Chapter 355. Now, They Were Awake to the Sound of the Drums

The brief, whispered exchange between Ellie and Clara passed unnoticed by the rest of the room. The royals were too far gone, drowning in their own histories of grief and betrayal.

Yet, William caught the tail end of it from the corner of his eye. For a heartbeat, he felt a flicker of something almost foreign: gratitude.

In a room that felt like it was being crushed under the atmospheric pressure of centuries of accumulated misery, that tiny spark of human absurdity—those ridiculous, desperate needs for stationery—was the only thing preventing the entire space from collapsing under its own gravity.

But the reprieve was short-lived. The heaviness returned, thicker than before, as the silence stretched.

William knew he couldn’t let the moment pass. The question had been clawing at the inside of his skull since he first heard the specifics of the treaty, and it demanded release.

"Your Majesty," William said.

His voice was quiet but carried a honed edge, cutting through the residual echoes of Isolde’s confession. He chose each word like a soldier selecting a weapon.

"If you would permit it, I have a question that has been troubling me since I arrived."

Theron turned his tired, silvered gaze toward him. "Speak, Instructor Wade."

"Has there ever been a formal, independent investigation into the actual cause of the crisis itself?" William asked, leaning forward slightly. "The failed harvests, the blight, the plague."

"Was there ever a true attempt to find the source, or was everything simply accepted as an act of God in the desperate panic of the moment?"

Theron blinked, clearly caught off guard. He looked as though William had asked him to explain the movement of the stars.

"I confess," the King said, his voice rough with exhaustion, "I have never seriously considered the possibility that it could have been anything other than natural misfortune."

"The soil failure was attributed to a severe blight, something our agricultural scholars documented in historical cycles, though admittedly never with such devastating ferocity."

"And the plague... we assumed it was the inevitable consequence of malnutrition."

"A starving people have no defenses against common illness."

"But no one looked deeper," William pressed, his tone gentle but unyielding, like a surgeon probing a wound. "No one asked why the blight struck with such unprecedented, surgical severity in that specific year."

"No one asked why the plague spread with such unnatural speed and lethality, far outpacing any outbreak in our recorded history."

A profound stillness settled over the table. Theron went silent, something shifting behind his eyes, a slow, painful dawning of recognition.

The question wasn’t just a question; it was a crack forming in the foundation of everything he believed about his reign.

"No," Theron admitted finally, the word sounding like a confession of guilt. "We were consumed by survival."

"We were drowning, Instructor Wade."

"When you are fighting for air, you do not stop to ask why the water is rising."

"By the time we had stabilized enough to breathe again, Delmore’s aid had already arrived."

"The crisis was resolving itself, and the matter simply... faded from our urgent concern." He paused, his brow furrowing as he fixed William with a hard, searching stare. "Are you suggesting, Instructor Wade, that the catastrophe itself might not have been an accident?"

William didn’t flinch. He didn’t offer a conviction, only a dangerous possibility.

"I am suggesting that it is worth asking the question. I have no proof... and I have no documents, no witnesses, no evidence of foul play."

"But I have spent enough of my life in the company of predators to recognize when a crisis and its solution fit together with too much mathematical precision."

"I would feel considerably more secure about the future of Delmore if someone looked into the past even eight years after the fact."

Theron sat motionless for what felt like an eternity. His expression twisted through layers of discomfort: confusion, denial, and finally, a cold, dawning horror.

"I hadn’t considered it," Theron whispered, almost to himself. "In eight years, not once."

"I never questioned whether the disaster and the salvation were two sides of the same coin." He looked up at William, and for the first time that evening, the kingly mask was gone entirely, replaced by something raw and desperate. "If there is even a shred of truth to what you imply... if this was not fate, but something engineered..."

His voice trembled. "I want it investigated. Thoroughly."

"Whatever resources you require, Instructor Wade, you shall have them... Unrestricted."

William nodded slowly, feeling the sudden, crushing weight of the task settling onto his shoulders. He wasn’t just an instructor anymore; he was a man walking into a den of wolves.

"I will do what I can, Your Majesty."

