Ch#134
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The Woodpecker sun reached its most abrasive peak just as the season prepared to turn toward autumn. High above, the sky stretched into a vast, empty blue. Bert hauled himself upright, absorbing the full, blinding intensity of the solar glare.
“You lot, pick up the pace! You’re lagging!”
The air was heavy with a damp heat that clung to them. Rather than offering relief, the sweltering breeze served only to glue their tunics to their skin. The pages silently lamented their luck; if only Bert had traveled to Grimaldi with the Duke, they might have escaped this. Instead, their Vice-Commander remained firmly planted on the grounds, ensuring the summer drills proceeded without mercy.
The temperature was murderous. Bert found himself drenched in perspiration even while standing in what little shade existed.
He watched a figure approaching in the distance and decided it was time to end the torment. “Halt! We’re finished for the morning.”
“Excellent effort, everyone. I have pressing business to attend to, so I shall depart. Vice-Commander, oversee the conclusion of this session and lead them through an additional sword drill this afternoon.”
“Understood, sir.”
The knights pushed themselves up and offered Bert a formal Guard salute. A visible shimmer of heat seemed to radiate from their soaked bodies, blurring the air around them. Bert returned the gesture and exited the training field, making a direct line for the Mage waiting nearby.
“Is he conscious yet?”
“He is. He finally opened his eyes.”
Lev Zid had returned to the world of the living.
*
In her youth, that stone perimeter had loomed like an invincible citadel. Her small stature back then had lent it a sense of overwhelming scale. Now, however, it seemed ordinary. She wondered if its previous power had been a projection of the people within, or perhaps a deliberate psychological trick they had played on a child.
Adrina crossed the threshold.
Had she come back years ago—or even months prior—she would have lacked the resolve to face this place. The servants and guards who recognized her wore masks of uncertainty. Legally, her ties to Grimaldi were severed; she was a woman of Woodpecker now. There was no longer any requirement for her to bow her head in this house.
“I am here to see the Count.”
The head chamberlain fixed his eyes on Adi. These were familiar faces, people she had grown up around. Though they had once joined in the chorus of blame against her, they hadn’t been actively cruel in a physical sense. Consequently, Adi felt nothing but indifference toward them. They, conversely, seemed deeply unsettled.
She couldn’t fathom the source of their discomfort or the hidden meaning behind their lingering stares.
“Did you fail to hear me?”
“……”
“Announce my arrival to the Count immediately.”
“That is impossible. You have no scheduled audience.”
“We both know that had I requested one, you would have buried the petition.”
“His Excellency is not a man who avoids his duties.”
“Perhaps not. But I am well aware that his staff often fails to deliver messages they deem beneath him.”
She had spent a lifetime in these halls. She remembered how her every request had been ignored. She had once chalked it up to her own lack of worth, but she realized now it was a calculated campaign of silence. They had systematically erased her voice from every corner of the estate.
“Is there an issue?”
The power dynamic, however, had shifted.
“Regardless of your history… you cannot simply intrude. His Excellency is occupied with state affairs and has forbidden all unscheduled visitors.”
“Guard.”
Adi’s voice was flat. The chamberlain looked struck by confusion. He had never held the rank of Guard. Seeing his bewilderment, Adi clarified, “I wasn’t addressing you. I was telling you how to address me. Call me Guard.”
The man’s jaw dropped. The idea that Adrina Grimaldi would demand such formal professional respect from him left him speechless. Adi tilted her head slightly, her expression mocking.
“Are you unfamiliar with how to address an officer of the realm?”
“Certainly not. If the County employed a head chamberlain so ignorant of protocol, it would speak poorly of its reputation, wouldn’t it?”
“I must insist, His Excellency is—”
Adi didn’t wait for him to finish. She brushed past him as if he were an inanimate object, heading straight for the inner sanctum. He tried to obstruct her path, but the elderly man was no match for her momentum.
“Wait! Stop!”
Adi gave her arm a sharp shove. The chamberlain stumbled back several paces, his composure crumbling as he scrambled to catch up.
“One moment, Guard!”
He finally used the title, but it was too late. The door was already swinging open.
