Lord Summoner's Freedom Philosophy: Grimoire of Love-Chapter 449: The New Battle Hint (3)

The cellar beneath the eastern barracks had once been a wine vault, its walls lined with thick clay shelves built to cradle dusty amphorae. Most of those jars lay shattered now, their sweet fumes long since dried into sour stains on the flagstones. Only the musky tang of old cork lingered, mixing with the iron scent of fresh blood and the sharp reek of spilled lamp‑oil. One crooked lantern swung from a ceiling hook, creaking with every sway and scattering ragged shadows that seemed to prowl the corners.

The prisoner knelt in the center of the room, wrists lashed behind his back with waxed cord. His clothes—patched linen tunic, fraying trousers—were good enough to pass for a refugee’s, but up close the mending stitches were too precise, the cloth too clean in hidden places. A soft‑handed spy masquerading as a laborer. Dried mud masked the soles of his boots, but the pattern of tread was cavalry issue, not peasant leather. Ravia had noticed all of that in the instant she dragged him out of the arrival line; still, she kept her voice gentle when she asked his name.

He had offered three different ones, none matching the travel papers folded in his pouch. So she called for Alice, and the mood turned colder than the stone floor.

Now the man’s head hung low, sweat beading at his nape despite the chill. A single ring of torch‑soot clung to his neck where Alice had gripped him a bit too firmly. Every so often he tried to swallow, only to find no spit left. Across from him stood Wilhelmina, arms folded, a small ledger open in one hand. She wrote nothing—just let the scratch of her quill on the parchment’s edge drum tick‑tick‑tick into his skull.

Surena leaned against a support pillar, arms bare, fingernails idly etching a groove in the haft of her dagger. Her winter‑wolf pelt hung over one shoulder, dripping from the rain outside and shedding silver droplets onto the floor. Each time the lantern creaked, the fur glittered like frost. The spy tried not to stare.

Lyan watched from the back of the room, half cloaked in the wobbling gloom. His eyes—dark, reflective—never left the prisoner’s shoulders. He counted breaths, the rhythm of pulse fluttering in the man’s throat, the tremor of bound fingers. Already he could tell the spy was close to cracking; the only question was what leverage would pry him open wide enough.

On a low bench near the wall, Alice finished cleaning her sword with an oiled cloth, metal glinting. She set the blade across her knees and spoke just above a whisper. "Tell us your real name, and this goes easier."

The spy lifted his gaze, lips pressed to a defiant line. A smear of brick dust striped one cheek where Ravia had shoved him face‑first into the cellar archway. "I’m nobody," he rasped, voice hoarse from the earlier scuffle. "Just a worker seeking bread."

Ravia—still wearing the guise of a tired refugee—stepped forward. She brushed damp hair from her brow in a weary gesture, but her eyes glinted with foxish amusement. A twist of her wrist, a shimmer along her skin, and her form folded inward, then expanded. When the illusion settled, she had become a Varzadian scout—one of the men captured during last night’s tower assault. Same cropped sable hair, same half‑healed cut across the nose. Even the smell of old chainmail and pine‑tar clung to her clothes.

The spy’s pupils dilated. He flinched as Ravia crouched beside him and whispered, "They’re making preparations upstairs. I can get you out. But you need to give me something worth risking the gallows."

The man’s breathing quickened. "You—You’re one of ours?"

Ravia lowered her voice further. "They think I flipped after the siege. I haven’t. Karvain still pays my family’s taxes. But if I rescue you, I give up this cover. Tell me the fallback route."

A bead of sweat slid into the spy’s eye. He blinked rapidly. "South culvert. Under the butcher’s yard. Leads to the river."

Lyan’s chin dipped. There was no culvert at the butcher’s yard—he’d inspected the foundations himself. Already the spy’s story frayed. Ravia continued softly, spinning an exquisite web of lies: a hidden skiff, cipher codes, a rendezvous candle at third moonrise. Each fabrication matched known Varzadian protocols just closely enough to feel true.

The spy sagged. Words tumbled. "It’s bigger than a single cell... He’s coming himself." His gaze darted to Lyan’s silhouette, then to Alice’s sword. "General Karvain. They call him the Crowned Vulture. He’s gathering three legions at the border palisades—intends to push south, torch every supply dump you’ve touched. Said he’d burn the ’Devil Baron’ out of his holes."

Wilhelmina’s quill stopped tapping. In two strides she stood over the prisoner, ledger snapping shut like a trap. "Legions?"

"Two full heavy, one light. He stripped garrisons along the eastern ridge to fill the ranks—" The spy’s voice cracked. "I was to open gates, sabotage granaries—slow you down while he marches."

Surena spat, the glob landing near the man’s knee. "Hang him. Piss tribute to his vulture."

