Chương 299: 64. Conviction 2

Nobody spoke.

"Jessi and Alvira stood in this room yesterday having eaten not a single grain of your food, taken not one coin of your reward—and they walked here with me over corpses, through arrow-fire, hauling powder charges into this broken fortress. And you three, hiding behind these walls the whole time, had the gall to sit in judgment of them. Their birth. Their sex. Their place." I smiled. The kind with no warmth in it at all.

"That makes me feel like simply killing you would be an insult to the filth they had to sit through yesterday, on your account." Chris's expression shifted. He was probably only now realizing that his condescending remarks from yesterday hadn't registered with me as "a heated exchange." They'd registered as an additional line item on an already overdue debt. Boris panicked.

"Th-that was just words that got carried away! Besides, they provoked us first—""They what?" I turned and, for the first time, looked him dead in the eye.

"A man who's survived this long on falsified ledgers and strategic retreats doesn't get to lecture me about who started what." He choked on the rest of the sentence. I pushed the first confession forward.

"Jurgen." The named captain flinched.

"You testified yesterday that the order to pull back the second and third outer perimeter watches came as a joint verbal command from Chris and Boris. Say it again. To everyone's face." Jurgen's throat worked like he was swallowing a length of red-hot iron.

"... Yes." Chris snapped instantly.

"Lies! That was an emergency tactical adjustment under wartime pressure—""A tactical adjustment?" I cut him off.

"Pulling back the outer watch. Blinding the forward relay. Delaying every signal. Letting the enemy's probing attacks and main assault merge into a single indistinguishable wave—that's what you're calling an adjustment?" I drew out the second record.

"Continue, Jurgen." He stared at the floor, eyes unfocused.

"Both young masters... ordered priority given to securing the inner keep and the perimeter of the main residence. Reserves were not to be committed heavily to the eastern outer wall. And... if the situation turned, we were authorized to contract inward and hold the main keep first." At those words, every trace of color drained from Boris's face. Because that wasn't something "cowardice" could explain away.

That was hard evidence that they'd used the entire outer garrison of Thornhold as a wall of flesh, bought to buy the family time to run.

"That was Eldest Brother's idea!" Boris's head snapped up, his voice cracking.

"I only agreed! I only thought we couldn't let the Rosa bloodline end here—""That's a lie!" Chris rounded on him.

"You were the one who said the eastern wall couldn't hold, that we should consolidate the inner ring! Now you're pinning it on me?" Ah. There it was. I sat and watched the two of them scramble to shove each other under the blade before I'd even brought it down once, and felt a wholly inappropriate flicker of irony rise in my chest. These were the legitimate heirs of House Rosa. If their father could climb down from that frame, I suspect he'd want to kick them both personally.

Jessi leaned toward Alvira, voice lowered.

"I thought today was an interrogation. Looking more like a premium cockfight." Alvira replied, perfectly level: "Roosters have feathers. These two don't."... If those two weren't standing on my side, I'd genuinely worry they could talk the entire noble class into a mass grave with nothing but their mouths. I tapped the table once. Both brothers fell silent again.

"Don't rush," I said.

"You both have a share coming. Neither of you is walking out of this. Next item." I drew the third record and set it down.

"Marcus." The quartermaster jolted like someone had yanked his spine straight out through the chair.

"You admitted last night the storerooms kept two sets of books. Official and shadow. Grain, medicine, arrows, oil, repair timber—the numbers never matched for a long time." I looked at him.

"Who told you to do it?" Marcus's lips had gone white, sweat beading at his temple. He looked at me, then risked a glance at Rosalind. That single glance was already enough. Rosalind held her posture, like a painted porcelain figure just beginning to show its first hairline cracks.

"I... I only followed orders," Marcus stammered.

"Household spending, repair priorities, the method of adjustment—all of it followed the second young lady's instructions."

"Marcus." Rosalind finally turned to him, her voice still soft—colder now than the flat of a blade against bone.

"Think very carefully before you say another word."

"He's already thought carefully," I answered for him.

