The main hall of House Vanhart felt like a memory wearing itself thin.
The room had been built for winter: heavy stone walls, tall windows framed with thick, dark wood, a vaulted ceiling set with old iron chandeliers. Once, Kel could imagine, it must have been bright with polished banners and well-fed fires, warmed by music, talk, and the rustle of courtly fabric.
Now—
the fire in the wide hearth struggled.
Its flames burned low and careful, as if the wood itself felt guilty for being used. The banners on the walls were faded, edges frayed. The chimera of Vanhart's crest looked less like a proud guardian and more like a watcher that had not slept in too many years.
Dust did not dare settle here—not in the hall proper—but Kel saw the faint absence of shine on the floor polish, the weary smoothness of stair railings. Servants moved with the quiet speed of people who had learned to stretch dwindling resources until bones creaked.
Count Vanhart had changed his coat before bringing them here.
The cut was still noble—dark, high-collared, embroidered in silver along the cuffs—but it hung a little loose at the shoulders. His hair, combed back, revealed deeper lines at the edges of his eyes. He sat in the high-backed chair that served as this hall's lesser throne, not quite at ease in it—like a man who had spent too much time standing.
Sera sat to his right, on a lower chair.
She wore the same clothes: a noble gown hidden under barbarian-fur cloak, an uneasy bridge between her two lives. Her posture was controlled. Her hands, folded in her lap, only trembled when the fire popped unexpectedly.
Kel, Reina, and Landon sat opposite, on a long bench cushioned just enough to mark them as honored guests rather than common mercenaries.
To Kel's left, Reina kept her spear leaned beside her seat, the shaft upright, one hand resting lightly near its midpoint. Her back was straight, legs composed, eyes tracing the room with calm calculation.
Landon sat at the bench end, near the main column. He seemed carved into shadow—broad shoulders steady, chin lowered a fraction, the kind of presence that told others: if anything enters this hall with ill intent, it must pass me first.
Servants brought tea.
Not the rich, fragrant blends of capital nobility. A thin, herbal brew, steaming faintly in simple clay cups. The Count lifted his with careful hands, as though aware that even this modest hospitality cost them something.
Kel accepted his cup but did not drink immediately.
The tea's surface reflected his eyes, dark and unbroken.
For a moment, the hall held silence.
The crackle of the hearth.
The faint clink of porcelain when Sera's fingers shifted around the saucer.
The distant echo of footsteps retreating down side corridors.
Then Kel set his cup down.
The sound was soft.
Nothing about his posture suggested formality. One leg slightly forward, shoulders relaxed, cloak open to show simple but impeccably maintained clothing—a dark travelling coat layered over understated, well-tailored fabric. Yet the air around him had shifted.
Not oppressive.
Just unmistakably centered.
He lifted his gaze to the Count.
"Count Vanhart," Kel began, voice even, "may I ask something directly?"
The older man's eyes sharpened at the tone.
He recognized this carefully structured manner of speech—the kind not used by spoiled heirs, but by those accustomed to weighing rooms, words, and reactions.
"Anything," the Count replied. "After what you've done for Sera… I owe you at least honesty."
Kel did not look toward Sera.
He did not need to.
He could feel the way her breath hitched slightly.
He folded his hands loosely before him.
"First," he said, "about your… former friend. The viscount whose daughter was injured that day. What is the state of your relationship now?"
The question fell like a blade laid carefully, edge-down, on the table.
No thrust.
Yet a promise of sharpness if pressed.
The Count lowered his cup.
His fingers tightened for a heartbeat around the clay.
His gaze drifted, just for a moment, toward the faded chimera on the wall.
When he spoke, his voice carried years.
"Ruined," he said simply.
The word landed heavy in the hall.
Reina's eyes narrowed a fraction.
Landon's jaw flexed.
Sera's lashes lowered.
Count Vanhart continued, eyes still distant.
"On that day," he said quietly, "his daughter lay screaming while my guards bled on the floor. My daughter ran. My brother stood by, watching with… that look on his face. And I…"
His lips twisted.
"I moved too late."
He drew in a breath, long and slow, as though pulling cold from his lungs.
"The viscount and I had been friends since youth," he said. "We sparred together. Rode together. Survived more than one stupid duel together. We swore our children would never have to endure the same stupidity."
A faint, humorless huff escaped him.
