Chương 74: Chapter 73 Edited

Cale I looked at Aiden.

"That's the easy question," I said quietly.

"The harder one is why an Auctor of the Blade was working for the Priest, and why he was most likely oath-bound to do it." Aiden and Marina exchanged a look, concern mixing with calculation. He looked back at me.

"Alright. Start talking, Cale." So I did. I told him how I entered the property. How the wards felt wrong from the beginning. How the structure suggested they were digging in for the long haul. I told him about my search through the main lodge, the fight with the other mercenaries, and how I came out of the building. I walked him through my initial contact with the Gravebound and how I caused a distraction.

This time I relayed the events without trimming details for bureaucratic comfort, with greater precision and candor than I had given to any official channel. I explained how I spoke to the Priest, how I threatened him, and how we started to fight. He wasn't someone I recognized, and his style was powerful and perfectly consistent with the Veskari and Veskari-trained fighters I had faced before. I told them about the cadence of the duel. The discipline in the Veskari's stance. The way he chose his angles.

The way he accepted defeat. And the way he handed me the blade. When I finished, the kitchen was very quiet. Aiden leaned back slightly, his eyes lifted toward the ceiling as if rearranging information into something that made sense.

"Has Bonnie found anything?" he asked. I shook my head.

"You would know more about this than I would. Though I've always found it strange how isolated the Veskari are. They spend half their lives fighting on Second Plane worlds in the name of expansion or consolidation. It's only been in the last couple of decades that they've slowed their campaigns against the Upper Planes at all, let alone the individual Dominions in the known Strata." I let my thumb trace the guard of the gladius unconsciously.

"I've seen Auctors of the Blade a couple of times before in the Wastes. There was one who was very much a wandering bladesman, a cheeky one." I exhaled slowly.

"I'm not entirely sure he was a Velkar." Marina snorted.

"You understand Velkar are basically their officers, right? Equivalent to a Knight-Captain here." I nodded.

"If I didn't know before, I found out after fighting Aturis. That was his name. He wouldn't shut up about his former position. Whether he was as connected as he claimed, the point I'm making is that he was skilled, far beyond what a person his age should have been able to accomplish." Aiden smiled.

"I find the idea of you talking about what's normal absolutely hilarious." I waved him off.

"You know what I mean. I have reference points from several of their elites. This man was clearly an Auctor of the Blade, and they don't give that title to anyone. He has to come from an elite family or an established blade tradition. He couldn't have been more than thirty-five. Maybe younger. His skill set didn't match that age bracket. His control. His discipline. His composure after defeat." I looked at Aiden.

"I'm coming to you because if he wasn't nobility or tied directly to the ruling class of the Veskari, I'd be genuinely shocked." Aiden folded his arms.

"What makes you so sure?"

"I'm not, honestly," I said.

"It's a feeling." I paused.

"There was something else." Both of them looked at me.

"When I asked where I could find his sister, he told me to ask her. That she would answer when she was ready." Aiden's gaze dropped to the blade in my hand. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Who is she?" he asked carefully.

"I'm assuming he meant the blade." Marina frowned.

"Spirit-binding?"

"Maybe," I said.

"Or the blade represents something else entirely. A key. A lineage marker. Something tied to Veskari Expression creation. They do have that unique buildup of Aura and Sanatio that they're so proud of." Aiden raised an eyebrow.

"You're suggesting it could be more than a weapon."

"I'm suggesting I don't think he was speaking metaphorically." I turned the gladius slightly, letting light slide along its surface. The mana within it felt contained. Not dormant exactly. Structured.

"There are advanced stages of blade-binding we don't fully understand," I continued.

"For all I know, this thing could be a key to a parallel transit line adjacent to the Nexus corridors. The Veskari have always been cagey about how they move so effectively through the Nexus." Aiden studied me.

"I know you, Cale. You wouldn't be showing me this unless you had something in mind." I gave him a thin smile.

"You know me too well, Captain." I considered my next words carefully.

"First. Have we seen any Veskari activity recently? Unusual movement? Diplomatic feelers? Military probes?" Aiden shook his head slightly.

"Nothing official."

