The silence in the barricaded main hall was heavier than the oak furniture they had piled against the shattered door. The adrenaline of the standoff with Commander Titus had evaporated, leaving behind the stinging reality of their situation. They were besieged in a ruined estate, tired, hungry, and politically exposed.
Valeria sat by the dying fire, sorting through a stack of heavy, wax-sealed parchments she had pulled from her inventory. These were not cheap receipts. They were deeds of ownership, stamped with the crests of the Imperial Arena and the High Auction House: relics from the life of the original Elise Vespera.
"Valeria."
It was Silas. The Wolf Prince stood by the table, his grey eyes reflecting the embers. Beside him stood Kael, Ignis, Caspian, and Lucian. They were not resting. They were waiting.
"We need to talk," Silas said quietly.
"About the plan?" Valeria asked, not looking up from the documents.
"About us," Kael rumbled.
He stepped forward, his massive frame casting a long shadow over her. He looked different than he had in the barn months ago, but the memory of that place still hung over them like smoke.
"Tonight, you called me a Prince. You called us your husbands. You stood before the Emperor and claimed us as family."
Kael pointed a clawed finger at the stack of papers in her lap.
"But those papers say we are property. I remember the day the original Elise bought me. It wasn't in a barn. It was at the Underground Fighting Pits. I was the Champion. She bought me not to free me, but because she wanted a monster to scare her rivals. She paid a fortune for me, then let me sleep in the mud when I couldn't walk fast enough."
He leaned down, his golden eyes searching hers.
"She bought Ignis because a Dragon General was a novelty item. She bought Silas because she thought a Wolf would look cute on a chain. We were her Collection, Valeria. Her toys. She dragged us to Oakhaven when she was exiled because she couldn't bear to part with her possessions. So tell us. Which is the lie? The Husbands? Or the Toys?"
Valeria looked at the papers. Kael was right. The original Elise hadn't been a scavenger; she had been a vain, cruel collector. When Valeria had woken up in that freezing shed in Chapter One, she hadn't found friends. She had found five victims of a spoiled girl's vanity.
"The papers aren't a lie," Valeria said softly. "They are history."
She stood up. She held up the first deed. [Item: Golden Tiger Hybrid. Status: Champion. Price: 500 Gold Marks.]
"Elise bought you because she was vain," Valeria admitted. "She wanted to be feared. When my father exiled me, Ma and Pa Garnett came with us. They were supposed to be my caretakers, the servants who raised me. But they were only loyal to the Vespera gold."
"The Garnetts," Ignis hissed, the name making his scales bristle. "I remember Ma Garnett. She smelled of gin and greed."
"Yes," Valeria said. "And I remember the day the money stopped. Three days before I woke up. The Vespera stipend was cut. Ma and Pa didn't see a daughter anymore. They saw a bankrupt girl. And they looked at you—the Collection—and saw liquidation assets."
Valeria threw the deed into the fire.
"They brought a Broker to the farm. They were going to sell me to a brothel and sell you to the renderers. I heard Ma Garnett haggling over the price of your hides."
She took a breath, steeling herself against the memory of that desperate morning in the yard.
"I couldn't free you. Manumission costs five hundred gold per head. I had nothing. If I had simply burned these papers then, the Garnetts—as my legal guardians—would have seized you and sold you before the sun went down."
She looked at Kael.
"So I used the only loophole I had against them. Imperial Law, Section 12. A slave is property, but a spouse is kin. A wife can protect her husbands from seizure by creditors or guardians. I called you my husbands that morning not to own you, but to strip Ma Garnett of her authority. It was a legal bluff to keep my own nannies from selling my family."
Silas's ears twitched. "You lied... to save us?"
"I lied to buy time," Valeria corrected. "But then we survived the winter. We fought the thugs. We evicted the Garnetts. You aren't my property, Silas. You are the reason I'm breathing."
She threw the rest of the deeds into the fire. The records of their enslavement—the high prices, the auction dates, the ownership transfers—curled and turned to black ash.
"That history is dead," Valeria said. "I am not Elise. I am not a collector."
She opened her System Library. She drafted a new document, pulling from the ancient traditions of the Northern Tribes.
She placed a fresh sheet of heavy vellum on the table.
