Chương 290: 61. Severed Ties 1

The fire in the reception hall burned with a very dignified steadiness. That steadiness belonged to an entirely different world from the chaos on the walls outside, or the rot that had been spreading up the northern line for weeks. The hearth crackled and popped, its light reflected in the polished floorboards and dark wood paneling until even the air seemed to have been wiped clean—clean to the point of near-dishonesty. Lovely. Outside, men were using their bodies to plug holes in the wall.

Inside, someone was keeping the fire going to maintain appearances. This was probably what people meant when they talked about the elegance of noble politics—the ability to tidy the parlor while the corpses outside hadn't even gone cold yet. I pulled my gaze back and looked at Albert.

"We continue." Albert Grayson stood there, spine still straight, though his color had gone a shade whiter than before. The man's greatest talent was probably this: no matter how completely the sky was falling, he could always tilt his posture into the precise angle that said this old servant is entirely innocent. Impressive. Also the kind of thing that made you want to snap that spine off and use it for kindling. I watched him, my tone even.

"Albert. You just told me you were only following orders." Albert bowed his head immediately.

"Yes, my lord. This servant is merely the household steward—passing messages, making arrangements, never presuming to decide anything unilaterally."

"Oh?" I nodded.

"Then let me rephrase. If you never presumed to decide anything, why did the repair timber for the northeastern outer tower, on the seventeenth of last month, get redirected into the inner household stores—under your authorization—on the grounds that the inner residence's ceiling beams were loose and posed a risk to the family?" Albert's expression stiffened, just fractionally. A small crack. But today, I was specifically here for small cracks.

"That—that was because there was a genuine need for repairs within the residence at the time—""More urgent than the outer tower?" I cut him off.

"Or did you simply calculate that soldiers dying from Yanxia arrows outside the wall was at least a more dignified way to go than having the main corridor ceiling fall on someone?" Jessi, across the room, couldn't hold it in—she turned her head and produced a very carefully staged cough that fooled absolutely nobody. Albert's temple began to glisten.

"My lord, the ladies and the young masters and mistresses all reside in the inner wing. If the beams had truly given way—""If the outer tower had truly collapsed, the ones dying would be border soldiers, not family members—so you decided it could wait. Is that what you're telling me?"

"This servant would never dare—!"

"You say 'never dare' quite a lot," I said, looking at him.

"But every single time you 'never dare,' the outcome just happens to benefit the inner fortress, the main residence, and the people sitting comfortably inside it." Albert opened his mouth to smooth it over again. I didn't give him the breath.

"Next. On the twenty-second of last month, the night patrol rotation schedule for the northern section was altered. The third wall segment, originally assigned to an external company, was reassigned to two undermanned remnant units that had just retreated and hadn't been replenished. Who gave you that order to pass along?" Albert said immediately: "That was the eldest young master—" He heard himself, and immediately tried to walk it back.

"No—that is—what this servant means is, the eldest young master had mentioned that priority should be given to protecting the main fortress perimeter, and so—""And so you very helpfully pulled the intact troops back to guard the nearby area, and threw the remnants at the outer sections."

"This servant was only acting in the interest of the larger picture—""What larger picture?" I looked at him, my voice cold as a blade drawn slowly across bone.

"You're a household steward. You don't understand the larger picture. What you understand is the family's sleeping schedule, the wine on the table, and whose lives are most convenient to use as floor padding." The reception hall went so silent you could hear individual sparks snapping in the fireplace. Albert tried once more to find his footing. This was always the most fascinating thing about this type of person.

They didn't fail to recognize their own corruption—they simply believed that as long as they could frame corruption as duty, their seniority would carry them through.

"My lord," Albert said, drawing a breath, visibly deciding to deploy his most seasoned steward's authority, "you left the estate when you were young, and have been absent for many years. You may not fully appreciate how the border situation has evolved. Many decisions were not made out of a desire to neglect the outer line, but because if the main fortress, the command center, the stores, the family members, and the records all fell into disorder, the entire defensive structure of Thornhold would have unraveled.

