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Chapter 6: The guard

Chapter 6: The guard

Lathel left Leviana’s room, carefully tucking the letter into the inner layer of his clothes, while the silver eagle badge was gripped tightly in his palm.

Before leaving, he had checked on Leviana one more time. Her breathing was still steady, and her complexion looked better than when she’d first woken. The only thing that worried Lathel slightly was how short a time she could maintain consciousness; he was afraid that by the time he returned, she would have already slipped back into sleep.

But Leviana had entrusted him with something important.

He didn’t want to delay.

The western area of the estate was quite far from Leviana’s room. Lathel didn’t take the main corridor but chose the servants’ passage, where fewer people paid attention. Even so, the moment he descended the stairs, a maid carrying a pile of clean towels stopped and looked at him.

"You’re not staying with Lady Leviana?"

Lathel answered in sign language that he was only stepping away for a moment, but the maid clearly didn’t understand. She just furrowed her brow, then glanced at the front of his shirt before saying with a smirk: "She’s barely woken up and you’re already running off. Seems three years of caretaking only amounted to this much."

Lathel didn’t explain. He gave a slight bow of his head and continued walking, leaving the maid to lose interest and mutter a few words before moving on.

The western stables sat near the estate’s outer wall. This was where the horses used for pulling cargo wagons and transporting supplies were kept, unlike the eastern stables reserved for the head of the family and Aldric. Because of that, the place always smelled of dried hay, mud, and horse manure, and ordinary servants rarely wanted to come anywhere near it.

The moment Lathel stepped inside, he spotted several people hauling bags of feed. A middle-aged man stood near a wooden cart, tall and broad, his skin tanned by the sun, with a scar on his chin that trailed down to his neck. He wore the uniform of a low-ranking manager and was inspecting the hoof of a black horse.

Lathel glanced at the small slip of paper Leviana had written and confirmed this was Gareth.

He walked over.

Gareth looked up, his gaze sweeping over Lathel before resting on the faded gray clothes. He showed nothing out of the ordinary, only asking coldly: "What is it?"

Lathel took out the silver eagle badge.

Gareth’s eyes changed instantly, but only for a fraction of a second. He quickly straightened up, reached out to take the badge, and examined every engraved line on the back.

"Where did you get this?"

Lathel answered in sign language.

Gareth frowned. "I don’t understand."

Lathel looked around, then picked up a piece of chalk used for marking the hay bag count and wrote on a wooden board hanging nearby.

Lady Leviana gave it to me.

The hand holding the badge tightened. Gareth looked at Lathel for several seconds, then lowered his voice: "The young lady is awake?"

Lathel nodded.

"When?"

This morning.

Gareth didn’t believe it immediately. He set the horse’s hoof back down, signaled for one of the workers to continue, then said to Lathel: "Follow me."

The two entered a small room used for storing saddles. Gareth shut the door, checked outside, and only then turned back. His expression had changed completely from before; the indifference of a lowly manager was gone, replaced by something sharp and keen, as though the rough-looking man from moments ago had been nothing but a disguise.

"Give me the letter."

Lathel pulled the letter from inside his shirt.

Gareth didn’t open it right away, first inspecting the seal. When his fingertip touched the black wax, a faint blue glow appeared and briefly took the shape of an eagle.

This was Leviana’s personal seal.

No one but her could produce it.

Gareth took a deep breath, then finally broke the wax and opened the letter. Lathel didn’t read the contents and only stood by waiting, but he still saw Gareth’s expression shift repeatedly.

First came joy at learning Leviana was awake.

Then it turned cold.

Finally, his gaze lingered for a very long time on the last line.

Gareth raised his head and looked at Lathel.

"The young lady writes that the person carrying this letter is her most important ally. In an emergency, your orders may be treated as hers."

Lathel was taken aback.

Leviana hadn’t told him about this.

He shook his head, then wrote on the board:

I have no authority to command her people.

Gareth looked at the writing, then asked: "You’re Lathel?"

He nodded.

"The one who was put forward to replace Young Master Aldric on the betrothal?"

Lathel nodded again.

Gareth was quiet for a few seconds. He had heard of Lathel long ago but had never had the chance to meet him. In the secret reports sent back to Leviana’s family, Lathel had only been mentioned as a mute adopted child with no talent, used by the family to spare Aldric from having to marry a vegetable.

No one had considered him important.

Not even Gareth.

But now, the moment Leviana woke, she had handed her personal badge and the authority to mobilize her hidden forces to this man.

"Over the past three years, you’ve been taking care of the young lady?"

Lathel wrote:

It was an assigned duty.

"That’s all?"

He thought for a moment, then nodded.

Gareth read the answer, a hint of confusion in his eyes. "You don’t know why the young lady trusts you?"

Lathel shook his head.

Gareth didn’t press further. He folded the letter, carefully placed it inside his inner shirt, then said: "The young lady is ordering me to send word to the family through a separate channel, prevent the head of the family from leaving the territory, and investigate everyone who has had contact with Aldric over the past five years. This is no small matter."

Lathel wrote:

She believes the official letter will be delayed or swapped.

"I read that."

She also believes Aldric will arrange an ambush and then show up to play the rescuer.

Gareth frowned. "The young lady has only just woken. How would she know Aldric would do something like that?"

Lathel couldn’t answer.

He had the same question.

Leviana had spoken about the plan with a strange certainty, as though she wasn’t speculating but had witnessed it happen with her own eyes. Still, Lathel didn’t think she had any reason to deceive him.

