Chương 122: 50-1. Day of Departure

The next morning, I opened my eyes to a sensation that felt less like waking up naturally and more like being personally called out by fate. Dawn hadn't fully taken hold yet. Outside the window, the world was only a pale wash of grey—as if the night had died badly, clinging to its last breath along the eaves. The room was quiet—so quiet I could hear the faint rustle of bedding as I sat up. Today was departure day.

When that thought surfaced in my mind, I sat on the edge of the bed and stared into nothing for two full beats before finally exhaling. Until yesterday, this diplomatic mission to the Southern Dragon Kingdom had still felt like an official document the King had slapped across my face. Heavy, painful, and thoroughly unpleasant, but not quite real.

This morning, though, looking at the coat folded over the chair, the packed bags arranged by the bed, the rosters and port charts on the desk that I'd memorized to the brink of nausea last night, I finally understood— No. This wasn't paperwork anymore. This was the kind of trouble that required my actual physical body to come along with it. By the time I dressed and went downstairs, the Blackwell estate was already awake. Or rather, it had never gone to sleep.

People moved back and forth between the front hall and the courtyard in a steady stream. Crates, scrolls, leather pouches, spare cloaks, medicine packs, and compressed luggage were being checked, loaded, re-tied, and then summarily rejected as Alvira stood there with a cold expression, cutting about thirty percent of whatever offended her sensibilities.

"Take that off."

"That's the spare blankets," Jessi protested.

"The South doesn't snow."

"But Lord Cedric has episodes."

"Then he can hug his episodes and shiver." I reached the bottom of the stairs just in time to catch that exchange and immediately concluded that my emotional state this morning was... complex. On one hand, having people prepare things for you was genuinely touching. On the other hand, those same people were currently having a serious discussion about whether to treat me as some kind of low-grade, self-heating organism and therefore not worth the blanket.

Matthews was inspecting the carriage undercarriages, checking the braces. Lucas pressed the final compression inscription into the interior wall. Victoria stood on the steps with a roster in hand, working through it item by item with the composed expression of someone organizing not a younger brother's diplomatic departure, but a moderately undignified funeral. She looked up as I approached.

"You're half a quarter hour late."

"I'd say I got up reasonably early."

"For someone about to be shipped out of the capital? Not early enough." She rolled up the roster and gave my shoulder a light rap with it.

"Are you awake yet?"

"No," I said honestly.

"But I'm currently pretending I am."

"Keep pretending," she said.

"The South isn't likely to grant you time to sleep in." I looked at the carriages already waiting in the courtyard, at the guards making their final checks, and felt my chest tighten for a brief moment. That's the thing about departure. Right before you actually leave, you don't think about grand causes or geopolitical stakes.

The thoughts that crash into your head first are always the practical ones—are the horses fast enough, are the roads terrible enough, is there a traitor among the guards, and whether you'll regret not packing that second pair of thick socks by day three. Jessi spotted me and immediately came running over, a roll of canvas under her arm.

"Young master—oh, I mean, Lord Cedric." She corrected herself with obnoxious deliberation.

"Congratulations. Today you look even more like valuable cargo than you did yesterday."

"Your mouth is this foul at sunrise. What exactly did you eat last night?"

"Anticipation," she said brightly.

"I'm very much looking forward to watching you get price-gouged on your very first day in the South."

"Don't worry. I'll send you out to negotiate first."

"That works for me," she said without missing a beat.

"If I lose, I can run. If you lose, it goes in the official record." I gave up engaging with her. Alvira straightened from beside the carriage and looked me over with a deliberate top-to-bottom sweep, apparently checking whether any part of me was visibly unfit for long-distance transport.

"Hand," she said. I held up the bandaged one. She frowned, stepped closer, and tightened the wrapping with efficient precision.

"On the road: no water, no bravado, and don't touch things you don't recognize." I looked at her.

"You sound like you're briefing a three-year-old."

"If you were smart enough not to need briefing, last night you wouldn't have—" She broke off mid-sentence, the tips of her ears going suspiciously red before she clamped her mouth shut with brute force. My eyelid twitched.

"Wouldn't have what?"

"Nothing," she said, expression freezing over as she stepped back.

