Chapter 101: Stand Down Vexis
Kreasial stood in front of them both, her earlier grin gone. Worry sat plain on her face now, no performance in it.
"I’ll be careful," she said. "But if there’s a point where I can help stop a war from happening in my own home, I’m going to help. I’m not sitting this out."
"Kreasial—"
"I’m not telling my family yet." She cut Arthur off before he finished. "If I bring this home now, it’s going to cause a panic. My mother would have the whole street packing bags by dinner. I need to know more first."
Arthur nodded slowly. "Fine. But listen to me." He held her eyes. "The people behind this aren’t academy students. They’re not rivals you spar with in a coliseum. They kill. Easily. Without a second thought about it. If you go looking, you go careful. You don’t go alone."
Theodore nodded beside him, quiet, serious.
Kreasial looked at both of them a second longer. Then she nodded once, turned, and walked off into the thinning crowd.
Arthur watched her go until she disappeared around the corner.
Cael was already at the table when they got back, sitting with a cup in front of him, half-finished. A letter sat beside it, sealed, waiting.
He stood the moment the door opened. "You’re both back."
He picked up the letter and held it out to Arthur.
"The Archmagus sent this for you, Vexis. I didn’t read it. It was addressed to you personally."
Arthur crossed the room and took it. He grabbed a knife off the kitchen counter and worked the wax seal loose, careful, then pulled the letter out and unfolded it.
Vak Vernon has been apprehended. The investigation and infiltration you carried out proved decisive. The ledger you retrieved is a meaningful step toward holding these animals accountable, and the empire is grateful for it.
However. While in custody, the Vernon family has made considerable noise, insisting the evidence is fabricated. Vak Vernon himself has named you as his accomplice, in open testimony, before witnesses of standing.
This letter will reach you in due time. By the time it does, it is likely the Council has already heard.
Vexis. In the name of House Lestilaut, and for your own protection, I am instructing you directly.
Turn yourself over to Council custody.
— Vaelis Lestilaut
Arthur stared at the page. Beside him, in the place only he could feel, Vexis read it too, and something in the quiet between them went cold.
What.
’Why is father telling us to turn ourselves in. This doesn’t make sense.’ Vexis said besides him.
Arthur read the letter again.
Then a third time.
Nothing changed.
The words stayed the same no matter how long he looked at them.
He searched for some hidden meaning between the lines. A code. A warning. Anything that would explain why Vaelis had chosen this instead of sending someone to meet them in private.
There was nothing.
Just a direct order.
Turn yourself over.
Arthur folded the page halfway, then stopped before the crease reached the end.
"...No."
The word came out quieter than he expected.
Roz lifted his head from Arthur’s shoulder but didn’t interrupt.
The room felt smaller than it had a minute ago.
Outside, someone shoveled snow from the front steps. The scrape of metal against frozen stone drifted faintly through the window, oddly ordinary against the weight settling inside the room.
Arthur looked back at the signature.
Vaelis Lestilaut.
Not the Archmagus.
Not the head of House Lestilaut.
Just the man Vexis still called father.
"...Why?"
"How does the Council already know," Arthur said, mostly to himself. "This letter barely beat us to Creslan. There’s no way this news reached Ishkral and came back already—"
"They used a relic to deliver the message," Cael said, setting his cup down. "A courier relic. Fast enough to outrun a physical letter by days. The Council would have heard within hours of what happened here in Creslan.
Arthur’s jaw tightened.
Cael watched him read it a second time, then said, "From your expression, I’m guessing the Archmagus is ordering you to turn yourself in."
"What?" Theodore’s head came up. "Turn himself in? Why?"
"No." Arthur folded the letter once, hard, the crease sharper than it needed to be. "This is—"
"The Archmagus already briefed me on this," Cael said. "Before we were assigned this mission."
Arthur went still.
"You knew?" His voice dropped low. "You knew and you didn’t tell me? You know I’m against the drug operation. I backed out of it. I’ve been trying to fix what Vexis— I started since day one—"
"I know." Cael’s voice stayed level. "But you’re still listed as a member of the Ishkral movement. Officially. Whatever you’ve done since doesn’t erase the record."
"No. This is bullshit." Arthur threw a hand out, gesturing at the letter, at Cael, at the whole room. "You’re telling me the Patriarch sent us here — to nearly get killed by people who cut children open for a drug — just so I could turn myself in afterward? What happened to being cautious? To keeping this quiet?" He stepped forward. "I’ll explain it to the princess. She’ll understand. She was there. She saw what we did—"
Cael stepped forward too, closing the distance instead of letting it sit.
"The Archmagus also told me," he said, "that you’d likely resist this order."
Arthur stopped.
His eyebrows came up slow.
’Cael, don’t tell me—’
"By the authority of the Archmagus of House Lestilaut." Cael’s voice changed. Flatter. Formal in a way Arthur had never heard from him before. "A leading figure of the Mageia Council.
"Cael Aftell, Third Shadow of the Council. " He raised his right hand, palm open, aimed toward Arthur.
"I order you to stand down."
"Vexis Lestilaut."
Theodore’s mouth opened. Nothing came out of it.
Arthur locked his jaw. His hand had gone tight around the folded letter without him deciding to make it do that.
Cael’s expression hadn’t changed. No malice in it. No hesitation either. Just the flat, patient look of someone who’d already made peace with what he was about to do, whether Arthur cooperated or not.
The room had gone very quiet.
Roz, on Arthur’s shoulder, hadn’t moved. Hadn’t said a word.
Arthur looked at Cael’s raised hand. At the space between them, small enough to close in two steps.
This is some bullshit.