"Because if he hasn't, he'll be dying alongside the rest of you. And he'll go first." Marcus shuddered and collapsed almost instantly.

"It was the second young lady's orders! She said outside losses didn't need to go into the official ledger in full—anything writable as wear-and-tear, write it off; anything postponable, push it to next month! And the winter coats, arrow shafts, medicinal herbs meant for the garrison—we diverted part of that too, to fill the inner residence and main tower's reserves!"

"You're speaking nonsense!" For the first time, Rosalind's composure genuinely cracked. Beautiful. Exactly like that. I've always preferred watching someone tear open, with their own hands, the calm they spent all night maintaining, rather than simply watching them weep.

"Nonsense?" I looked at her and slowly opened a second ledger, sliding it to the table's edge.

"This is a copy of the shadow ledger. Alvira found it in the false bottom of your room last night. The handwriting, the seals, the correction marks—all present. Would you like to point out which page reads most like nonsense?" Alvira added, expressionless: "The false bottom was well made. Unfortunately, you have a habit of keeping the things that matter most within arm's reach of your own bed. Not hard to guess." Rosalind's fingers curled sharply.

In that instant, she stopped looking like a lady dressed for a social call. She looked human. Like someone watching the order she'd so carefully maintained get taken apart, page by page, line by line, in front of everyone. Chris rounded on her.

"You told me the books were balanced!" Boris panicked too.

"I knew it—I told you those numbers were too dangerous—""You knew?" Rosalind's voice rose for the first time, turning on him.

"Every time you dragged people back and stuffed them into the main tower, demanding grain and wine and horse fodder, you never called that dangerous! Now that it's blown up, you want clean hands?"

"That's because you told me to keep up appearances!" Boris shot back.

"You said no one could see the Rosa name was hollow!"

"I said the household couldn't panic first!" Rosalind's voice went cold and cutting.

"As for you—you were only ever afraid of not looking like a proper young master."

"Enough!" Chris slammed a hand on the armrest, apparently trying to reassemble the bearing of the eldest son. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. Too late. I looked at him, and mostly just felt bored.

"You only remember you're the eldest now?" He froze. I stood slowly.

"From last night until now, the three of you have each been performing something—dignity, innocence, authority. But underneath it, you've all done the exact same thing: spent other people's lives propping up your own faces." I stepped forward. The reception hall went so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

"Chris. You knew the eastern wall was breaking, and you still ordered the inner ring secured and the outer line pulled. That's abandoning your garrison to save yourself."

"Boris. You knew the order was rotten, and instead of stopping it, you reinforced it, rationalizing the retreat. That's complicity."

"Rosalind. You stripped the garrison's grain, medicine, winter coats, and arrows, buried them in falsified accounts, and used their blood to patch the holes in your household's comfort and your own image. That's drinking human blood and still complaining it isn't warm enough." By the time I finished, all three looked like they'd been dragged out of ice water. Still not enough. Nowhere near enough. I lifted my eyes to the portrait above the hearth.

Akros Rosa, Marquis of the Border, watched me with the same impatient stare that even death hadn't softened. As a child, I hated those eyes. They always seemed to say: you're still not good enough. Not ruthless enough. Not steady enough. Not mature enough. Not enough like a man fit to carry the border. Back then, all I wanted was to prove him wrong someday. Looking up at him now, I only found it funny. Old man. Do you see this?

Your good children—the ones who stayed, who kept the family name on their tongues every day—have turned into cowards who shake at the sight of blood. And here I am, the one you liked least, the least promising, the closest thing to a stray dog you ever raised—coming back, in the end, to bury your corpse and clean your house for you. The thought pulled a laugh out of me. Thin. Cold.

"Any of you," I asked, "brave enough to look up at Father?" No one moved. I turned back to them.

"Didn't think so." My voice stayed low. But every word came wrapped in a layer of ice.

"That's fine. Because in your hearts, you already know—me standing here today isn't me forcing your deaths."

"You've simply lived yourselves into people who deserve to die." Boris finally broke.

