Chương 129: 02. Southern Wall 3

After being escorted into the inner keep's council chamber, I waited a considerable stretch before Margrave Frank finally made his entrance. Waiting is unpleasant under ordinary circumstances. Waiting in a border fortress that smells like it's about to combust is something else entirely. But when he finally came through the door, I found myself thinking that perhaps the delay had been a mercy. My first impression docked him fifty points immediately.

Not because of how he looked—people who spent their lives eating wind, ash, and bad news along the Southern Reaches weren't expected to resemble banquet guests. The issue was his entrance. Cloak thrown back, boots striking the floor with deliberate rhythm—looking less like he'd come to receive an Imperial envoy and more like he was inspecting which unfortunate soul the capital had shipped down as a target for his frustration. He didn't even attempt to maintain the pretense of formality.

The moment his eyes landed on me, the first words were already airborne.

"So you're the ones telling me I can't move against the Dragon Kingdom?" Exceptionally poor manners. On the other hand—useful. It meant we could skip the portion where both parties pretended to care about ceremony neither of them believed in. I stood where I was, held his gaze, and kept my voice level.

"Margrave Frank. I come bearing His Majesty's directive." I said.

"His Majesty instructs that until the matter of Black Dragon Pass has been investigated and determined, the southern garrisons are to take no action that could escalate the potential for misinterpretation."

"Misinterpretation." He said it like someone repeating a word they'd just been told was the correct term for something completely absurd. A short sound left his throat—not laughter, more like a blade dragged across stone.

"If it were just some random village that burned, I might grant you that framing." He raised one arm and pointed south—the gesture large and hard, as though he intended to drive his finger through the wall itself.

"What crossed our border was the boundary line itself." He stepped forward, eyes fixing on mine with the heat of someone who had been containing this too long.

"Today it was rooftops. Charred timber. Half a ruined beam blown out of Black Dragon Pass. I can absorb one incident." His voice dropped lower and harder.

"But tomorrow? If tomorrow it's boulders, or fire, or more of whatever this is landing inside Typhon Fortress's walls—what exactly am I supposed to pretend I haven't seen?" The council chamber was quiet. I could hear wood charcoal cracking in the fire basin, and the carefully suppressed breathing of officers positioned near the door. Every one of them was watching me, waiting to see whether the capital's representative intended to deliver polished deflections—or whether he would actually meet the heat head-on.

I didn't answer immediately. Frank isn't a man you suppress by applying more pressure. You can do it—but it accomplishes nothing. What he's actually angry about isn't losing face. It's that the fire from the south has reached his doorstep, and the capital is telling him to put his sword away. If I respond with nothing but imperial authority, he'll bow on the surface and be angrier underneath. So I looked at him and offered only one sentence.

"Which is precisely why I'm here." His expression shifted—not softening, but recalibrating. He hadn't expected that. I continued before he could redirect.

"Whether the Dragon Kingdom's actions were deliberate or accidental—I will find out, and I will ensure appropriate consequences follow." I said.

"But if you move forces now, the situation becomes something else entirely. At that point, before I've even begun negotiations, the Empire will have sealed off every viable path forward with its own hands." Frank let out a cold, short sound.

"So what you're saying is I should stand here and swallow this. Pretend nothing happened." This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"Whether you swallow this particular grievance is not mine to decide." My tone dropped a degree.

"But His Majesty's position is unambiguous. Until the capital's directive changes, the southern garrisons must cease all actions with the potential to trigger full-scale misinterpretation." Several faces in the chamber shifted when that landed. Because this was no longer persuasion. This was an imperial order. Frank looked at me with the expression of a man who wanted to drag me outside and leave me next to that charred beam on the slope for a few hours, then ask whether I could still speak this calmly.

I didn't look away. I simply let the silence hold, then completed what I'd started.

"Margrave Frank. I understand that you are the one bearing the immediate pressure." I said.

"If something goes wrong at Typhon Fortress, you're the first one whose eyebrows catch fire—not the people sitting in warm halls waiting for dispatches. I know this. Which is why I'm not here today to instruct you on how to be a border marquis." I paused, letting that settle.

