Lord Summoner's Freedom Philosophy: Grimoire of Love-Chapter 472: Whispers Beneath the Silk (End)

Music still drifted up the grand hall, but to Belle it sounded thin now, as if someone had pricked holes through the melody and let its strength bleed out. She moved between pillars of cracked marble the way smoke slides through rafters—present, elusive, never still long enough to be caught. Incense hovered in low clouds above the guests’ heads, heavy with myrrh and orange peel, and candles lined the balustrades in trembling rows, their flames tilting whenever doors opened to the chill outside. For every step she took Belle matched the hall’s rhythm with a deliberate flutter of her fan, using silk ribs and painted roses to steer conversation like reins on a skittish horse.

She paused beside a knot of ladies crowned in ostrich feathers, letting her shoulders turn just enough that the pearls strung across her collarbones gleamed under the chandeliers. "I hear the prince sends half his knights north," she confided, eyes wide with rehearsed innocence. She touched the necklace as though worried the clasp might fail under the weight of such news. The tallest lady gasped; another nearly dropped her goblet, sweet cordial splashing her glove.

"What will guard the harvest roads if the knights ride so far?" the first whispered, panic sharpening her vowels.

Belle lowered her voice further, forcing them to lean in. "The quartermaster ordered fresh winter cloaks delivered to the northern storehouses just this morning," she said—and nothing more. The silence she left behind invited fear to finish the sentence. She closed her fan with a satisfyingly soft snap, dipped a curtsy, and drifted away before questions could catch her hem.

Across the glossy floor Lord Hallen moved like a man wrestling invisible hands. Sweat darkened the seams of his doublet, and his powdered wig perched askew, exposing real hair plastered to a pale brow. Each time someone greeted him he twitched, muttered, and hurried on, fleeing from shadows that existed only in his mind—though Belle knew some wore bodies and silver masks.

Josephine tracked him from the gallery that ringed the hall, her vantage so high that torchlight painted her in flickering gold. She leaned one elbow on the carved rail, the posture of a bored aristocrat, yet her emerald eyes cut through the crowd with pick-lock precision. She spun the serpent-sealed letter round and round her index finger; its black ribbon fluttered like a crow’s wing, catching light whenever she twisted her wrist.

A hush rippled across the hall as a tall noble in black and crimson strode through the doors, the eagle-and-rose crest of House Lysander glinting at his sash. Edric Lysander wore confidence like perfume—strong enough to choke those nearest. Where he walked courtiers parted, offering bows that smelled more of fear than loyalty. Hallen intercepted him near a statue of Queen Celia the Bold—cracked now across the collarbone, the chip never repaired since the siege.

Josephine’s gaze sharpened. She saw Edric produce a vial no larger than a child’s thumb, glass winking coldly as he pressed it into Hallen’s quivering hand. A faint tilt of her head let loose a tumble of auburn curls, masking her lips as she shaped words soundlessly: for silence. She read Hallen’s response in the tremor of his jaw, the way his knees softened, the way his free hand clasped the vial as though afraid it might bite. The Lysander noble did not wait for thanks; he pivoted on glossy heels, cloak sweeping marble dust from his path, and vanished toward the antechambers.

Josephine’s smile thinned to a straight blade. She eased back into the shadows lining the gallery’s rear wall, already mapping a route to intercept.

Belle, having circled the hall’s perimeter, caught Josephine’s fleeting signal—a barely visible tilt of the chin toward the antechamber arch. Belle answered with the faintest nod, then let herself blend again into clusters of gossip. If anyone had marked her repeated passes they would find excuses in the swirl of the ball, the way a beautiful woman inevitably draws orbiting glances. Yet Belle’s ears sorted the music of rumor from real melody, catching phrases like iron filings to lodestone:

"Sir Garren swears he saw wagons moving north out the kittlegate...,"

"...heavy coin changing hands for wool, as if winter fronts advance...,"

"...a courier from the prince’s own chamber requesting all maps of Molt Vale...."

Each rumor planted an hour earlier now germinated, sprouting tendrils that tangled and reinforced themselves. Every new whisper Belle fed back into the weave, adjusting volume, steering direction, so that by the time she glided to the stair leading up to the tapestry balcony the hall itself breathed the lie for her.

High above, crimson velvet drapes muffled the hallway. Lyan waited there with shoulders braced beneath black leather, the flicker of torches throwing bronze in his dark hair. He looked like a statue set to guard a crypt—unyielding, remote—until Belle stepped into the lamplight and the mask cracked. For a sliver of a second his eyes slid over the way her bodice curved, and heat colored the tips of his ears. He corrected himself—Belle saw the swallow of restraint—but the glance warmed her nonetheless.

Josephine slipped from a side passage then, movements quick and silent, holding the vial between thumb and forefinger as though it were a serpent fang. She joined them beneath a tapestry of St. Elia slaying the dragon, fabric frayed where claws met sword.

