Fallen Eagle

Chapter 97: Hanging in the Balance

“Would you be able to do the same to me?”Theodorus could only stare at her, stunned at the reveal.

Then he mastered him through sheer will, cutting through the surprise with cold logic. It did not escape his notice that Cassandra had only intervened when the negotiations threatened to get out of hand. She likely meant to wait until the negotiation reached its climax, where his hesitation could be mistaken for weakness or softness - anything that could be turned into leverage.

That she’d even intruded on the command tent to pull this little trick…it was savvy. Not that it surprised him. He had always known Cassandra possessed cunning, but didn’t often utilize it due to her gentle nature.

Now, however, she was tapping into their private history, and whatever affection he had shown her, trying to turn it into more favourable terms for her family.

And she had badly miscalculated.

Theodorus drew in a slow breath, giving himself enough time to gather his thoughts. He did care for Cassandra. More than was convenient and more than he should have allowed, but not in the way she might have thought, and certainly not enough to let her bend him here.

He had made this choice before, and he would make it again.

“If that was what it took,” came the answer, and Cassandra’s eyes widened, hurt flashing through them before she could hide it. “My loyalty to the Principality comes before all else.”

Theodorus cast a narrow side-eyed look toward Zeno. He stood near the edge of the gathered officers, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and genuine surprise, as if he had not yet decided whether he was witnessing a tragedy or a particularly entertaining piece of theatre. Theodorus held his gaze just long enough to make the point unmistakable.

Zeno nodded back. His message had been received. Whether Zeno believed it was another matter entirely.

Cassandra needed a long moment to visibly compose herself. Her fingers tightened against the folds of her dress, then relaxed by force. When she spoke again, her composure was strained.

“To the Principality, or to yourself, Captain?”

Theodorus held back a sigh.

He was a sixty-year-old man trapped in the body of a youth - romance with the young Nomikos heiress was about as far from his mind as anything could be. That truth did not make the decision easier, but the tide of history did not ease for broken hearts, wounded pride, or kindness.

His goals were larger than any of them could possibly imagine. The task ahead was nearly insurmountable, perhaps impossible even. He could not afford sentimentality. All that mattered in the end was the results.

“You are a dastardly villain,” Apostolos said, his composure far more frayed than his sister’s. His hand twitched near his sword, and his voice shook with the effort of holding himself in place. “A demon wearing a saint’s clothes. Do you have no shame? No honour?”

Theodorus suspected the young lord was more afraid for Cassandra’s safety than his own, thus the violent reaction to Theodorus’s threat.

“Honour?” Theodorus barked a cruel laugh, leaning fully into the role he was meant to play in this story. “Those are the words of weak nobles who fool themselves into thinking they are kind.”

“And you are too strong for them?” Apostolos asked, a bitter smile pulling at his mouth. “I should have known it was all a lie from the start. That I called you friend…”

His eyes hardened, and then his sword came free.

Cassandra yelped as steel rasped around the tent. Men reached for their weapons in a ripple of alarm, blades catching the lamplight in sharp flashes. Zeno edged closer to the exit, hand settling on his own hilt, posture loose but ready. One wrong movement now and the whole tent would become a butcher’s yard.

Theodorus did not move.

He stood with his hands at his sides, unarmed, meeting Apostolos squarely.

“Was I? What does that even mean to you?” There was a cruel edge to his words now. “Did you call Kyriakos a friend as well?”

Apostolos froze.

Theodorus took one step closer, letting the danger of the moment gather around him. “Tell me,” he said, voice dropping, eyes sharpening. “Did you even care what happened to him? Have you thought, even once, about the misery you heaped upon others by killing him? Your own cousin?”

Apostolos looked away.

His hands trembled around the hilt of his sword, his jaw working as if he might force an answer through clenched teeth. None came. The shame that settled over him was enough of an answer. Enough to touch something within Theodorus.

“You stand here and talk to me about honour,” the words came out colder than Theodorus intended, hissing with venom. “What honour was there in that? Tell me.”

