The Great Hall of Fyrion's ancestors was so quiet, the only sound was the wet, choked screaming of the Southern knight.
He was on his knees, cradling his right arm. The heavy plate gauntlet was bent at an impossible angle, and the dark, viscous blood leaking from its joints told a clear story.
The bones beneath were not just broken; they were powder.
Lord Valdemar stared, his mouth half-open.
The image of his "waste of a son"—a boy he had long since written off as a genetic dead end, a cripple incapable of even holding a sword—not just standing his ground but shattering the aura-reinforced arm of a Royal Knight, was a variable his mind simply could not compute.
His fury at Fyrion for hiding this strength was at war with a sudden, unfamiliar spike of... confusion.
"Fyrion... you..." Valdemar began, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
Fyrion didn't even look at him. His focus was on the other Southerner. The bureaucrat.
Envoy Corvus, the man who had come to collect Fyrion's betrothal and his family's dignity, had his hand on the hilt of his own decorative sword. He was no warrior. He was a political creature, a snake that slithered in the warm, perfumed halls of the capital.
And he was smart enough to know that his personal guard—a C-Rank aura user—had just been crippled by a 19-year-old "rubbish" boy.
This was a bad situation.
"This... this is an act of war!" Corvus finally shrieked, his voice cracking. He and his other two guards scrambled to grab their screaming, broken companion, dragging him toward the main doors.
"You assault a Royal Envoy! You break a member of the Queen's own Phoenix Guard! Your family is finished, Valdemar! Utterly finished!"
Valdemar took a heavy step forward, his hand raised. "It was a misunderstanding! Your man pushed—"
"Three days!" Corvus screamed, his voice echoing in the cavernous, cold hall. He was safely near the exit now, his courage returning with distance.
"We will be at our camp by the Northern Pass. You will deliver the full levy! Double the amount, now, for this insult! Three days, Valdemar, or we return with a Royal Legion. And we will burn this rat's nest to the ground!"
The heavy oaken doors slammed shut, shaking dust from the ancient tapestries.
Valdemar finally turned on Fyrion, his face a mask of purple rage. "You arrogant, foolish boy! What have you done?! You hide your strength? You wait until now to—"
"Father."
Fyrion's voice was cold. It wasn't the voice of his son. It was the voice of a stranger. It cut through Valdemar's booming rage like a shard of ice.
"You're loud. And you're wasting my time."
Fyrion turned his back on his stunned, furious father.
"I need Silas. Now."
He walked out of the Great Hall, leaving the Lord of the House standing alone amidst the cold ashes of his own hearth.
Fyrion found him in the Scriptorium, a room that was somehow even colder than the hall. The man was bundled in moth-eaten furs, his fingers blue as he frantically scribbled in a massive, leather-bound ledger.
Silas. The family's head scribe. A thin, weasel-like man with eyes that darted with the nervous, calculating energy of a career gambler on a losing streak. For five years, Silas had been the one making the desperate 'bets'—juggling debts, selling off heirlooms, and managing which bill to pay to keep the wolves at bay for one more day.
He looked up, startled, as Fyrion entered and shut the heavy door, the sound of the lock clicking into place echoing ominously.
"Young... Young Master?" Silas stammered, trying to hide the ledger. "You shouldn't be in here. Your father is... did the envoys leave?"
"The envoys left," Fyrion said, his voice flat. He walked to the desk, his 17-year-old frame casting a long, thin shadow in the candlelight. "Report. Now."
Silas blinked. "M-Master Fyrion? Report what?"
"The books. The levy. The betrothal. I want the real numbers, Silas. Not the lies you and father tell the guards. I want the truth."
Something in Fyrion's eyes—a cold, adult intelligence that had not been there this morning—made Silas's blood run cold. This was not the shy, "rubbish" son who hid in the alchemy lab. This was someone else.
"I... I don't know what you mean, sir... We are... frugal, but stable..."
"You have three seconds, Silas," Fyrion said, his voice terrifyingly soft. He placed his hand on the heavy ledger. "Or I will break your writing hand, and we'll see how useful you are then. You think I'm bluffing? Ask the Southern knight."
Silas flinched. The news had traveled fast. He began to tremble, his entire facade crumbling.
"We're ruined," he finally whispered, the confession spilling out of him like a dam breaking. "Utterly. Bankrupt."
"How?"
"The Winter!" Silas cried, his voice cracking as he finally unburdened himself. "The 'Three-Year Winter.' It hasn't stopped, Young Master. The crops failed... again. The iron mines are frozen solid. We have no grain to trade, no ore to sell. The men are starving. We're burning the furniture to keep the halls from freezing! We've taken loans... loans against loans... but the Southern banks cut us off six months ago."
It all clicked. The vague memories Fyrion had of being cold, of being hungry... it wasn't just Northern austerity. It was starvation.
"The betrothal," Fyrion stated.
"A gamble!" Silas admitted, pulling at his thin hair. "The only one we had left! Envoy Corvus offered to cover our debts... in exchange for a marriage alliance with his daughter. We were... we were selling you, Young Master. For food. For one more season of survival. And now... now you've..."
"Broken the knight's arm," Fyrion finished. "And voided the deal."
"They'll attack, Master! They have an excuse now. We're defenseless! We have no food, no money, and no allies. The Queen will activate the levy, and when we can't pay..."
"She seizes the land." Fyrion's voice was a whisper.
He saw it. The entire, decade-long plot, clear as a diagram in an alchemy text. It wasn't just a political assassination. It was an economic siege.
They were starved out first. Deliberately. The Queen's plot wasn't just to kill him for his alchemy; it was to make his family so desperate, so weak, that they would default on their lands. His framing and execution would have just been the final, tidy clean-up.
His rage became something else. Something colder. More patient.
He looked out the Scriptorium's ice-caked window. The pathways of the castle courtyard were lined with small, black rocks to provide grip on the snow.
"That," Fyrion said, pointing.
"M-Master?"
"The rocks on the path. That's our 'worthless' slag coal, isn't it? The stuff that burns too smoky and too cold to be used for heat?"
"Yes... it's all we can dig from the upper seams. It's useless," Silas whimpered.
Fyrion turned, and for the first time, a small, terrifying smirk touched his 17-year-old face.
"Silas."
"Y-yes?"
"Find me all the sulfur and saltpeter in this castle. Scrape the latrines and the tanning sheds if you have to. I don't care how."
Silas was utterly baffled. "Sulfur? Saltpeter? But... that's for tanning hides, Master. What for?"
Fyrion looked at the black rocks outside. Carbon. He looked at his shocked scribe. Sulfur. Saltpeter.
"Those envoys want their payment in three days," Fyrion said, walking to the door. "They're about to get a much more... explosive... payment."