[12] THE UNWELCOME GUESTS

On the same day, at the Fortress City

The teleportation light died with a sound like cracking ice. Jill and Deitre Wykenight stepped onto the worn, frost-rimed stones of the Northern Temple, the grand title feeling like a sick joke for the crumbling shed around them.

They expected a graveyard. A silent, frozen corpse of a town.

They were not prepared for the line.

A long, orderly queue of gaunt but cleanly-dressed townspeople stretched from a makeshift kiosk near the temple steps. The air wasn't filled with wails of despair, but with the low murmur of patient waiting and the occasional cry of a child. And at the center of it all, like a fixed star in the grey chaos, was Helen.

Her Wykenight posture was intact, spine straight as a spear, but everything else was wrong. Her hair was in a practical, messy braid. She wore a simple, wool dress, not a house uniform. And she was directing traffic in the main square of the North like a seasoned quartermaster.

She looked composed and troubled at the same time.

Before they could process the scene further, they were approached by a patrol of young soldiers.

“State your names,” one soldier said, his breath pluming in the air. His gaze swept over the small contingent of Wykenight guards and the two heavily-laden wagons. “You don’t look like wandering merchants.”

Jill stepped forward, retrieving a signet ring from his pocket and showing the crest of Wykenight. “We are envoys sent by His Grace, Duke Alistair Wykenight. I am Jill Teleston, and this is Lord Deitre Wykenight.”

The soldier looked puzzled for a moment, then regained his composure. “I see. But we received no instructions from Her Grace or Their Lordships about your arrival. Did you send notice to Javier Castle?”

“This is a… surprise visit,” Jill said, choosing his words carefully. “In our wagons are goods and supplies sent by His Grace to support his wife.”

The soldier’s confusion deepened. “Are you sure you’re in the right place, my lord?”

Jill was now also puzzled. “I am. What is with the disrespectful line of questioning?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” the soldier said, holding up a placating hand. “You just said ‘wife of Duke Wykenight.’ Who could that be?”

Deitre and Jill exchanged a sharp glance. “I’m sorry—” Jill began.

“Lord Jill? Young Master?” Helen’s voice cut through the cold air as she hurried over, looking equally puzzled. “Oh my, what are you doing here?”

Deitre sighed in irritation. “Why don’t you invite us to Javier Castle first? It’s freezing out here.”

Helen looked troubled and turned to the soldier. “Uhm, sir, can you please guide the wagons and the guard knights to the castle? They are… affiliated with Her Grace and Their Lordships.”

“Is that so?” the soldier said, his tone still cautious. “Then, please follow me.” He walked toward the Wykenight guards and wagons, gesturing for them to follow.

“Helen,” Jill said, his gaze dissecting her changed appearance. “So, where is this new master you serve?”

“Fix your tone, Sir Jill,” Helen said briskly, her own Wykenight training flashing through. “Please follow me. The cold is biting.” She then hopped onto her own horse, which was resting nearby.

What in the name of the Great Sun is happening right now?! Helen thought, her mind churning. I am still mad at Her Grace for leaving earlier without saying goodbye, and now these Westerners are here! Tsk.

Jill and Deitre mounted their carriage, their eyes glued to the windows. They saw the squatter-like houses, the palpable poverty. The North was indeed in desperate need. It was staggering to think the four siblings had managed to stay here for more than a week after a lifetime of being pampered in the capital.

“Looks like they’re trying their best,” Deitre observed, watching the organized distribution.

“Too early to say that,” Jill replied, his voice tight.

“So naggy,” Deitre said, pouting slightly as the carriage began to move, following Helen’s horse toward the castle on the hill.

✎﹏﹏﹏

The arrival of the large wagons in the courtyard, along with a contingent of unfamiliar knights, drew puzzled stares from the soldiers on the battlements.

Helen reined in her horse, and Jill and Deitre stepped from their carriage, taking in the imposing but visibly neglected facade of the Javier Castle. Their eyes were drawn past it to the distant, towering fortress walls where the main gates stood.