Adi’s eyes locked onto the Count, who sat behind his desk. Spencer looked up, his initial irritation at the intrusion sharpening when he saw her. He rose slowly, his face tight with displeasure.
“My apologies, Your Excellency. I attempted to bar her entry, but she forced her way in.”
“Leave us,” Spencer commanded.
As the chamberlain turned to obey, Adi’s hand blurred. She drew her dagger and sent it whistling through the air. The steel hissed past Spencer’s cheek as he flinched, burying itself deep into the masonry behind him. Spencer reached up to touch his face, his eyes darting to the weapon lodged in the wall.
The cut was so clean he hadn’t felt the pain, but crimson droplets were already beginning to surface.
“Your Excellency!”
Spencer raised a palm to halt the frantic chamberlain. He never broke eye contact with Adrina. Unfastening his cravat to staunch the thin trail of blood, he gave a final order. “Bring tea.”
“But, sir—”
“Tea.”
The chamberlain felt a cold realization settle in his gut. Despite the years of estrangement and the Count’s total lack of involvement in her life, the two were undeniably cut from the same cloth. Their cold, authoritative cadences were identical.
He bowed and retreated, though he left the door slightly ajar out of a sense of lingering dread. Both Spencer and Adi noted the crack in the door.
Adi knew there would be no more blood spilled this afternoon.
“You lack even the most basic manners.”
“I simply learned from the best. Is this house not the gold standard for cruelty?”
She crossed the room with measured steps and yanked the blade from the stone. Spencer resumed his seat. He could feel the warmth of the blood on his skin; facial wounds were notoriously messy. He kept the cloth to his cheek as he looked up at the woman standing over him.
Adi let the dagger fall onto the wooden desk. It clattered loudly, the rounded guard causing it to wobble before settling.
“I received the token Lev brought me.”
She watched his impassive face, a sneer curling her lip.
“Unfortunately for you, he survived.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re implying. Lev Zid was dismissed from my service.”
“I’m aware. He ended up in Woodpecker.”
Spencer’s eyes narrowed at the mention of the southern duchy. He had assumed the boy would flee to the capital or perhaps seek refuge at Pallesa Palace. He expected Lev to find a patron among the high nobility, but Woodpecker had been an unforeseen variable.
“You look genuinely surprised to find he was in Woodpecker.”
People often spoke of Spencer’s talent for manipulation, and in this moment, Adi saw the truth in those rumors.
“Did he commit some crime that required his death?”
“This steel,” Adi said, gesturing to the desk.
Spencer looked down at the weapon.
“I pulled that out of Lev’s chest.”
The blade was pristine. She had obviously cleaned away the evidence before returning it. Spencer mused that if he were in her position, he wouldn’t have bothered with such niceties; he would have returned the blood-stained metal as a blunt message.
“Save your breath. I know what you did.”
Spencer stared at the dagger for a long beat before looking back up. Seeing the rigid fury in her stance, he let out a short, dry laugh. “How incredibly naive.”
“If you were truly certain of a person’s guilt, you shouldn’t march in and announce it. You should leak a fragment of the truth and let them trap themselves with a confession.”
For a fleeting second, he felt a twinge of missed opportunity. Had he kept her here and molded her rather than shipping her off to Ionad, she might have been a formidable asset. They could have achieved so much more together.
“It’s a shame, really. But I wasn’t the one who ordered that strike.”
He felt the sting of a tactical error, but the past was set in stone.
“You expect me to take your word for that?”
“You know my reputation. I may withhold information, but I do not stoop to lying.”
He was simply moving on to a new strategy.
Spencer’s mind was already racing with his next move, and Adrina Grimaldi was the pivot point for everything to follow.
Adi leaned in. “Then explain why that man was left to bleed out in the Woodpecker woods with a knife in his back?”
The forest, the blade, the man.
Spencer was well aware of the events in Woodpecker. While forest fires were common enough, the total devastation of the southern woods was an anomaly that had set the rumor mills ablaze across the kingdom.
Putting the pieces together, the picture became clear.
“I see.”
Lev Zid had indeed sought refuge in the southern forest.
“So, you’ve decided I’m the one who started the fire.”
And the dagger was the proof, in her eyes, of a master betraying his servant.