What this servant did was preserve the foundation in the midst of chaos." There it was. His actual defense. Not denial. Transformation—turning himself into a necessary evil. Elegant. Also repulsive. I looked at him, and actually smiled.

"Preserve the foundation?" Albert's eyes flickered with something like hope.

"Precisely, my lord. If the inner fortress had fallen into disorder first, the outer line would have collapsed even faster. This servant only—""Do you know what 'the foundation' actually means?" The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I asked it one word at a time. Albert stopped.

"The foundation is not the main residence." I took one step forward.

"It is not the fireplace. It is not the wine cellar. It is not the ledger books, or those storerooms with the family crest on the door and nothing but rot inside."

"The foundation of Thornhold is the wall."

"The towers."

"The soldiers standing out there in front of everything else."

"The people you decided it was acceptable to short a little, delay a little, sacrifice a little." I held his gaze, my voice never rising—just running colder with each word, like a blade dragging slowly along the surface of bone.

"Without those people, the main fortress is just a very well-appointed building waiting to burn."

"Without that wall, no matter how dignified the name Rosa still sounds, it's just a surname waiting to be confiscated." Albert's lips moved, but nothing came out. Because this wasn't a debate about household administration anymore. This was the dismantling of his entire framework—the one that said protecting the family is protecting the foundation. Once that framework was gone, what remained was the ugliest version of the truth: He hadn't been protecting the foundation.

He had been protecting the people inside, by spending the people outside. I didn't stop.

"You said you only passed along orders. Fine. Then answer me this." I looked at him steadily.

"When the second young lady's side was running the two sets of books, which two ledgers passed through your hands before going into the inner study—and then back to the quartermaster's office with the corrections already made?" Albert's head snapped up. This time it wasn't a small flinch. His entire body locked. Because he knew this wasn't a guess. Someone had traced the path. His throat worked visibly.

"This servant… does not understand what my lord is suggesting."

"You don't understand?" I turned to Marcus.

"Quartermaster. Help him remember." Marcus reacted like a quail that had just heard its name called at a hunting party—he nearly went straight through the carpet onto his knees.

"M-my lord, I—""Speak."

"It was… two ledgers." Marcus's face had gone the color of old ash.

"One was the official ledger—shown to outside parties and the duty officers. The other was the secondary ledger. The secondary ledger was sent to the inner study for review, then returned through the steward's office, and the figures were adjusted according to the second young lady's instructions." A moment of absolute stillness fell over the hall. Then Albert's expression—the one that had been maintaining its practiced composure—finally came apart. Good. Down to the tendons. I looked back at him.

"You see? You weren't just passing messages."

"You were also routing ledgers. Altering ledgers. Deciding which version of the ledger each person was permitted to see."

"You are not some leaf blown wherever the wind takes it. You are the single person in this entire fortress who knew best which dirty cloth to press over which hole." Albert's lips trembled. At last, he lowered his head completely.

"... This servant only wished to preserve some options for the household."

"For the household?" I let out a short, cold sound.

"Or for yourself?" That sentence landed like the last nail. Albert's shoulders dropped—just slightly. Just enough. Because I didn't need him weeping on the floor. I needed him standing here, visible to everyone, so that no one in this room could walk away with the comfortable fiction that the steward was blameless. He wasn't a leaf in the wind. He was the cloth deliberately pressed over the wound—and he'd chosen to press it there himself. I didn't move to deal with him yet. Not out of mercy.

I was simply saving him. Today was still early. And there were far too many people who deserved consequences to rush. I raised my eyes to the portrait above the fireplace. The old man's expression hadn't changed. Honestly, I used to despise the way he looked at people. That particular gaze always carried something unreasonable in it—a sense of you still aren't quite what you should be.

But standing under that portrait now, looking at the floor, the table, the firelight, and all these evasive faces, I found myself thinking: if he could actually step down from that frame right now, he probably wouldn't reach for his sword first. He'd ask questions first. He'd demand to know how this collection of failures had managed to take a border fortification, a defensive line, and a family name, and reduce all three to something even dogs would find beneath their dignity.

