The fire in the Vanhart hall had grown steadier, but the warmth never truly reached the stone.
Shadows clung stubbornly to the corners—behind pillars, along banner folds, beneath the tired carvings of beasts on the ceiling beams. The light only revealed how worn everything was. Old glory, thinned.
Kel sat as though he'd always belonged at that table.
Not slouching.
Not stiff.
Balanced.
Like someone resting on the edge of a drawn blade, entirely accustomed to it.
Opposite him, Count Vanhart bore the full weight of his years—and more that did not belong to his age alone. Sera sat to his right, hands now loosely clasped, as if speaking her past out loud had finally loosened the invisible shackles around her fingers. Reina and Landon remained at Kel's flanks, silent but solid, their presence like pillars bracing the space behind him.
The air felt…
Expectant.
Kel lifted his cup, took a small sip of tea now lukewarm, and set it down carefully.
The soft ceramic click marked the start of something.
He looked straight at the Count.
"Count Vanhart," he said, voice quiet, "send word to your former friend."
The older man's eyes narrowed slightly.
Kel didn't pause.
"Tell him," Kel continued, "that Sera has returned."
Silence pressed tightly around the words.
Sera's shoulders tensed.
Reina's gaze flicked to Kel, searching.
Landon's brow rose, just a fraction.
The Count's fingers tightened around the carved wood of his chair.
"Inform him," Kel went on, each word precise, "that you are prepared to accept whatever punishment he wishes to exact upon Sera."
Sera inhaled sharply.
The sound was almost inaudible, but in the quiet hall it carried weight.
The Count's eyes widened a fraction.
"What—?"
Kel's gaze did not waver.
"And add," he said, "that you invite him to come here. With his daughter."
The flames in the hearth snapped suddenly, sending a spray of sparks up the chimney.
Sera's lips parted.
Reina looked between them with careful stillness, not interrupting.
Landon leaned forward a little, forearms resting on his thighs, watching Kel with a faint, knowing tightness around his eyes.
Count Vanhart was the one who finally spoke. His voice was low, raw.
"…Why?"
Kel's fingers traced once along the rim of his cup.
His expression was calm.
Almost deceptively gentle.
"First," he said, "because misunderstandings left to rot become poison."
His eyes lowered for a moment, then lifted again.
"The daughter he remembers," Kel continued, "is a noble girl whose legs your daughter shattered in front of half a hall. To him, Sera is not a person right now. She is an uncontained disaster his family barely survived."
He didn't look at Sera when he said it.
He didn't need to.
She had already heard worse.
"Let him look her in the eye," Kel said, voice steady. "Let him see the girl who carried that weight, who ran so the blame would not drown you both."
His gaze sharpened.
"Let her speak."
Sera's throat moved.
Kel continued.
"If, after that, he still wishes to condemn her…" For a brief moment, a dangerous glint flickered in his eyes, cold as drawn steel under moonlight. "...then at least he will condemn her as someone he has seen—not just as a ghost haunting his past.
He leaned back, lacing his fingers loosely.
"And second," he added, "once clarity is restored… you'll see if there's anything left of the friend you mourn."
The word friend came out clean, without mockery.
Count Vanhart looked down at his own hands.
The knuckles were pale.
"I don't know," he said slowly, "if there is anything left."
Kel tilted his head slightly.
"Then we go and see," he replied. "The longer you leave that open wound… the more others can use it to drive blades into both of you."
There.
The political core of it.
Not just sentiment.
Weaponized truth.
His eyes lowered fractionally: And I'm not fond of other people's knives dangling over my allies.
Sairen's presence whispered faintly at the back of his mind.
You seek to cleanse the water where others dumped stone.
No, he thought back. I'm rearranging what's already sunk.
She hummed without speaking further.
Reina shifted marginally, the small movement betraying approval.
Landon's gaze softened in his own restrained way.
Sera looked at Kel—
eyes searching, guarded…
and quietly grateful.
The Count remained silent for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
Slow.
Resolved.
"…Very well," he said finally. "I will send a messenger immediately. He will carry my seal and invitation. I will tell him exactly what you say… including that punishment will not be resisted."