"I know Vera isn't exactly close to the Veskari heart territories," I continued, "but we've had two joint operations in the last five years. The Outer Incursion is still giving Captain Allios problems, is it not?" Aiden's eyes sharpened.

"How do you know about the Outer Incursion?" I smiled faintly.

"Official channels consistently underestimate the mercenary network. Especially when someone with the Ghost of the Wastes reputation starts asking questions." He barked a short laugh despite himself.

"You know," he said, "sometimes I really want to punch you." I shrugged.

"Get in line." Aiden looked at the gladius for a long moment, the amusement fading into something more considered.

"You want to find out about him," he said.

"I want to fulfill my promise to return his blade," I said.

"He didn't give it to me as a gift. He gave it to me because he had no other option in that moment." Marina looked between us.

"Most people would just keep it."

"Most people didn't fight him," I said.

"The man was, he was something. You don't take something like this from someone like that and call it a trophy. Especially when an honorable swordsman asks you for a favor. He was honorable." The kitchen was quiet for a moment. Aiden picked up his coffee, considered it, set it down without drinking.

"The Veskari don't exactly maintain public rosters of their Auctors of the Blade," he said.

"That title is internal. You won't find it in any official registry we have access to through normal diplomatic channels."

"I'm aware," I said.

"That's why I'm asking you instead of looking it up myself." His mouth twitched.

"Flattering."

"Do you have something or not, Captain?" He was quiet for another moment, turning the problem over in the deliberate way he turned things over when he was deciding how much to share and in what order.

"There's a man," he said finally.

"Cultural liaison attached to the Veskari observation post in the Outer Incursion territory. He's not Veskari himself. He's a border trader who's been working that region for fifteen years and has enough goodwill on both sides to move through their checkpoints without incident." He paused.

"He owes me a favor. A significant one."

"Can he access internal Veskari records?"

"No. He knows people who can ask questions without those questions becoming problems." Aiden looked at me steadily.

"Which is a different thing and in some ways more useful." I nodded once.

"It'll take time," Aiden said.

"The Outer Incursion territory is not exactly a fast communication zone. And I'll need something more specific than a young Veskari Auctor of the Blade with exceptional skill and good composure after losing. That describes a category of person, not an individual." I thought for a moment. Then I turned the gladius slightly, letting the light catch the surface the way it had when I first examined it after the fight.

There was something in the metalwork near the hilt, not a crest exactly, but a marking worked into the material itself, small enough to miss if you weren't looking.

"There's a mark here," I said.

"Near the guard. I don't know what it signifies, and it didn't come from a standard Veskari forge. The technique is too specific." Aiden leaned forward and studied it without touching.

"Can you reproduce that exactly? On paper?"

"Yes."

"Do that," he said.

"Give it to me before you leave today. If it's a lineage mark or a blade tradition marker, my contact may be able to narrow it considerably." I let the gladius rest on the table between us.

"How long?" I asked.

"Weeks, possibly. Months if the Incursion situation gets complicated." He met my eyes.

"I know that's not what you want to hear."

"It's what I expected to hear," I said.

"That's not the same thing." Marina was watching me with the expression she used when she was deciding whether to say something. I looked at her.

"What?"

"Nothing," she said.

"Just thinking that most people who get handed a Veskari gladius by the man they just beat spend the next decade bragging about it." A pause.

"You've spent the last however long trying to figure out how to give it back."

"The man said to ask his sister when she was ready," I said.

"I'm not keeping something that isn't mine until I understand what that means." Marina looked at Aiden. Aiden looked at Marina. Something passed between them that I chose not to examine too closely.

"I'll reach out to my contact," Aiden said, returning his attention to me.

"Give me the mark before you go. And Cale—" He paused.

"Be careful with that thing in the meantime. If it's what you're suggesting it might be, carrying it around in letter opener form is either very clever or very stupid."

"Those are rarely mutually exclusive," I said. He smiled.

"No. They're not." I folded my arms and looked at the blade on the table between us. The contained mana, the structured surface, the marking near the guard that did not belong to any forge tradition I could identify. And I thought of the man. The way he fought. The way he moved. The way he asked me to save the people and to return the blade to his sister. I would fulfill that oath. Then I would add him to the names I carried, the ones I refused to let die quietly.

For an honorable swordsman, that was the closest thing to rest I could offer.