Knowledge was a weapon, but a vague one was useless. "Survivor's Guilt" was a clue, not a key. I needed the whole story. I needed to know what Lyra was so ashamed of that it could make a knight of her iron will flinch.
For the next week, I became a ghost. I attended my classes, I made polite, empty conversation, but my mind was elsewhere. My resources were limited, but I had two things: a bag of gold and a broken interface that could sometimes see the truth in people's hearts.
I started with the gold. I sent a discreet message to a man my system had identified weeks ago: a clerk in the city archives named Finn. His stats were simple: Favor: 0. Corruption: 60. Debt: 500 Crowns. He was a man who could be bought.
We met in a quiet corner of a public garden. He was a nervous, twitchy man with ink-stained fingers.
"The Herrmann family is considering a donation to the archives," I began, my tone bored and aristocratic. "But my father wishes to review the records of certain… prominent families. To ensure their history is… suitable."
Finn licked his lips. "Which families, my lord?"
"The Lyra family," I said, watching him closely. "The Knight-Captain's line. I understand they have a proud history of service."
Finn's eyes widened almost imperceptibly. He knew something. "The Lyra records… they are… fragmented, my lord. A fire, many years ago…"
I pulled a small, heavy purse from my coat and placed it on the bench between us. It clinked softly. "Perhaps this will help you… remember. Or find what fragments remain."
He stared at the purse like a starving man looking at a feast. His Corruption stat flickered to 65. He snatched the purse and hid it in his robes. "I… I may be able to find something. I'll send word."
Two days later, a single, folded piece of paper was delivered to my room. The handwriting was rushed, scared.
Lyra family. Formerly minor barony in the Northern Marches. Accused of treason fifty years ago for conspiring with border raiders. Title and lands stripped. Last head of family executed. Surviving members scattered, name disgraced.
So that was it. Her shame wasn't a personal failure. It was a bloodline's curse. She came from traitors. In a kingdom that valued honor above all, it was the worst possible origin. It explained her fanatical devotion to the crown and the law. She was trying to scrub the stain of her name clean with a lifetime of service.
But "Survivor's Guilt" implied something more recent. Something more personal.
I turned to my second resource: my interface. I needed to see Lyra again, to look deeper now that I had the context. I found her the next day, inspecting the guard post at the city's main gate.
I kept my distance, blending in with a crowd of merchants. I focused on her. The pain in my head was immediate and sharp, but I pushed through it.
Knight-Captain Lyra: Favor: -45. Corruption: 12. Obsession: 38.
[Secret Shame: Active - Survivor's Guilt.]
I focused on the shame itself, pouring all my concentration into it. The static flared, the pain spiked, and for a few seconds, the world swam. New, fractured words appeared, overlaying her stats.
…blackmail… silence… gold… sister…
The connection broke, and I stumbled, earning a curious look from a apple-seller. I leaned against a wall, catching my breath. Gold. It always came back to gold.
She needed money. A lot of it. And she was being blackmailed. About her sister?
This was the final piece. I couldn't use my interface to find her sister; the strain might knock me unconscious. But I knew someone who moved in the shadows, who heard things.
I went back to the seedy part of the city, to the tavern near the loose sewer grate. I didn't go in. I waited. After an hour, a hulking man with a broken nose emerged. I'd seen him before. Boris: Favor: -20. Corruption: 75. A low-level enforcer for the Gold Feather Guild.
I stepped out of the shadows, another purse of gold in my hand. His eyes locked onto it.
"I'm not here about a debt," I said quickly. "I'm here to pay for information. About a knight. Captain Lyra."
He scowled. "Don't know nothin'."
"I hear she's been having… financial troubles," I pressed, jingling the purse slightly. "People asking her for money. Maybe about her family?"
Recognition flashed in his beady eyes. He glanced around, then snatched the purse. "There's a fella. Slimy little weasel named Silas. He brags in his cups. Says he's got a 'knight on a leash.' Says her little sister ain't dead like everyone thinks. Says the sister ran off with one of them border raiders their family was accused of helping. He's got proof. A letter. He makes the knight pay him every month to keep it quiet. If it got out, her career'd be over. The sister would hang for treason."
And there it was. The full, ugly picture.
Lyra's shame was a layered thing. The ancient treason of her bloodline. The modern treason of her sister, who had actually done the thing their family was accused of. And her own "crime": protecting that sister, not out of agreement, but out of a desperate, guilty love. She was using her salary, every spare coin, to pay a blackmailer to hide the truth, to keep the last remnant of her family alive. The "Survivor's Guilt" was for choosing her sister's life over the absolute honor she preached.
It was the most human, most painful secret I had ever uncovered.
Back in my room, I stared at the information I had pieced together. I had it all. The leverage was absolute. A single, anonymous note to the royal council revealing what I knew would destroy her.
My interface flickered, showing me the cost of my success.
[Leverage Perfected: Knight-Captain Lyra's Survival]
[Influence: +10]
[Corruption: 93 -> 96]
Three points. My Corruption was now a towering 96. I was so close to the monster I had been. I felt a coldness inside me that the warm fire in my hearth couldn't touch.
I had set out to protect myself from Lyra's contempt. Now, I held her entire life in my hands. I could crush her with a word. The power was intoxicating and sickening.
I thought of Isabella's broken spirit. I thought of Lyra, shouldering the weight of her family's sins every single day. I was no longer just avoiding doom flags. I was actively collecting the souls of others as shields for my own.
I had wanted a network. Now I had the beginnings of one: a broken lady and a blackmailed knight. I had investigated a threat and turned it into an asset.
But as I looked at my reflection in the dark window, I saw less of Klaus and more of Null staring back. I was building a fortress, but I was the one trapped inside, surrounded by the ghosts of the people I was destroying to save myself.