His expression twisted briefly.
"I doubt he'll ignore such bait."
Kel's lips curved faintly.
"There's more," he said.
Sera exhaled in a quiet, internal sigh.
"Of course there is," she muttered softly.
Kel's attention turned back to the Count, gaze cooling.
"Second matter," he said. "Every piece of evidence you still have concerning your elder brother—letters, records, reports, testimonies, potion residues, any written response from higher offices. Bring them."
The Count went still.
"We," Kel said, "will submit it directly to the Duke."
He held the older man's gaze steadily.
"My father," he added.
The title wrapped itself around the word like a shadow around a blade.
Count Vanhart swallowed.
"You would… involve His Grace personally?"
Kel's reply was immediate, simple.
"He is already involved," Kel said softly. "Anyone twisting power under his rule while using your house as an example is acting under his shadow, whether he sees it or not. Better that he sees it with clear evidence in hand."
The Count's eyes closed briefly.
When he opened them, they held a fragile thread of something that had not lived there in a while.
Hope.
Mixed with deep, bitter caution.
"I requested inquiry once," he said. "It was… buried."
Kel's gaze sharpened.
"Then we dig it out," he said, voice quiet but edged. "And we put it where it cannot be ignored."
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands folded loosely.
"Bring it," Kel repeated. "All of it. Now. While we are here. While Sera is here as proof that the 'curse' was engineered, not born."
His eyes lifted to Sera briefly, then back to the Count.
"And while I am here," he added.
Unspoken: While my name can still bend a few doors open before they think to slam them shut.
The Count let out a slow, shaky breath.
He turned his head slightly.
"Garen," he called.
From the shadow near the hall's side pillar, an older man stepped forward—thin, with graying hair and servant's livery that had been patched carefully. Steward. His posture carried both fatigue and stubborn discipline.
"Yes, my Lord," Garen said.
"Go to my study," the Count said, voice firming. "Bring every compiled document marked under the V-mark… all regarding the Sera Incident. All copies of letters sent. All responses we received. Even the ones that said nothing."
Garen's lined face flickered with surprise.
"...All of it, my Lord?"
"All of it," the Count confirmed.
Garen's eyes drifted briefly toward Sera, then to Kel.
Some calculation passed there.
He bowed deeply.
"At once."
His footsteps echoed down the side corridor, fading.
Silence returned, thicker than before.
Kel watched the doorway through which the steward disappeared, then shifted his gaze back to the Count.
"I'll need three names," he said.
The Count frowned slightly.
"Names?"
Kel nodded.
"The viscount," he said. "His daughter. Your brother."
The air in the hall cooled.
Names had weight.
Spoken here, they would move from the privacy of Vanhart's suffering into the realm of external action.
Count Vanhart exhaled slowly.
His eyes grew distant for a heartbeat, then narrowed with the clarity of old memories sharpened by bitterness.
"Viscount first," Kel prompted, tone even.
"Viscount Edrian Malloren," the Count said quietly. "Lord of Eastcrest. Once my closest ally."
Kel filed it away.
Malloren. Eastcrest.
Sairen's presence brushed his thoughts, faint as mist.
He continued.
"The daughter?" Kel asked.
The Count's expression softened—painfully.
"Lysenne," he whispered. "Lysenne Malloren. Bright child. Too clever for the path fate offered her."
Sera lowered her gaze.
Her fingers tightened on her cup.
She remembered Lysenne's laugh. The way she had once said: I'm jealous you have an uncle who teaches you personally. The way that envy had become horror in a single day.
"And your brother," Kel said, voice cold again.
Count Vanhart's jaw tightened.
A muscle flickered at the edge of his mouth.
"My brother," he said slowly, "is named Rodrik Vanhart."
The sound of the name settled in the hall like a stain.
Reina's eyes narrowed.
Landon's gaze turned hard, memorizing it like an enemy formation.
Sera's shoulders twitched at the word, as if the syllables themselves summoned forgotten pain.
Kel repeated it in his mind, each letter pressed into memory.