“To think they built their castle right where the fortress gates are…” Deitre murmured, a note of tactical appreciation in his voice.

Hurried footsteps echoed from inside the castle’s main door as Gareth and Cris emerged.

“Helen, who are these?” Cris asked, his voice tense.

“They are envoys sent by Duke Wykenight,” Helen replied.

“W-what? We received no orders from Her Grace or Their Lordships!” Cris said, his composure cracking. Gareth laid a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“Forgive the… abruptness. However, neither Her Grace nor Their Lordships are here at the moment. But we warmly welcome you to their home,” Gareth said, his soldier’s formality a thin veneer over clear suspicion.

“They’re not here? Where could they possibly be after running all the way from the capital?” Jill pressed, his gaze sharp.

“They are inspecting the eastern fortifications. My name is Cris, the proxy lord of this dukedom, and this is Commander Gareth. Please, come inside. It’s cold out here.”

Cris guided them into the drawing room, its sparse furnishings and lingering chill doing little to dispel the tension.

“Will you be staying here for the night, my lord?” Cris asked Jill, his politeness strained.

“Why? Do you think we bothered coming to this wasteland just to leave right after?” Deitre snapped, his irritation bubbling over.

Gareth’s brows furrowed. Cris’s usually timid expression turned grim at the word ‘wasteland.’

“Then, please wait here for a moment while we prepare your rooms. Helen, please return to the town square. I will have Ms. Merlin assist our guests,” Cris said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Deitre’s eyes narrowed. Is he trying to separate Helen from us? “It would be preferable if Helen served us herself, given our familiarity.”

“That would be… irregular. Helen was assigned by Her Grace personally to oversee the town outreach. Besides, Ms. Merlin knows the castle accommodations far better than Helen, who is still quite new here,” Cris said, his smile fixed and brittle, his anger barely concealed.

Merlin arrived, her face a roadmap of wrinkles and thinly veiled disapproval. “This way, my lords,” she said, her voice like dry leaves. She led them to a wing of the castle that smelled of dust and forgotten things. The fireplace was empty, the bedspreads thin.

“Charming,” Deitre muttered, dropping his bag onto a creaky chair.

“It is what is available. The extra beddings were distributed to the people by Her Grace’s order. Please bear with it,” Merlin stated, not an ounce of apology in her tone. “Dinner will be brought to you here. Please do not wander—the castle is under repair, and some areas are unsafe.” She left, closing the door with a firm finality.

“We’re prisoners,” Jill stated, looking out the frost-laced window.

“Prisoners with a view of the training yard,” Deitre said, joining him. Below, a surprisingly disciplined group of soldiers drilled in sharp, unfamiliar formations. “They seem like a small number for a garrison.”

Jill was silent, his mind working.

Jill attempted to leave the wing an hour later. A young guard appeared as if from the stone itself. “Can I assist you, my lord? The guest wing amenities are all behind you.” His politeness was an unyielding wall.

“I wished to see the library,” Jill said.

“I’m afraid it’s currently off limits. Perhaps when the lords and Her Grace return.”

The polite imprisonment was absolute.

Frustration honed Jill and Deitre’s senses. They waited for the guard to leave the castle corridors, then slipped into the shadows, moving with the lethal silence they’d learned in Wykenight. They stumbled upon the wing where the siblings’ rooms were located.

They moved in. It was silent, with only the grey light from the windowed walls illuminating the halls. At the end of a corridor, they found an ajar door where firelight from a furnace flickered. It was the study. They crept closer, stopping just outside to listen.

The voices inside were strained, leaking panic.

“We have to send a message through the orb! Just a check-in!” It was Cris, his voice trembling. “What if they’re already—?”

“Hush, Cris!” Gareth grumbled, his tone heavy. “Do you have so little faith in Her Grace and Their Lordships? Besides, I would not have trusted my only son to their hands if they were naïve.”