"Shut up. Don't make me think about storks before we even board." Jessi burst into laughter on the spot, then caught Alvira's arctic glare and retreated behind Matthews at speed, shoulders shaking so hard she looked in danger of structural collapse. Wonderful. My morning innocence was still receiving its public sentencing on schedule. Lucas came over and placed a small wooden token carved with faint silver markings into my palm. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

"The primary inscription," he said.

"If something goes wrong, give it to Alvira. She'll handle it."

"Thanks."

"Mm." He gave a single nod, words doled out like coins on a strict ration.

"Come back alive. I haven't heard enough about the South yet." That was exactly the sort of thing he would say. Not a blessing. Not sentiment. Just a practical reminder that you'd better not die, because your death would constitute a disruption to his information supply chain. Which somehow made it carry more weight than a proper farewell. I tucked the token into my inner pocket and turned to Victoria. She had apparently finished her checklist and came down the steps to stop in front of me.

This time she didn't lecture. She didn't tap me with anything. She simply straightened the last slightly uneven fold of my collar and spoke in a voice that had gone very quiet.

"If you encounter something on the road that demands an answer, stall first. Play ignorant first. But do not make decisions for the capital."

"Understood."

"And one more thing." She looked up at me.

"If you actually accomplish something down there, don't get too pleased with yourself."

"... Is that really a send-off?"

"It's the truth," she said.

"You fail to deliver, and the Empire concludes you're incompetent. You deliver too well, and the Empire starts recalibrating your value." I was quiet for a moment, then laughed.

"Genuinely inspiring."

"I'm not here to inspire you," she said flatly.

"I'm here to remind you that the capital has never been afraid of uselessness. It's only afraid of someone becoming unexpectedly useful." The words were cold, but they drove in like nails—straight and clean, pinning something firmly in place. Right. This journey wasn't just my personal trial. It was the capital taking my measure. Julian's voice carried in from outside.

"Lord Envoy. The escort is ready." I turned to look. Julian had, to his credit, made an effort today. His cloak was properly secured, his lance strapped across his back. Standing in the morning light, he looked considerably less like decorative trim for a ballroom and considerably more like a knight who actually intended to lead people somewhere. Considerably. My prejudice toward him had been revised downward by approximately sixty percent. The remaining forty would have to wait until he actually got me home alive.

Matthews mounted and moved to lead the front. Alvira and Jessi climbed into their respective positions. Jessi, naturally, managed to wave while doing so.

"Lord Cedric, hurry up. At this rate the South will have finished its war before we clear the city gates."

"You'd better hope I make it to the South alive. Otherwise you're the first one I throw off the carriage."

"You'd have to catch me first." I was moving toward the carriage when a voice cut across the courtyard from behind me—sharp with urgency, almost breathless.

"Cedric!" I turned. Olivia was hurrying out of the house at a near-run. She must have rushed down the stairs—her cloak wasn't fully fastened, the ends of her hair loose in the morning wind, her hand closed tight around something on a fine chain. In that moment, she looked nothing like the version of herself that always seemed to have calculated everything in advance. She looked like someone genuinely afraid of being one step too late. I took two steps back toward her without thinking.

"What is it?" She stopped in front of me, still catching her breath, and without preamble pressed the chain into my palm.

"Keep this on you." I looked down. A delicate silver chain. Suspended from it was a deep blue crystal, roughly the size of a fingertip joint—the face cut thin, the interior carrying what looked like a faint, slow-moving light.

"This is—""A communication amulet," she said, lowering her voice.

"Long-distance. Two-way." I blinked. This was not the kind of thing you picked up cheaply, and it was certainly not the kind of thing you handed to someone as a casual parting gift. Olivia, apparently unmoved by my need for a moment to process this, simply reached up and fastened the chain around my neck herself. Her fingertips grazed the side of my neck as she worked the clasp, and for half a breath my entire body forgot what it was supposed to be doing.

"Here." She pressed her fingertip lightly against the blue crystal.

"Don't touch it carelessly. If you genuinely need to use it, channel a thread of mana into the stone and think my name. Don't shout. And don't let Jessi talk you into using it for anything inadvisable." From her eavesdropping position nearby, Jessi objected immediately.

"Why am I always the cautionary example?"