"I-it doesn't have to go this far—Cedric! Even if we made mistakes, this isn't a capital offense! The books can be fixed, the orders revised, the eastern wall can still hold! You can't do this over a few heated words—""A few heated words?" I repeated it slowly, then laughed. This time, even Jessi didn't dare make a sound.

"Do you honestly still think you're losing because of a foul mouth?" I leaned forward, both hands on the table, eyes locked on his.

"You're wrong. You're losing because you still had the nerve to open that mouth at all yesterday."

"What you insulted yesterday wasn't Jessi. It wasn't Alvira."

"What you insulted was everyone who has actually bled for this fortress and this border."

"And what about yourselves?" I let my gaze move across their three faces.

"One of you traded the garrison for his own safety."

"One of you traded responsibility for an escape route."

"One of you traded falsified accounts for her own composure."

"And now you want to discuss with me whether that merits death?" I straightened, my tone as flat as a weather report.

"My apologies. I'm not that reasonable." Rosalind clenched her jaw, finally speaking low.

"... Then what do you want?" I looked at her. At this woman who'd tried to maintain her posture right up until now, fear finally bleeding through the corners of her eyes. Good. Now she looked like something real.

"It's simple." I reached out and spread the confessions, the shadow ledgers, and the copied orders across the table, one after another.

"I want you to understand exactly how you're dying."

"Not because I'm in a bad mood."

"Not because the brothers fell out."

"Not because someone simply decided they didn't like the look of you."

"You're dying for abandoning your posts. For falsified accounts. For spending other people's lives to prop up your own comfort. And for the filth you still had the gall to spit at people who actually stood on those walls."

"The cause is just. The evidence is complete. The confessions are on record. Even if I had you bound and shipped to the capital, for the most self-important judge in the kingdom to preside over, the verdict wouldn't come out much different." I paused, and let a smile with no warmth in it settle on my face.

"As for whether there's any personal grudge in all this—" All three of them stopped breathing at the same instant. I tilted my chin toward the massive portrait above the fireplace.

"When you get there, you can ask Father directly." In that moment, whatever color remained in Chris's face finally drained out completely. Boris looked as though someone had drained every drop of blood from his body. His lips trembled. He couldn't force out a single complete sentence. And Rosalind… She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the shell of composure she'd been holding together finally showed its first real crack—all the way through. She spoke, low.

"... If Chris hadn't insisted on protecting the main keep first, I wouldn't have needed to falsify the accounts to this degree." Oh. Wonderful. I almost wanted to applaud her. The next second, Chris's head snapped toward her.

"What did you just say?"

"Am I wrong?" Rosalind's voice shook, but the words came faster and faster.

"If you hadn't insisted the inner residence couldn't look weak, that no one could see House Rosa was hollow, why would I have needed to move any of it? You threw the mess in my lap, and now you want clean hands?" Boris grabbed at the opening like a drowning man catching driftwood.

"That's right! Eldest Brother kept saying we couldn't lose face! And those things you said yesterday—you said them first! I was only following your lead—""Shut your mouth!" Chris roared.

"As if your hands are clean? Pulling back the reserves, suppressing the eastern wall's calls for reinforcement, delaying the garrison rotation—weren't those all things you said we could manage?"

"That's because you said it wouldn't matter if a few of those lowborn wretches outside died—" Crack. A sharp, brittle sound. Not the sound of anyone being struck. Just the sound of my hand, sweeping the inkwell casually off the table. Black ink detonated across the stone floor, spreading outward like a sudden bloom of rotten blood. All three of them went instantly silent. I withdrew my hand, unhurried.

"Enjoying the view?" I asked. No one dared answer.

"Go on, then." I smiled.

"Keep throwing it at each other. Everything you know, everything you did, signed, ordered—vomit it all up."

"No one's leaving this room today regardless."

"And every extra word out of your mouths just saves me a little more work." Boris was shaking all over. Chris ground his teeth, real panic finally surfacing in his eyes. And Rosalind's fingers locked around the fabric of her skirt, as though she'd only now fully understood one thing: This gathering, from the moment they were marched through that door, was never meant for them to argue their case. It was meant for them to despair. Ignicia chose that moment to finish her last piece of meat.