“You heard them earlier—they may not come back right away. Who knows what’s happening to them there? Let’s be rational, Commander Gareth. The Void-Rot Forest is a suicide mission! I don’t just want to call them because of these Westerners. I want to know if they are safe or not! Don’t you?! It’s been five hours!!” Cris finally lost his cool, his fear cracking through.

“Cris…” Gareth’s voice was lower, a mixture of shared worry and forced calm.

Before Gareth could answer, a third voice, sharp and brittle, cut through the cold air of the hallway.

“You can’t.”

Jill and Deitre froze. The voice came from behind them. Helen stood there, her arms crossed, her face pale but set in a fierce, protective scowl. She must have followed them.

Inside the study, there was a sudden, dead silence, then the sound of a chair scraping and hurried footsteps. The door to the study slammed shut with a final, echoing thud.

Helen didn’t flinch. She stared at the two Wykenight men, her loyalty a visible, trembling shield. “You shouldn’t be here. This is a private area.”

Deitre recovered first, his usual smirk returning, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Helen. Just the person we wanted to see. We were just getting some air and overheard… quite a worrying conversation. A ‘suicide mission’? Care to explain?”

“No,” Helen said, the single word firmer than anything they’d heard from her since their arrival. “It is not my place. Nor is it yours.”

“Our place,” Jill said, stepping forward, his voice dropping to a dangerous calm, “is as representatives of Duke Alistair Wykenight, the lawful husband of the Duchess of this territory. When the ruling nobles of a strategic dukedom vanish on a ‘suicide mission,’ leaving only panicked children and old soldiers in charge, it becomes our business. Imperial business.”

Helen’s bravado wavered. The legal, cold logic of it was a battering ram against her resolve. “They… they are not ‘vanished.’ They are on a critical territorial survey.”

“A survey that has the acting lord fearing for their lives after five hours?” Deitre pressed. “Helen, that’s not a survey. That’s an expedition. Into the Void. We’re not deaf.”

The door to the study opened. Gareth stood there, his face like weathered stone. Cris peered out from behind him, looking utterly defeated.

“You heard,” Gareth stated, not asked.

“Enough to be concerned,” Jill replied, meeting his gaze squarely. “Where are Lord Marcus, Lord Kaelen, Lord Rhys, and the Duchess?”

The silence stretched, filled only by the bitter wind whistling through the castle halls.

It was Cris who broke, his voice a hollow whisper. “It is not our place to tell you.”

Jill’s mind, trained for battlefield logistics and political maneuvering, short-circuited. The implications were so profoundly, catastrophically reckless it looped back around to being terrifying. “You let them go? The four heirs to the North, the Emperor’s beloved nieces and nephews, on a mission into the place that gives this land its name?”

Gareth’s hand tightened on the doorframe. “We did not ‘let’ them. They are our sovereigns. They made a decision. And they are… more capable than you know.”

“Capable of dying pointlessly!” Deitre shot back, his professional calm finally cracking. “Do you have any idea what this means? If they perish in there, the North has no ruler. The Emperor’s grief will be secondary to the political vacuum. Other houses—my house included—will have legitimate cause to question the stability of this border. This isn’t just a tragedy; it’s a casus belli for administrative takeover!”

The truth of it landed on Gareth and Cris like a physical blow. They had been so consumed by fear for the siblings they hadn’t let themselves follow the thought to its logical, imperial conclusion.

“What do you want?” Gareth asked, his voice gravelly.

“The truth,” Deitre said. “And to stay. We will wait for the Javiers to come back.”

“We stay,” Jill finalized. “You run your dukedom. We watch. And we all wait.”

The five of them stood in the freezing hallway—two outsiders, two terrified stewards, and one maid torn between old and new loyalties—bound together by a terrifying, silent vigil for four nobles who had gone to fight monsters.

What in the name of the Great Sun has possessed you all? And what report can I possibly send that won’t make the Duke think the entire North has gone mad? Jill thought, the weight of the silent castle pressing down on him.

