Read Chapter 32: The Last Betrayal

The captain was on his knees in the mud, blood seeping through the rag pressed against his side. His eyes met Étienne’s, and there was no defiance in them—only the weary acceptance of a man who knew his debts had come due. The four soldiers from Dubois’s garrison stood in a loose half-circle behind him, muskets lowered but ready.

Étienne crouched before the captain, knife still in his hand. The weight of it felt wrong now. He had carried this moment in his chest since the gorge, since the rangers died in the water, since every mile of this chase had burned through his soles. Kill him. Let the debt be paid. The words came easy. The act did not.

“You will stand trial,” Étienne said. His voice came out rougher than he intended. “At Quebec. You will answer for what you did.”

The captain’s lips parted, but whatever he meant to say died there. His gaze shifted past Étienne’s shoulder, and his eyes widened—not with fear, but with recognition.

Étienne felt the movement before he heard it. The subtle shift of moccasins on wet earth. The whisper of a blade clearing its sheath.

He spun.

Nathaniel stood three paces behind him, knife low in his grip. His face was stripped of all pretense now—no guilt, no shame, no mask of the penitent brother. His eyes were flat and cold as winter river ice.

“Don’t,” Étienne said.

Nathaniel’s mouth twisted. “You were never going to do it. I watched you bend over him like a priest at confession. I knew you’d take him back and let the courts sort it out. Then all of this—” He gestured with the blade at the trees, the river, the dead. “All of this was for nothing.”

“For nothing?” Étienne rose slowly, knife coming up. “Men died for you. For your lie. You let Lemieux walk because you thought you could catch him alone, and Bouchard paid for your pride.”

“Bouchard was a fool who trusted the wrong man.”

The words landed like a blow. Étienne’s grip tightened on the knife. “What did you say?”

Nathaniel took a step closer. The four soldiers shifted nervously, torn between targets. “You think I wanted any of this? You think I planned for Lemieux to slip through my fingers? I only needed one clean chance at him. One. But you kept getting in the way. You always get in the way.”

“What are you talking about?”

Nathaniel laughed, and it was an ugly sound, full of broken glass. “Three nights before you found me. I had him. Right there at the bend, drinking from the stream, alone. I could have put a ball through his skull and ended it. But I wanted to do it proper. I wanted him to know why.” He shook his head. “He got the drop on me. Tied me up. Left me in that hollow like a sack of turnips.”

Étienne’s mind raced. “You told me you let him go to chase him alone.”

“I told you what you needed to hear. But I never let him go. He escaped.” Nathaniel’s voice dropped. “He knows what I did.”

The silence that followed was absolute. Even the river seemed to hold its breath.

“What you did?” the captain rasped from behind Étienne. “What is he talking about?”

Nathaniel’s eyes flicked to the captain, then back to Étienne. Something in his expression shifted—calculation, not remorse. “It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that I finish this. Lévesque is wounded. If he dies here, no one can contradict the orders. No one can warn the garrison at Lac Fourche. The English take the depot, the fort falls, and the war moves on without us.”

Lac Fourche. The supply depot. The secret Étienne had been chasing the captain to protect.

Étienne felt the ground shift beneath him. “You know about Lac Fourche?”

“Everyone knows about Lac Fourche,” Nathaniel said. “The French just think it’s still a secret because they only tell the men they trust.” He smiled, thin and cold. “And I made sure the English trusted me more.”

The pieces fell into place with terrible clarity. The rangers. The ambush. Lemieux’s false orders, dated before the fall of the fort. The trap at the southern outpost. And now—Nathaniel, always one step behind, always conveniently placed to delay Étienne just long enough.

Étienne’s voice was barely a whisper. “You sold the fort.”

“I sold the *information*,” Nathaniel corrected. “The fort itself still had to be taken. The English did that well enough on their own.”

“Father.”

The word hung between them like a blade.

Nathaniel’s smile vanished. His jaw tightened. “Father was going to ruin everything. He found out about the correspondence. He was going to ride to Quebec and confess it all, turn himself in, implicate me to save his own skin. The saints forgive everything except failure.” He spat. “He was a coward.”

Étienne saw it then. The memory that had haunted him for years—his father’s body found at the base of the cliff below the trapping trail. The fall that had never quite made sense. The rocks that had been too far from the usual path. The broken branch that had been cut, not snapped.

“You killed him,” Étienne said. The words came out flat, dead. “In the gorge. You pushed him.”

“He made me do it.” Nathaniel’s voice cracked, but the coldness didn’t leave his eyes. “He was going to take everything. The land, the trade route, the name. All of it would have gone to the French courts. He would have seen me hanged.”