"Fate," he said, "has a sense for irony."
Kel watched him without blinking.
"What happened after?" Kel asked.
The Count's gaze returned to him.
"The moment Sera ran," he said, "the viscount's grief became rage. I understand that. His daughter's legs… shattered. Blood on noble stone is hard to ignore."
His fingers drummed once on the arm of his chair, restrained frustration cracking through.
"He blamed Sera," the Count went on. "Then he blamed me. Said I had turned my own heir into a weapon. That I had fed her forbidden potions to gain advantage, to showcase superior bloodline in a mere friendly match."
His eyes darkened.
"You did not," Kel said.
It wasn't a question.
The Count's answer came with a harsh exhale.
"No. But it did not matter."
His hand closed.
"The court needed a villain. The viscount needed somewhere to place his grief. The Empire's northern council needed an example."
He gestured vaguely toward the window, where fields lay pale and wasted.
"Here it is."
Sanctions.
Lost trade.
Social isolation.
Kel's fingers tapped once against the table, the movement so tiny most would miss it.
He did not.
"I tried," the Count continued. "I swore Sera would never misuse such power again. I offered compensation. Marriage alliances. Trade contracts shifted in his favor."
He shook his head.
"It was not enough. Or perhaps," his mouth twisted, "it was never about being enough. Perhaps the moment my daughter's strength became a threat text could not neatly summarize, the outcome was decided."
Kel's eyes flickered—just once—at that.
Strength that defies narrative always frightens those who control it.
"Does he still… move against you?" Reina asked quietly.
It was the first time she'd spoken since they entered the hall.
The Count looked at her.
Her spear.
Her composed posture.
He answered.
"He does not need to," he said. "He stopped demanding anything from me three years ago. He stopped speaking to me. Stopped sending letters."
His jaw set.
"He moved his influence elsewhere. Backed rival merchants. Whispered in council ears. Stood silent when rumors spread about Vanhart 'harboring a cursed bloodline.'"
His gaze returned to Kel.
"My lands began to wither. Trade routes were diverted. Caravans stopped passing through. They say it is coincidental. That it was merely a matter of coin and convenience. But…"
He gestured again toward the window.
Kel didn't need him to finish.
The land itself answered.
Hunger.
"Does he know Sera lives?" Kel asked.
The Count paused.
"I do not know," he said. "We… stopped exchanging truths long ago."
Kel's brows lowered slightly.
Interesting.
If the viscount believed Sera dead, his narrative remained simple. If he suspected otherwise—if rumors of a barbarian chieftain with unnatural strength reached him—that could twist into something more volatile.
Kel said nothing more on that.
Not yet.
He shifted.
His gaze sharpened, the question turning.
"Then," he said softly, "where is your elder brother?"
Sera's hand tightened around her cup.
The Count stilled.
His eyes, already shadowed, darkened like coals covered in ash.
"In prison?" Reina suggested quietly.
"Dead?" Landon added, tone flat but eyes attentive.
The Count slowly shook his head.
"No," he said. "Neither of those would be so… tidy."
Kel's expression did not change.
"Then where."
The older man met his gaze.
"My brother," he said, voice suddenly edged, "is very much alive."
His fingers dug into the wood of his chair's armrest.
"And he is with—call it what you might—the faction that watched my house crumble and found the view entertaining."
Sera's jaw clenched.
"You mean…" she began.
"Yes," the Count said roughly. "The viscount. His allies. And perhaps others who have found it useful to claim they wish to 'manage uncontrolled bloodlines in the North.'"
Kel felt a flicker of cold coil under his sternum.
Not emotional.
Calculative.
"Explain," he murmured.
Count Vanhart laughed once, bitter and quiet.
"My elder brother," he said, "was always brilliant with the blade and poisonous with the tongue. War hero in his youth. Decorated. Lauded. But never quite first in line. Always 'the spare.'"
His gaze softened for a fraction, remembering.
"Father loved him," the Count said. "But tradition is tradition. The estate went to me. The heir. He received dueling invitations and medals. I received land and responsibility."
He looked down, a faint, tired smile tugging at one side of his mouth.
"He took it better than some," he said. "Or so I believed."
Sera's lips pressed together.
"He asked to train me," she murmured.
Her father's shoulders sagged slightly.