I pressed the heat rising in my chest back down. No. Not now. Don't let it detonate. If I'd come back here only to be angry, these people would be getting off far too easily. Anger frightens people. But cold is what settles accounts. I pulled my gaze from the portrait and let my voice flatten back out.

"Albert. Step aside."

"You haven't finished answering for yourself, but you've given me enough to work with for now." Albert looked like a man who'd been hauled out of deep water—and then realized the shore he'd been pulled to was still inside the execution yard. He bowed and retreated half a step. That wasn't escaping with his life. That was merely trading a beheading for a slow wait. Now came the part that mattered more. I looked at Jurgen. The captain who had led the retreat had barely moved since the session began.

Compared to Albert and Marcus, he was the one who looked most like a man who already knew he was finished. That type was often the most useful. When a man no longer cares much about how he dies, he tends to be considerably more willing to take others down with him.

"Jurgen." He raised his eyes.

"Present."

"You said earlier that the eastern supply line broke first. That the order wasn't stated outright—but the second young master suggested prioritizing the preservation of the main force inside the fortress. The eldest young master raised no objection. The second young lady's side held back a portion of the arrow stock and fire oil."

"Yes." I nodded, letting my gaze drift slowly toward Chris and Boris. The two of them stood there. Chris was still maintaining the shell of the firstborn—though his color had deteriorated considerably since he'd walked in. Boris's eyes were far more erratic, his mind clearly running at full speed trying to calculate which sentence might buy him half a step of distance from the blast radius. A pity. Today wasn't a competition of quick tongues. Today was a competition of whose testimony outlasted everyone else's.

I didn't address them yet. I turned back to Jurgen.

"Walk me through that day. From the beginning."

"What hour, who was present, who spoke, who nodded, who didn't object, and who ultimately carried the order." Jurgen closed his eyes. When he opened them, what remained was a single, clean decisiveness. The look of a man who'd been dragged this far and decided he might as well say everything at once.

"That morning, the northeastern outer section had already lost two secondary towers. The third northern wall line needed arrows."

"When I entered the inner hall to request authorization, the eldest young master, the second young master, and the second young lady were all present."

"I reported that if the outer section wasn't resupplied, it would be breached before nightfall."

"The second young master asked first—how many mobile troops remained inside the main fortress."

"I answered that if we stripped the inner line completely, the main fortress guard and the inner residence defense would be dangerously thin."

"The second young master then said…" Jurgen's throat moved. He said it anyway.

"He said that if the outer section truly couldn't hold, we should at least pull back whoever could still be recovered rather than letting everyone die outside the wall."

"The eldest young master heard this and raised no objection."

"The second young lady said that if the stored arrows and oil were released all at once, the inner line would be left empty if the main fortress came under attack during the night."

"Later, the steward relayed a message—I was to hold whatever sections could still be held, and if the outer line collapsed, I was authorized to retreat at my own discretion." Every sentence came out flat. But the flatter they were, the sharper they cut. Because this wasn't a battlefield commander making a split-second call under fire. This was several people sitting around a table inside a warm room, finishing their calculations, and deciding which segment of human beings to release first. I turned to Chris.

"Anything you'd like to add, elder brother?" I said elder brother with complete evenness. But even I could hear that there was nothing left in it—not a trace of family. Only nausea. Chris's expression hardened. He finally spoke.

"You think you can condemn us on the testimony of a defeated officer and a few ledger books? That's remarkably presumptuous." There it is. The firstborn's dignity, finally finding its voice. I'd been waiting for this.

"A defeated officer?" I repeated the phrase, unhurried.

"Are you saying Jurgen is lying? Or are you claiming you weren't in the room?"

"I was in the room," Chris said through his teeth.

"But I did not order the outer line cut. I simply didn't immediately veto every proposal on the table. Given the situation, no one could guarantee which sections would hold."

"I'm the eldest. What I had to protect wasn't just a piece of wall. It was the entirety of Thornhold, the main keep, the command structure, the inner residence, the wounded, the remaining forces that could still fight and fall back and cover. If all anyone could say was 'hold to the last man,' that isn't bravery. That's stupidity." Ah. Of course.