The thief, now known as “Lian,” was a master of his craft. He spent weeks cultivating his new identity, a disgruntled merchant who had been ruined by the Tyrant’s punishing taxes. He was loud in his denunciations of Kael, but always careful, always believable. He performed small acts of sabotage, enough to get noticed, but not enough to arouse suspicion.
Eventually, as he had known he would, he was approached by the rebellion. He was vetted, tested, and finally, brought into the inner circle. He was a perfect candidate, his hatred of the Tyrant seemingly genuine, his skills as a thief and infiltrator a valuable asset.
Lian was a quick study. He learned their secrets, their methods, their names. He saw the courage and idealism that drove them, and for the first time in his life, he felt a flicker of something other than self-interest. He saw in them a world that was not governed by fear and betrayal, but by trust and mutual aid. And it both fascinated and terrified him.
But he was a survivor. And he had made a deal. And so, he played his part. He fed Kael a steady stream of information, carefully curated to be useful, but not so useful as to expose him. He reported on their plans, their resources, their internal debates. He was a serpent in their garden, a poison that was slowly but surely seeping into the roots of their resistance.
The rebellion, for their part, felt the change. A sense of unease, of paranoia, began to creep into their ranks. Operations that should have been simple went wrong. Safe houses were raided. Members disappeared. They knew they had a traitor in their midst. But they did not know who. And the suspicion, the not knowing, was a more effective weapon than any army of Wardens. It turned them against each other, eroded the trust that was their greatest strength, and threatened to tear them apart from within. The First Spy was doing his work, and he was doing it well.