Night settled over Vanhart like frost over dying embers.
The manor lay in muted stillness. Torches along the corridors flickered softly against stone, light wavering as if exhausted from holding back the dark. Beyond the windows, snow fell slowly—thick, deliberate flakes that carried the silence of lands too long starved of warmth.
After dinner, the household had retreated to rest, under quiet instructions that no attendants remain awake beyond what was necessary. There were no formal courtesies tonight. No forced conversations. Only the breathing of a house unsure whether to feel relief or dread.
Kel walked the corridor alone.
His boots made no echo, though the floor was stone. He carried no lantern—moonlight and occasional torchlight guided his way. His cloak brushed lightly behind him, the faint sway of fabric more fluid than any noble robe.
He stopped before a heavy oak door.
A lamp burned inside.
He lifted a hand and knocked once.
"Enter," came the voice, low and worn.
Kel pushed the door open.
Count Vanhart sat behind a broad desk that had seen decades of signatures and decisions now scarce in their execution. The desk's wood, once polished to an almost reflective sheen, was lightly dulled with use and lack of recent care. A single oil lamp burned beside stacked documents. The partially opened window let in the faintest breath of winter air, enough for the flame to flicker.
Sera was not present.
Kel closed the door behind him quietly.
"Apologies for disturbing your rest," he said.
The Count looked up slowly. His eyes were tired, but not as clouded as earlier. Night seemed to deal with him gently—for the first time in years.
"You are not disturbing it," he answered. "I have long found rest difficult. Tonight, it is merely quieter."
Kel approached the desk.
He did not sit. Instead, he stood just beyond the lamplight, hands loosely at his sides.
"I have questions," he said.
The Count gestured toward the chair opposite him.
"Ask them seated," he said. "It's less like an interrogation that way."
Kel did not smile, but he obeyed and took the chair.
Once seated, he looked toward the old map affixed to the far wall—a faded depiction of Vanhart lands, marked with territory lines, waterways, and distribution routes that were clearly decades out of date.
The Count followed his gaze.
"You're looking at what once was," he murmured. "Not what it is."
Kel nodded slightly.
"I hope," he said quietly, "to look at what it may be."
The Count set aside his pen.
"Then ask," he said. "I will answer."
Kel leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the arms of the chair.
"Count," he began, tone as steady as winter ice, "is there anything unique in your lands?"
The Count's brow creased slightly.
"Unique?" he repeated. "In what sense?"
"In product," Kel clarified. "Resource. Soil. Craft. Anything that once made Vanhart territory exceptional."
The Count stilled.
Then—slowly—he exhaled through his nose.
"A question no visiting noble has asked in five years," he said. "Not one of them cared for anything but political significance." His eyes narrowed. "Why do you?"
Kel's gaze did not waver.
"To take your territory," he said, "back to where it stood before."
A pause.
"Or above it."
The Count's eyes widened slightly at the last word.
Not disbelief.
Recognition.
As if hearing something that most forgot nobles could say.
He did not speak immediately.
Instead, he reached under the desk and withdrew a rolled sheet of parchment bound by a faded red ribbon.
He untied it and spread it across the desk.
It was a more recent map.
Marked differently.
Less decorative.
Raw. Practical.
Kel leaned forward.
The Count tapped near the northern quadrant.
"There," he said. "Highland fields."
Kel studied it.
"Grain?" he asked.
"Not grain." The Count's eyes lowered. "Harlroot."
Reina had mentioned it once, Kel recalled—a plant known for resilience, used in medicine and cold-weather rations, long-growing and difficult to cultivate.
"Harvest yield?" Kel asked.
"Seventy percent collapse in the last three years," the Count replied. "Not due to soil depletion. Due to untrained labor. Most of our skilled farmers left to survive elsewhere."
Kel's fingers tapped once against the armrest.
"And before the collapse?" he asked.
Count Vanhart sat straighter.
"Vanhart supplied half of the medicinal stock to the North," he said. "In stable years, we exported to five territories. Our Harlroot was sought far beyond our borders for resilience enchantment research."
Kel's eyebrow lifted the faintest fraction.