「VOID ROT FOREST」

The grinding, metallic scrape vibrated up through the stone, a sound of countless legs and armored plates moving in the dark below. The air in the narrow chimney grew thick with the smell of damp rot and something oily, like a rusted machine left in a bog.

“So, anyway, what’s the fucking weakness again?” Kaelen asked, bracing a boot against the rock wall, his sword held low and ready.

“The tails!” Havec growled, his voice a tense rumble. “The last three segments before the stinger—the metal skin is thin there, more like jointed plating! Sever the connection, and the rear half spasms, disrupts its coordination!”

“This is bullshit! We’re in a goddamn stone throat! How the fuck are we supposed to swing for the tails when it’s coming head-first? Fuck! Fuck!” Rhys snapped, the oppressive weight of the rock and the closing threat shredding his usual analytical cool.

“That’s a lot of curses! Keep your fucking head!” Lia yelled back, her eyes glued to the dark shaft below. “Also, watch your saliva—you’re spitting everywhere, you fuckhead!”

Tomas, pressed against the cold stone, listening to this frantic, profane bickering even as death scuttled up toward them, felt a strange, hysterical calm settle over him. Looks like our masters really are the crazy ones. And I’m stuck down here with them.

“Enough. It’s near. Ready your fire,” Marcus commanded, his voice a blade of cold reason slicing through the chaos.

The siblings instantly fell silent. The bickering vanished, replaced by a terrifying, unified focus. They shifted in the confined space, a well-oied machine finding its levers even in the dark. Lia raised her Stinger, the mana core giving a soft, charging whine. Rhys braced his Long Shot against his shoulder, the barrel pointed down. Kaelen adjusted his grip on his sword, a predator’s grin visible even in the gloom.

Tomas nocked an arrow, his hands steady now. The fear was still there, a cold stone in his gut, but it was overshadowed by a wild, borrowed conviction. If they’re not afraid to scream and swear at it, maybe I shouldn’t be afraid to fight it.

The sound was directly below them now. A segmented, glinting darkness filled the bottom of their vision, reflecting the faint glow of moss and mana weapons. A single, faceted eye the size of a shield peered up, and a pair of mandibles, sharp as forge-tempered scythes, clicked open with a sound that promised dismemberment.

“Lia, Rhys—suppress the head! Kaelen, with me—we drive it back! Havec, Tomas, watch our flanks! We don’t fight it here,” Marcus barked, his strategy forming in real-time. “We force it out. Up the chimney. Into the open.”

“The open?!” Rhys yelped.

“Better a fighting chance in a cave than a meat grinder in a tube! NOW!”

Lia fired first. A searing blue bolt from her Stinger slammed into the centipede’s eye. It didn’t pierce, but the creature recoiled with a shriek of grinding metal. Rhys’s shot followed, a heavier CRACK-THOOOM that cratered the armored plating on its brow.

The creature surged upward in pain and rage, its massive body filling the shaft, its legs scraping furrows in the stone.

“GO! UP! MOVE!” Marcus roared.

It was a desperate, scrambling retreat upwards. They climbed, kicked, and hauled each other toward the faint grey light above—the top of the chimney Havec had led them into. The centipede, enraged and relentless, scuttled after them, its mandibles snapping at their heels.

With a final heave, Kaelen exploded out of the hole, rolling onto a rocky ledge in a wider cavern. He turned immediately, reaching back to haul Lia out, then Rhys. Marcus emerged next, shoving Tomas ahead of him. Havec leapt out last, a silver blur.

They were out of the chimney.

But they were not safe.

They stood on a ledge overlooking a larger, subterranean cavern, its ceiling dripping with glowing fungi. And below them, not one, but two giant metal-skinned centipedes now turned their attention upward, their bodies coiling with menace, their multiple legs carving grooves in the soft stone floor.

They had traded a death-trap for a killing floor.

Lia spat out a mouthful of rock dust, hefting Winter’s Howl from her back. “Well. At least we have room to swing now.”

Kaelen cracked his neck, his grin feral. “Tails, right?”

–TO BE CONTINUED…–