The corridors of House Thunderbloom were quieter now.

  Not the natural quiet of a noble estate settling after supper, but the strained silence of a house that had buried one of its own three days ago. Guards stood posted at intersections that had once been open, their armor recently repaired, their expressions tighter than discipline required. Mana lanterns burned brighter than before, their glow steady and deliberate.

  Even though Vaeron and his mother talked easily during dinner, Argus could still see the deliberate and strained motions of their smiles. The way their laughter arrived a fraction too late. The way their gazes drifted between sentences toward spaces where someone should have been seated.

  His sister’s chair had remained at the table.

  No one had moved it.

  Argus had not looked at it for long.

  He walked beside Liandra in silence.

  She had matched the tone of the table perfectly. Polite and measured. Neither distant nor overly warm.

  Now, as they ascended the staircase toward the eastern wing, her composure shifted.

  Argus noticed the change in the rhythm of her breathing first. It deepened, almost imperceptibly. Her fingers tightened once at her side before relaxing again. Her posture straightened not from fear, but from resolve.

  She was not afraid of the house.

  She was preparing herself.

  Argus felt a faint tightening in his chest. It was anticipation.

  They reached his room.

  He opened the door and gestured her inside.

  His room bore subtle scars of recent violence. A section of the far wall had been repaired, though the coloration of the stone had not yet perfectly matched the rest. A faint seam ran vertically where masonry had been reconstructed. A new wardrobe stood where the old one had splintered under impact.

  The air carried faint traces of mana residue that only someone trained could sense. It was not active. It was memory. The echo of power that had surged through this space when Dravien had taken control.

  Argus stepped inside and closed the door behind them. He reinforced the inner ward with a quiet pulse of energy, layering a secondary privacy weave across the existing structure. The mana responded cleanly.

  Only then did he turn to her.

  “You said you would tell me everything tonight,” he said.

  His voice was calm.

  It did not betray the fact that three nights ago he had knelt in this very estate with blood on his hands that was not entirely his own.

  She did not sit immediately. Her eyes moved across the room, noting the repaired stone, the subtle discoloration in the wall, the way the mana lantern’s light refracted differently near the reconstructed section.

  “I did,” she replied quietly.

  Argus waited.

  She drew a slow breath and walked further inside, stopping near the desk where the mana lantern cast a steady glow. The light softened her features but did nothing to conceal the tension beneath them.

  “The Cult of One is preparing to destabilize Lmmyr.”

  Argus did not react outwardly.

  He had expected something like this. The assassination attempt had not felt isolated. It had felt deliberate. Structured.

  But hearing it stated plainly made it solid. It gave shape to what had been suspicion.

  “They were always destabilizing something,” he said calmly. “You will have to be more specific.”

  She met his gaze.

  “They are not planning isolated strikes anymore. The goal is broader. They want internal fracture. Distrust between noble houses. Distrust between the crown and its protectors. Panic that spreads faster than blades.”

  Argus’s jaw tightened slightly.

  Images surfaced without permission. His father arguing quietly with a visiting Knight Captain months ago about resource allocation. Letters intercepted. Rumors of corruption whispered in corridors.

  “Because chaos weakens governance,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “And a weakened nation is easier to control.”

  She nodded.

  Argus crossed the room slowly and leaned against the edge of his desk, folding his arms. The wood pressed solidly against his back. Physical sensation anchored him.

  “Was this why they attacked us?” he asked.

  Her eyes flickered briefly toward the repaired wall.

  “Yes. The attack was meant to be precise. Clean and quick. But it failed.”

  Failed.

  The word struck something inside him.

  Steel flashing in dim corridor light. His sister screaming, her voice echoing in the house. The sound of fabric tearing. The weight of her body collapsing.

  Dravien seizing control.

  The sensation of his own consciousness being pushed aside and the smell of blood thick enough to taste.

  Argus felt his fingers curl slightly against his arm.

  He forced the images down/

  “Why us?” he asked evenly.

  She did not hesitate.

  “Because your house stands between the capital and three active mana regions. Because your father holds influence in military restructuring. Because removing Thunderbloom would shake confidence in the Royal Knights’ ability to protect their own.”

  Thunderbloom.

  His family name sounded heavier in her voice.

  He absorbed that silently.

  “The cult worships an entity behind this,” she said. “He is known as The Undead One.”

  Her posture stiffened slightly at the name.

  Inside him, something shifted.

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  Not violently. Not explosively.

  But a tightening.

  A faint ripple across shared consciousness.

  Dravien.

  Argus felt it clearly now. Not curiosity, nor confusion.

  Recognition.

  And something close to resentment.

  He turned his attention inward for the briefest moment.

