Chapter 195: The Mercenaries
Leroy took in the scene with a soldier’s eye. The half-alive man still breathed, thrashing weakly as the public tried to tear him apart. Leroy raised a hand, stopping them. His wife had asked him to leave one alive. Then, he hadn’t known why. Now he did.
The other lay broken, body little more than carrion. And Hadrian... Leroy’s gaze lingered on the head severed clean from its body, mouth slack, eyes glassy. Once, the man had been feared, untouchable, weaving schemes in the shadows. Now, he was only another corpse rotting in the gutter.
Leroy laughed inwardly, a low, bitter thing. He had dreamed of ending Hadrian himself...of sinking steel into the man who had tormented his beloved wife for years, of watching the light go out of his eyes. He thought fate would grant him that satisfaction.
Instead, Hadrian was stripped of all dignity, slaughtered in the street by rabid men too consumed with vengeance to even care who he was.
So much for his power. So much for his name.
All the intelligence, all the pride were the dust sticking to his bloodied head now. In the end, Hadrian Arvand would not be remembered as a great conspirator, but as a man broken, tortured, and finished by nobodies he had wronged. Hadrian would have preferred a stage, a spectacle, perhaps even a public execution sanctioned by the Emperor himself. That would have suited his twisted vanity.
But his daughter, Lorraine, the one he despised, had given him this instead. A death like a dog, beneath the feet of the very people he scorned.
Leroy exhaled, grimly satisfied. That was justice.
The guards arrived, their armor clattering as they pushed through the shaken crowd. Leroy strode to meet them, calm, collected, his golden mask gleaming with authority. He explained what had happened, laid out what he had seen, and added, with a soldier’s precision, that he had an audience with the Emperor.
Now he knew what must come next.
When Leroy first approached the audience hall, the guards barred his way. He stood silent, his mask gleaming under the vaulted shadows, until the men beside him were admitted. A heartbeat later, a messenger hurried back, pale and whispering. The doors opened once more. Leroy was summoned in.
He drew a long breath as he crossed the threshold. The pieces had fallen into place; he knew, at last, the part he must play. With the same deference he had worn for years—a mask sharper than gold, he bowed low and entered the grand hall.
The chamber stilled. Behind him, a guard carried the sack and, with grim ceremony, withdrew Hadrian Arvand’s severed head. Gasps tore through the assembly. The dowager Empress shot up from her seat, her jeweled hand flying to her lips.
"Prince Leroy might be accustomed to such gore," the Emperor said, his voice edged with disdain, "but others here are not."
He had searched for Hadrian in vain these past days, under his mother’s command, and the failure had gnawed at him. To see Leroy, who was not even a true subject of Vaeloria, but a hostage prince of a vassal state, stride in and present Hadrian not alive but dead, and in so crude a manner, twisted his temper to the breaking point.
Leroy dropped to one knee, head bowed, his voice carrying across the marble. "Your Majesty must forgive my impudence," he said, steady and reverent, the very image of submission. "But I bear news that cannot wait. I have very important information to report."
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Meanwhile, in the library, Lorraine smiled faintly at the pounding on the door. It wasn’t the knock of a maid, nor the hurried summons of a guard. It was a relentless, battering sound—like a ram breaking through stone.
Cool as ever, she closed the book in her lap and placed it neatly on the table.
"Who is it?" Illyria asked, her voice trembling. She, too, knew whoever came was not a friend.
"What did you do?" Illyria lunged at her, but Lorraine was already rising, slipping past her with a fluid grace. She drifted toward the shelves, unhurried.
Illyria was confused and held her grandsons closer.
She had no interest in Illyria’s panic. All she wanted originally was to send word to her brother, to warn him of their father’s death, to tell him what must be done next. But... This war had been set ablaze by the Dowager. Lorraine had sworn to herself: she would be the one to finish it. She was not going to waste this chance the dowager had given her.
The final bang shattered the lock. The door swung open with a splintering crack.
"Who are you?" Illyria cried, her voice shrill, half-command, half-terror. "Did the mongrel bring you here? What do you want? Guards! Guards!"
But no one came. No footsteps stirred.
Through the gap between the shelves, Lorraine saw them: men dressed in black, capes trailing, boots leaving wet, bloody prints on the marble floor. Her heart tightened. The mansion guards were not standing watch anymore.
Illyria’s cries turned desperate, almost feral. To Lorraine’s faint surprise, she threw herself in front of the boys, arms spread wide, shielding them like a mother hen. For an instant, Lorraine’s chest ached. So, she did have a heart, after all, when it came to blood of her blood.
She drew a deep breath and lifted her hand, fist clenched; a silent signal for her hidden men to stay put until her net signal. They had been waiting, tucked between the shelves. Previously, when she pretended to wander aimlessly, she had looked for them, not just the book. She was not disappointed. They were here. Aldric, she could not yet see. She trusted others, but she trusted him most of all and hoped he was there somewhere.
The four mercenaries strode in, blades glinting, their gait purposeful. They made straight for the boys.
Illyria, still shrieking, cursed them, ordering them back as though her voice alone could command killers.
"You dare step into my halls? Do you know who I am?" she cried, clutching the boys closer. "I am the Grand Duchess of Vaeloria! I order you to retreat this instant!"
The mercenaries did not so much as flinch. Their boots dragged streaks of blood across the marble as they advanced.
"Guards!" Illyria screamed, voice breaking. "To me—now! Where are you? Do your duty!"
Still, silence.
Lorraine almost pitied her. Almost.
One of the black-clad men sneered. "Your guards are in no shape to come running."
Illyria’s eyes darted wildly, her defiance cracking into fear. And then, foolishly, desperately, she raised her fist.
"Then I’ll deal with you myself!" she spat, striking out at the nearest man.