Chapter 202: The Key
"It is treason veiled in righteousness."
The dowager’s words fell like frost, coating the hall in stillness. The threat was subtle, but it clung to every syllable, telling that Leroy was not merely ungrateful, he was dangerous. Dangerous enough, perhaps, to warrant punishment.
The Dowager’s lips curved in something that was not quite a smile. "I loved you as a mother once, Leroy. But even a mother cannot abide a son who forgets his Emperor."
And with that, she retook her seat, leaving her accusation to writhe in the silence, a coiled serpent at Leroy’s feet.
Leroy clenched his fists at his side. He wanted to ask if that was why she allowed the death of her other sons.
He hid the bitter laugh that dared to escape his mouth. Here he thought that the dowager had been tied to help the sons who were murdered by the one on the throne, that she was helpless. But she had allowed her other sons to die, to protect her firstborn.
Are all mothers this way? Do they all love one son over the other?
The whispers in the hall hardened into a sharp, eager, and merciless chorus. A minister’s voice rose first, furious and precise. "Capital punishment. Make an example." Another barked, "Behead him at dawn! Let the empire see what becomes of those who would exalt themselves above the throne." Calls multiplied like ripples, each one hungry for spectacle.
The Dowager sat like a queen pleased with the harvest. She made no sound; she didn’t need to. Her hands folded in her lap, the faint twitch at one corner of her mouth said everything. The pleasure in her posture was slow and deliberate; predatory. She had set the snare, and the field now sang with the catch.
Her eyes glinted toward the Emperor, and in that glance there was a private triumph that tasted of iron.
The Emperor said nothing. He let the court do his work for him, to let the rhetoric rise and the call for blood drown out reason. Only his expression betrayed the truth behind the mask of imperial detachment: a small smile, barely a crease.
When his mother had praised him for his decision to let Leroy take over the investigation, it had not pleased him at the start. He thought she trusted Leroy more than she trusted him. But what a nuisance that decision had yielded!
To see a rival, someone who had worn the sword proudly and won reverence from the very people he’d defended, reduced now to a spectacle—this warmed something dark and old in him. The Emperor admired his mother’s cunning. He admired, too, the neatness with which the world could be ordered when one knew how to tug the right strings.
Around Leroy, faces shifted. Some smiled with the thin politeness of the opportunist, searching for where to stand. Others looked away, unwilling to meet the gaze of a man being chewed by rumor and verdict. The hall that had once murmured his honors now only catalogued his crimes.
Leroy stood rigid. The heat of shame flared and fell like a gale inside him, leaving coals beneath his ribs. He felt every insult and every lash laid upon him over the years, not only his father’s curses, not only the cold indifference of certain courts, but the small betrayals stitched into daily life... and more importantly, all the sufferings his wife had endured in his absence.
He knew for Lorraine to allow that cruelty to happen to Elyse, Elyse must have done something terrible to his wife. And... his absence had made her suffer. No one would have dared to hurt her if he was near.
And now... all of the shame and sufferings funneled and made sharp and undeniable in this single, terrible hour. He had bled in the borderlands for Vaeloria; he had brokered fragile peace; he had dragged men from ruin and forced kings to the table.
For this, the court would have him guillotined in the square.
But beneath the shame, something colder, harder, and infinitely clearer arose: a spark. It was not the petty flaring of fear. It was a promise. The spark of vengeance did not roar into blaze, not yet, but it took root, patient and clinical, like a surgeon’s hand mapping an incision.
Leroy did not raise his voice. He did not plead. He folded his hands once at his sides, the movement deliberate. The green in his eyes narrowed to steel.
They could call for his head. They could stitch their stories and hang them on the gallows. They could enjoy their spectacle. But Leroy’s mind moved faster than their tongues. He cataloged: witnesses to find, allies quieted so that they would not burn, pieces of evidence the Dowager had overlooked, people who loved power more than blood and could be turned.
He would not die as a dog. He would carve the reprisal slowly and precisely, an answer that would not be noise but an absolute correcting force.
The hall thundered with the ministers’ cries; the Dowager’s smile never left her lips. Leroy felt the spark kindle into purpose. Whatever the cost, whatever the hour, he would meet them on terms neither they nor their legends could foresee.
-----
The bloodbath had ended. Silence spread heavy through the library, broken only by the soft crackle of candles and the muffled sobs of children. Lorraine’s lashes fluttered as she pulled herself back from the mirror lake, reality rushing to meet her in a wave. She sat still, her fingers gripping the carved arms of the chair, as if anchoring herself to the present.
Around her, the four men in black moved swiftly, checking wounds, shaking shoulders, trying to rouse the fallen. Aldric, always unflinching, always steady, came to her side at once, his eyes searching her face as though making sure she hadn’t shattered in spirit.
The two boys, however, were past saving from heartbreak. They had crawled to Illyria’s lifeless body, their small hands clutching her gown as if they could will her back from death. Their cries echoed painfully against the high shelves, a sound too raw to belong in a place meant for books and whispers. Lorraine’s chest tightened despite herself. She pitied them; grief was a cruel teacher to meet so young.
One of the men in black straightened, signed urgently that he needed to return to his grandfather, and slipped away. Lorraine gave a single nod. "Go." Her voice cut through the air, final. She dismissed the others as well. "Leave me. I’ll call if I require you." One by one, they melted into the shadows, leaving only the three of them.
Lysander stirred with a groan, his lashes fluttering open. His gaze fell upon the gash along his side, and his face went pale as parchment. For a heartbeat, Lorraine thought he’d faint again. Her lips curved despite the blood, the death, the bitter weight of it all. That was her brother: fragile, fretful, so unbearably precious.
"Now what?" Aldric asked at her shoulder, his voice low, his eyes already calculating.
Lorraine dipped her hand into her pocket. Wood and metal scraped softly as she pulled out a key with a small wooden pass tied to it. She turned it over once in her palm, letting the colorful light through the stained glass, catch the engraving.
Aldric’s mouth curved into a grin, the first flicker of ease in the suffocating chamber. "How in all hells did you get this?"
Lorraine’s shrug was casual, almost flippant. "I’ve always had it tucked away—for emergencies. And now..." Her smile sharpened. "Now feels like the best time to use it."
Lysander, still clutching his wound as though it were mortal, limped toward them. His wide eyes darted between his sister and Aldric, as if fearing he was missing some conspiracy.
When both of them turned to look at him, he blinked rapidly. "Wh-what?"
Lorraine smirked, leaning back in her chair as if the world weren’t collapsing around them. "Lysander, you need to man up."