"Hang me and you lose the maps I memorized," the spy croaked, desperation dawning too late.

Alice rose, sword sliding into its sheath with a warning hiss. "Maps fade fast from liars’ minds."

Lyan stepped forward at last. The lantern swung, painting bars of light across his face. He regarded the prisoner not with anger, but with a detached curiosity—as though studying a faulty cog in a siege engine. "You’ve said enough to live," he murmured. "And enough to die. The difference is what I can make of you."

He knelt, eye level with the quivering man. "General Karvain will want proof you’re still his loyal hound. You’ll give it to him."

The spy tensed. "You’ll let me go?"

"No," Lyan answered. "You’ll think I let you go." He tapped his temple. "And you’ll remember exactly what we want him to hear."

Ravia straightened, her illusion dissolving with a sigh of colored motes. "I can stitch him a new memory—one where he evades us, steals a key, flees through a sewer that exists only in his head."

Wilhelmina opened her ledger again, scribbling a note. "We can track the false route. Plant a crate of marked grain sacks. Shadow Servants follow the scent." novelbuddy-cσ๓

Surena’s jaw worked, displeasure thick in her voice. "Better a pike through his ribs."

"And scare the next infiltrator into subtler marks we might miss?" Lyan countered. "No. Fear has its place. Tonight, misdirection serves us better."

He rose, giving the spy a final once‑over—every tremor, every gulp as precious as gold to his assessment. "Prepare him," he said. "Ravia, bind the memory tight. Alice, draft orders for a shadow tail. Wilhelmina, note every supply road Karvain might travel—we’ll be there first."

Alice saluted. Ravia placed two fingers to the spy’s forehead; the man’s eyes glazed, pupils swirling as her subtle glamour threaded into his mind. Wilhelmina’s quill dashed ink again, already converting revelation into logistics. Surena merely grunted, but sheathed her dagger—reluctant compliance from a woman who preferred iron certainty over smoke.

The prisoner’s breathing eased; a faint grin even tugged at his lips, as if he believed salvation near. Ravia brushed his hair back, whispering invented escape phrases. In the half‑light her face turned almost maternal—an angel shepherding a soul straight toward hell.

Lyan turned to the man, voice dropping to a silken purr that carried more threat than any shout. "Tell your general the Devil Baron says hello.

____

Days slipped by like pages turned in a wind, and with each sunrise the bruised city lifted its head a little higher. The thunder‑scarred streets that had once echoed with screams now filled with the everyday clatter of carts, the barter of stall vendors, and the shrill laughter of children rediscovering games long forgotten. Smoke no longer curled from rooftops; instead, chimneys carried the sweeter scent of fresh flatbread and roasted chickpeas. Where blackened beams had jutted like broken bones, new timbers rose—straight, pale, smelling of sap and promise.

Josephine’s organizational genius was visible everywhere. She commandeered the old lord’s granaries, re‑routing flour stocks into every quarter so no district felt neglected. Twice a day she walked the market squares—ledger in hand, hair pinned high yet still unruly at the edges—reassuring bakers that wheat would keep coming, bargaining with fishermen for fair prices, and scolding butchers if their scales tipped even a feather too heavy. People began calling her "Lady Balance," a nickname that made her roll her eyes but secretly pleased her. When a nervous apprentice tried to slip her a silver coin for favorable placement, she flipped the coin into a beggar child’s cup and smiled so fiercely that the apprentice blushed hot and stammered apologies.

Emilia set up triage tents in the shadow of the old cathedral spire, where sunlight filtered through shattered stained glass and painted the canvas walls in jewel tones. There she and her medics bandaged scorched hands, reset fractured wrists, and distributed willow‑bark tonic for aches. She spoke to every patient by name, or—if they had none she could learn—by a gentle endearment that felt like a warm cloak across the shoulders. When children feared the sting of cauterizing salve, she distracted them with finger puppets cut from spare cloth, her voice turning sing‑song as she coaxed away their tears. One night Lyan passed the tent to see her asleep in a chair, head bowed over a cot belonging to an elderly washerwoman. He pulled a blanket over her shoulders and left silently, heart pinched by admiration and something softer he dared not name.

Alice, meanwhile, transformed the ragged city watch into a disciplined corps. She drilled them at dawn and dusk, her commands slicing through the morning mist like arrows. Shields were polished, spear shafts re‑oiled, and shabby tabards replaced with crisp blue ones bearing a humble Astellian crest. Whenever recruits groaned about aching feet, she would demonstrate a flawless spin of her sword—and then grin. "If I can do that after three hours of sparring, you can stand another ten minutes," she’d say, voice light but eyes blazing. The men straightened at once, renewed by the spark she radiated. Before long, alley thieves began surrendering at the mere glimpse of Alice’s silhouette on a rooftop.

