Frustrations of a Self-Proclaimed Villain Lord

There were many reasons a sensible household did not spread maps across the floor after lunch. Maps were large. Floors were expensive. People stepped on borders with muddy boots and treated mountain ranges like carpets. Most importantly, when one spread every known map of Lorillis across a room while the child one had recently claimed as a son sat under guard in the south sitting room after sleepwalking toward a dead leaf calling from the wrong side of the world, the entire scene became dramatic.

I disliked drama when I wasn’t directing it.

Unfortunately, Bernard had interpreted bring me every map we have of Lorillis literally. This wasn’t his fault. I had trained him too well.

By the time I entered the old map room beneath the west corridor, the floor, tables, wall racks, and two emergency boards had been covered with parchment. Some were official imperial charts. Some were Sonomian caravan maps. Some were older than the current border treaties, corners repaired with silk. A few weren’t maps in the ordinary sense, but route poems, sand calendars, oasis ledgers, and weather records written by people who understood deserts better than surveyors.

The map room itself hadn’t been used this thoroughly in years. It smelled of paper, dust, salt stone, and the faint metallic chill of the soundless bell sealed three rooms away.

The bell didn’t ring. Good. The absence irritated me, but it was better than the alternative.

My father stood at the central table with one hand resting over a map of Sonomi’s eastern marches. Mother stood beside him, her expression composed enough to be alarming. Abi leaned over a caravan record, though he’d clearly stopped reading after the first few lines and begun staring at the blank space beyond the drawn routes.

Bernard knelt near the largest floor map, pinning corners with polished weights, his hair slipped loose again, ink marking two of his fingers, his face pale, focused, and only slightly haunted.

A fine condition for government work.

William had set a tray of tea on the one available shelf and stood nearby like a man ready to defend it from war.

Adrien wasn’t present. Good. He was supposed to be resting before his controlled appearance tomorrow. The Empress was with him. The physician had threatened everyone with consequences if the Crown Prince attended another strategy meeting within the next three hours. Since the physician looked exhausted enough to stab someone with a thermometer, I’d decided to allow him the illusion of authority.

Spiro also wasn’t present. Better. He was with Mother’s maid and two guards in the interior library, a room with no windows and enough books to distract a child who liked maps from the fact that all maps had been temporarily confiscated for investigation.

He’d asked if he was in trouble. I’d said no. He’d believed me.

Mostly.

That mostly had cut deeper than outright doubt would have.

"Report," I said.

Bernard immediately rose, then looked at the floor maps and reconsidered kneeling again.

"Stay where you are," I told him. "If you step on the southern ridge marking, Father may disown you."

Father smiled. "I wouldn’t go that far."

"That wasn’t a denial."

Bernard stayed very still. Good.

"Your Excellency," he said, "we’ve identified six possible interpretations of east of silence. The first is geographical. East of Sonomi, beyond the Lorillis Desert. The second is linguistic. Older texts identify Lorillis as silence, keeper, watch, or closed mouth, depending on translation."

"And the third?"

"Ritual direction. In several pre-imperial records, silence isn’t a place but a sealed boundary. East of silence may mean beyond the seal."

Abi’s expression didn’t change. That meant he already suspected the same.

Annoying.

"Fourth?" I asked.

"Political. The eastern trade roads beyond Sonomi aren’t fully under imperial oversight. If the Choir has a foreign root, it could operate there without direct interference from the court."

"Fifth?"

"Historical. The first emperor’s campaign records mention a ’silent line’ crossed only by oath bearers and desert wardens. The phrase appears in one copy of the founding annals, then disappears in later editions."

My father’s eyes narrowed. That was new to him.

"And the sixth?" Mother asked.

Bernard swallowed. "The sixth isn’t mine, my lady. Lord Abinatha suggested it."

I looked at Abi. He smiled faintly. I didn’t like that smile.

"The phrase may not refer to east as a direction," he said. "It may refer to sequence."

"Explain."

"West is descent. North is memory. South is offering. East is return, in some older ritual systems." His eyes moved to the blank space beyond the maps. "East of silence could mean what returns after silence breaks."

The room became unpleasantly still.

I looked at the floor map. Sonomi lay like a blade of order at the edge of the wilderness. Beyond it, Lorillis spread in pale ink and uncertain markings, wells, old watchtowers, ruined caravanserais, dry riverbeds, stones named after dead saints, places with notes like do not camp after dusk and only fools trust this well twice.

