Chapter 195: I Made the Church Chase the Wrong Me

The first lie cost two crowns.

Raven placed the coins on the counter of an inn he had no intention of using.

"One room."

The man behind the counter looked over Raven’s shoulder.

"For how many?"

"One."

Valeria, standing literally beside him, raised an eyebrow.

Roland looked at the ceiling.

The innkeeper looked at Valeria, then Roland, then back at Raven.

"Just one?"

"Yes."

"Right."

The man took the coins.

Raven added, "How far to Morven?"

"About five hours north by road on horseback."

"Mercenary House?"

"Small, but yes."

"Contracts toward the border?"

"A few."

Raven nodded as though that were exactly what he had needed to know.

Valeria waited until they were outside before speaking.

"We’re not going to Morven."

"No."

"You’re not sleeping in that room."

"No."

"You just paid two crowns to ask a man how to reach somewhere we’re not going."

"Yes."

Roland walked several steps ahead of them.

"I’m starting to miss when you only wasted money on ammunition."

Raven looked at him.

"This is ammunition too."

Roland stopped.

"No."

"It works the same way."

"It absolutely does not."

Valeria smiled.

"Leave him alone. If we keep this going, he’ll probably explain that lies have calibers."

Raven kept walking.

"Depends on the lie."

Valeria stared at him.

"That was a joke."

"No."

"Somehow worse."

---

The second lie cost nothing.

At the Mercenary House in the next town, Raven spent nearly twenty minutes studying contracts heading north.

He accepted none of them.

He only asked questions.

Distances. Routes. Posts where horses could be changed. Which roads became unusable after heavy rain. Which companies usually traveled through the area.

By the end, the receptionist was convinced Raven was choosing between two northern jobs.

Perfect.

When they stepped outside, Roland pointed east.

"Our route is that way."

"Yes."

"Then how long are we going to keep walking north?"

"Until someone sees us leave."

Roland looked around.

Three mercenaries sat outside a tavern.

A merchant was unloading crates.

An elderly woman was feeding birds.

"Which ones?"

"All of them."

Roland sighed.

"Sometimes I forget you used to be professionally unpleasant."

Valeria corrected him.

"He still is."

Raven waited until they reached the main intersection.

Then he turned north.

They rode for almost an hour before leaving the road.

Roland was the first to object.

"This terrain holds tracks."

"I know."

"So the horses are going to leave a very obvious trail."

"I know."

Roland looked at him.

Raven waited.

Understanding arrived.

"You want them to find it."

"Yes."

"How far?"

"Three kilometers."

"And then you want it to disappear."

"Yes."

Roland smiled slowly.

"That I can do."

---

Three kilometers later, Roland started working.

Until then, Raven had mostly seen him follow tracks.

He was good at it.

Much better than Raven in open woodland.

Now Raven discovered that Roland also knew how to manufacture them.

Not simple fake footprints.

That would have been too obvious.

Roland dismounted beside a stream.

"If we actually wanted to hide, we’d enter here."

"Yes."

"So we don’t."

"Correct."

Roland led the horses over soft ground parallel to the water, leaving a clear trail. Then he stopped near a shallow drop, snapped off a branch, and rubbed mud across a rock.

Valeria watched him.

"What’s that for?"

"One horseshoe slipped."

Raven studied the mark.

"It didn’t."

"Now it looks like it did."

Roland pointed toward several broken branches.

"Three horses. One carrying more weight than the others. Moderate haste. Not enough to look desperate."

Raven nodded.

"Good."

Roland looked at him.

"That almost sounded like approval."

"It was."

"I’m going to need time to process that."

Valeria dismounted.

"When do we stop pretending we’re heading north?"

Raven checked the sun.

"Before the next stream."

"And then?"

"East."

"Directly?"

"No."

Valeria smiled.

"Of course not."

---

The third lie belonged to Valeria.

And it was better than Raven’s.

They entered a small trading house near a secondary road.

Valeria wore no visible insignia from her family, but she didn’t need any.

The way she spoke.

Her posture.

Her knowledge of contracts.

The way she could ask about prices without sounding like someone who needed to ask about prices.

People familiar with nobility recognized the signs.

Raven remained several steps away while she spoke with the owner.

"I’m considering buying better horses in Morven," Valeria said.

Raven didn’t react.

The man smiled.

"There’s an excellent breeder north of here."

"So I’ve heard."

"If you’re traveling there, you may want to wait two days. There have been problems with the bridge."

Valeria made a small displeased sound.

"That complicates our plans."

Raven almost smiled.

Our plans.

The merchant glanced discreetly toward him.

Good.

Valeria continued.

"Is there another route?"

The man explained two.

She listened, asked questions, and bought a small amount of supplies.

