Chapter 65: Long island

Chapter 65: Chapter 65: Long island

The Duke’s eyes stayed on him for several seconds after the last threat. Then the sharpness eased, not fully, but enough that the room no longer felt like a blade pressed to the throat.

"You negotiated with them and walked away," the Duke said, quieter now. "That is either arrogance or calculation. I have decided it is the latter for the moment."

He opened a drawer, drew out a single folded sheet, and slid it across the desk. The paper was heavy, the ink still dark.

"The plague has reached the Empire’s capital. Long Island. The Emperor’s own court. Healers are failing. Nobles are dying behind closed doors. And this face was seen inside the outer walls three days ago."

He turned the sheet. The sketch was clean, professional, unmistakable even in charcoal. Kael. The former guildmaster. The same woman who had ordered the attack on Oakwood, who had walked away while the manor burned. Rogue now, operating alone according to every report Allan had forced from Diva.

Allan looked at the sketch, then back up. "What of it?"

"A bounty. One hundred thousand gold. Dead or alive, though the court prefers the latter if possible. The Emperor’s seal is already on the writ. Anyone who brings her in will never need another coin for the rest of their life." The Duke’s mouth curved, almost amused. "You could take it. You already know her face. You already know how she moves. You could leave tomorrow for Long Island and return a very rich man."

Allan shook his head once. "No."

"No?"

"I am busy serving you, my lord. That is the work I prefer."

The Duke studied him a moment longer, then the smile returned, small and genuine this time.

"Well answered. Rest then. Let the wound close. Spend time with those women you keep calling assets. You have earned a few quiet days, but with a strong caveat: when the forty-eight hours end, I will expect the map in time, or a very good reason it did not arrive."

Allan rose carefully. The ache was still there.

"Understood, my lord."

He bowed and left.

The door had not fully closed behind him when the Duke’s voice reached the assistant waiting in the outer corridor.

"Increase surveillance on Lord Oakwood. Ten times the current detail. I want to know who speaks to him, who watches him, and every letter that leaves that house. Quietly."

Allan heard none of it. But he expected it. Which was the same thing.

He was halfway across the outer court when a hand closed on his sleeve and pulled him into the shadow of a pillar. An earl. Middle-aged, soft around the middle, eyes too sharp for the polite smile he wore. The same man who had sat with Viscount Arclight when the first talks of a new guild had begun, using the scattered adventurers left after the old guild had been dissolved in this state.

"Lord Oakwood," the earl said, voice low.

"Yes?"

"I heard rumors, rumors that you and the Duke are close. Very close."

Allan looked at his greedy eyes for a moment. "What gave that impression?"

"You walk out of the Duke’s private office like you own the place. What did you sell him? Your soul?"

Allan freed his sleeve without force. "Nothing so expensive."

The earl’s smile tightened. "Okay, that might be a talk for the future. I came here to tell you: the gold is already managed. The Viscount started construction on the new guild hall already. Foundations are down. Contracts are signed. Yet you sent word to stop everything. Why?"

Allan fixed his collar and his voice, knowing what he was going to say would not be satisfying to the one receiving the information.

"Because the Adventurer’s Guild was never strong because nobles built it," Allan said. "It was strong because it belonged to the people who walked into dungeons and came back with scars. If the crest on the door is a noble’s, half the ranks will walk away before the first board is nailed. They will call it another house’s private army and refuse the contracts."

"What? They still need a job, they still need our gold, and they still refuse our mercy?"

"None of those." Allan said. "It’s just pride and arrogance."

"Then we proceed? They can’t stop us?"

"Oh, they can, and they will, if we continue like this."

The earl gulped, his tone growing cool. "I held my end of the bargain. You will hold yours. That’s all I am going to say."

Allan stepped closer, voice dropping so only the earl could hear.

"Look at the hidden papers again. The guild will exist. The gold will flow. The land will be secured. But the name above the door, the public charter, the seat on the ranking board, those will belong to a trustworthy commoner. Someone the ranks already trust. Someone who cannot be accused of serving any house. The real ownership stays with us. Quiet. Clean. No one rejects what still looks like theirs."

He let the words settle. The earl’s eyes flicked once, calculating, then the passive edge eased.

"You should have said that from the beginning."

"I am saying it now. But no words should spread about any of this."

He nodded. They stood in the shadow a moment longer. Voices carried from a small knot of lesser nobles near the fountain, two men, one woman, speaking with the careless volume of people who believed no one important was listening.

"...confirmed it this morning. The Garden of Eden. The real location. Golden apple and all. Maps are already circulating in the lower markets..."

Allan’s head turned before the sentence finished.

He left the earl without another word and crossed the distance in three strides.

"Where?" he asked the speaker, a thin man with ink-stained fingers. "Who gave the whereabouts?"

