Chương 186: 22. Traitor Within 2

After reorganizing, the Breakwater limped toward port at a measured pace. The coastline ahead sharpened in the daylight. This wasn't Blackbeard Bay—that grimy sprawl where windows seemed perpetually poised to eject both bottles and bodies. The Dragon Kingdom's harbor was carved into black rock cliffs at varying heights, ringed by white-grey towers faced with scale-cut stone panels that caught light and threw back something between pale blue and silver.

Long breakwaters extended like exposed ribs, cutting the swells before they reached the inner basin. The ships inside were numerous but precisely berthed, even the patrol boats turning at angles that looked pre-measured. The sheer orderliness made me quietly anxious. Understandable, given that our vessel currently looked like it had rolled through a battlefield, a gambling den, and a house fire simultaneously. Starboard hull scorched black. Foredeck cracked in two places.

Rigging shredded as though a large and very committed dog had worked through it methodically. Sails torn in no fewer than three spots. As for the crew—half bleeding, half wearing the look of people recently returned from an unauthorized visit to hell. We weren't arriving at port. We were being reluctantly regurgitated onto shore by a world that had tried quite hard to swallow us.

"Kid," Marro passed close and dropped his voice.

"Fix your face."

"What?"

"You look like you're about to draw on the first customs officer who clears his throat."

"I'm not."

"That's worse." He clapped a hand on my shoulder—not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make everything ache.

"Looking like that without planning to start trouble just means your face is naturally a magnet for disaster." …Only this man could deliver what was technically reassurance and have it land like a personal attack. Before I could find a response cutting enough to be worth the effort, the lookout called out.

"Pilot vessel ahead!" A narrow grey-white boat eased out from the inner harbor—unhurried, but carrying that precise, purposeful quality that made dismissal impossible. Two figures stood at its bow in deep blue uniforms, silver thread running along cuffs and collars. Not nobility. Not ordinary dock officials either. The pilot boat cut across our bow, as if confirming whether the Breakwater was still in condition to be admitted to civilized society.

Marro moved to the prow—looking for all the world like a man who had not, minutes ago, been clawing his ship through an imperial naval engagement—and gave our name, purpose, and a string of maritime jargon I couldn't follow. The pilot answered, then pulled aside to guide us toward berth. I noticed both officials' eyes pass briefly over Ignicia. Just a glance. But that glance told me: the red letter was almost certainly going to reach its destination before we did. The Breakwater came to rest alongside a stone pier.

Lines thrown, gangplank lowered, welcoming party already assembled. Not soldiers in full kit. Not ordinary longshoremen making themselves scarce. A group of people in clean clothing standing in positions that were, on inspection, not accidental. Several harbor officials at front. Two short-sword-bearing guards behind them. And behind those, a man. He appeared to be in his forties—neither tall nor short, shoulders held with the kind of straightness that came from habit rather than effort.

He wore a dark coat of precise tailoring, no decorative excess, but so immaculate it seemed to belong to an entirely different world from our battered hull. Thin leather gloves, not a trace of salt-frost or harbor grime on his fingertips. His face was neither particularly striking nor intimidating—just clean. Clean in a way that made immediate categorization difficult. What caught my attention were his eyes. Not a pirate's eyes. Not a soldier's eyes.

More like the eyes of a man who dealt with an unending stream of problems every day and had long since stopped letting any of them show on his face. He looked at our ship in sequence: the cracked hull, the scorch marks, the blood not entirely cleaned from the deck. His eyebrows barely moved. Then his gaze found Marro, shifted, and settled on Ignicia. Not long. But not casual either. Then the man stepped forward. His stride was measured, his voice the same—neither performing authority nor apologizing for it.

"I am the acting governor's representative for this port," he said with something approaching serenity.

"It appears your voyage today was not entirely without incident." Somehow, that composed expression was harder to read than open hostility would have been. Marro grinned from the gangplank.

"If it had gone smoothly, I wouldn't be showing up looking like this." The man looked at him. No smile. No displeasure. A small, measured nod.

"Then, Captain," he said, "welcome to port. I would ask that you and your guests accompany me, and explain what exactly has occurred." When I heard the words your guests— This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. My heart gave one heavy, unannounced knock. Marro glanced at Ignicia. That was the first time I'd ever seen this one-eyed old fox let something like this has gotten genuinely large cross his face in public. Only for a moment.

The next second he was back to his usual self—shoulders dropping into that practiced slouch, brushing at his salt-ravaged coat as though the man who'd nearly been reduced to splinters by imperial broadside was someone else entirely.

"The great Governor Haerdin," Marro said, drawing out the syllables with that particular quality that managed to be simultaneously respectful and insufferable, "you'd be better off asking these two guests directly. I'm still digesting what happened out there." And with that, he physically pushed Ignicia and me forward. Not metaphorically. Actual physical contact. An actual push. I stumbled, narrowly avoiding introducing myself to the Dragon Kingdom's stone dock face-first.

Ignicia, for her part, absorbed the shove with the composure of someone who had predicted it down to the millisecond. Having executed this maneuver, Marro stepped back with the air of a man who had just completed the most dangerous item on his agenda, drifted to the gangplank's edge, and arranged himself into perfect humble captain who barely survived posture. … He had genuinely elevated throwing people under the bus into an art form. The man on the dock—Haerdin—looked at me first. Not impolite. Not warm.

More like a man reassessing cargo he'd initially classified as routine complication and was now suspecting might be incident in progress. Then he turned to Ignicia. I watched his color drain in real time. Not dramatically—not theatrical pallor. Something quieter and more honest.

