The lock turned with a groan, the door swinging open on protesting hinges.Proudlock's muscles strained with the effort, and he managed to pull his hand through the rope, ignoring the slew of flesh that came off with it.
He grunted more out of surprise than pain, as the sword entered his back to the right of his backbone, piercing his heart and lungs.
His body tensed, then relaxed as his face hit the floor.
The guard put his foot on the dead lord’s back and pulled his sword out, wiping the blood on the man’s back before replacing it in its sheath, turning and slamming the door shut.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
In the shadowed underbelly of Blackwood Keep, Lord Aldrich's ancestral seat perched like a raven on the eastern escarpment, the air hung heavy with the scent of smoldering oak and aged vellum.The keep, a fortress of jagged basalt hewn from the canyon's rim, had stood for centuries as a bulwark against the Wilds, its towers clawing at the perpetual twilight that pooled in the gorge below.But tonight, its deepest chambers served a darker purpose: the Hall of Whispers, a vaulted crypt long forgotten by all but the initiated, its walls etched with faded runes that once warded against druid spies.Torchlight guttered in iron sconces, casting elongated shadows that writhed like co-conspirators across tapestries depicting ancient betrayals—kings dethroned, rings shattered, shields sundered.The room's centerpiece was a massive oaken table, scarred from generations of clandestine pacts, around which the architects of the Ring's impending fall now gathered.
Lord Aldrich presided at the head, swathed in a robe of midnight velvet trimmed with silver fox, the fabric whispering against the chair's carved arms as he shifted.He was a monument to calculated indulgence: jowls softened by years of fine wines, eyes like chips of flint glinting with the cunning that had amassed his granaries and coffers.His beard, oiled to a glossy black despite the encroaching gray, framed a mouth perpetually curled in a half-smile, as if privy to jests the world had yet to hear.To his right sat Lady Elowen, her gown of emerald silk clinging to her slender form, her raven hair coiled in a chignon pierced by a dagger-shaped pin.She toyed with a goblet of mulled wine, her nails—lacquered blood-red—tapping a rhythm that only she heard.Across from her lounged Baron Holt, the merchant prince.Lord Garrick, the brute enforcer, occupied the foot, his scarred knuckles drumming idly on the hilt of a dagger, his face a map of old battle wounds and newer appetites.Flanking them were Lord Varis and Sir Draven, his eyes burning with the zeal of a man already counting his harvest of riches from the upcoming turmoil.
Aldrich raised his goblet, the wine within dark as congealed blood, and the room fell silent."Gentlemen—and Lady Elowen, whose webs bind us tighter than any oath—to the dawn we have sown these many years.Thorgrin is dust in the snow, his sword lost to the gales.The Shield flickers and wanes, surely no more obvious sign of the crown’s weakness.The Wilds stir, the very ground trembles.The Ring teeters.Our time is now."
Murmurs rippled around the table, and glasses are emptied.Hands not used to refilling their own goblets lower themselves to the tasks.Elowen inclined her head, her smile a blade's edge."A toast well earned, my lord.My scouts confirm the tale spreads like fever.Bards weep in taverns, merchants fearing the worse are hoarding.Prices will rise.Discontent will increase.”A shadow fell over her face.“But the boy—Guwayne—his actions at Eldridge Keep have made him think he is something more than he is.He is starting to think he is his father, who apparently appears to him in his dreams.”Her eyes scan the faces around the table slowly.“But it isn’t that that worries me.It is if…or when, the people start believing that he is his father that we should be concerned about.We must act before he rallies the faithful."
Holt leaned forward, his voice a gravelly baritone honed in auction halls."Yes, we must act now.We've danced this jig too long, Aldrich.Fifteen years—bribes to Legion captains, threats to druid holdouts, crates of steel shipped under false banners.My caravans alone have greased palms from the Isles to the Highlands.We have succeeded in doing something the multitudes of the Empire failed to do.We have done what the Blood Lord couldn’t.We have killed Thorgrin.If I had a bag of gold for every ballad claiming he could not be killed I’d be twice as rich as I am now.Why hesitate?Seize the throne outright.Crown anyone here, Aldrich, Varis here as regent, or me—I've the coin to buy the Silver's silence."
Varis flushed, but Garrick barked a laugh, slamming a fist on the table that set goblets trembling."Coin buys swords, Holt, but not loyalty.I've crushed more rebellions than you've tallied ledgers.The MacGils have ghosts—Thorgrin's a legend, not a corpse.Strike too bold, and the boy-prince becomes a martyr.No, we gut him quiet-like, blame the beasts.It’s worked once, it will work again, especially for a whelp like Guwayne.Then your regency sits pretty on a pyre of his bones."
The debate ignited, voices overlapping, a battle between caution and ambition.Elowen advocated poisoning the wine at the next council meeting, in which Guwayne, in his father’s absence is bound to sit."That ring on his finger?A trinket for our vaults.If the queen survives, the death of her son and husband in quick succession will break her.The court will crumble.The people will be crying out for someone to save them.”
Holt countered with blunt force, his rings flashing as he gestured: "Subtlety's for spiders, lady.Bribe the gates, storm the palace.My alliances with the southern barons—sealed with daughters and dowries—bring five hundred lances by week's end.Between us, we can bring 3000 more.We've paid in blood and bullion; let it flow."
