Lord Summoner's Freedom Philosophy: Grimoire of Love-Chapter 523: Refuge for the Dethroned, Glory for the Named (5)

Without another word, he turned away, the hush of the sanctum folding over his shoulders like another cloak. Each stride into the spiral corridor rang hollow—boot on stone, faint drip of condensation somewhere deep, the soft skitter of dust his passage disturbed. His own heartbeat thumped in his ears, louder than the echoes. It always did after meetings with the sisters—like his pulse couldn’t decide whether to sprint or hide.

(You’re walking faster than normal,) Cynthia murmured in his mind, warm and observant.

Just getting it done, he told her, though he caught himself rubbing the heel of a palm over the stitch flaring beneath his ribs. The corridor tilted upward toward the old service lifts. As he climbed, the smell of charred wood replaced the sanctum’s stale chill, followed by the sharper tang of lamp-oil and wet ink. Fifty steps later he emerged into a narrow passage that led toward the observatory tower.

The war room had been a stargazer’s loft once—pure white marble and brass telescopes open to constellations—but now smelled of ink, scorched leather, and dried blood ground into the wooden floorboards. When Lyan pushed through the iron-banded door, the air was thick with the scratch of quills and the low grumble of tired officers.

Erich lounged at the head of the oval table, his chair tilted onto its back legs so far Lyan wondered if exhaustion had numbed the prince’s sense of balance. Erich’s uniform coat lay discarded behind him; he had stripped down to a sweat-dark undershirt and rolled sleeves, and he scribbled notes with the confident scrawl of a man long past caring about penmanship. A half-empty mug of bitterroot coffee rested perilously close to a stack of casualty rosters.

Arnold occupied an overturned barrel in one corner, one boot hooked on a stray beam, candied ginger between his teeth. He flicked a throwing knife from knuckle to knuckle in a restless dance of silver. Each click of metal against his calluses sounded like a coin dropping. He did it so casually Josephine’s scribes flinched every time.

Josephine herself practically wrestled a requisition ledger, red-ink quill clamped between her teeth as she crossed out line after line in furious strokes. Her chestnut curls frizzed where she’d tugged them, and she muttered inventive curses at quartermasters no longer in the room.

Surena stood at the shattered window alcove, grey braid tight against her spine. She surveyed the city through the jagged glass as if every alley were a potential enemy flank. A map weighted with glass beads rested on a side table nearby, pins marking supply depots in blue and refugee clusters in yellow.

Wilhelmina hunched over that same map, stabbing ink so hard the quill tip squealed on the parchment. Her severe braid had come loose; strands of black hair curtained her eyes each time she leaned forward.

"Finally," Josephine muttered, lifting her gaze. A fleck of ink dotted her cheek like a freckle. "We thought you’d vanished."

"Nearly did," Lyan grunted, dropping a leather-bound roll onto the table. The parchment thumped among the clutter. "South vault maps. Everything before the siege."

"Assuming the rats didn’t eat the corners," Arnold drawled, popping the ginger into his mouth.

"They did," Lyan said. "I—ate the rats." A beat. "Figuratively."

"You need sleep," Erich said without looking up, but his smirk twitched.

Lyan remained standing; the seat at the table felt like a luxury he hadn’t earned. "Status on relocation?"

Surena turned from the window. Moonlight—no, sunlight; he’d lost track of the time—lit half her face, leaving one eye in darkness. "The river district. Too many families, not enough grain. Streets narrow, wagons get stuck. If we add five hundred more, the bakeries crumble."

"Double the supply carts," Lyan replied. "Pull from east reserves."

Wilhelmina’s quill paused mid-stroke. "Already thin. You shift them, the foothill villages lose flour."

"We’ll manage ration wheels," Josephine interjected, sliding a column of figures across the table. "Most outlying mills can do double grind for a fortnight if we loan them two elementalist augers."

"Loan or steal?" Erich asked.

"Borrow, with a smile," she deadpanned.

Wilhelmina pointed at another blotch on the map. "Aqueduct contamination. Raw mana seep still glowing—three blocks off West market. My purification team lost hair exposure after an hour. They need rune masks or they’ll grow tumors in their lungs."

"I’ll send shadow units." Lyan cracked his knuckles. "They don’t breathe. If the pipes are clogged with cursed residue, Scythrel’s acid bile will eat it."

Erich’s eyebrow arched. "Generous with your shadows today."

