Chapter 82: Taught Too Well (Patreon)

“You need but give the word, Your Majesty, and I’ll see this beast removed from this world,” Galahad said enthusiastically, staring at Sarah as if she was an abomination.

“Speak when spoken to,” King Arnoud commanded. Then, he walked toward Willem and Sarah without fear, tapping that pitch black sword of his on the ground like it was a cane instead of a weapon. “Now… explain yourself. What have you been doing, Willem?”

Before Willem could speak, Sarah spoke up. “He could explain what has been happening, but I suspect that your daughter has already told you all that you need to know. The rest you can piece together for yourself after looking at what’s been going on.”

The king looked over at Sarah. “Is that so?

Sarah nodded. “I’m not going to tell you what we did. Instead, I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen. You see, you’re a smart man. Stupidity is difficult to predict, but intelligence? So long as you’re intelligent yourself, you can reasonably predict what an intelligent person is going to do.”

“And you think that you’re my peer?” the king asked firmly. When Sarah nodded, he continued, “Then what am I going to do?”

Sarah smiled. “First, you’re going to cut off the retreat of Avaria’s spy network, at my direction. That begins, of course, with the heads.”

***

Across the kingdom, the king’s men spread out across cities, towns, and secluded estates alike. Clad in drab and unassuming cloaks and bearing sealed orders stamped with the royal crest, they struck with cold efficiency. They broke down doors in the merchant quarters of coastal ports, stormed into the vaults of banks, and burst into safehouses in the kingdom’s underbelly.

Those taken were not rabble. They were influential: guildmasters with hidden loyalties, diplomats who penned double-coded letters, mages of the Cabinet whose research had always curiously served foreign interests. It happened so rapidly that very few could even adapt to what was happening. No one knew why, but people were being taken. The air grew heavy with fear among the elite, who now second-guessed every acquaintance, every favor granted, every courier employed.

Within days, the bars of the dungeon cells veritably bulged under the sheer bulk of prisoners who had never imagined chains. Many killed themselves rather than being taken prisoner, but even despite that, the captures were so robust that it didn’t matter. They had more than enough to get what information they needed. In candlelit rooms deep beneath the palace, interrogators compared notes, piecing together webs of treachery spun for years under royal noses.

***

“With the head cut off, the body will run around like a panicked chicken. It’s inevitable that word will reach back to Avaria one way or another. Without a head, the body will start to scramble. They’ll start to panic. And therein lies your opportunity,” Srah continued, walking around the training room.

“What opportunity?” Galahad said incredulously.

“Boy… you’ll find things beyond your imagining.” Sarah smiled wickedly, her dark red eyes eerie in the light of the moon. “You underestimate precisely what someone can hide right underneath your nose.”

“What will I find?” the king asked.

***

In the wake of the mass arrests, chaos rippled outward as if a stone had been thrown into still water. Networks shattered without their handlers, and in the remnants’ haste to flee, cover their tracks, or even find out what the hell was going on, caution and protocol were thrown to the wind. Galahad’s men, seasoned in more than just arrests, seized the opportunity. What they found beggared belief.

A disguised tunnel beneath a chapel cellar, dug for miles and miles to bridge between cities. A cove, accessible only by swimming underneath the water, not exceptionally far from Gent. They uncovered vast networks beneath manor houses and merchant halls, some no more than cramped crawlspaces and others wide enough for horses and carts.

***

“…and once you find what I know you’ll find, you’ll see the value in what they’ve left behind. After all, for something to get in, it typically needs a path out. And through that path out lies an opportunity that you’ve never had before. Just as Avaria must pass through narrow mountain passes to reach your territory, you must do the same if you hope to strike at them. You’ve been at an impasse, simple geography holding you back. But with my intel, that changes.”

“Avaria will doubtlessly have a failsafe in place,” Galahad argued. “There won’t be anything that can be so easily exploited once found. Avaria has always prepared for every eventuality, and this is no different.”

Sarah laughed. “Some things aren’t so easily destroyed once made. Some things have endured the test of time under fiercer opponents than that of Avaria. And some mistakes can’t be so easily rectified once made.”

***

The king’s men entered the mountain ruin with steel drawn and torches held high. What began as a sweep of one of many paths employed by the traitors of Avaria had brought them to passage that never seemed to end. After hours of walking… the tunnels widened into grand chambers of carved stone that seemed older than the kingdom itself. The deeper they went, the more the scale of the place revealed itself: vast vaults, collapsed bridges, and hollowed causeways that twisted for miles.

