Kel's boots had barely crossed the threshold.
Cold air from the corridor brushed against his face, carrying the faint scent of old stone and morning ash. His hand rested on the door, fingers light on the wood, ready to release it and let it close behind him.
Then—
He stilled.
Something tugged at the back of his thoughts.
Not a warning.
A reminder.
He drew in a slow breath.
His eyes lowered.
"Ah," he murmured quietly, more to himself than anyone.
He stepped backward.
The door creaked as he pushed it open again.
Count Vanhart and Viscount Malloren looked up sharply—two men who had already begun shifting their minds from talk to action, from morning meal to long-day labor.
Kel stepped back into the hall.
He did not sit.
The door closed behind him with a soft thud.
He stood at the end of the table, framed by the fading light from the high windows, coat hanging still against his frame. His shadow stretched long over the stone floor.
He slowly lifted his gaze.
"Count," he said.
His voice was soft.
Flat.
"The plan needs one more condition."
Elaine Vanhart's eyes narrowed faintly.
Not in irritation.
In concentration.
"Go on," he replied.
Kel's hands slid into the pockets of his coat.
It was a casual gesture.
His posture was anything but.
"There will be buyers," he began, "who come not because they see value in your success—but because they wish to make use of it when convenient, or cripple it when ordered."
His gaze was steady, dark eyes reflecting a faint gleam from the hearth.
"You must refuse them."
Malloren frowned slightly.
"Refuse?" he echoed. "You spoke of needing capital—"
"I spoke of needing commitment," Kel cut in quietly. "Not leeches. Not spies."
His eyes shifted to the stack of letters.
"Make sure to blacklist certain names," he continued.
"Who?" Vanhart asked.
Kel held his gaze.
"Any house or guild that harbored a grudge against Vanhart when you were at your lowest," he said. "Any who mocked, exploited, or turned away when you were desperate. Those who did not help when your land choked under frost and debt."
His words fell slow.
Deliberate.
"Do not let those people drink from the well they refused to dig."
The Count's jaw moved slightly.
His eyes thinned.
Malloren inhaled quietly.
Kel continued.
"And of course—" The faintest flex of his fingers betrayed a colder thought. "Anyone connected to Rodrik."
Vanhart's expression turned sharp, shadowed.
Malloren's gaze hardened.
Kel went on.
"Any merchant, guild or buyer tied to your elder brother. Any who spoke up for him. Any who signed silent contracts with him. Any who visited your estate only through him."
His tone didn't rise.
But it cut.
"If they buy harlroot, they won't drink it. They'll carry it to him."
Silence.
The fire popped.
Beyond the hall, a bird called once from the courtyard.
Kel's eyes cooled.
"Do not give him your recovery as a weapon."
Count Vanhart watched him quietly.
Memories crawled unbidden at the edges of thought.
Rodrik's calm face.
Rodrik's reasonable tone.
Rodrik's suggestions—always framed as help.
Rodrik's lies.
Rodrik's curse on Sera.
Rodrik's betrayal.
Vanhart's hands tightened slowly atop the table.
"You suggest," he said, "that we cut out an entire web of potential buyers."
"Yes," Kel answered.
"Even if that slows initial profit?"
"Yes."
"Even if that sets us against nobles who might be politically convenient to appease?"
Kel's eyes hardened.
"If convenience saved you, Count, you wouldn't have needed me."
The words were soft.
And merciless.
Vanhart's lips pressed into a line.
Malloren exhaled, a humorless breath.
"He is right," the viscount murmured. "Those who watched your land rot will come running now that the soil's turning green again. Like rats out of sinking ships, only in reverse."
He looked at the stack of letters with a colder gaze.
Kel spoke again, lower.
"Salvation bought at the cost of letting your betrayer's hand reach into your fields is not salvation. It is debt disguised as rescue."
His fingers curled in his pockets.
He added, quieter:
"It is how you die slower."
Vanhart's eyes closed.
Just once.
When he opened them, something had settled.
He looked at Kel.
"You speak as if you've seen this pattern before," he said.
Kel held his gaze.
"I have."
He did not explain more.
He did not need to.
The count studied him.
Then nodded.
"So be it," he said softly. "We will blacklist them. Any house, any guild, any handler associated with Rodrik or with our humiliation—"
He slighted tilted his head.
"—will not taste Vanhart's harlroot."
Malloren's lips lifted in a faint shadow of satisfaction.
"Good," the viscount said. "Let them purchase from someone else. Let them choke when they realize who they cast aside."
Kel did not smile.
He only nodded once.
"Good."
He turned, as if that settled the matter.
Then stopped again.
Another thread in the pattern reminded him of its place.
He exhaled quietly.
"Ah," he said, more to himself than them. "One more thing."
He faced them fully.
This time his eyes were not merely sharp.
They were serious in a way that made the air feel thinner.
The Name That Must Not Travel
"Do not," Kel said calmly, "tell anyone that Kel von Rosenfeld did this for you."
Both men stared.
Malloren straightened.
Vanhart's brows drew together.
Kel went on.
"Don't mention my house. Don't mention my true name. Don't mention that the eldest son of Duke Rosenfeld is staying in Vanhart territory."
His voice did not rise.
It didn't have to.
"The world believes I am at home, undergoing indoor training and rehabilitation under my father's direct supervision."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"I intend to keep it that way."
Malloren frowned faintly.
"Why?" he asked. "You do realize what it would mean, politically, to have your name tied to this? Vanhart's revival, Malloren's restoration, Sera's return—"
"Exactly," Kel said.