Nothing important.

Once they were alone again, Raven said, "Well done."

Valeria looked at him.

"That’s all?"

"Yes."

"I convinced that man we were going to Morven without lying to him once."

"You said you were considering buying horses there."

"I considered it for approximately three seconds."

"Exactly."

She smiled.

"So I learned."

Roland raised a hand.

"I still need the lesson."

Raven mounted.

"A perfect lie looks like a lie."

Roland waited.

"That was disappointingly philosophical."

"A useful lie contains enough truth that the other person finishes it for you."

Valeria nodded.

"They saw us ask about northern contracts. We rode north. We left tracks heading north. I asked about horses in Morven."

"And none of us ever said we were actually going there," Roland finished.

"Yes."

Roland thought about it.

"That’s irritating."

"It works."

"That too."

---

The Church found the trail the next day.

Raven knew because they split their teams.

Roland watched from a ridge through a small spyglass.

"Two groups heading north."

Raven waited behind him.

"How many?"

"Five and six."

"Priests?"

"One in each group. Light knights. One tracker."

Valeria sat against a tree.

"Elise?"

Roland kept watching.

"No."

Raven had expected that.

Elise wasn’t stupid.

She probably suspected Raven might try something.

But large organizations did not operate solely on one person’s suspicions.

Reports.

Witnesses.

Routes.

Orders.

All of that created inertia.

Raven had learned years ago that an organization could be easier to deceive than an individual.

You only needed to feed the right procedure.

Roland lowered the spyglass.

"There’s another group coming in from the south."

"How many?"

"Four."

Raven stood.

"That one."

Valeria looked at him.

"Why?"

"Smallest."

"That was obvious."

"It’s also the only one without a heavy knight."

"That was less obvious."

Roland put away the spyglass.

"Are we killing them?"

"No."

"Just asking for clarity."

"I need information."

Valeria stood.

"And if they don’t want to talk?"

Raven checked the Mk.I.

"Then the conversation lasts longer."

---

The small ecclesiastical squad took almost forty minutes to reach the location Raven had chosen.

Four people.

Two men in light armor.

One priestess.

One tracker.

Raven let them enter a narrow path between two natural rock walls.

Nothing elaborate.

He didn’t need an elaborate ambush.

Only control over where they could move.

Roland acted first.

A stone fell behind the group.

The tracker turned.

"What was that?"

Valeria sealed the forward exit with a wall of Blood Threads.

All four stopped.

The knight on the left drew his sword.

"Identify yourselves!"

Raven stepped out from behind a rock.

"Raven Ashford."

Silence.

The second knight started raising his weapon.

Raven pointed the Mk.I at him.

"No."

The man stopped.

Good.

The rumors were useful for something.

The priestess stared at Raven.

"You’re interfering with a Church investigation."

"Yes."

She clearly hadn’t expected such an easy admission.

"Then you know that—"

"I want information."

"We’re not authorized to—"

Raven fired.

Not at them.

The round struck the rock wall thirty centimeters from the knight’s head.

Stone exploded outward.

Silence.

Raven opened the breech.

Slowly.

"Now we’re negotiating."

Valeria glanced at him.

"That was dramatic."

"It worked."

The tracker raised both hands.

"What do you want to know?"

The priestess turned toward him.

"Tomas."

"I’m not dying over information that’s probably already sitting in three different files."

Raven pointed toward an open space beside the rocks.

"Sit."

---

It wasn’t an elegant interrogation.

It didn’t need to be.

Raven started with information that could be cross-checked between several people.

Routes.

Number of teams.

Who issued orders.

Then Elise.

The priestess resisted more on that subject.

Raven didn’t threaten her again.

He didn’t need to.

Valeria began asking questions instead.

That worked better.

"How long has Saint Veyra been working with the regional office?"

"Not long."

"Who usually requests her intervention?"

"The doctrinal council or episcopal authority."

"Does she directly command every inquisitor?"

The woman hesitated.

"No."

Raven stored that away.

Important.

Elise had prestige.

Not absolute control.

Roland asked, "Does Brother Halven always travel with her?"

"Almost always."

"Why?"

The priestess looked at him.

"Because she trusts him."

Raven continued.

"Known abilities."

She shook her head.

"No."

Raven’s expression didn’t change.

"I’ve already seen Halt."

Silence.

"I’ve seen her barriers."

Nothing.

"I know she uses Halo."

The priestess looked at him differently.

Raven understood.

Confirmation.

"What does it do?"

"I’m not helping you kill her."

"I’m not trying to kill her."

"You attacked her."

"She immobilized me."

"Because you’re—"

The woman stopped herself.

Raven finished for her.

"A monster? Corrupted?"

