Chapter 14: Red Ink in the Ledger
Morning came with a new burden, slipping in through the high windows of the Prince's chambers. The sliver of hope Eldrin had felt from the faint pulse of his Aether Core the night before now seemed like a distant memory, swallowed by the cold reality of a new day.
He had just finished his bland breakfast—a piece of hardtack and overly diluted tea—when Elara Vance entered with her soundless steps.
"Your Highness," she said, bowing slightly. "Treasurer Dunstan begs an audience. He says it is an urgent matter concerning the stability of the royal coffers."
Eldrin resisted the urge to groan. From the fragments of the original Prince Eldrin's memory, he knew who Treasurer Dunstan was. A stuffy old man whose entire world was made of numbers, deficits, and endless complaints. A meeting with him was the purest form of bureaucratic torture.
"Send him in," Eldrin said, his voice flatter than he would have liked. There was no escape.
True to form, the man who entered his study moments later looked as if he had just survived a financial hurricane. Treasurer Dunstan, a thin man with sparse white hair clinging to his sweaty scalp, bowed with a wheezing breath. Tucked under his arm, he clutched a leather-bound ledger nearly as thick as a shield, its edges frayed from being opened in a panic too many times.
In the corner of the room, Commander Gregor Vance stood as still as a guardian statue, his presence adding to the already suffocating atmosphere. Near the door, Cain leaned against the wall, his dark eyes observing everything in intense silence.
"Your Highness," Dunstan began, his voice trembling with a mixture of deference and pure panic. He placed the ledger on the desk with a final thud, as if he were setting down a tombstone. "The situation is... dire."
His thin, trembling hands opened the book, revealing rows of neatly written figures, many of them circled in red ink that looked disturbingly like blood.
"The royal coffers... are empty, Your Highness. Completely empty," he wheezed, pointing to a column at the bottom of the page. "With current expenditures to pay the Border Guard and the remaining administration, we will be completely bankrupt in less than three weeks. We won't even be able to pay the guards' salaries next month."
Eldrin stared at the columns of numbers. This feudal economic jargon was as foreign to him as an alien language. Assets, liabilities, amortization... this is worse than a quarterly budget meeting, he thought, his head starting to ache.
Dunstan, seeing the prince's blank face as a sign of indifference, grew even more frantic. He jabbed a bony finger at one page.
"And this is the most alarming part. Our salt supply, Your Highness. Vital for preserving the Border Guard's rations. It stopped completely two weeks ago. The supplier from the Duchy of Silverstream claims there are 'production issues'. As a result, the price in the capital market has tripled overnight! The soldiers at the border will starve!"
He flipped a page roughly, the paper rustling with anxiety.
"At the same time, the supply of iron ore from the northern mines has ceased. My Lord Duke Morcant reported an unforeseen 'structural failure' that will require lengthy repairs. The Vael's Fire Blacksmiths' Guild can no longer even make nails, let alone spearheads or repair damaged armor!"
A long, heavy silence fell over the room. Gregor looked tense, his hand clenched on the hilt of his sword. Dunstan looked at Eldrin with a desperate gaze, as if begging for a miracle. And Cain... Cain simply observed in his intense silence, his eyes moving from Dunstan to Eldrin, then to the map on the wall.
Eldrin wasn't thinking. His brain couldn't. He tried to find an analogy he understood. Lack of resources... crippled economy... empty treasury...
This is like a kingdom-level 'Economic Collapse' debuff, he thought. Usually, the solution is to complete the 'Lost Caravan' quest for a 5000 gold bonus, or use the rare item 'Horn of Plenty'. Unfortunately, there's no 'Quest' button here. And I doubt they have one of those.
He realized how foolish that thought was. This wasn't a game. This was real. These men were waiting for him to provide a solution. A solution to a problem he didn't even fully comprehend.
Driven by an overwhelming desire to end this torturous meeting, driven by the need to get out of this room that felt increasingly small, he did the only thing he could think of: simplify the problem to the most idiotic level, a level he could process.
He pointed at the headache-inducing ledger.
"I don't need all these details," he said, his voice flatter than he expected, cold with mental fatigue. "This is just noise."
Dunstan flinched, looking mortally offended that his life's work had been called "noise." Gregor frowned slightly.
Eldrin lifted his head, his grayish-blue eyes looking straight at Dunstan.
