Chapter 134: An Old Dragon’s Tale

Emeric stared at it.

The system was usually more useful to him. But this felt like an excuse.

He almost laughed. Then he stopped, because the cursor blinked once more, and something else came through.

[Hazard level: Unconfirmed]

He leaned back and rubbed his face. Whatever else was true, a system that admitted it didn’t know something was a system that was paying attention.

Emeric told Isolde the next morning, in the library, with the door closed.

He gave her all of it. His hands wer shaking as he did so. He expected her to be frightened. She went very still instead, her hands flat on the book in her lap.

"The Sleeper," she said.

"You’ve heard of it?"

"Every child in the west has. It’s a bedtime story." She looked at the window. "My nurse used to say that if I didn’t eat my greens, the old dragon would wake up and take me. Father hated it. He said it was peasant superstition and had her dismissed for repeating it."

"Dismissed? That seems quite harsh for just a scary tale does it not?"

"He said a Rowan didn’t believe in fairy tales." She was quiet for a moment. "He said it very firmly. I remember thinking that was strange, even then."

Emeric waited.

"If the Crown’s own archivists have been counting the years," Isolde said slowly, "then Father would have known. He sits on the western council. He reads those reports." Her fingers tightened on the page. "He knew what Greyfell was when they handed it to you. He must have."

"Then why come here?"

"Because you didn’t die." Her voice was steady, but her eyes weren’t. "You were supposed to be a footnote. Instead, all you’ve done is rebuild and repair the estate.."

He took her hand. "I won’t let them trample on our dream of peace."

"I know." She squeezed his fingers. "I just wanted you to understand what we’re dealing with. They aren’t coming back out of love. They’re coming back because they smell something."

He nodded.

He has a few questions for Gaius.

His response would inform him of something else.

He found Gaius at the training yard, watching the knights run drills.

The commander didn’t look away from the line. "Baron."

"Commander. A question, and I want a straight answer."

Gaius’s jaw shifted, but he nodded.

"The garrison. Did the knights know what Greyfell was when they were posted here?"

For a long moment, the only sound was wooden swords on shields.

"Yes," Gaius said.

"All of them?"

"Most. The ones who didn’t have figured it out since." He kept his eyes on the yard. "It’s a punishment post, my lord. A knight who loses a duel he shouldn’t have started. A knight whose patron died. A knight who said the wrong thing at the wrong dinner. We all had a mark against us. Nobody posts a good man to a ruin."

"Including you."

"Including me." He said it without heat, the way a man states the weather. "I struck a noble’s son who had it coming. The Crown agreed he had it coming. They also agreed I couldn’t stay in the capital.

Emeric watched the knights. A young one dropped his guard and got a rap across the ribs. He swore, grinned, and got back in line.

"I’m not angry," Emeric said.

Gaius finally turned his head.

"Everyone else looked at these men and saw something to throw away. I look at them and see people who have spent years being told they’re worth nothing. That makes them the ones most likely to build something they care about." He paused. "They’ve already dug a marsh, held a herd and cleared a village of locusts. I don’t think they’re worthless."

Gaius said nothing. His face hardly moved, but he looked back at the yard a second too quickly, and he cleared his throat before he answered.

"The men will be glad to hear it, my lord."

"Then tell them."

"I’d prefer you did."

Emeric smiled. "Fair enough."

Dorn caught him in the corridor that afternoon with a ledger under one arm.

"A word, my lord. Something I noticed while going through the old accounts."

They stepped into the office. Dorn closed the door, which he had never done before.

"The Crown’s monthly allocation. A hundred thousand gold, on the first of every month, for as long as the records go back. It has never once been late. It has never been short. Through three barons, one imprisonment and two years of total collapse, it arrived every time."

"That sounds good."

"It sounds strange." Dorn laid the ledger open. "A government that cannot be bothered to build a road does not pay on time for twenty years. Not unless the payment is for something else."

"Silence?"

"Yes. They are paying to keep this place quiet and forgotten." He turned a page. "And one more thing. The original grant document, the one that put the title in your hands. It was signed by the Crown, but it was drafted by a petitioner’s office. The petitioner is listed as the Lord Chamberlain’s household."

"Whose household is that?"

"Lord William Siracha’s."

Emeric went still. The Queen’s uncle. Again.

"It could be routine," Dorn said. "Chamberlains draft many grants."

"It could be."

"But I thought you would want to know."

"Thank you, Dorn." He closed the ledger gently. "Keep digging and report back to me if you find anything new."

Dorn nodded, bowed and left.

That night, Emeric spread Graves’s map across the desk and weighted the corners with inkwells.

It was a bad map. The edges were guesses. Whole stretches were left blank, with notes like dense forest, unsurveyed or river course uncertain. The Hollowcrest was drawn from hearsay, and the lines grew vaguer the closer they got to the cave.

He needed to know what else was out there.

A dragon, maybe. A way out, maybe. A reason the Crown hadn’t simply taken everything back and burned it. Something in the soil, or the rock, or the forest. He didn’t know, and that was the problem. He couldn’t plan for a threat or an opportunity he couldn’t see.