"They’re silencing their own messenger," she said, voice low as midnight rain. She handed the vial to Lyan. Inside the glass a viscous ruby liquid swirled against the cork. "No label, but it reeks of widowleaf. Fast as a throat-cut if you drink."

Belle rested a palm on the carved banister, emerald eyes losing their playfulness. "And I saw another mask tonight—shorter figure, silver too, but gilded edges. Not our serpent friend from the garden. Their ring is wider than one courier."

Lyan rolled the vial between his fingers, watching poison cling to the glass. He glanced to the hall below—where Hallen stood alone now, shoulders bowed, fingers white over a wine stem he dared not raise. "Lysander’s web tightens," Lyan murmured. "The moment Hallen trembles, they plan to snap it shut." ƒгeewebnovёl_com

His arms folded, leather groaning over muscle. Belle caught his downward glance—just a flicker to where her gown hugged her hips—and tension pinballed inside her ribs. He dragged his gaze up quickly, but she’d seen. The knowledge sparked an answering warmth that she banked behind discipline.

"We feed them more lies," Lyan said, tone sharpening like a blade to scrape rust. "Make the retreat north sound desperate—wagons light, morale lighter. Varzadia will smell blood." He tapped the vial against his palm once. "A wolf runs fastest when it thinks the deer is limping."

Josephine nodded, eyes bright. "I’ll see Hallen hears of an urgent dispatch waiting for his signature. A little nudge—he’ll carry the packet to Lysander himself if he believes it eases his guilt."

Belle laid her hand on Lyan’s sleeve—soft fabric under her palm, iron beneath. "If this fails," she said, voice barely wind, "Varzadia marches straight to our heart. We’ll have lured the wolf through our own door."

"It won’t fail." He met her stare, and for that breath their eyes locked. He lingered—one heartbeat, two—on the subtle sheen of her lips. He clamped down on the urge to taste the gloss and stepped back, clearing night-air into his lungs. "We make them hungry," he growled, "then starve them."

Down below, applause erupted as dancers formed a new set. Masks clinked goblets, never suspecting the trap tightening around their feet.

_____

Later, when the hall’s chandeliers burned lower and the laughter dulled under weight of wine, the war-room came alive again with different music: the scratch of quills, the rustle of maps, the clink of compass legs biting parchment. Lanterns guttered low, throwing tall silhouettes against walls pocked by old nail holes and fresher scars.

Lyan stood at the head of the table, serpent letter anchored by his gauntlet. The circle of his companions faced him—eleven sets of eyes catching gold glints where light touched. He felt their expectant hush settle like a mantle.

"We expose the mole and feed Varzadia poison," he began. His voice filled the oak-paneled room without needing to rise. "Wilhelmina, you forge the orders. Correct ink blend, correct edge-abrasion. Date them two days early so the trail looks aged."

Wilhelmina nudged spectacles up the bridge of her nose. "I’ll have to crack Edric’s ledger codes to mimic debits, but yes—before dawn."

"Ravia, Xena—you shadow Lysander and Hallen. If either farts near a courier pouch, you’ll know whose feathers fly."

Ravia dipped her chin in warrior’s obeisance; Xena flashed teeth, already coiling with restless energy. "Nothing escapes a bloodhound," Xena quipped, twirling a throwing knife that caught lanternshine.

"Alicia," Lyan continued, turning to the mage. Fatigue smudged mauve beneath her eyes, yet the blue sparks dancing over her knuckles argued she could conjure for hours. "Tether your trace-weave to the seal. Thread it so fine even serpent mages think it latent."

She inhaled, straightened her spine despite the shake in her limbs. "Yes, Commander." A soft glow pulsed once around her wrist, as if answering.

"Belle," he said, letting her name roll slow, "guard the rumor path. Too much loud gossip breeds suspicion, too thin a whisper and no one listens. Balance it."

She curtsied, fabric dipping like dark water. "I’ll set tongues wagging just wide enough."

Josephine drummed dagger pommel to palm. "And you?"

"I lead the real force south," he said, finality ringing the words. "Through Ravin Gate at dawn. When Varzadia steps into the valley, our pikes will greet their dawn."

Silence followed, heavy yet pulsing with shared resolve. He met each gaze—Wilhelmina’s icy calculation, Ravia’s steady flame, Xena’s sharpened thrill, Alicia’s quiet steel, Belle’s bright daring, Josephine’s eager storm. "My friends," he murmured, voice softer now, "one chance, one stroke. We finish what we began outside these battered walls."

Inside his skull Lilith’s purr glided through thoughts. (And then you can enjoy more than glances, dear conjurer.)

He exhaled through a tight smile. Tomorrow, victory or ashes. Either way the serpent’s coil would snap.

Outside, night deepened over Lisban, but inside strategy burned bright, and the coil of betrayal began to tighten back toward its own throat.

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