"I'm here to give you the opportunity to hold this situation together before it becomes irretrievable." This time, he didn't answer immediately. I recognized that he was listening. I pressed forward.

"If you move forces now, Typhon Fortress vents its anger—and the Empire inherits every consequence that follows. Whatever actually happened at Black Dragon Pass becomes irrelevant, because we will have been the ones to let the south spiral first." I held his gaze, word by word.

"But if you hold your forces and let me complete these negotiations—the situation stays in your hands." Frank narrowed his eyes. When he finally spoke, his voice carried reluctant assessment.

"You have a very practiced way with words."

"If I didn't, I wouldn't have been sent here." Not gracious. Entirely honest. Someone in the chamber drew a quiet breath—apparently not expecting me to field it that way. Frank himself paused, as though my unreasonable candor had briefly disrupted his rhythm. I didn't let the gap go to waste.

"I give you my word." I said.

"If negotiations with the Dragon Kingdom genuinely collapse—if the situation in the south reaches the point where military action is the only remaining option—you will be the first person in the Empire to know." His gaze locked onto mine.

"Those are your words."

"They are." I let a moment pass before allowing my tone to ease—just slightly.

"Besides—my return journey also passes through your territory. When the time genuinely comes for you to act, I have no intention of leaving you without the standing to do so properly." The death-grip tension that had been holding the chamber finally, marginally, released. Not because it was amusing. Because it was direct, and it was real. Frank was not a man who responded to flattery. But he understood what a graceful exit looked like—especially when it was built for him, not for the capital's benefit.

He looked at me for a long time. Long enough that I began calculating which chair in the council chamber would offer the most structural value as emergency cover, in the event this conversation ended badly and I needed to identify the optimal piece of furniture to place between myself and whatever he decided to throw. Finally, a heavy sound came through his nose. Not capitulation. More like something temporarily, and very unwillingly, swallowed.

"Fine." He said.

"I'll give you this one trip." He turned and gestured sharply to the officers beside him.

"Pass the order—Typhon Fortress maintains standard alert posture on the outer line. No one crosses the border without my explicit command." His voice dropped another register.

"And send riders to the southern road and the crossing. When the rear delegation column arrives, I want a full escort provided. Nothing goes wrong on my ground." The adjutant acknowledged and withdrew immediately. But Frank hadn't finished. He turned back to me.

"But you remember this clearly, Cedric." His voice wasn't loud. It was the kind of low that had more weight than shouting.

"This isn't me giving the capital face. This is me giving you one chance. If you come back without results I can accept—next time I won't be standing here listening to you talk."

"Understood," I said. He held my gaze for another moment, as though trying to extract something further from my expression. In the end, he simply made one final cold sound and turned back toward the head of the table. The pressure that had been filling the chamber retreated—by half a step. Only half. But half was enough. Because in situations like this, what you're actually trying to accomplish is rarely complete persuasion. It's preventing someone from drawing their blade.

When I stepped out of the council chamber, Julian fell in behind me. His first words:"I genuinely expected him to overturn the table."

"So did I."

"Then how were you standing that steadily in there?" I glanced at him.

"Because I couldn't afford to look like I wanted to overturn it more than he did." Julian looked like he almost smiled. In the end, he compressed it into a single short exhale.

"Fair point." Jessi and Alvira were waiting outside. Jessi conducted her standard structural assessment before allowing her expression to improve marginally—though her tone declined to follow.

"Young master. You said something in there that made people want to hit you, didn't you."

"I made a genuine effort to keep it within tolerable parameters."

"So yes."

"Your confidence in me is genuinely touching." She gave me a look that communicated everything she'd chosen not to say aloud, then added quietly: "Still in one piece. That's what matters." Alvira glanced once in my direction and asked, with characteristic economy: "He's contained?"

"For now," I said.

"Then it's enough." Her tone carried the flatness of someone stating the obvious.

"You weren't here to make him like you." Too accurate to bother refuting. By evening, Hans arrived with the main column at Typhon Fortress's outer approach. Whatever Frank's temperament, his word, once given, held. Typhon Fortress dispatched the promised escort, conducting the main column safely to the crossing without incident. When the last carriage rolled onto the crossing dock, the breath that the entire delegation had been holding since dawn finally, cautiously, began to release.