Aldrich listened, his fingers steepled, the half-smile unwavering.He had orchestrated this symphony since Thorgrin's ascension had upended the old order.His spies, woven into the Legion's ranks over a decade, had mapped every weakness.He knew which captains of the Legion and even of the Silver could be swayed by bags of gold, pouches of black-market spice, or the caress of a buxom wench.Threats had silenced dissenters—a vanished highlander chieftain here, a "hunting accident" for a vocal merchant there.And the external threads?Years in the weaving: envoys to the Empire's fringes, bartered with McCloud relics and promises of Ring ports; pacts with Wilds chieftains, lured by visions of breached walls and human feasts.All converging now, a noose disguised as council.But he was determined not to get carried away.They had got to this point with hard work and patience.Haste was the assassin's folly.
Aldrich cleared his throat, and the room stilled."Bold words, all, and not without merit.Holt's caravans have been our arteries, pumping gold to the veins of power.Elowen's whispers have turned ears in the palace.Garrick's mace shall crush what coin cannot.We have all played our part, and we will need to do so in the days, months, and years ahead, nothing is surer.Yet legitimacy is the throne's true crown.Thorgrin's fall was no mere blade in the dark; it was a narrative—the beasts' resurgence, the Shield's frailty, a kingdom crying for strong hands.To butcher the heir now?It invites a response from people already feeling aggrieved.Reece's Legion, Alistair's druids, and we should not underestimate that steadfast cur, Kellan, and his silver-clad hounds."
He paused, sipping his wine, letting the silence coil."Guwayne is fifteen summers—raw clay, not forged steel.Dreams of his father?Let them haunt him.We crown him puppet-king, a boy on a gilded leash.I propose the boy as figurehead: coronate him in the Great Hall, with full pomp and echoes of the Seven Weddings.Varis drafts the edicts—' In memory of Thorgrin, the Council guides the young sovereign.'Bribes flow to the Silver, promotions for the loyal, exile for the stubborn.And the external alliances?They seal our grip, not shatter it."
He paused, taking another long sip of wine, eyeing his listeners over its rim.
“Anyone suspecting we are moving for power with the formation of the council will be caught off guard.No one in the Ring can argue against crowning the son of Thorgrin and Gwendolyn.The rightful heir.”
“The queen might!”Draven said.“She is popular.A true MacGill don’t forget.”
“She will see it as a stabilizing move.It brings longevity to the throne.Gwendolyn may be relatively young in moons, but those years in exile aged her.Look at her.Gray hair.She is not the woman people believe her to be, and she knows it.It is a way out for her, one where she saves face and also puts her own blood on the throne.And it gives a role for the feckless prince, who will forever be grovelling in his father’s shadow, even when Thor is long dead.”
Elowen arched a brow, her goblet pausing at her lips."A puppet?Risky, Aldrich.He is his own man, difficult to mold and shape.”
“Everyone can be twisted into any shape we desire, it is just knowing the means to do it.With the right words being dripped into his ears, he won’t even know it is happening until it’s too late.”
Elowen took a thoughtful sip and replaced her goblet carefully on the table.“What of the ring?The Sorcerer's band.It amplifies visions, they say.What if he sees through our veil?"
Aldrich's smile deepened, a predator's gleam."Then we dull it.My alchemists, schooled in Empire tinctures, have a draught—tasteless, dreamless.Slip it in his wine, and his prophecies fade to fevered nothings.As for the ring, a relic pilfered from a McCloud tomb mimics its pulse; swap it in the coronation rite.Legitimacy, my dear, is illusion woven tight.The people mourn Thorgrin, fear the breaches—they crave stability, not another war.We give them a kingling, guided by the Council.Holt's ships bring 'aid'—catapults rebranded as Shield-menders.Garrick's lances patrol the borders, culling beasts and dissenters alike.Varis proclaims our benevolence in every square."
Holt grunted, unconvinced, but his fingers stilled."And the cost?My coffers bleed for this subtlety.”
“They will be replenished in full and far more.It will be our hand on the tiller and the till from now on.But not yet.First, the boy crowns.Then, the puppeteer's strings shorten."
Garrick leaned in, his voice a rumble."And if the strings snap?Kellan's Guards sniff too close.Proudlock's curse, can we trust them?If the coin doesn't loosen their tongues, Kellan's sword or glowing irons might.If they talk..."
Aldrich waved a dismissive hand."Loose threads are snipped, Garrick, but let me confirm it for you.”He reached into a pocket in his tunic and retrieved a parchment.“This arrived but two hours ago from a gaoler in a castle of mine half a day’s ride from here.I’ll read it to you, though I warn you, he may be a trusted turnkey, but he is no poet.”
He unfurled the parchment with a deliberate flick, its edges curling like charred leaves, and began to read in a measured tone, masking his disdain for the gaoler’s crude scrawl.“Lord, done as you said.Garr and Skarn are dead, and Proudlock too, like you wanted last.What do I do with the bodies?”
A stunned murmur rippled through the Hall of Whispers, the torchlight itself flickering as if startled.“Proudlock?”Elowen hissed, her blood-red nails pausing mid-tap, her emerald eyes narrowing.“He was loyal, Aldrich—our leash on the Silver’s northern flank.”Aldrich’s half-smile deepened, unperturbed.“Loyal, yes, but a loose thread all the same.Proudlock was too fond of his own voice, boasting in taverns, and his greed outstripped his wit.He’d have grown too big for his boots, demanding a seat at this table.He outlived his use the moment Kenrick’s blood stained the snow.”Elowen leaned back, her goblet clinking softly against the oaken table.“And the bodies?”she asked.Aldrich gave another dismissive wave of his hand.“I’ve already sent word—burn them to ash and scatter them to the northern winds.No relics, no graves, no ghosts to haunt us.”His obsidian eyes swept the room, daring dissent, as the shadows on the tapestries seemed to nod in approval.