"Resilience enhancement," he repeated. "Late-stage effects?"
"Concentration, some physical endurance, mild accelerated recovery," the Count said. "When processed properly."
Kel's gaze flickered.
"Your brother," he said quietly, "likely studied these effects."
The Count's hands curled.
"He did," he said. "But not for preservation."
Kel's voice turned sharper.
"For weaponization."
Silence answered.
Kel leaned back, evaluating.
"So the land," he said thoughtfully, "is starved not of capability—but of stewardship."
"It is starved of hope," the Count replied. "The moment the court labeled my bloodline unstable, merchants withdrew. Tax incentives were revoked. Skilled labor fled. No one wanted to invest in a territory under social quarantine."
Kel's lips moved subtly.
A ghost of something—not quite a smile, not quite bitterness.
"Ironically," he said, "that makes this land ideal."
The Count blinked.
"…Ideal?"
Kel stood.
He approached the window.
Pushed it open slightly.
Cold air entered, carrying the scent of dying earth beneath snow.
He looked across the dark fields.
"Unwatched lands are often the most fertile," Kel said. "Because no one notices when they change."
The Count stared, expression caught between disbelief and dawning realization.
Kel turned back.
"If the soil still remembers Harlroot," he said, "then we will remind the people how to cultivate what made this place strong."
It wasn't a suggestion.
The Count leaned back, studying him.
"You speak," he said slowly, "not as someone plotting retribution… but reconstruction."
Kel's eyes held his.
"Retribution is necessary," he said. "But stability comes from what you build, not what you break."
"You speak like—" the Count hesitated.
Kel waited.
"—someone who intends to govern," the Count finished softly.
Kel's gaze lowered, shadowing.
"I speak," he said, "as someone who refuses to allow useful ground to be wasted."
For a moment, silence.
Then the Count nodded once, deeply.
"There is one more thing," he said.
Kel waited.
"There is a lake," the Count said. "A subterranean reservoir beneath the highlands. Fed by glacial runoff. We once used it for controlled irrigation—before it was sealed after… the Incident."
Kel's eyes sharpened.
"Sealed under whose authority?"
"My brother's," the Count said bitterly. "It was his first act after receiving combat commission. He claimed it was unstable. I later learned he used it as a site for mana stimulation trials. By the time I petitioned to reclaim it, we had already lost our council seat."
Kel nodded once.
"Location?"
The Count pointed.
Here.
Kel stared.
Something shifted in his expression.
Quiet calculation.
He closed the map.
"I will need access," he said.
The Count studied him.
"You intend to use it?"
Kel did not confirm.
He did not deny.
Sairen's presence rippled like mist on the edge of his consciousness, awakening to old water beneath forgotten land.
That place sleeps, she whispered.
Then it wakes, Kel answered inwardly.
"It will cost you," the Count warned. "Political risk. Maybe worse."
Kel turned.
"Count," he said quietly, "I've never been interested in safe paths."
His voice dropped further.
"Only in paths others refuse to take."
The Count watched him.
Light flickered across the boy's face.
Not noble.
Not cursed.
Something else.
He closed the drawer on his past.
"You will have access," he said.
Kel nodded.
He headed toward the door.
Before leaving, he paused.
"Tomorrow," Kel said, "begin arrangements. Quiet ones. Gather former land stewards you trust, even if they've long abandoned court. Make no formal announcement yet. Just prepare."
The Count's spine straightened.
"Yes," he said.
Kel turned to leave—
"Kel," the Count called softly.
Kel looked back.
There was something different in the man's eyes.
"Why," he asked quietly, "do this? For a house undone. A girl burdened. For land that even the Empire has begun to forget."
Kel held his gaze.
Then looked once toward the night outside.
Toward barren fields waiting beneath frost.
"Because," Kel said softly, "even winter soil remembers how to bloom."
He stepped through the door.
And the lamp flickered once, as if acknowledging it.
The Count remained seated, staring at the maps before him.
Whispering words he had not dared to keep in his heart for years.
"…Above where it was."
Outside, snow fell.
But for the first time in five years…
not all of it felt like mourning.