"Just show me... the expenditure and income records for salt and iron ore for the last six months. Only that. Leave the ledgers here."
He paused, then looked at the three of them, his gaze empty yet absolute.
"Now, leave me alone."
The command was so sudden, so absolute, that Dunstan and Gregor could only bow and walk out stiffly.
The moment the study door closed behind them, Caelan's mind raced like lightning.
He called it 'noise'.
All the economic data, the tax reports, the council's expenditures... he dismissed it all as a distraction. An irrelevant detail. And then... his command.
Only salt and iron ore.
Not grain, which affects the people. Not silk, which affects the nobles. Not the council's spending, which is the obvious source of corruption.
Only the two most vital commodities for sustaining a kingdom's military power. Salt to preserve rations and keep the army fed. And iron to make weapons and armor to keep them fighting.
He didn't care about the bureaucratic fat; he pointed directly to the two main arteries where the kingdom was bleeding to death. He ignored the symptoms and pointed directly at the source of the disease.
Caelan clenched his fists at his sides, a cold awe washing over him.
This isn't a data request. This is an investigation order. An order to trace the disease to its root. And by asking for the records to be left behind... he will analyze them himself, without the filter of a treasurer who may be intimidated or corrupt.
A brilliant move. Simple, sharp, and terrifying in its efficiency.
That night, after shedding his guard's uniform, Caelan donned the dark, simple clothes of a traveler. He slipped out of the barracks, melting into the night shadows of Nightholm. He didn't head straight for the warehouses or the merchant district; that was too conspicuous.
Instead, he went to "The Yawning Lion Tavern."
Inside the smoky, stuffy tavern, he sat in a dark corner, ordered a mug of cheap ale, and simply listened.
He heard the complaints of small merchants about how Maksim Yakubets, the corrupt head of the merchants' guild, had suddenly monopolized the remaining salt supply in the city. He heard the whispers of off-duty soldiers about the poor quality of their new swords, as if they were made from cheap pig iron. He heard a craftsman from the "Vael's Fire" Guild curse how they could no longer get any quality iron ore.
He hadn't found concrete proof yet, but he found the common thread. A name that kept appearing in every complaint, like a poison spreading through the city's bloodstream.
Maksim Yakubets. A pawn who he knew from past experience was one of Duke Morcant's most loyal dogs.
The Prince was right, Caelan thought, his eyes glinting in the darkness. The disease is here. And he just gave me the doctor's name.
That night, Eldrin couldn't sleep. The numbers from Dunstan's ledger danced in his mind, a symphony of destruction he didn't understand. The stress made his head throb with a dull pain.
He remembered Cain's lesson. Focus on your breath. Feel the center of your being.
Nonsense, he thought. But he was out of options. Reluctantly, he sat on the floor before the cold hearth, closed his eyes, and tried.
One minute. Five minutes. All he got was frustration.
Forget it. This is useless.
Just as he was about to give up, as all his effort collapsed into pure exhaustion, something happened.
A pulse.
Faint, but real. A gentle warmth in his stomach, like a tiny ember just kindled. He gasped softly. Unconsciously, his hand, which had been limp at his side, was now resting on the ledger Dunstan had left on the floor.
As the warm pulse resonated through his body, a minuscule flow of Aether—no more than a whisper of energy—seeped from his fingertips and touched the leather cover of the book.
To Eldrin, nothing happened. His headache felt a little better. That was all.
But in the corridor outside, Caelan, who was on guard while passively using his "Aether Sight" to scan for threats, froze.
He saw it. An incredibly dim flash of Aether, so subtle it was almost missed, emanating from within the Prince's chambers. His mind went on high alert.
He focused his senses. He saw the Prince's silhouette sitting on the floor, his hand on the ledger. And then, Caelan saw something that made his blood run cold.
Right beneath Eldrin's palm, on the dark leather cover, a small, magical watermark pulsed for a moment with a pale light. It was a symbol he recognized instantly—the hidden sigil of one of Duke Morcant's shell corporations, a mark used to track secret shipments. The symbol glowed for a single second, as if responding to the prince's Aetheric touch, before vanishing.
Caelan stood rigid, an awe mixed with terror washing over him.
He... he didn't just give me an order... he even showed me where to look for the proof. He knew I wouldn't be able to find it on my own.