The audience finally drew to a close as the evening light outside the towering windows bled away, replaced by an oppressive, ink-black darkness that seemed to press against the glass.

The room felt hollowed out, drained of energy by the sheer emotional carnage of the conversation. Everyone present bore the visible marks of exhaustion: shoulders slumped, eyes glassy, movements heavy as if they were wading through water.

Theron rose slowly, his joints popping audibly in the sudden quiet. Every movement of the king seemed to cost him something precious.

"We will resume this tomorrow," he said, his voice gravelly and depleted. "There is more to plan, more to consider regarding our next steps."

"But I believe we have all absorbed more than any human mind should be expected to endure in a single evening."

"Please, find rest. The guest wing has been prepared for you all."

The dismissal felt less like an invitation to sleep and more like a temporary reprieve from a battlefield.

Isolde reached out, pulling Kaela into one final, desperate embrace. She held her daughter with a strength that spoke of a mother trying to physically shield her child from an approaching storm.

When she finally pulled away, she whispered into Kaela’s ear, her voice cracking with an aching tenderness. "Sleep well, my darling."

"Whatever comes next... whatever horrors they try to impose upon us, we will face it together."

"All of us. I promise you that."

Kaela leaned into the touch for a fleeting moment, her earlier rigid, royal composure finally fracturing.

"I love you, Mother," she said, her voice small and vulnerable.

"I love you more than I think you’ve ever fully understood," Isolde replied, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

The procession toward the guest wing was silent, save for the rhythmic scrape of boots on stone and the flickering hiss of torchlight as they passed through the palace’s ancient, torch-lit corridors.

William walked a short distance behind Kaela, his eyes fixed on her. He watched the way she held herself, the spine straight, the chin lifted, and he could see the minute tremors in her hands.

He saw the visible, agonizing effort it took for her to maintain that facade of royal composure while her entire world was being dismantled. She wasn’t just tired; she was holding herself together by sheer force of will.

Once the group had settled into their respective quarters, a false sense of quiet descended over the wing. But for William, sleep was an impossibility.

His mind was a storm of implications: the conspiracy, the king’s desperation, and the target painted on Kaela’s back. He couldn’t simply retire. Not yet.

A short while later, he found himself standing before her door. He knocked softly, the sound echoing unnaturally loud in the empty corridor.

After a long, tense pause, the door creaked open.

Kaela stood there, still fully dressed in her formal attire. Her hair was slightly disheveled, and her eyes were red-rimmed.

She looked like someone who had been staring into a fire for hours, waiting for it to either warm her or consume her.

"I wanted to make sure you were alright," William said gently, keeping his voice low to respect the late hour. "Before I turned in myself."

Kaela studied him, her gaze searching his face. For a moment, the princess was gone, leaving only a young woman who looked utterly overwhelmed.

"I don’t think I’m alright, exactly," she admitted, a raw honesty breaking through her defenses. "But... I am considerably less alone in this than I would have been if I had faced that tonight by myself."

"That’s something, at least," William replied. "Solitude makes the shadows grow longer."

"It’s more than something... It’s everything," Kaela said, and for the first time that night, a small, weary smile touched her lips, a ghost of her usual self. "Thank you, Instructor Wade... for being here."

"And for asking that question at the end. About the investigation."

"I don’t think I would have had the courage to ask it tonight... I was too busy trying to keep from drowning."

William stepped slightly closer, his presence offering a grounding anchor in the darkness. "You would have gotten there eventually."

"You’re sharper than you give yourself credit for, Kaela. Even when the world is trying to blind you."

She let out a soft, tired laugh that sounded more like a sigh. "Maybe."

"But even sharp blades need time to be honed."

"Get some rest, Instructor Wade... Tomorrow promises to be just as heavy as today."

"You too," William said, his voice carrying the unspoken promise of a guardian. "Goodnight, Kaela."

"Goodnight."

As the door closed softly behind him, William stood in the dim corridor for a moment longer, staring at the wood grain.

The war hadn’t just begun; it had been raging around them for eight years.

Now, they were finally awake to the sound of the drums.