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The castle interior swarmed with people who had fled the city.
Varkas slowly took in the faces of the locals, gaunt and haggard from weeks without washing, before pausing at a line of bodies laid out along one side of the hall.
There were soldiers in blood-soaked gambesons and men in plain clothes who appeared to have died in the uprising, arranged in neat rows.
“Is this the extent of the casualties?”
“N-no, Your Excellency. The soldiers who followed the Lord and the mercenaries he hired have been piled in the rear courtyard.”
An elderly priest in a black habit, kneeling beside the dead, gave his answer in a voice taut with fear.
Varkas nodded sharply to the knights waiting behind him.
“Go and verify.”
He swept a cold gaze across the hall. “The castle remains on lockdown. We will conduct a thorough investigation into everyone within these walls. Only those confirmed to have played no part in the treason will be permitted to leave.”
Frightened gasps rose on all sides.
Leaving the muffled weeping and terrified embraces behind him, he climbed the hall’s central staircase.
The Lord had met his end in his own bedchamber. When Varkas stepped into the large room at the center of the third floor, the thick, metallic stench of blood stung his nostrils.
Passing the dark crimson stains soaking the carpet, he approached a half-splintered desk. Scattered across its surface, smeared with blood and ink, lay a mess of parchment.
He gathered the sheets and skimmed them quickly. His eyes narrowed on a letter requesting military aid from an unknown party.
Across the blood-splattered page, desperate pleas were scribbled alongside marks that looked like military ciphers.
‘…A letter to allies? Or perhaps…’
He shifted his gaze to the bottom of the missive.
In the recipient field, the name “Grizzly Bear” was written.
If this meant Bjorn Blodar Heimdal, the assumption that the leaders of the Northern rebellion had taken refuge here in Tarlin was completely mistaken.
Varkas roughly ran a hand through his hair, set the parchment aside, and began searching the desk drawers for further traces.
Just then, Daren spoke from the doorway.
“Did you turn up anything, Your Grace?”
Looking down into an empty drawer, Varkas shook his head.
“Not yet.”
“I had some luck on my end.”
Daren righted an overturned chair and dropped into it.
“The men found crates of gold coin in the cellar. Given the look of it, it’s payment for shipping military supplies to Balto.”
Letting out a heavy sigh, he added, “On top of that, there were five or six Northerners among the Lord’s hired blades. Almost certainly rebels brought in to handle the smuggling.”
“Any survivors?”
Daren shook his head.
“Those loyal to the Lord were nearly wiped out. A few from his inner circle survived—the head butler and some guards—but I doubt we’ll get anything useful out of them easily.”
“Interrogate them until they give up everything they know,” Varkas said, stepping away from the desk without inflection.
“If we let this pass, it will only happen again. I will deal with every traitor harshly to make an example of them. Interrogate everyone in this castle without exception, and turn the place inside out for anything that might serve as proof.”
“Understood.”
Daren answered in a low, somber voice, then rose and left the room.
Varkas searched the bookshelves a little longer. Concluding there was nothing more of note to find, he left the wrecked bedchamber and stepped into the quiet corridor.
Through a shattered window, a familiar scene caught his eye, and his steps halted.
In a corner of the garden, bathed in the sharp glare of late autumn, yellow roses bloomed thick and bright. He stood frozen, staring at them for a long while, before finally tearing his feet away to banish the phantom image of her that flickered through his mind.
Despite days of brutal interrogation, they could uncover no lead on the rebels’ main base.
Once it became clear the Northern leaders were not in Tarlin, Kylias led his knights toward an estate to the north.
He seemed to be gambling that Bjorn was hiding nearby. Varkas, however, was certain Bjorn had already slipped away and vanished without a trace.
‘Considering the sheer volume of military supplies they bought from the East, his faction is far from broken.’
Now that they had secured what they needed, they would have pulled back into the North where their influence remained rooted.
Varkas frowned as he turned the pages of the newly recovered smuggling ledgers.
A question lingered: with every major city lost and even Amasec fallen, where had they obtained such staggering sums?
The North possessed vast mines and virgin forests, but every trade route had been severed as soon as the war began.
Smuggling alone could not sustain war funds of this scale. It raised the suspicion that lords from other provinces were secretly bankrolling them.
A dull ache throbbed in his temples. He tossed the ledger onto the desk, leaned back against his seat, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
The moment he weighed the possibility of another faction intervening, the tangled web of motives grew dizzying.
The most likely collaborator was Valis, lying to the west.
The people of old Valis, settled in the northwest, had never abandoned their desire to break free from the shadow of their ancient enemy, Ribadon.
Nor could Dristan be dismissed. The Dristan people in the southeast of the Robiden continent still nursed deep grudges against the Wedonians to their west. They, too, were likely biding their time for independence.
A century and a half had passed since the death of Emperor Dorian. An empire forged from ten disparate peoples now stood upon a knife-edge that could shatter at any moment.
‘…A third power seeking liberation might be pulling the strings behind the scenes.’
Perhaps that was why the peace negotiations were dragging out so interminably.
Letting out a weary breath, he turned toward the window, where the first gray light of dawn was beginning to bleed into the sky.
Another night had slipped away into insomnia. A faint tremor ran through his limbs, heavy with exhaustion.
He clenched his fists to steady them and forced himself to stand. A dull numbness crept through his arms, his shoulders, and the nape of his neck, though the pain had not yet registered in his mind.
Only a cold, detached instinct warned him that his body would give out if he did not rest soon.
‘I will have to get sleeping draughts soon.’
For now, he could endure. Having coldly measured his own limits, Varkas picked up his discarded cloak and stepped outside the command tent.
Along the battlements, the bodies of prisoners hung at even intervals.
Over the past few weeks, thirty vassals alone had been put to death. It was the cost of uncovering that most of the lords and officials throughout the Northeast were tangled in treason.
A gaping void now sat at the heart of the Northeast’s governance. Filling those seats quickly was a pressing demand.
Varkas ran through a short list of candidates in his head. He intended to name a new lord while pressing forward with Raina’s marriage.
If his sister refused the match to the end, posting Lucas here was another path.
There was no better testing ground than Tarlin to learn the realities of rule; letting him prove himself here before making the succession official had its merits.
Weighing the possibilities, he unhooked the waterskin from his belt and wet his parched throat.
Just then, a commotion rose near the castle gate.
Turning his head, Varkas frowned as he saw Beirof sprinting toward him in disarray, not even fully armed. At the sight of his aide’s panicked face, a chill ran down his spine.
“Your Grace, an urgent dispatch from Kalmor!”
The man shouted, breathless, as he skidded to a halt before him. Varkas pushed off from the wooden railing he had been leaning against.
Beirof thrust forward a small roll of parchment, his voice trembling with barely suppressed fury.
“You must return at once. Master Lucas has been grievously mauled by the Grand Duchess’s wolf!”
END