The man blinked, surprised to be addressed by someone in the Duke’s colors.

"It is already public news, my lord. Couriers from the southern ports brought it. Three different sources. The old sealed maps match. Everyone knows by now. You can check yourself if you want."

Allan stared at him for a heartbeat. Only he was supposed to know that location. In the game it had been buried under layers of false leads and dead explorers. No player had ever reached it cleanly. No NPC had ever spoken of it in open daylight.

He turned on his heel, left the court, and did not stop until the carriage was already rolling toward the lower city, leaving the earl confused.

The streets blurred past the window. Allan kept one hand flat against the bandage under his coat. The cut had closed enough that the bleeding had stopped, but every jolt of the wheels still sent a dull pull through the muscle. He ignored it.

Garden of Eden. Public. Circulating in the lower markets. That changed every calculation. In the game the place had been a late-stage trap layered under false coordinates and dead parties. Reaching it clean had been almost impossible. Now the coordinates were free information. Whoever had leaked them had either no idea what sat at the end of those maps or wanted half the Empire racing toward the same coordinates at once.

He knew the location. The real location. It was near the capital, on Long Island.

The carriage stopped two streets short of the manor. Allan stepped down and walked the rest of the way. The wound protested, but the street was quiet and the afternoon light was already sliding toward evening. He needed the walk more than he needed comfort.

The manor door opened before he reached it. Seris stood in the frame, eyes already scanning the street behind him. Lira was at the window. Amelia waited in the hall, still in the same dress she had worn when her father arrived. Bela’s door remained closed, but the faint scent of reagents drifted from the side chamber.

Allan stepped inside and shut the door himself.

"We are leaving," he said.

Seris’s hand went to the knife at her belt. "Where? When?"

"As soon as the wound will let me ride without tearing open. Pack light. Weapons. Coin. Whatever Bela can finish in the next day."

Lira crossed the room. "Where are we going, though?"

"A trip. Near the capital. It will be quick."

Seris frowned. "We are in the capital."

Allan met her eyes.

"Not the capital of this state. The capital of the whole Empire. Long Island."

Silence held for a full breath.

Amelia’s voice came quiet and steady. "For the guildmaster, the rogue cultist Kael."

Allan stopped, surprised at how Amelia had gotten that information. Maybe her father. He didn’t know.

"Among other things." He did not elaborate. The Garden of Eden was not a name he intended to speak aloud until the doors were locked and the shutters closed. "The Duke gave me leave to rest. We will use it. The cult’s forty-eight hours are still running. We will not be here when they return."

Seris nodded once. Lira was already moving toward the stairs. Amelia’s gaze lingered on his face a moment longer, then she turned to gather what she needed.

Allan walked the length of the hall and stopped outside Bela’s workroom.

Knock! Knock!

The door opened at his knock. The alchemist looked up from a table covered in glass and drying herbs. Her sleeves were rolled past the elbows. A thin trail of green residue marked one wrist.

"How long until the wound stops bothering me?" he asked.

"Two days if you stay still. One if you insist on riding." Bela wiped her hands on a cloth. "I can mix something that keeps the tissue from tearing, but it will not make the pain disappear."

"One day. Make it."

She did not ask where they were going. She only nodded and turned back to the table.

Allan closed the door and went upstairs. His own room was still ordered the way he had left it that morning. He pulled the travel pack from under the bed and began stripping the excess.

Two changes of clothes. The short blade. The coin pouch that held the Duke’s last advance. The sealed letter of passage that still carried the Oakwood crest. Everything else stayed.

Seris appeared in the doorway without sound. She carried her own pack already closed.

"How many are coming?" she asked.

"All of us. Lira and Amelia. Bela if she can finish the compounds before dawn."

"Amelia’s father is still in the city. Will he let her go?"

"He will not follow. Not this far. And not without knowing where we are going."

Seris stepped inside and shut the door. "Wait. You heard something in the court."

Allan fastened the pack and sighed, deciding to finally reveal it.

"The Garden of Eden is no longer a secret. Maps are in the lower markets. Couriers from the southern ports. Three sources. The location is public."

Her expression did not change, but her weight shifted onto the balls of her feet the way it did before a fight.

"It was supposed to be a myth, so it is real."

"It used to be. Someone dug it up." He looked at her. "Kael is already inside Long Island. The plague is inside the Emperor’s court. The Duke offered me the bounty on her. One hundred thousand gold. I turned it down, but we will use that as our cover to go there."

"Why? Why did you turn it down?"

"Because taking it would put us on the Empire’s leash instead of the Duke’s. And because the Garden won’t wait for us. If half the adventurers and half the noble houses start racing for the same coordinates, the cult will not be the only problem waiting there."

Seris was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Lira will want to know the real destination before we leave the state."

"She will know when the doors are locked and the shutters are closed. Not before."