The backlash for Kaelen's defiance was not a physical attack. It was something far more insidious, a poison dripped not into a goblet, but into the ears of the court. The silent schemes began as whispers in the corridors, rumors that spread like a plague through the palace. Finn, his face etched with worry, became Kaelen's primary source for tracking the infection.
"They're saying you didn't deduce anything at the banquet, Your Highness," Finn reported one evening, his voice barely audible. "They say someone fed you the words, that you're a puppet for another noble house trying to cause chaos."
This was the first prong of the attack: to strip him of the one victory he had earned. To deny his intellect.
The second prong was more direct. "They're twisting your actions," Finn continued. "They say you meet with servants in secret to plot against the Crown. That you were seen near the old watchtower at dusk. They're hinting that you might have been the one who poisoned the Baron, hoping to frame the Crown Prince."
The third was perhaps the most vicious. It attacked his very sanity. "And… they speak of the Blood Moon curse again. That it didn't just leave you without magic, but that it… addled your mind. That you are paranoid and see enemies in every shadow."
Kaelen listened patiently, his face a calm mask. He thanked Finn, assuring him the information was vital. Once alone, he paced his chamber, analyzing the strategy. This wasn't random gossip. It was a coordinated campaign. Each rumor was a carefully crafted weapon designed to isolate and neutralize him. They couldn't kill him openly now that the King's eye was on the matter, so they were trying to bury him alive under slander.
He knew denying the rumors would be like trying to catch smoke with his bare hands. It would only give them more legitimacy. His history lessons were clear on this point: you do not fight a war of whispers with shouts. You fight it with whispers of your own. Or, even better, you make your enemy listen to the wrong ones.
He looked at the blank parchment on his desk, the one meant for his first counter-move. It was time to write a fiction for his audience of one: the watchful eye he knew was always there.
His performance began the next morning. He went to the Royal Library, his spy—today in the guise of a studious, bespectacled scholar—not far behind. Kaelen bypassed the sections on politics and war. Instead, he requested the deep archives, specifically the genealogical records of the northern provinces from two centuries ago. He spent the entire day hunched over brittle, dusty scrolls, his brow furrowed in intense concentration. He was studying the lineage of House Fenwood, a minor noble family that had been wiped out during the Valthorne Wars. To any observer, it was a strange and pointless academic pursuit.
Back in his chambers, he set the stage. He left a page of his "research" on his desk, knowing his room would likely be searched when he was at dinner. The notes were a work of artful deception. He drew a complex family tree, connecting a distant Fenwood ancestor to a forgotten Drakemire marriage. He used a simple substitution cipher—one he knew Vorian's military-trained cryptographers would break in an hour—to write cryptic notes in the margins.
The centerpiece of his fiction was a single, heavily underlined entry: Lord Roric Fenwood. His only son, Torvin, was said to have died at the Siege of Blackwood Pass. But the records are unclear. Body never recovered.
It was a complete fabrication, a breadcrumb leading to a phantom. A hint that a lost heir with a distant, but legitimate, claim to the throne might exist. It was the perfect bait for a paranoid and arrogant prince. Let Vorian believe Kaelen wasn't trying to secure his own place, but was trying to find a rival claimant to use as a puppet.
That evening, Kaelen felt a thrill that was entirely new. It was not the explosive, overt power that his siblings wielded. It was the quiet, cold hum of control. He was feeding his enemy a lie, shaping the very intelligence they thought they were stealing.
Before retiring for the night, he stood by his window, looking down into the courtyard. He saw a servant carrying a basket of laundry, moving with a purpose that was just slightly too rigid. It was the spy, in another skin. The man paused near Kaelen's wing of the palace, his head tilted as if listening.
Kaelen knew the bait on his desk had been taken. The false story was now travelling through the shadows, on its way to the Crown Prince. The silent scheme was in motion. He had turned his enemy's surveillance into his own private messenger service. And he couldn't wait to see what chaos his message would create.
Chapter End
Next: Chapter 7 - Whispered Prophecies