"Not like they’re unionized," Lyan shot back. It earned a dry snicker from Josephine but a frown from Wilhelmina.

"Varzadian nobles?" Josephine asked, rifling another stack. "Half whisper surrender, half whisper rebellion. One Countess sent you a bouquet."

"Bouquet?" Lyan echoed.

"Thorns tinted with bloodroot ink—subtle threat or odd flirting." Josephine shrugged. "Hard to tell."

"They can whisper," Lyan said. "But they eat from our supply chains now. Pull the grain, their whispers turn to apologies."

Arnold flipped the throwing knife in a lazy arc, catching it by the blade tip. "Still think we should turn the blasted fortress into a bakery. Bread with lingering mana burn might taste like victory."

Erich tipped his chair forward at last, boots thudding to the floor. "I’ll draft a hero’s tax exemption just for you, Arnold. You can pay in cinnamon glaze."

Wilhelmina stabbed the map. "Varzadia will be absorbed into protectorates. North watch governs iron mines, coast watch the ports."

"Only if we feed their orphans first," Lyan said, voice suddenly sharp. The tension in his jaw clicked. "You can’t tax empty stomachs."

Silence rippled outward, like a pebble dropped in still water.

Josephine broke it by passing him a scroll. "Casualty list."

He unrolled it slowly, parchment rasping. Hundreds of names—militia, medics, scouts—blurred into a river of ink. Each line carried a date, a location, some scribbled last belongings. His eyes snagged on one: Orrin Hale—messenger, 7th Company. He remembered the boy’s grin, the lopsided braid he’d never managed to tie properly.

He pressed his thumb hard over the name. Ink smeared, pooling into a dark blotch. His glove squeaked against parchment. Breath shallow, he rolled the scroll tight and set it down with more care than a reliquary.

"That’s enough for today," he said, and nobody argued.

¤¤¤

They traded the stench of ink for sunlight. Midday heat pressed over the ruined civilian district, turning the shattered brick into cracked paint, every color brittle. Glass shards winked from broken windows. The wind carried the memory of burnt grain and the fresher scent of lime mortar where masons patched walls.

Children darted through thrown-together scaffolds, their laughter too bright, too loud, like a drumline trying to drown the memory of bombardment. One girl wore a helmet three sizes too large; she shrieked victory as she bashed a smashed urn with a stick. The clang echoed through the street and settled under Lyan’s ribs like an old heartbeat.

Erich walked beside him, jacket slung over one shoulder. Dust lined the prince’s cuffs and smudged his jaw. The sun turned his hair into molten bronze. "Every time you bring out that scroll," he murmured, "your shoulders square. You think we don’t notice?"

"I’d prefer they sag?" Lyan replied.

"Prefer you didn’t carry them alone."

(He’s right,) Azelia whispered, shy but firm.

Arnold jogged to catch up, an apple twirling above his palm. He winked at an elderly mason who scowled affectionately. "Morning, Captain! Still have your beard? Good sign." The mason rewarded him with a snort.

They navigated a half-collapsed marketplace. A weaver had draped new cloth over fallen beams—crimson and violet banners fluttered above rubble, bright as fresh blood on grey stone. A mason hammered stone dust from salvaged pillars, sparks flying where his chisel struck embedded steels. A teenage boy painted over an old royal serpent emblem, covering the crown’s forked tongue with a fat sunflower.

Lyan’s eyes snagged on everything: the extra buckle someone had threaded into a child’s sandal with copper wire, the scabbed knuckles on a baker’s apprentice ladling soup, the linger of fear in a widow’s flinch when a cartwheel clattered too loud.

A woman—sun-browned skin, coarse homespun dress, forearms corded from millwork—stepped from a doorway clutching a rough loaf. The crust was split where steam still escaped; grains of salt crystal sparked on top. She swallowed, eyes shining, and pushed it toward him like an offering at an altar.

"For you, sir. For everything."

He took the loaf with both hands, treating it more carefully than any jeweled tribute he had ever been offered, and bowed his head in thanks. Fresh steam curled upward, bringing with it the simple perfume of baked rye and coarse salt—so ordinary it punched through the scents of mortar dust and distant ash fires like a memory of a safer decade. His throat tightened around a response that refused to materialize. He could not say "You’re welcome," because he did not feel he deserved it, and he could not say "I’m sorry," because apologies weighed nothing against the rubble still littering her street. So he bowed deeper, cradling her gift as if warmth itself might leak away if he loosened his grip.

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