Beyond Lorillis, the map became deliberately vague. That wasn’t ignorance. That was caution. Sonomi maps did not invent where they did not know. They left blank spaces blank, because a blank space was safer than a confident lie.

"What lies beyond the eastern Lorillis route?" I asked.

Father’s face turned thoughtful. "Depends which route."

"The one the white leaf pointed toward before it burned."

Bernard reached for a small tracing paper, placed it over the floor map, and lined it up with the markings that had appeared on the leaf. "North first," he said. "Then east. The route leaves the Capital through the northern botanical customs road, turns toward the old pilgrim path, then cuts southeast toward Sonomi’s outer border before entering Lorillis through the abandoned Ash Gate."

Mother’s gaze sharpened. I didn’t move.

Ash Gate. A terrible name. Too on the nose. I disapproved.

"That gate was sealed," Father said.

"Yes," Bernard replied. "Officially, thirty nine years ago, after three caravans disappeared and one returned without anyone speaking for six months."

"How cheerful."

Abi’s eyes lowered. "Not speaking?" he asked.

Bernard checked the note. "Yes. The record says they retained movement and function but did not respond to names, orders, prayers, pain, music, or written commands. They died within the year."

The silence that followed didn’t require dramatics. It sat plainly in the room. A caravan returning from a place called Ash Gate without speech. A Choir using bells, voices, memory. A fourth instruction that did not sing, but remembered.

Wonderful. My day had gained texture.

"Was that incident connected to the temple?" Mother asked.

Bernard scanned another paper. "Not in the official record. The investigation was led by the Imperial Archive with assistance from Sonomi wardens. The final report was sealed by the Office of Western Silence."

I looked up. "The what?"

Father’s expression darkened. Mother’s did too. Bernard looked as though he regretted being the mouth currently delivering the sentence.

"The Office of Western Silence," he repeated. "A defunct imperial office created to manage restricted material from Lorillis and border expeditions."

"Who inherited its records?" I asked.

He didn’t need to answer. We all knew.

"The Lord Keeper’s office," Bernard said anyway.

Marcellus. Of course. The man had become a cupboard with sins falling out every time someone opened the door.

"How many forgotten offices did the empire create to avoid saying it was afraid of the desert?" I asked.

Father smiled faintly. "More than Sonomi approved of."

"Should I be insulted on behalf of our territory?"

"Yes," Mother said. "Efficiently."

"Excellent."

Abi crouched near the Ash Gate marking. He didn’t touch the map. For a moment, his face looked older than the room.

"Ash Gate," he murmured.

I looked at him. "What?"

He blinked once, and the expression vanished. "Ugly name."

"You looked significant again."

"I have many significant looks."

"Reduce them."

"I will try."

He would not. My father’s gaze shifted between us but said nothing. Wise man. He’d survived my mother for decades. He knew the value of not pulling at threads during storms.

A knock sounded at the door. William opened it. Marcellus stood outside between two Sonomi guards.

He’d requested to speak three times since the leaf burned against the window. I’d ignored the first two. The third arrived with the message: If Lorillis has been named, the maps are no longer enough.

Melodramatic. Possibly useful. I allowed it.

"Lord Keeper," I said. "You have one minute to prove you’re worth hearing before I return you to a room where Lady Marielle’s name makes priests tremble."

Marcellus bowed. He looked worse than this morning, his face thinned, his hair, usually arranged with controlled severity, loosened near his temples. Yet his eyes were alert.

Fear had made him useful. I appreciated that.

"Your Excellency," he said, "if the phrase is east of silence, then the Choir isn’t only retreating. It’s reporting."

"To whom?"

"The witness beyond the seal."

"Specificity would greatly improve your chances of remaining unthreatened."

He swallowed. "The Office of Western Silence recorded several failed expeditions beyond Ash Gate. Most were destroyed, lost, or sealed. One returned with a relic, an empty ring of red black glass that produced no sound but caused witnesses to remember things they had not experienced."

The room went cold.

"The fourth remembers," Bernard whispered.

Marcellus looked at him sharply. I smiled. He looked back at me.

"You’ve seen the phrase," he said.

"Yes."

"Then the Capital branch was not the fourth instruction. It was preparing for it."

Abi’s face went still. Mother’s hands folded before her. Father looked down at the map.

"The first receives," Father said. "Adrien."

"The second answers," Mother continued. "The attempted response through the Choir and the Prince."

"The third opens," I said. "The authority audience at rehearsal."

Abi finished softly, "The fourth remembers."