closer now.

Confident. Thinking we were wounded lions.

> "Drop your weapons! You're outnumbered!"

Chris stepped forward again, his boots crunching snow like thunder.

> "Wrong," he said, voice cold and calm. "You're outclassed."

The silence that followed was tight.

Then—

Gunfire.

Not ours.

Theirs.

Three rebels opened fire from different angles.

I shoved Chris down instinctively, rolled behind a broken part of the fuselage, returned fire—headshot, left flank.

Chris?

He didn't stay down.

He stood up as bullets shredded the air, lifted a rebel's own discarded rifle from the ground… and walked toward them.

> "You will kneel," he said, calm, walking straight through the storm of fire.

And somehow—not one bullet touched him.

They missed. All of them.

Or fate refused to betray him.

The rebels faltered. One broke and ran—shot in the back by me.

Two more dropped their weapons.

Chris grabbed one by the throat, lifted him off the ground—

> "Tell your commander," he hissed, "you had one chance to kill the king. You missed."

He dropped him.

Turned to me.

> "Get me a line to Amara."

I checked the relay. Still jammed.

> "Nothing yet, sire."

> "Then get me a knife."

> "A knife?"

> "Yes," he said, already stripping a strip of torn Blackwood banner from the wreck, "If I can't send a signal, I'll carve one into their land."

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