Raine brought music and mischief in equal measure. She organized twilight festivals along the main boulevard: rows of lanterns strung between sagging balconies, street fiddlers recruited with promises of free supper, and fire‑eaters who dazzled children by spewing sparks under the watchful eye of Surena’s mounted patrols. On the third evening, Raine unveiled a game she called "Lantern‑Chase"—a glowing orb rolled down the hill while children raced after it with ribbons, giggling deliriously as soldiers shepherded them away from hazards. Vendors who once feared looters now opened late, selling candied almonds and steaming corn cakes. When a drunken brawler surged toward the crowd, Raine disarmed him with a single flick of her boot, pinning his wrist to the cobblestones while never spilling her mulled cider. "Festivals stay friendly," she chirped, and the crowd erupted in applause.

Wilhelmina’s touch was felt in the smoother hum of bureaucracy. She streamlined tax ledgers so merchants knew exactly what was owed—no bribes, no shifting tariffs. She reopened the toll bridge but halved the rate for local farmers, undercutting black‑market ferrymen overnight. Rumor said she even coaxed a notorious smuggler into paying back duties, but she refused to comment, simply smoothing her skirt and returning to her piles of parchment. In quieter moments, children perched on the palace steps to watch her scratch quill to paper—they claimed the sound meant good things were being set right.

And all the while, Lyan kept no grand office. He walked. He paced the avenues with his cloak clasped low, exchanging nods with masons fitting new doorframes, tasting broth at soup stations to be sure it wasn’t watered, and listening. Listening to how voices changed from wary whispers to bright chatter, how hammer blows took on a rhythmic confidence rather than frantic haste. He felt the city’s pulse under his boots and judged its health by the thrum.

On the seventh evening, with clouds painted coral by a sinking sun, he crossed the eastern district bridge beside Raine. The river beneath ran swift, swollen by mountain melt, its surface gilded by dying light. Raine’s hair—usually tied in a jaunty tail—flowed loose tonight, rippling past her shoulders in copper waves. The wind teased strands across her freckled cheek, and she blew them away with a playful puff that made Lyan’s chest tighten for reasons he preferred not to inspect too closely.

Halfway across the span stood a small shrine: a circular niche of riverstone where sailors once prayed for calm waters. War had chipped away its carvings, but someone—probably Emilia—had set fresh wildflowers inside. Tiny oil bowls flickered in alcoves, their flames quick to bow under the breeze.

Raine halted there, eyes reflecting torchlight. Lyan withdrew a paper‑thin rice‑lantern from under his cloak—one of the festival leftovers, pale blue, delicate. He struck a match and cupped the flame against the wind until the wick caught, then handed her the glowing shell.

"For the fallen," he said.

Her fingers brushed his as she accepted it. Calluses from dagger practice met the faint scorch on his knuckle—a spark of contact that lingered even after she stepped to the parapet. She breathed a name Lyan didn’t catch but felt, deep as any cut. He recognized the hush of grief wrapped in respect and said nothing, only watching the lantern lift on a pocket of warm air. It bobbed once beneath the arch of the bridge, then glided onto the river’s mirror—joining dozens of cousins drifting downstream in a gentle constellation of remembrance.

"You’ve done more for these people in a week than their lord did in a decade," Raine murmured. Her voice was low enough that only the river heard.

Lyan studied her profile: the sure line of her nose, the smudge of soot still clinging to her temple from earlier repairs to a festival brazier. He followed her gaze to the soft glow of lanterns navigating the current like wandering souls. "I just gave them a reason to keep hoping," he said. "The rest—they’re doing themselves."

She bumped his shoulder with her own—light, conspiratorial. "You also gave us one." Her smile was gentle, but the words carried a weight that made his heart thump. He opened his mouth, unsure whether a joke or a confession wanted to slip out, but no words came.

They stood side by side, arms almost touching, while the sky shifted from coral to violet. In that hush, a faint percussion filtered over the rooftops: distant hoofbeats, rhythmic as a war drum. Lyan’s senses sharpened. His hand fell to the haft of the short sword hidden beneath his cloak. Across the river, a thin dust plume rose on the far road—scouts returning fast, their horses lathered.

One rider unfurled a flag the color of drying blood, its edges frayed by miles of gallop. Raine’s breath caught; she leaned subtly into Lyan’s side, perhaps bracing herself against the news galloping toward them. The lanterns on the water kept drifting, oblivious.

"It’s starting again, isn’t it?" she whispered, no fear in her tone—only weary certainty.

Lyan straightened, cloak snapping in a fresh gust that carried the chill of coming night. Candle‑glow flickered in his eyes like coals being banked for battle. His voice, quiet but unbreakable: "Yes. The Vulture spreads his wings."

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