"Because you'd corrupt the process within five minutes," Olivia said without turning around. I looked down at the crystal. Cold. Small. And somehow heavier than it had any right to be. Not physically heavy. The other kind—the kind where, the moment you understand what something is for, you realize the person who put it in your hands folded a small piece of themselves into it.

"When did you prepare this?" I asked.

"I sent for it last night," she said. Her voice had finally slowed to its usual measured pace.

"I meant to give it to you earlier, but this morning was..."

"This isn't cheap," I said.

"Then don't lose it," she replied. I smiled slightly. Very like her. Even now, she wouldn't let it sound sentimental—and somehow that made every word land harder than sentiment would have. She tucked the chain inside my collar, her hand pausing there for just a moment before she added quietly:"If something truly goes wrong, use it to find me." That sentence wasn't heavy. But it struck cleaner and colder than everything else the morning had brought. I looked at her and found myself at a loss for words.

I had thought the weight of this departure would come from Victoria's instructions, or Alvira's knife, or Lucas's inscription, or the carriages and escorts waiting to be led south. But it was only now—with this chain settled cold against my chest—that I felt it properly, that specific sensation of reality: I wasn't only being pushed out by the Empire. I was being placed on this road, one person at a time, by these people.

"Olivia."

"Yes?"

"I'll keep it with me," I said. She looked at me for a moment, as if she had other words waiting. In the end she let out a very small, very quiet smile.

"That's not what I'm worried about," she said softly.

"I'm worried you'll spend every day in the South pretending you're fine, and then refuse to ask for help even when you need it." That landed somewhere uncomfortable. I cleared my throat.

"Do I really look that foolish?" From nearby, Jessi answered without hesitation.

"Yes." Alvira contributed with characteristic economy: "Worse, actually." Victoria said nothing. She simply looked at me once with an expression that communicated very clearly: You already know the answer. I accepted, with the dignity of the thoroughly outvoted, that every person present had apparently arrived at a unanimous verdict regarding my self-preservation instincts. Which was honestly a little alarming. Olivia smoothed the shoulder of my cloak one final time, then stepped back.

"Go, Cedric." I nodded, turned, and walked to the carriage. The moment I reached for the door, something settled into my chest—not the chain, not the silver seal from last night, not the rosters. Something deeper. Like someone had finally reached into a page and pulled the words you are going to the South out of the paper and pressed them directly between my ribs. I stepped up and looked back. The Blackwell estate's courtyard still held all of them.

Victoria stood with her arms folded, her expression composed with cold precision. Alvira stood beside the carriage, silver hair catching the morning light, her face conveying don't die stupidly with the clarity of a printed notice. Jessi was waving and grinning, clearly hoping I'd come back with enough material to keep her entertained for months. Lucas and Matthews were already in position. And Olivia stood a little further back than the rest, not saying anything more—only watching me with those lake-colored eyes.

That gaze was quiet. But it was the first thing all morning that made it feel genuinely, undeniably real. This wasn't the second act of some capital farce. It wasn't the fragile kind of night where you could hold someone's hand and defer everything until morning. It wasn't the kind of embarrassment a stork joke could resolve over breakfast. This was leaving the city.

This was official documents and the Southern Dragon Kingdom and the Yanxia Empire and twenty-four visible escorts and eight relay riders and Jessi who spoke black market dialects and Alvira who carried a short blade and Julian who looked like a court ornament but had apparently signed his name to keeping me alive. And I had to take all of it, and walk out through the gates. The carriage door closed behind me. And that was when I finally felt it—the full weight of it. It didn't arrive like a blow.

It arrived like a tide. Slow, and patient, and already well past your chest by the time you notice—moving in while you were still making jokes, still laughing, still complaining that someone's gift was too expensive and the send-off was too much. By the time you're actually sitting in the carriage, listening to the wheels begin to turn against the ground, listening to someone outside call out move out—you realize the water has been at your throat for a while now.

I leaned back against the carriage wall and touched the cold crystal through the fabric of my coat. The Southern Dragon Kingdom. The Yanxia Empire. The capital's calculations. And this life of mine—suddenly worth considerably more than it used to be, and therefore considerably easier to use up. The carriage lurched once, and began to move forward.