  "Do you know that name?"

  Silence.

  Not empty silence.

  Guarded silence.

  It was the kind of silence that carried withheld memory.

  Argus returned his focus to Liandra.

  “What is he?” he asked.

  She exhaled slowly before answering.

  “The cult teaches that he was once mortal. He lived a thousand millennia ago. They say that he grew powerful, more powerful than any mortal being capable. But he still died.”

  Argus watched her carefully.

  “How could a being like that die?”

  “I do not know how. Some say that he was ultimately slain by a party of heroes. Some say that his own power broke him, that he could not control it. It is all speculation.”

  “And what now?” he asked.

  “They believe that he still exists, still lives.”

  “In what form?”

  She shook her head.

  “We were never shown. Only told that he exists beyond flesh, that he can reach into dreams and guide those willing to listen. That he exists in a state of half dead.”

  The mana lantern flickered once.

  Argus’s eyes shifted toward it automatically.

  Dravien stirred again, stronger this time. A slow current of irritation moved through him like distant thunder beneath stone.

  “Dream manipulation is not myth,” Argus said. “Certain high-tier mind mages can project across distance.”

  “Yes,” she replied quietly. “But this is different.”

  “How?”

  She hesitated. Not for lack of knowledge, but for precision.

  “It does not feel like someone speaking to you,” she said at last. “It feels like your own thoughts rearranging themselves. Like conclusions forming without origin. Like certainty arriving before evidence.”

  Argus studied her face.

  She was not reciting doctrine.

  She was remembering sensation.

  “You have felt him,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  There was no drama in the admission. No tremor.

  But Argus saw the faint tightening along her throat.

  “Describe it.”

  Her fingers tightened slightly against the fabric of her sleeve.

  “It felt old,” she said quietly. “Not ancient in the way ruins are ancient. Older than that. As if it had watched civilizations rise and erode and did not consider the difference meaningful.”

  Dravien’s presence flared briefly, then compressed.

  Argus felt heat under his ribs.

  “And this entity,” he continued carefully, “what does the cult intend?”

  “To revive him.”

  “How?”

  “Through blood rituals.”

  The word blood carried weight in this room.

  Argus did not move.

  She continued, her voice steady but lower now.

  “They believe that each sacrifice strengthens his presence. That each ritual thins whatever barrier separates him from full return.”

  “And you?” he asked.

  She met his gaze directly.

  “I think they are dangerously wrong about what would happen if they succeeded.”

  There it was.

  Not devotion.

  It was fear.

  Silence filled the space between them.

  Argus moved toward the small chest where the relic rested.

  “You gave me this,” he said quietly, lifting it from its place.

  The object felt heavier than before.

  “Yes.”

  “And you said this one is not warded by the cult.”

  “It is not. That is why I chose it.”

  He glanced at her.

  “Explain, properly.”

  She stepped closer but did not touch the relic.

  “Most relics circulating within the cult are layered with tracking wards or resonance markers. This one is older. It predates the current leadership structure. It is dangerous in a different way.”

  “How.”

  “It amplifies ritual conduits. It acts as a stabilizer in high-volume blood rites.”

  The air in the room shifted subtly.

  Argus could feel the mana field reacting, as though drawn slightly toward the object.

  “So, if the Royal Knights analyze it, they will recognize the signature of ritual magic.”

  “Yes.”

  “And they can trace similar energy patterns.”

  “If they are competent.”

  “They are.”

  Her expression grew serious again.

  “When you unseal it, do not touch the inner core directly.”

  He looked down at it.

  “Why.”

  “Because the core reacts to living mana signatures. If you make skin contact after the outer seal is removed, it may bind temporarily.”

  “Bind how.”

  “It could attempt to draw from you.”

  Argus’s expression hardened.

  “Why would you give me something that could drain me.”

  “Because I knew you would not be reckless,” she replied quietly.

  Their eyes locked.

  In that moment, the space between them was not political.

  It was personal.

  He studied the surface carefully.

  “You are certain this one carries no cult tracking.”

  “Yes. I removed the only residual thread myself.”

  “How do you know you were not observed.”

  She did not answer immediately.

  Then, softly, “Because I would be dead.”

  Argus began carefully unwinding the outer seal, letting his mana brush the layered threads and separate them one by one.

  As the final thread loosened, a pulse emanated from within the relic.

  The temperature in the room dipped.

  The mana lantern’s glow dimmed slightly, then steadied.

  Argus felt something brush against his consciousness.

  A subtle pressure invading his senses.

  He tightened his neutral mana layer instantly, wrapping the core without making direct contact.

  The pressure receded, but not entirely.

  It lingered, like something aware of being denied.