"Yes," he said. "He asked to guide you. Said a future leader needed not just books, but strength. I thought… it was his way of investing in our line. Of accepting his place by guiding the next."
Kel saw the lie there.
The one the Count had told himself for years.
"The potions," Kel said.
He did not phrase it as a question.
The Count nodded once.
Slowly.
"I did not know," he said. "Not then. I trusted him. By the time I suspected something, it was already the day of the match."
His hand lifted, half-reaching for something in the air before falling back into his lap.
"And after?" Kel asked.
The Count's eyes hardened.
"After," he said, "the investigation into Sera's… condition revealed tampering. Forbidden enhancers. I pressed. Quietly. I asked him. Alone."
His voice dropped.
"The look he gave me," he said softly. "Not guilty. Not ashamed. Just…"
He exhaled.
"Disappointed."
Sera's fingers trembled.
"He told me," the Count continued, "that 'vessels who cannot endure strength have no right to inherit it.'"
Reina's grip on her knee turned pale-knuckled.
Landon's aura prickled faintly.
Kel's eyes narrowed, a shadow passing like a blade in dark water.
"My brother," the Count said, "wanted proof. Proof that the Vanhart line could wield something beyond normal human limits. That we could be indispensable in the North—not for our diplomacy, not for our stability—but for our power."
Bitterness sharpened his next words.
"The match was his test."
He looked at Sera.
"She survived it," he said. "But of course… survival wasn't enough. Not when the Empire's noble etiquette shattered with bones that day."
His gaze drifted.
"He left soon after the sanctions fell," the Count said quietly. "Joined a coalition of 'concerned northern lords' who felt my handling of the incident was weak."
Weak—for refusing to weaponize his own daughter.
Weak—for refusing to blame a child instead of the man who broke her.
Kel's hands folded more tightly.
"Do you know where he is now?" Kel asked.
The Count shook his head.
"Rumors," he said. "That he serves as a 'combat advisor' to certain border forces. That he trains other heirs in what he calls 'awakening potential.'"
He looked up again, eyes haunted.
"I fear, Lord Kel," he murmured, "that Sera was not the last."
The hearth crackled.
Silence pressed against the hall.
Sera's shoulders had gone rigid, every muscle held under thin fabric like drawn bowstrings.
She spoke, voice controlled, but low.
"And you didn't have him arrested," she said.
Her father's eyes closed briefly.
"Yes," he said hoarsely, "I did."
Her breath stopped.
He continued.
"I requested inquiry. Took what evidence I had. Submitted it to our Duke. To those above him."
He swallowed.
"The report never fully surfaced," he said. "Vanished into higher archives. Those who might have moved… did not."
The shadows seemed thicker suddenly.
"Because," Kel said quietly, "someone in those higher levels found his 'methods' useful."
The Count didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The answer was already carved into the land outside.
Kel leaned back slightly.
The brazier light outlined his jaw, turning his expression into something carved from shadow.
"So," he murmured, "your friend turned his grief into politics. Your brother turned your heir into a test subject. Higher lords turned all of it into… opportunity."
He looked at Sera then.
Her eyes met his.
Cold.
Steady.
Not shaken.
Sharpened.
"Your curse," he said softly, "wasn't just some random cruelty from the world."
It was designed.
Applied.
Used.
Kel's gaze returned to the Count.
He did not smile.
He did not frown.
He simply adjusted his internal calculations.
Enemies.
Threads.
Paths.
Sairen's whisper ran through his mind—a faint ripple on unseen water.
You are walking deeper into a current that does not yet know your name.
Good, he thought back.
Then it won't be prepared when it hears it.
He looked again at Count Vanhart.
"We will need details," Kel said quietly. "Every name. Every meeting. Every letter you sent that never came back."
The Count stared at him, a faint, new light stirring behind the exhaustion.
"Why?" he asked, voice raw.
Kel's eyes lowered.
Then lifted again.
"Because," he said, calm and almost indifferent, "someone tried to turn your house into an example."
He paused.
"And I have never liked the people who write those scripts."
Reina's lips twitched, the ghost of a fiercer smile.
Landon's shoulders eased as if something finally made sense.
Sera—
Sera simply sat there.
Her hands had stopped shaking.
Her gaze was steady.
For the first time since returning, she felt not like someone crawling back to the scene of a crime—
but like someone arriving at the point where the blade had first entered…
ready to pull it out.