He only wrote:

She believes it will happen.

Gareth stared at those words for a long time, then nodded. "That’s enough. I trust the young lady’s judgment."

Right at that moment, a loud whinny rang out from outside.

It was immediately followed by the sound of splintering wood and panicked shouting.

Gareth threw open the door at once. Lathel followed him out and saw the black horse from before stomping restlessly, while the wooden crate that had sat against the wall had been kicked over.

"The damn thing suddenly went berserk." One of the stable hands was pulling the reins, speaking in frustration: "It was perfectly fine all morning."

Lathel walked closer and gently placed his hand on the horse’s neck.

Strangely, the horse that had been agitated went calm at once. It lowered its head, nudged Lathel’s shoulder with its muzzle, then turned toward the crate it had just kicked apart.

A small black object was crawling among the scattered hay.

Lathel bent down.

Gareth was a step ahead of him, pinning the thing with the toe of his boot before crouching to pick it up. It was an insect roughly the size of a fingertip, its entire body appearing to be made of black metal, with an extremely tiny magic array carved on its back.

Gareth’s expression darkened immediately.

"A Sound-Harvesting Bug."

The stable hand standing nearby looked confused. "What’s that?"

"Nothing." Gareth closed his fist around the insect and said coldly: "Take the horse outside for a walk. It’s probably been cooped up too long."

The stable hand didn’t question it and led the horse away.

After the others had scattered, Gareth brought Lathel back into the saddle room. He placed the bug on the table and touched a silver needle to the magic array on its back.

A very faint sound immediately played.

"...Lady Leviana has woken..."

"...the person carrying the letter..."

Those were the words the two of them had just spoken in this very room.

Gareth instantly crushed the bug in his grip, cutting the sound off. "Someone has been monitoring me for a while. This thing was coated in concealment magic; even I didn’t detect it."

Lathel looked toward the horse outside the door.

Gareth understood what he was thinking, and his expression turned peculiar. "That horse has been kept here for nearly three years and has never once kicked that crate. The moment you arrive today, it finds the exact spot where the bug was hidden."

Lathel didn’t know how to explain it.

Perhaps it was just a coincidence.

Gareth didn’t spend time dwelling on it. He detached a small magic crystal from the bug’s back, then used the silver needle to adjust a few magic lines before placing it back where it had been.

"You’re not going to catch whoever planted this?" Lathel wrote.

"Catching them now would only alert whoever’s behind it that the plan’s been exposed." Gareth shook his head, then spoke louder, deliberately letting the bug pick it up: "Lady Leviana has just woken and needs mare’s milk to prepare medicinal fluid. Take two bottles back for now. I’ll have more ready tomorrow."

Lathel understood at once.

He cooperated with a nod.

Gareth continued with a few more sentences about mare’s milk and medicinal herbs, then lowered his voice: "Let whoever’s watching think you only came to pick up supplies. The letter won’t go through the main gate."

He pulled aside a wooden panel beneath the saddle rack. Underneath was a narrow passage leading underground.

"This tunnel was originally used to transport provisions during wartime. It connects to an abandoned house outside the city walls. My man will leave from there, change horses three times, then use a flying magic beast at the final relay. Barring any surprises, the letter will reach the family head before the official one does."

Lathel nodded.

Gareth called in a man dressed in stable-cleaning garb. After receiving the secret order, the man changed clothes, hid the letter inside the sole of his boot, and vanished into the tunnel.

Everything happened very quickly.

No one outside noticed a thing.

After sealing the passage, Gareth held the silver eagle badge out to Lathel.

He shook his head, gesturing that it belonged to Leviana.

Gareth didn’t withdraw his hand. "The young lady gave it to you, so you must keep it. Those loyal to the silver eagle will recognize it. If you’re ever in danger, just show this badge and they will help you."

Lathel wrote:

I don’t need her authority.

Gareth looked at him, then answered calmly: "Perhaps it’s precisely because you don’t need it that she gave it to you."

Lathel didn’t know how to respond to that.

In the end, he still took the badge back, tucked it inside his shirt, and left the stables carrying two bottles of milk as his cover story.

After Lathel’s silhouette disappeared, Gareth stood in front of the door for a long time. He looked at the crate the horse had kicked apart, then at the spot where the bug now lay still beneath the hay.

’The young lady wakes up and immediately chooses the one person everyone looks down on.’

’Perhaps... the ones who’ve been blind all along are the rest of us.’

...

At the same time, the carrier of the official letter had already left the city.

The carriage bearing the family crest was traveling through a quiet stretch of forest. When it reached a narrow passage between two hillsides, four figures in black cloaks suddenly appeared.

The driver didn’t even have time to react before a burst of mana knocked him unconscious.

One of the cloaked figures opened the carriage door, dragged the messenger out, and retrieved the letter from his pouch. After confirming the seal, he handed it to the one in charge.

"It is indeed the letter reporting that Leviana has woken."

The leader skimmed through it, then took out another letter bearing an identical seal and placed it into the messenger’s pouch.

A subordinate beside him asked: "Do we need to kill him?"

"No. Hold him here for three days, then let him continue on his way. Young Master Aldric wants the letter to reach Leviana’s family head at precisely the right moment."

"And the real letter?"

The leader looked at the line announcing Leviana’s awakening, the corner of his mouth curling upward.

"Deliver it to the young master."

"The show is about to begin."