  He sealed the relic within a secondary container inside his spatial pouch.

  “I will leave it somewhere they can recover it,” he said. “A controlled location.”

  She nodded.

  “Good.”

  He turned back toward her.

  “There are five leaders,” she said. “One in each nation.”

  Argus nodded.

  “Can you name them.”

  “I cannot.”

  “Do not tell me it is because you do not know.”

  “It is because even attempting to articulate their names triggers a ward.”

  “I have felt it before,” she continued. “A constriction at the throat. A backlash against the mind.”

  Argus frowned slightly.

  “Then perhaps their locations.”

  “I do not know exact locations. Our cell’s meeting ground is within mountainous terrain near an active mana region. The distortion in transit prevents clear mapping.”

  “How high of a region?”

  “High enough that the air thins noticeably.”

  “What about the distance from capital.”

  “Several hours by concealed transport.”

  “And the cells operate independently.”

  “Yes.”

  “Vilangos.”

  Her gaze flickered.

  “Yes.”

  “What was his role.”

  “He was an intermediary. Not a leader. He facilitated coordination between cells when necessary.”

  “And now he is captured.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do they know.”

  “They will in a day or two.”

  “Will they attempt to silence him.”

  Her jaw tightened slightly.

  “If they believe he can compromise structural integrity, yes.”

  Argus felt heat rise behind his sternum.

  Another threat.

  Another blade hanging over someone in his custody.

  “And tell me you know of their next operation,” he said.

  Liandra folded her fingers together.

  “It involves the Adventurer Trial.”

  Argus straightened.

  “What is their plan?”

  “I do not know the full plan. But I know Vilangos’s party was meant to participate in a specific segment.”

  “What segment.”

  “The mid-trial expedition into contested terrain.”

  Argus’s thoughts sharpened rapidly.

  Smaller teams. Unstable mana regions. Limited oversight.

  “An accident staged within the trial,” he murmured.

  “Possibly. Or a ritual disguised as casualty.”

  He imagined it clearly.

  Blood spilled in an unstable mana zone. Distortion masking ritual signatures. Death explained away as environmental hazard.

  “And now that Vilangos is gone.”

  “They will reassign.”

  “To whom.”

  “I do not know.”

  Silence stretched.

  Argus stepped closer.

  “When do you expect contact.”

  “Soon. They will want confirmation that the assassination was completed.”

  “And what will you tell them?”

  “I will tell them about our failure.”

  “And if they suspect you.”

  “They will not confront me directly.”

  “What will they do.”

  “They will remove the leverage.”

  Her mother.

  Argus felt anger flare, sharper this time.

  “The leader in Lymmr,” he said. “The one who abducted your mother.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he directly involved in the Thunderbloom attack.”

  “Yes.”

  “And in House Thalyion’s.”

  She nodded.

  “Not an accident,” Argus said quietly.

  “No.”

  “Were you involved?”

  “Yes.”

  The word did not waver.

  Argus felt something twist inside him.

  His sister’s empty chair.

  Lord Thalyion’s public funeral.

  The cult’s careful manipulation of grief.

  “You did it to keep your mother alive.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Silence settled again.

  “Will you be part of another?” he asked.

  “If it means saving my mother, then yes.”

  There was no hesitation.

  Argus studied her for a long moment.

  He saw guilt and calculation.

  Her eyes shone with resolve, but he did not see cruelty.

  Outside, faint movement in the corridor reminded them that the house still lived around them.

  “I will walk you out,” he said.

  They stepped back into the corridor together.

  When they reached the outer gate of the eastern wing, Liandra stopped.

  “As soon as I receive further instructions, I will inform you.”

  “And I will give the Royal Knights enough to move without exposing you.”

  Her gaze softened slightly.

  “That is good.”

  She looked at him once more, as if weighing something unspoken, then turned toward the courtyard.

  Argus watched her until she disappeared beyond the archway.

  Only then did he return to his room.

  When he closed the door, the silence felt heavier than before.

  He moved to his bed and sat slowly.

  Five leaders, Blood rituals. The infiltration of the Adventurer Trial and The Undead One.

  He leaned back and closed his eyes.

  “Dravien.”

  Silence.

  “Do you know him.”

  For a moment, Argus felt a surge of memory that was not his. A battlefield. A sky torn open. A presence vast and wrong pressing against reality.

  Then it vanished.

  Dravien did not answer.

  Argus opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

  The sealed cracks in the stone above him caught the lantern light in thin lines.

  Three days ago, his home had been a battlefield.

  Three days ago, his sister had died.

  Now an ancient entity sought return through blood.

  And the voice inside him, the only being who might know the truth, refused to speak.

  That silence unsettled him more than any warning could have.