“He was your father.”

“He was a threat.”

Étienne raised his knife. The blade caught a sliver of light through the canopy. Somewhere behind him, one of Dubois’s soldiers shifted, uncertain.

“Don’t move,” Étienne said, without looking back. “This is between us.”

Nathaniel laughed again, but it was breathier now. “You think you can take me, brother? You’re bleeding through your shoulder. You haven’t slept a full night in a week. I’ve been waiting for this chance since the gorge.”

“You’ve been waiting for a chance to kill me.”

“I’ve been waiting for a chance to survive.” Nathaniel’s gaze flicked toward the captain. “Lévesque knows too much. He saw me at the meeting with Roche. And you—” He shook his head. “You’re too honorable for your own good. You would have told the whole truth to the tribunal and let them decide what to do with me.”

“So you decided for me.”

“I decided for all of us.”

Étienne lunged.

Nathaniel was ready. He sidestepped, bringing his knife up to catch Étienne’s blade, but the angle was off and the impact shuddered through both their arms. They broke apart, circled, and came together again. Étienne’s shoulder screamed; each swing sent a lance of fire down his arm. Nathaniel was fresher, faster, but he fought with caution, measuring his strikes, conserving himself for the killing blow.

Their blades met twice, three times. The soldiers watched, frozen. The captain dragged himself backward, pressing one hand against his wound.

“You carry it too heavy,” Nathaniel grunted, deflecting a thrust. “The weight of what you think you owe. The marriage of two worlds. The half-breed who belongs nowhere, trusted by no one.” He grinned. “But I was the one who actually crossed over. I chose my side.”

“You chose coin,” Étienne spat.

“I chose survival.” Nathaniel’s knife came in low, aimed at the gut. Étienne twisted, caught it on his forearm—felt the edge bite through his sleeve and into skin—and drove his knee up into his brother’s midriff.

Nathaniel doubled over, air leaving him in a wheeze. Étienne followed, but his footing slipped on the river-wet rock, and he stumbled. Nathaniel recovered faster than he should have, slashing upward. Étienne threw his head back, felt the tip of the blade score a line across his jaw.

They broke apart again, both bleeding, both breathing hard.

“You were always better,” Nathaniel said, chest heaving. “Faster in the woods. Sharper with a rifle. Better with the French, better with the English. You made it look easy.” His voice dropped. “But you never had to survive what I survived. Being second. Being less. Watching him favor you at every turn because you had his eyes, his calm.”

“He loved you.”

“He loved what I could carry.” Nathaniel straightened. “And when I couldn’t carry it anymore, he would have discarded me.”

Étienne had heard enough. He moved in again, feinting high, then sweeping low. Nathaniel anticipated it—perhaps he had always anticipated it, perhaps he had studied his brother’s every tell since they were children—and he turned the sweep aside, but this time Étienne was ready for the counter. He drove his shoulder into Nathaniel’s chest, ignoring the blast of pain, and bore him backward onto the wet bank.

They went down together. Nathaniel’s knife hand came up; Étienne caught his wrist, forced it away, pressed his own blade into the hollow of his brother’s throat. Nathaniel’s eyes went wide—not with fear, but with a sudden, sharp clarity.

“Do it,” Étienne said. The words burned. “Tell me why I shouldn’t.”

Nathaniel’s breath came in ragged gasps. For a moment, something ancient flickered in his gaze—the boy who had taught Étienne to skip stones, who had carried him across the creek when the current ran high, who had sworn they would be brothers against the world.

Then it was gone.

“You’ll have to,” Nathaniel whispered. “Because I won’t give you the excuse.”

The blade trembled in Étienne’s hand. He could end it. One push. One breath of pressure. The debt paid, his father avenged, the threat removed. Justice, delivered by his own hand.

But he lowered the knife.

“I’m not you,” he said.

Nathaniel’s face twisted—something between rage and relief. He opened his mouth to speak.

The shot came from the tree line. A single report, flat and final.

Nathaniel’s body convulsed once, then stilled. His eyes stayed open, staring at nothing. A crimson bloom spread across his chest.

Étienne turned.

The captain stood braced against a tree, one hand gripping the musket he had pulled from a fallen soldier’s grip. Smoke curled from the barrel. His face was gray with pain and effort.

“He was going to kill you,” the captain said. His voice came out thin and reedy. “I saw the way he was looking at you. Waiting for you to let your guard down.”

Étienne looked from the captain to his brother’s body, to the four soldiers who stood staring in shock. The blood on the ground was spreading through the mud, dark and thick.

He did not know what to say. The words would not come.

Somewhere upstream, a bird called. The river ran on, indifferent.