Rodrik.
"Rodrik Vanhart," Kel murmured quietly. "War hero. 'Combat advisor.' Experimenter in blood and bone."
His lips thinned.
"If we are very fortunate," he added, voice turning almost dry, "he has not yet found too many new children to test."
The Count's hand gripped the armrest hard enough for his knuckles to blanch.
"If we are fortunate," he echoed bitterly.
Kel leaned back again.
His posture resumed that deceptive ease—but the air around him felt sharper, like the quiet before steel clears its scabbard.
"Good," he said.
Not at the suffering.
At the clarity.
"Those names," he continued, "will be written again. On different documents. Under different circumstances."
His eyes glinted.
"Not as whispers in ruined halls, but as entries in formal charges."
Count Vanhart stared at him, disbelief and cautious faith warring in his features.
"You speak," he said hoarsely, "as if you can move things at that level."
Kel smiled faintly.
It was not a kind smile.
It was the smile of someone who had learned every hidden event flag in a game—
and now walked within the world it governed.
"I speak," Kel replied, "as someone who knows where to apply pressure."
And as someone who has something the system doesn't expect:
a mythical lake, a guardian, and twenty remembered playthroughs.
Sairen's presence stirred again.
You intend to drag this deeper than one house's sorrow.
Of course, Kel thought. Removing one rotten root changes nothing if the tree above already learned to drink blood.
She was quiet at that.
Not disapproving.
Perhaps, faintly… approving.
The steward returned.
Garen carried a stack of leather-bound folders and worn scrolls, each tied with faded ribbon. They looked heavier than their size warranted.
He approached the table with reverent caution, setting the stack down near the Count with a soft thump.
"My Lord," he said. "Everything under the V-mark. I have… withheld nothing."
The Count nodded.
"Thank you, Garen," he said.
Garen bowed and retreated, though his eyes lingered a moment longer on Sera before he vanished back into his place at the hall's edges.
Kel reached forward.
The nearest folder felt cool to the touch. Old ink. Old seals broken and reattached. Notes made in handwriting that grew more ragged as the years went on.
He untied the first ribbon.
Papers fanned slightly, edges fragile.
Reports.
Medical assessments.
Shaman testimonies.
Early requests to the Duke's office, stamped received—
with no further marks.
Kel's eyes darkened.
He closed the folder gently.
"For now," he said, "we won't read this here."
The Count blinked.
"Why?"
Kel's gaze drifted briefly toward the high windows, where the fading light pressed dull against winter glass.
"Because once we open this properly," he said, "we start a path that cannot be hidden again. Better that we do it when the message to your former friend has already left. When your people have had one more day to brace. And when I have a direct line to my father open."
He let his hand rest atop the papers.
"For tonight," he said softly, "let your house breathe around the fact that Sera has returned alive."
The Count sagged slightly in his seat.
Exhaustion.
Release.
A strange, fragile sense of reprieve.
Kel stood.
Reina followed, rising in a smooth, silent motion.
Landon pushed to his feet, solid as a wall taking form.
Sera remained seated a heartbeat longer.
Then she, too, rose.
Her father looked at her.
His eyes glistened, the wetness barely contained.
"You'll stay here, tonight," he said, almost desperate. "You will not vanish again."
Sera's lips softened.
"I won't run," she said quietly. "Not this time."
Her gaze flicked to Kel's back.
Not as dependence.
As acknowledgment.
Kel inclined his head slightly, as if feeling it.
He turned toward the Count one last time.
"We will speak again," he said. "After your messenger leaves. After he answers."
Kel's eyes held his.
"And when my father reads names that should have never been allowed to fade."
He stepped back.
Reina and Landon fell into step beside him.
Sera lingered a moment longer beside her father's throne—
between old ruin and new possibility.
Then she followed.
Their footsteps echoed through the hall.
Outside, winter pressed against the stone walls.
Inside, on a table between tea cups gone cold and files newly disturbed, three names hung in the air—
Malloren. Lysenne. Rodrik.
No longer just ghosts in Sera's memory.
But markers.
For what Kel intended to rewrite.