Chương 92: Chapter 89 Edited

Aidan The estate still smelled new. As it should — I did just buy the damn thing. I am well aware that my position as a Duke's son allows me some flexibility in where I spend my time and money. With everything targeting the Dominion of Vera, I wouldn't call the purchase frivolous. Still, I'm glad I opted for one of the more sizable plots on the outside of Eastridge rather than one of the grand villas in Caelvaris.

It's almost the definition of an east-west divide, and I much prefer the hustle and bustle of the Eastern District to the haughty perceived superiority of Caelvaris and the annoying frivolity of the Western Cliffs. Rich people could be annoying sometimes, and I say that knowing fully well that I am one of them. The house itself was more secluded, set in one of the heavily wooded areas north of the city that bled over into the Preserve. I'm not entirely sure where the property line actually goes.

All I know is that I've got my own private road, and it sits on the upper end of a budget on this side of the island, where most of the population that isn't rich or well-connected lives. I prefer it that way. I stood in the study with one hand resting against the desk, the woods beyond my property stretching past the glass in ordered lines of natural barrier. The news had already caught my attention. Death and Destruction on the Western Cliffs: who attacked one of the most exclusive estates on the Western Cliffs?

The worded descriptions were bad. The imaging from the projections was worse. Response teams moved through what remained of the estate, their formations holding even as the structure around them offered nothing useful in return. The damage told a story of violence that was deliberate in its purpose and completely unrestrained in its delivery. I let it run without sound for a moment, watching the way they moved instead of what they said. Then I brought the audio up.

"A devastating and brutal attack on businessman Aurel Mercer's cliffside estate. The devastation was extensive. Tonight, the residents of Valecis Isle and the Dominion of Vera itself mourn the loss of an incredible man." I let out a breath through my nose.

"Incredible, my ass." Aurel Mercer was a degenerate opportunist, a coward, and someone who would do just about anything for money. He was already on the internal security watch list. Apparently someone got tired of watching. The level of power used on the property was obvious even through the projection. Whoever had been there could perform high-level spells with almost no runoff. Most people didn't understand that as you moved higher in core development and control, the cleaner your execution became.

You could tell not just that a spell had been used, but whose it was. Here, there wasn't much residue at all. Which made it worse. I pressed my fingers to my temples. There was only one person who could do something like this alone, cleanly, and without leaving anything that would help anyone else understand what had happened.

"You couldn't have said something," I muttered.

"A heads-up. Anything." Cale didn't leave scenes behind. He left conclusions. I paused the feed. The camera had settled on the center of the hall. The message held across the floor, placed where it would be seen without effort. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. I KNOW EVERYTHING. 1 DOWN, 20 TO GO. That message would have been more subtle if he'd laid it out in bullet points. Damn it. I leaned back slightly, forcing myself to think instead of react.

Cale had started moving with the decisiveness of someone who had enough power to affect outcomes and had stopped waiting for permission to use it. He acted without warning, without checking in, without leaving me anything to work with after the fact. With Cale it was one of two things. Personal, like the Northern Preserve. Or something from his past, like his parents. The people he couldn't save. This felt like the former.

I knew him well enough to know he had made an oath somewhere in that mess, to the men and women who died, to the people he couldn't protect. Now he was acting on it. He would not stop until every single person who had anything to do with it was in the ground. Cale was thorough that way. This operation was more delicate. I needed to steer him. He couldn't go after the Priest yet. We already knew where the Priest was. That had never been the problem.

The problem was what happened if Cale decided to wipe out the Brotherhood along with him. That wouldn't stay contained. It would land on someone else's sovereign territory, and an action like that was an act of war. It would turn into something much bigger. Vera's enemies were always looking for a reason. Cale knew that. He just wouldn't care if it conflicted with what he had decided to do. Nobody was going to stop him from fulfilling his promise. He had gained information and decided to move.

So I was left with two options. Help him or hinder him. I couldn't hinder him without creating problems the Dominion of Vera wasn't ready to deal with. The choice wasn't really a choice at all.

"He's going to need information," I said. Information he wouldn't stop to gather on his own. Bonnie Calder came to mind immediately. If anyone could see the shape of this without getting buried under it, it was her. I crossed to the console and pulled up a secure channel, letting it sit before activating it. The connection took longer than usual. When it settled, I didn't bother with formalities.

"Were you the one that provided the information?" The silence that followed confirmed enough.

"Well," Bonnie said, "it's good to hear from you too, Captain Vanta."

"I don't have time for that, Bonnie." A brief pause.

"I need you to be straight with me. Cale has already moved. I've got a wealthy businessman dead and an estate on the Western Cliffs completely destroyed, with messaging straight out of a horror projection."

"Yes, he tends to do that when he's angry," she said.

"I can't say I'd want that message on my floor."

"Neither would I. That's not the point. I know he was looking for information. I know he made connections. You're the most likely one to have fed him the rest. Tell me something, Bonnie. I can't help him if I don't know." She exhaled.

"Things are about to get nasty, Captain. Are you sure you want to know this?"

"I wouldn't have asked otherwise."

"We think the corruption runs deeper than we expected," she said.

"The Priest isn't operating alone. That much is obvious. He somehow acquired personnel, access, and equipment to stage a mass-casualty event on a northern estate that shouldn't have been available to him. He's tied into a network across the island."

"Most of the people involved don't understand what they've enabled," she continued.

"They moved things, signed off on routes, cleared access without asking the right questions."

"And the rest?"

"There are a few who knew exactly what they were doing," she said.

"They're positioned well enough that removing them creates gaps in the system." Gaps that wouldn't stay empty.

"Cale isn't going to take that well."

"No," she said.

"I don't expect he will." There was something else in her tone.

"I haven't told him everything," she added.

"You saw what he did to Mercer. That man didn't understand what he was part of. He was greedy, careless, and exposed. Official channels would have found him eventually."

"Cale was never going to wait," I said.

"No," she replied.

"He wasn't. And he's not going to wait for your bureaucracy to catch up. He's going to handle this himself." I leaned back and let that settle.

"Can you compile a list," I said, "of the people who actually knew what they were enabling?"

"I can," she said.

"It won't be clean."

"It doesn't need to be."

"It will be incomplete," she continued.

"The Priest compartmentalizes everything. Most of the people tied to this won't have anything real to give you."

"Enough fragments build a picture," I said.

"We're moving blind as it is. Hitting a high-profile target like that is reckless unless it's meant to send a message."

"Unless the target is the message," she said. I nodded, even though she couldn't see me.

"Put it to me straight," she said.

"What are you trying to say?"

"We still don't know why the Priest or his backers did this," I said.

"Any information that points to motive matters."

"It's not going to come from the outer layers," she said.

"Then we start there and work inward." The pause felt deliberate.

"You're trying to steer him," she said.

"I'm trying to keep him from setting the entire island on fire before we understand what we're dealing with."

"That might not be your call."

"No," I said.

"It's still my problem." She didn't argue.

"I'll get you the list," she said.

"Give me a little time."

"Don't take too much."

"I won't." The line went quiet. I closed the connection and looked out over the woods behind the house. I couldn't shake the feeling that things were about to get considerably worse.