Chapter 52: The hearing

Chapter 52: Chapter 52: The hearing

The public audience ended with the Duke’s formal decree: Allan was to remain in the capital, his movements restricted, under official watch. The nobles filed out already whispering about Oakwood’s rise and the three women who had stood a little too close to him.

The Viscount caught Allan by the arm before the hall had even finished emptying and steered him into a side corridor. Allan’s left side still burned with every step, and the bandage under his coat had gone wet again, but he kept his face blank and matched the Viscount’s stride.

Two turns, a narrow stair, a heavy door that locked behind them. The chamber beyond was smaller, its crystal lamps throwing hard light across a long table. Around it sat two viscounts, three earls, four barons, and a handful of knights in plain armor. Under other circumstances, it would have looked like the setup for a murder ritual. Allan knew better.

The Duke waited at the far end, without the formal distance his throne gave him. He looked like a man who had already made his decision and moved on.

"Lord Oakwood, the performance is over," the Duke said. "You can stop worrying. There are cultists among the wider nobility, and they needed something to watch. This is the real meeting, and it’s just us."

"Thank you, my lord." Allan gave a slight bow.

He didn’t sit. He told himself it was to keep the pressure on his wound from shifting, and that was true. It was also true that standing was the only way to keep his left side out of the table’s view. Instead, he took one slow look around the room and weighed each face.

Without waiting for the Duke’s permission, or for Lord Arclight to speak first, he walked into the middle of the room.

"The cult is older than it looks," he said.

The low murmuring around the table stopped, and every eye turned to him. A few of the knights slid their swords half out of their sheaths. Speaking out of turn was plain discourtesy to every noble present, and to the Duke most of all. But the Duke raised a hand and stopped them, letting Allan continue.

"This cult is unlike anything we’ve faced before. It doesn’t follow a god or a religion, and it isn’t a band of demon worshippers. It’s built around something far more dangerous."

He let that sink in.

"It’s built on the players. The heroes who changed the shape of this world long ago and then refused to leave it. Some of them never fully died. Their remnant power, their unfinished data, was preserved, and Kael’s faction harvests it. Kael, the guild leader of our state. That’s why their higher agents move like people who already know the board."

The murmuring started up again, louder this time. Nobody at the table had heard any of this before.

"How would you know about these players?"

The voice belonged to a baron near the middle of the table, heavy through the shoulders, with a ring on his right hand that bore the crest of a border house Allan recognized. There was no hostility in it, only more curiosity than anyone else in the room had shown.

"You’re a minor lord from a provincial holding who survived one attack," he went on. "That’s a long way from recognizing a cult, let alone these so-called players." He paused. "Unless this isn’t the first time you’ve seen it."

Allan met his eyes. "The S-rank adventurer who attacked my home fought with techniques that exist in no current bloodline record. The way he handled counterattacks, how fast he adapted, it all matched the old-record styles. I’m not theorizing. I fought him at full power."

The baron’s face gave nothing away. He sat back and let it drop, though Allan doubted he was satisfied.

"Then why you?" another earl asked. "According to our information, they’re targeting nobility. If that’s true, they should have gone after Lord Arclight, your lord of the state."

Allan smiled. "Good question, Lord Syntr. You’re right. So why me? A simple baron?" He held up a single finger. "There’s only one reason."

"My bloodline. The Oakwood line has ties to those old legends, the players." His voice dropped. "I’m ashamed to say this, but my father had dealings with the early cult, and the debt didn’t die with him. After the attack on the manor, they came for me specifically. Either I inherited the obligation, or they think they can force me to settle it."

The Viscount’s jaw tightened. Across the table, an older viscount had gone very still, both hands flat on the wood. He hadn’t asked a single question, and his silence weighed differently from everyone else’s. Heavier. Allan filed it away and kept talking.

"They’ll keep coming. Public restrictions might slow an ordinary enemy, but they won’t stop the cult. If anything, the scrutiny helps them. It shows them who’s watching and who isn’t."

An earl near the far end of the table spoke for the first time, his voice precise and collegial. "And your assessment of their current reach inside the capital itself? Purely as a tactical question."

Allan studied him. The question was too tidy. It sounded supportive, but it was built to find out how much Allan really knew before anyone decided how useful he was. "Far enough that I wouldn’t trust these walls with a specific answer," he said. "Anything beyond that, I’ll take to the Duke directly."

The earl smiled as though that was exactly the answer he’d expected, and that told Allan something too.

A younger baron leaned forward, a small scar at his jaw. "And the three women," he said. "I have information that one of them used blood magic."

Lord Arclight swallowed hard, a bead of sweat running down his temple.

"They’re under my protection," Allan said evenly. "That isn’t part of this discussion."

The baron seemed ready to say more, but a glance from the Duke ended it, and he sat back. He hadn’t accepted the answer, only stored it.

The Viscount still hadn’t moved from his place by the wall. He was watching his daughter’s name stay out of the conversation, and it was costing him. It showed only in the set of his mouth.

"Any more questions?"

No one spoke. The Duke looked around the table. "I have an important question. How much of yourself are you willing to spend to cut them out?"

Allan held the Duke’s gaze. By now the bandage had soaked through, and he could feel the wet cloth dragging at the edge of the wound. "I already paid once," he said. "At the manor."

The Duke let that sit, then turned to the table. "The public restrictions stay in force as cover. Lord Oakwood remains in the capital under visible watch and, in return, takes the first concrete step against the cult’s network." He faced Allan again. "The eastern edge of the capital. Old storage vaults that belonged to a minor order, long since dissolved. They’ve been empty for decades, but there’s been recent movement there, and it matches what you’ve described. You’ll look into it and report to me or the Viscount. No one else."

Allan inclined his head.

"And if what we fear turns out to be true, send word before you face it alone."

Allan said nothing. The Duke read the silence and didn’t ask again.

The meeting broke up. Chairs scraped, and the nobles drifted toward the door. A few glanced at Allan’s coat, where the stain had begun to show through the dark fabric. The earl who had asked the tidy question looked a half-second longer than the rest, and what Allan saw in his face wasn’t concern. It was the look of a man recalculating a timeline.

The Viscount was the last to go. "If rumors like the blood magic spread, you know what happens next. Right?"

Allan nodded.

"Tell Amelia yourself. She’ll take it better coming from you." He paused with his hand on the door. "This marriage will hurt you both more than it will ever bring you together."

Allan didn’t deny it. He didn’t need to.

The Viscount left, and the door locked behind him.

The chamber was empty. Allan pressed a hand to the bandage and felt the heat and the wet.

Then the System woke, and the notifications came one after another.

[Investment detected. Multiple high-value targets registered within the closed session.]

[Return calculated.]

[Delivery window: imminent.]

Allan read the lines again. He thought of the earl’s face on the way out, and of the baron who had stored away the answer he’d given about the women. Then he thought of the System, which had sat in that room the whole time, watching every face. "Multiple high-value targets" didn’t mean enemies. It meant returns.

If he played his cards right, he could earn enough to repair every bit of the damage. No, enough to build a whole new palace in place of the manor.

But that could wait. He wiped his fingers on the inside edge of his coat, pulled the fabric straight over the stain, and walked out.

The corridor was empty. At the far end, he could hear the ordinary noise of the capital: petitions, commerce, the open courts still running the public version of the day. But louder than any of it, the silver dragon’s words still echoed inside him. He had carried the key to her, and this was the last thing she said before she was free.

"The cult belongs to me... huh."