This was no mere hideout. It was a fortress swallowed by myth and time.

The spies had been using the ruin for years, maybe decades, navigating its forgotten roads to cross borders, move goods, and vanish into thin air. Even despite the extensive occupation, it was clear the spies hadn’t uncovered everything. There were doors of stone that refused to open, rooms sealed with rusted sigils, and corridors that whispered with a sound like breathing. Some of the king’s men whispered of a deeper presence, something ancient and alive down in this foreboding place.

But above all… there was a path to Avaria itself.

***

“You can’t be serious,” Galahad said. “Ancient ruins sprawling beneath entire mountains—it’s the stuff of fireside tales told by drunkards, not a lead worth pursuing. If such a place had existed, there would be evidence. It would be scribbled in the margins of old histories, hinted at in cartographers’ works. But there’s nothing, not a whisper. You’re being deceived, Your Majesty.”

King Arnoud didn’t reply right away. “How many could pass through?”

“I’m not quite sure. I’ve never been myself,” Sarah said, pacing around the room. “It was going to be the venue for their invasion, but… perhaps that table could turn.”

Crimson aura started to emerge from the king’s body. It danced about through the air like a mist, and Willem had recalled that his brothers had described something like this when their fight with the king had begun. He tensed up a little, walking up to join Sarah.

“And why shouldn’t I take this information and kill you?” The king said, his voice taking on a threatening, guttural bent. “Why should I debase myself consorting with a chimera slave?”

Sarah walked toward the king fearlessly. “Avaria has been beating you at every turn in the field of espionage. I’m one of the best spies but Avaria has to offer. If your opponent has a strategy that’s better than yours, you adapt it, steal it, make it your own.” She looked over at Galahad. “As your better in the field of espionage, I’m telling you this is the only way for things to end in your favor.”

“Father, please.” Clara stepped forward. “This is my plan, my ambition. I genuinely think this could work. I genuinely think that this is the path to end all of this nonsense.”

“By giving this thing whatever it wants? By bending over to the whims of something that once conspired against my kingdom?” He looked over to his daughter. “Clemency begets only weakness. I taught you better than that.”

“Clemency doesn’t beget weakness,” she said, voice clear and firm in its conviction. “Fear makes men obey, yes—but only until your back is turned. Mercy, used wisely, binds people to you long after the sword is sheathed. If that weren’t so, the man whose hand you severed would not have so steadfastly aided me these past days. I gave him but the smallest bulwark from your scorn and gained more trusted an ally than you’ve had since mother died.”

“Do not compare your mother to that lowlife,” Arnoud shouted, showing true anger for the first time.

“Your daughter gets it,” Willem said, finally getting a word in edgewise. He could see what was happening. Sarah had cut him out, dealt with Clara. But there were bigger concerns than that at present—notably, getting out of this intact. “It’s like I told you, Arnoud. You have a lot to learn. You need precision, not spectacle. Intelligence, not intimidation. You’ve been breaking things and calling it order, and that has to change.”

Everyone looked toward him.

“You want to stop Avaria’s success?” Willem continued, walking up to join Sarah. “Then stop making enemies faster than you can count them. Half the nobles are terrified they’ll be next. The other half are already wondering if they should start digging tunnels of their own. Every spy you’ve caught makes ten more careful. Every innocent man dragged off makes ten more bitter. We should be herding them, not scattering them. We should be making them believe they’re safer with us than against us.”

“If I concede to a chimera… the authority I’ve built—” King Arnoud began.

“Humility isn’t weakness. It’s the one weapon you haven’t tried,” Willem finished loudly.

The king walked up to Willem step by step in the still training room. He stood eye-to-eye with him, his breathing audible this close. He held that black sword of his tightly in hand as if ready to use it at a moment’s notice.

“The Red Raven will be placed under temporary house arrest here in the palace until my decision is made,” Arnoud said. “The rest of you… leave.”

***

Clara stood in her father’s study. He had been looking out of the window silently for a solid five minutes. She’d been waiting for something, anything… a demand, a question, an interrogation. She had tried to say many things to prompt him to speak, but he remained silent.

“Let’s try it your way,” he said, in a voice so quiet Clara almost thought she misheard.

“Father?” she stepped closer, uncertain.

“You’ve done what I always hoped for, but never quite prepared for: made me reconsider.” He studied the outside. “It’s strange, realizing the lesson I was trying to teach has come back… but in your voice. In your mother’s…” He sighed a long while, then turned toward her. “Let’s try it your way.”

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