[Document: Consort Contract of the Northern Customs.]
[Status: Binding by Blood and Honor.]
"This is the truth," Valeria said. "In the North, a marriage doesn't need a priest. It needs a vow. If we sign this, you are legally my Consorts. When I reclaim my title as Duchess, you gain immediate citizenship. No collars. No masters. Just us."
She signed her name: Valeria of Oakhaven.
She held out the quill.
"You don't have to sign. You can walk out that door. But if you sign... we are tied. My enemies become your enemies."
Kael took the quill. He didn't hesitate. He signed KAEL in bold, jagged strokes.
"I claim you," Kael rumbled. "As my Warlord."
Ignis signed next. "As my Strategist."
Silas. "Pack."
Caspian. "Hunter."
Lucian. "Wings."
As the ink dried, a pulse of warmth washed over the room. [System Update: Soul Bond Established. Party Status: Family.]
"Now," Valeria said, rolling up the scroll. "We are official. Which means we need to talk about the inheritance."
She turned to the Duke of Ironclad. "Your Grace, I need to bankrupt my father. And to do that, I need to access the Garnett Trust."
"The Garnett Trust?" Kael frowned. "Named after Ma and Pa?"
"No," Valeria shook her head, her expression darkening. "It is the other way around. Ma and Pa were former servants of the Garnett family. My mother was Duchess Garnett, the heiress to the Garnett Gem Mines, before she married Duke Vespera. When she died, she left a massive trust for me. Ma and Pa were supposed to guard me, but they were just waiting to loot the corpse."
She paced the room.
"When I evicted them from Oakhaven, they didn't just leave. They ransacked my room while I was feverish. They stole the Red Tear - my mother's favorite garnet necklace. It was the only thing of value I had left."
"They stole the Key," Silas growled. "I remember Pa Garnett holding it. He said it would buy them a mansion."
"And they sold it," Valeria said. "I tracked it through the Library's merchant logs. Ma and Pa sold it to a fence to buy passage out of the North. It changed hands three times. And do you know who bought it?"
She looked toward the window, in the direction of the Vespera Estate.
"Isolde," Valeria said coldly. "My half-sister. She saw it in a jeweler's window. She bought it to wear as a trophy, to mock the sister she replaced. She has no idea she is wearing the physical key to the Garnett Vault around her neck."
"So Isolde has the money," Kael summarized. "And your father has the political power."
"Exactly," Valeria said. "Garius is demanding bribes from my father to keep the Guild off his back. My father is paying him from the Vespera coffers, but he's running low. If I steal the necklace and trigger the Trust, I can freeze the Vespera assets for 'Gross Negligence'. I can leave him destitute before the trial even begins."
"Two targets," Ignis analyzed. "The Black Ledger in the Temple to convict the Guild. And the Red Tear in the Vespera Estate to bankrupt your father."
"We can't do both at once," Valeria said. "We are too few."
"Then we split," Kael said. "Valeria, you and I are the strongest combat team. We take the Temple. It requires heavy lifting and... diplomacy."
"And the necklace?" Valeria asked.
She looked at the others.
"Ignis, you are the lockpick. Silas, you are the scout."
She turned to Caspian.
"The Vespera Estate is famous for its water gardens," Valeria said. "My father spent a fortune diverting the river to create canals under the walls. It was his vanity project."
Caspian grinned, showing rows of serrated teeth. "A back door."
"Exactly," Valeria said. "You swim in. You disable the guards from below. You let the others in."
"And me?" Lucian chirped, hopping onto the back of a chair.
"You are the eye in the sky," Valeria said. "You perch on the Vespera roof. If Isolde wakes up, or if the guards raise an alarm, you signal the team. You are the difference between a heist and a prison sentence."
Valeria looked at them. Her family.
"Do not hurt Isolde," Valeria added, her voice hard. "Not because I care about her. But because if she bleeds, we lose the moral high ground. Just get the necklace. If she wakes up... put her back to sleep."
"Understood," Silas said.
Valeria looked at the window. The sun was beginning to rise over the capital. The day of the "audit" was dawning. Garius would be distracted looking for Varg. The Emperor would be waiting.
"Get some sleep," Valeria ordered. "Tonight, we take back everything they stole."