The specific change that happens when a man maintaining professional composure suddenly recognizes exactly what rank of person is standing in front of him, and every drop of blood in his face decides simultaneously to find somewhere else to be. Ignicia, naturally, had no intention of letting that moment pass. She smiled. The smile of someone who has just heard something so absurd, so perfectly characteristic of the kind of people she was dealing with, that it struck her as genuinely funny.

"Don't be alarmed, Governor." Her tone was almost cheerful.

"I'm not here today about your little side arrangements." Haerdin went another shade paler. I nearly lost it entirely. Was that reassurance? Because from where I was standing, that was less "don't worry" and more "I know exactly where all the bodies are buried and I'm choosing not to dig today." Ignicia gave him no time to compose himself. She stepped forward, those gold-red eyes fixing on Haerdin with absolute directness.

"What I am here to ask," she said, one deliberate word at a time, "is whether the Dragon Kingdom still considers these its waters." The air compressed. Even the dock workers who had been very professionally pretending not to listen went still. Haerdin's throat moved. He didn't immediately retreat. Something in him—some reflex built from years of navigating official machinery—found just enough ground to stand on.

"Your Highness," he said, voice still reasonably level, "harbor defense logistics and maritime patrol operations fall under separate jurisdictions. It would not be appropriate for me to comment outside my authority." I almost laughed out loud. Two minutes ago he'd been projecting the energy of a man who could sign for any trouble this port produced. Now, at the first real pressure, he'd retreated behind organizational charts. Truly. A born official.

Unfortunately, he was dealing with someone who had never in her life been deflected by a flowchart. Ignicia laughed—a genuine laugh, the kind that surfaces when something is so perfectly, predictably absurd that it bypasses annoyance entirely.

"My dear Lord Haerdin, I think you're being modest." She was still smiling.

"A man like you sees one step ahead and thinks three moves further. Hiding behind protocol doesn't suit you." Haerdin said nothing. Ignicia didn't wait for him to. She raised one hand and gestured toward the sea behind us.

"I find it very difficult to believe," she said, eyes narrowing just slightly, "that when Yanxia Empire warships and sea-dragon gunboats were firing on my vessel inside sovereign Dragon Kingdom waters—" a pause "—you heard absolutely nothing." She stepped off the gangplank. Her cloak caught the air as she landed, deep red flaring like a coal catching light. She didn't continue pressing Haerdin—instead she turned to face the assembled dock. And I understood. She wasn't asking Haerdin for an answer.

She was dismantling his exits. Publicly. One by one.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Ignicia said—her voice not raised, but carrying to the farthest edge of the crowd with complete clarity—"did any of you hear cannon fire this morning?" A strange silence settled over the dock. Nobody dared answer immediately. But that silence itself was the loudest possible answer. I watched dock workers exchange glances. A harbor clerk pressed his lips tight. Several sailors visibly contracted their necks. Then one person nodded. Then a second. A third.

Until acknowledgment was rippling through the crowd in small, suppressed, undeniable movements. … Right. That's it for the Governor, then. I offered him a moment of silent condolence. Only a moment, because the next second Ignicia was wearing that expression—the deeply satisfied I knew it—which in my experience reliably preceded someone's very bad day.

"Here is what I propose," she said, tone light as if she were suggesting a lunch venue, while the actual content landed like a blade pinned through parchment.

"You will summon the harbor district commander and the tower dragon-general of the port's aerial garrison. Now." Haerdin's pupils contracted slightly. Ignicia watched him, smile unchanged.

"Of the three of you," she said, "one is a traitor." Not corrupt. Not negligent. Not conveniently deaf. A traitor. That word hit like a dropped anchor. Even I felt the cold move down my spine. Because in one sentence, the nature of everything had shifted. What had been harbor officials possibly on the take had just become the border defense system has been infiltrated by a foreign power. This was no longer a conversation about someone pocketing gold coins.

This was the Dragon Kingdom's maritime frontier—walked straight through by enemy ships. Haerdin's lips moved, assembling another sentence. Ignicia didn't give him the space.

"Are you aware," she said, "of what was aboard Marro's ship? Myself—and an emergency envoy from the Kingdom of Eckhaus." She turned her head and looked at me. The expression said: stand up straight, you're valuable right now. I straightened immediately. Not because diplomatic protocol suddenly surfaced in my memory, but because in this moment, if I looked like someone who could be knocked over by a strong breeze, I'd be doing a disservice to the title of "envoy" that she had just weaponized on my behalf.

Ignicia returned to Haerdin.

"Killing me would be one thing," she said, with the easy tone of someone discussing weather.

"But if this fragile human—" She glanced at me again. …Excuse me. I very much wanted to object. This was not the moment for objections. And infuriatingly, the framing was working.

"—had been killed in the process," Ignicia continued, pulling her gaze back to Haerdin, her voice dropping a register, "then, my lord, you would be the man who started a war between the Dragon Kingdom and the Kingdom of Eckhaus." This time, Haerdin's face changed completely. Not pale. Something deeper—the look of a man whose eyes have just gone dark with the full weight of what's being said. I could see exactly what Ignicia was doing. She was stacking the charges. Deliberately. Methodically.

From financial irregularity to dereliction to treason to casus belli—each one heavier than the last, until the combined weight was enough to crush anyone who remained still beneath it. This wasn't an interrogation. This was a forced choice: move now and prove your innocence, or stay where you are and let the charges settle over you like stone. I looked at the Governor and felt, briefly, something approaching sympathy. Just briefly.

Because the person standing across from him wasn't a reasonable princess who would sit down and talk things through. She was a dragon who had just flown back from a naval battle, was clearly in a foul mood, and happened to have a mind sharp enough to be genuinely frightening. And I was fairly certain that no one in this port was going to be able to pretend, after today, that they hadn't heard a thing.