"Potentially."

"Then we still disagree."

Valeria stepped in before the exchange drifted further.

"No one here wants Elise dead. But if they meet again, understanding her abilities makes it less likely someone makes an irreversible mistake."

The priestess looked at Valeria.

"And I should trust that?"

Valeria smiled.

"Probably not. But it’s better than whatever he was about to say."

Raven didn’t argue.

It worked.

The woman explained part of it.

Halo was not a single barrier.

It was a mana structure surrounding Elise that reinforced different techniques. It could concentrate, redistribute, strengthen defense, and amplify purification.

She didn’t keep it at maximum output constantly because maintaining it consumed mana.

Raven listened carefully.

"When does she use it fully?"

"When she believes there’s a real threat."

"And when doesn’t she?"

"When people are nearby."

There it was.

Raven continued.

"Define people."

The woman frowned.

"What kind of question is that?"

"A specific one."

"Civilians. Wounded. Anyone unable to defend themselves."

"And if completing the mission requires risking them?"

"It doesn’t."

"Hypothetically."

"Elise protects them first."

The answer came immediately.

Not doctrine.

Experience.

Raven looked at the other three.

The tracker nodded.

One of the knights did too.

"Always," the knight said.

Raven looked at him.

"Always?"

"I’ve worked with her twice before. A corrupted creature escaped once because Saint Veyra abandoned the pursuit when it collapsed a house. She stayed behind pulling people out of the rubble."

Valeria looked at Raven.

Brackenford had not been an exception.

It was a pattern.

Raven kept asking.

What Elise did when someone surrendered.

Whether she executed prisoners.

Whether she pursued wounded enemies.

How she responded to orders that risked collateral damage.

The answers built a consistent image.

Compassionate.

Disciplined.

Dangerous.

And limited by choice.

When they finished, Raven stood.

The priestess looked at him.

"What happens now?"

"You leave."

She blinked.

"That’s all?"

"Yes."

"You’re not taking our weapons?"

"No."

"Horses?"

"No."

"Then why—"

Raven pointed toward the road.

"Because I want you to report what happened."

Valeria raised an eyebrow.

Roland smiled.

The priestess understood.

"You want them to know you could have killed us."

"I want them to know I didn’t."

That was better.

More useful.

---

They waited until the group disappeared.

Roland spoke first.

"That’s going to reach Elise."

"Yes."

"And the inquisitors."

"Also yes."

"Is that good?"

Raven picked up a length of rope he hadn’t even needed to use.

"Depends who reads the report."

Valeria approached.

"For Elise, it’ll be evidence that you’re still salvageable."

Raven looked at her.

"That isn’t necessarily good."

"I know."

Roland laughed.

Valeria continued.

"For others, it’ll be evidence that you’re confident enough to capture Church teams without killing them."

"Also true."

"And now they know we’re manipulating their routes."

"Probably."

Roland looked north.

"So the lie is over."

Raven shook his head.

"No."

"They know we can lie now."

"That doesn’t tell them which part was the lie."

Roland went quiet.

Valeria smiled slowly.

"That was unpleasant."

"Yes."

Raven unfolded the map.

The positions of several Church teams were already marked.

The north was crowded now.

The east much less so.

Exactly what he needed.

Valeria leaned over the map.

"So we go east."

"Yes."

"Directly?"

Raven looked at her.

She sighed.

"I had to try."

---

That night, Raven reviewed the information.

Elise had habits.

Everyone did.

She preferred capture over elimination.

Reduced her power near civilians.

Interrupted pursuits to treat the wounded.

Avoided large-scale techniques when collateral damage was possible.

Her Halo redistributed mana.

That explained the barrier.

It also suggested something.

If one section of the defense required more mana, another received less.

Raven wrote a single line in his notes.

Make her choose where the mana goes.

Valeria appeared over his shoulder.

"That looks concerning."

"It’s an idea."

"Your ideas usually become someone else’s problem."

Raven folded the paper away.

"That’s the objective."

She sat nearby.

"You’re not going to use civilians."

"No."

"I know. I just wanted to hear it."

Raven looked toward the fire.

"I don’t need to."

"Because you already know she’d stop."

"Yes."

"That still means you’re using her kindness as a weakness."

Raven considered it.

"It’s a limitation she chose."

"I didn’t say you were wrong."

"Then?"

Valeria watched the flames.

"I’m only saying you should remember that it’s also one of the reasons she’s still trying to save you instead of killing you."

Raven didn’t answer.

That was true too.

And useful truths remained truths even when they complicated things.

By the next day, the Church would still believe Raven was running.

That was fine.

Raven was no longer trying to escape the pursuit.

He was deciding where he wanted it to end.