The viscount blinked.
Kel's gaze turned to the window, where a strip of sky showed pale and thin.
"For now," he said, "I don't want attention. I want results. Eyes on me now will only complicate the board."
His gaze slid back to them.
"And I am not finished moving my pieces yet."
The Count studied him.
"A noble who fears recognition?" he asked quietly.
Kel shook his head.
"It's not fear," he replied. "It's positioning. Names draw lines. If mine is attached to this too early, players will move sooner than I want them to."
He lifted one shoulder in a faint shrug.
"I would prefer to stab the story while it's still asleep."
Vanhart held his gaze a moment longer.
Then his lips curved, almost imperceptibly.
"You have a false name," he said.
It was not a question.
Kel nodded.
"Yes."
"Heral."
The Count's voice rolled the word as if weighing it.
Kel's fingers flexed inside his pockets.
"That is the name I travel under as a wanderer," he said evenly. "Poet, healer, occasional archer. Depending on who's asking. If someone insists on a name, that is the one you give them."
He leaned in slightly, the air around him turning colder.
"For the world, the one who helped you is Heral."
He spelled it lightly, as if pressing a seal on wet wax.
Heral.
Nothing.
No house.
Just a sound, a face most would forget if they did not look twice.
Malloren's brows knit together.
"You expect us to lie?" he asked.
Kel's eyes shifted to him.
"Viscount," he said quietly, "consider it… strategic omission."
His tone cooled.
"Truth is a blade. You don't swing it around for spectacle when it's meant for the throat."
Malloren's lips parted.
Then closed.
He looked away, exhaling faintly.
Vanhart steepled his fingers.
"This will… cause questions," he said. "Dreyl and the others will want to know who set the structure. Who negotiated. Who proposed the commission clause."
Kel nodded.
"Then tell them," he said calmly, "that a wandering strategist named Heral stopped here. That he observed your land, offered advice, and moved on."
He smiled.
Faintly.
"People trust mysterious wanderers more than they trust nobles tampering with structure. It flatters their sense of legend. They'll spread the story for us."
Malloren stared.
"You're turning yourself into a rumor."
Kel shrugged.
"Rumors are easier to control than titles. They move fast, burn bright, and half the world refuses to believe them anyway."
His gaze sharpened.
"Until it's too late."
The Count's eyes gleamed.
"'Heral,' then," he murmured.
He tilted his head.
"And what if someone discovers your real name?"
Kel's fingers flexed once.
"Then," he said, "we'll cross that flag when we must."
The phrase sounded strange to their ears.
Not to his.
The hall felt different now.
Less like three men.
More like three conspirators.
Even if two of them hadn't set out to become such.
Kel's tone lowered.
"This is very secret," he said, each word carefully measured. "Do not write my real name in letters involving this plan's execution. Do not speak it to merchants. Don't even mutter it to your own people when drunk."
Malloren snorted, a short, strained sound.
"Do I look like I shout names over ale?" he muttered.
Kel's lips almost twitched.
"People slip," he said. "And loose tongues sink more than ships."
He looked to the Count.
"Until I choose otherwise, I am Heral outside Rosenfeld estate. Treat that as gospel."
Vanhart studied him a long moment.
Then his expression settled.
"…Very well," he said at last. "To our people, you are the young wanderer who helped us stabilize. To the outside world—if they hear anything at all—your name is Heral."
He inclined his head.
"To our enemies…"
His eyes darkened.
"You are no one they need to know about."
Kel nodded.
"Precisely."
Malloren leaned back, something like resignation and reluctant admiration crossing his face.
"So," he murmured, "we hide the hand that lifted us."
Kel shook his head.
"You don't hide it," he corrected. "You just keep them guessing which direction it came from."
A brief quiet returned.
Lighter.
But edged.
Kel straightened.
He turned again toward the door.
This time, his hand found the wood without pause.
He pulled it open.
Cold air brushed in once more.
He stepped half through—
Then paused.
Without looking back, he spoke.
"Count. Viscount."
Both men lifted their heads.
"…Thank you," he said quietly, "for trusting a 'wanderer' enough to listen."
There was no sarcasm in the word.
No mockery in the tone.
Only a faint gravity.
A recognition that for all their station, for all his knowledge—
believing him had been their choice.
Elaine Vanhart smiled.
Just a little.
"Thank you," he replied, "for choosing to stray through our miserable corner of the world, Heral."
Lorian Malloren huffed out a slow breath.
"And for deciding," he added, voice rougher, "that we were worth your interference."
Kel said nothing more.
He stepped out.
The door closed.
The sound echoed hollow in the hall.
For a long moment, the two men sat at the table in silence, each lost in their thoughts.
The name hung between them.
Not Kel von Rosenfeld.
Heral.
The boy who had walked into their ruin with a curse, a pair of sharp eyes, and a willingness to tether himself to their sinking ships—
and now insisted his real identity be buried under a borrowed syllable.
Lorian exhaled.
"…Do you trust him?" he asked quietly.
Elaine Vanhart's fingers brushed the letters on the table.
"Trust?" he murmured.
His lips curled faintly.
"I don't know yet if I trust him."
He looked toward the door.
"But I have decided to walk in the direction he pointed."
He leaned back, gaze sharp.
"And for now… that is enough."
Outside, faintly, footsteps receded down the corridor.
A nameless wanderer.
A hidden heir.
A hand rewriting a story—and insisting that no one know whose ink it was written in.
For now.