She dabbed her hands with a cloth, unhurried, and spoke with a tone of perfect indifference.

"The three of you are considerably easier to look at now."... This woman's talent for landing the knife at exactly the right moment bordered on some kind of innate gift. Jessi couldn't help but mutter from the side: "I take back what I said this morning. This isn't a premium cockfight. This is three chickens about to go in the pot, pointing fingers at each other over who stole the feed first." Alvira didn't even look at her.

"Say one more word and I can arrange for you to become the fourth."

"I'm silent. I'm quieter than a graveyard right now." I ignored the two of them and let my gaze settle back on the three at the table. The heat was about right. What came next was formal sentencing, separate confinement, cross-checking every detail—taking full control of the branch households, the staff, the vault keys, the documents, the watch posts. Killing them, if it came to that, wasn't for now. Not in this first moment of fear, but later—once they'd fully understood there was no path back.

That was what a proper reckoning looked like. I raised my hand. The Yinglong Guard flanking the room snapped to attention.

"Record this," I said, my voice cold.

"Chris Rosa: primary responsibility for the withdrawal of the outer line and consolidation of the inner ring; grounds for abandonment of post, established. Boris Rosa: joint participant in the retreat order and suppression of relief requests; insufficient for accessory status—more than sufficient for independent culpability. Rosalind Rosa: principal instigator of the falsified accounts and misappropriation of garrison supplies; material evidence complete."

I watched the last of the color drain from their three faces, then added the final line, slowly.

"Effective today: all three held in separate confinement. No collusion. No visitation. No suicide." Chris's head jerked up.

"You—""Relax," I cut him off.

"I told you. There's no rush on the execution." A flicker of desperate life sparked in Boris's eyes. I snuffed it out with my next breath.

"Because you haven't finished vomiting up everything you have left to say." I stood, looking down at them.

"Until then, you'd better stay alive."

"Stay alive and watch me pry this fortress back out of your hands, piece by piece."

"Stay alive and watch Fina take the seat that should have always been hers."

"Stay alive and watch the people you looked down on, insulted, and used as stepping stones stand higher than you ever did, and live more like human beings than you ever managed." I paused, dropping my voice lower still.

"And then, when the day finally comes—die knowing exactly why." I waved a hand.

"Take them out." All three lost, in nearly the same instant, whatever composure they'd had left. Chris tried to speak again, but the guards were already forcing him back. Boris's legs gave out entirely; he was half-dragged, half-carried. Rosalind didn't cry out. She only turned, once, before she was led through the door, and looked back at me. Whatever poise had lived in her eyes before was gone. Only fear remained. Good. That was exactly right. Once the doors closed again, the reception hall finally fell quiet.

I looked up once more at the old man in the portrait.

"If you think I went too far," I said mildly, "come visit my dreams tonight and yell at me about it." Jessi added quietly from the side: "There's also a solid chance he skips the yelling and just whips you twice first." I turned to look at her.

"Do you genuinely want a cell next to theirs today?"

"... No. Just doing my part to liven up the post-war gloom." Alvira turned a page of her records, unbothered.

"You're livening it up in a way that sounds remarkably like a last testament." Ignicia rose, walked over to stand beside me, her crimson eyes sweeping across the confessions and ledgers spread over the table. The corner of her mouth curved, just barely.

"Now," she said, "that finally looks like something." I knew exactly what she meant. Not that the interrogation looked like something. Not that the reckoning looked like something. She meant that I had finally stopped pressing yesterday's fire down into my chest, finally stopped pretending I could process it as ordinary administrative business—a few ledgers, a few orders, filed away clean. I closed my eyes. Opened them again. Right. Then it was time for the real work.

Thornhold's personnel, its defenses, its storerooms, its watch posts. The inner residence, the outer walls. Fina's formal title. Proper standing for Charlotte and Lorelei. And every bottom-feeder still hiding in the shadows, assuming that as long as their old masters hadn't fallen, they could keep coasting unnoticed— Not a single one of them was getting away.