Raw, ugly grief overcame him. In a way, he had tried not to think about what happened, to close it away neatly along with the other skeletons in his closet. But the sight of Apostolos standing before him, spewing such nonsense as if he had any right to the moral high ground infuriated him. They were all devils playing at their own game, and to pretend otherwise was a hypocrisy of sickening proportions.

Theodorus leaned in close enough he could almost hear Apostolos’s frantic, racing heart, and how the young lord seemed to forget how to breathe.

“Do you want to know what his last words were?” he whispered only for Apostolos’s ears, a cruel measure of pleasure coming at the sight of the fear widening Apostolos’s eyes.

Apostolos swallowed, unable to answer.

“Take care of my family.” Theodorus revealed, the smile on his face downright savage.

Apostolos recoiled as if he’d been struck, staring at Theodorus as if at a Demon taken physical shape.

He screamed and lashed out, swinging his sword in a wild, desperate arc. The blade struck Theodorus along the right side of his abdomen. His brigandine caught most of the force, the hidden plates biting against the steel beneath the cloth, and the cramped space robbed the blow of any proper strength. Not that Apostolos had really meant to cut him down, that was the strike of a man trying to keep something away.

Theodorus stepped back quickly, one hand lowering toward the bruised ache spreading beneath his armour. His bodyguards surged forward, faces hard and weapons rising as they moved to fall upon the outnumbered Nomikos men.

Zeno slipped through the tent flap, already calling for reinforcements outside.

“Stop! Please!” Cassandra screamed. Her voice turned shrill with fear as the tent seemed to collapse into motion around her.

Theodorus saw the bloodbath about to unfold and raised his hand.

“”

There was so much ice in his voice that men on both sides halted as if struck. The silence that followed was brittle, stretched over too many drawn blades.

“Stand down.”

His own soldiers obeyed first, though not gladly. They backed away with uneasy glances, their weapons still half-ready, eyes fixed on the Nomikos retainers as though expecting treachery. The Nomikos men remained taut as bowstrings, caught between fear, loyalty, and the knowledge that they were surrounded.

Apostolos was on his knees now, his sword forgotten on the muddy ground that lined the floor of the tent. He stared at his hands as if they belonged to someone else; they trembled almost violently.

Cassandra knelt beside him and placed her own hand over his, trying to stop the shaking.

“Is this what you wanted?” she spat at Theodorus, tears burgeoning in her eyes. “Are you happy now?”

“I want him to face the truth of what he has done,” Theodorus said quietly.

Even as he spoke, he knew he had gone beyond his intent to unsettle Apostolos and bend the negotiations in his favour. Somewhere between Kyriakos’s name and those last words, the performance had ended.

“The honour and valour he speaks of belong in fairy tales,” Theodorus continued. “Your father never cared for any of it. And it sickens me that you would even utter the word after what you did to Kyriakos.”

Cassandra’s face tightened as though he had struck her too.

“What about what you did to me?” she asked.

Her voice had gone small, there was real pain in it. For the first time, Theodorus found it difficult to meet her eyes.

“There was no honour in that either,” he admitted. “I used you for my own gain, and I would do it again if I could.”

The confession tasted foul, but he forced it out.

“But I tried to make it painless.”

He had hoped, foolishly perhaps, she would remember nothing at all after the opium he had given her. That had been the small mercy he had allowed himself to imagine.

Cassandra smiled through the tears streaking her face.

“Do not fool yourself,” she said. “You are no better than my father. Cut from the same cloth, only dyed a different colour.”

There was no petty vengeance in her tone, no triumphant cruelty, only truth and defeat. As if some last foolish part of her had finally accepted that the shining knight she had imagined had been a lie from the start.

Looking down at them, Theodorus saw two broken siblings huddled together against a world collapsing around them, too young to bear the weight of what their house had become and too guilty to be innocent of it.

The tent flap tore open and Christos charged inside through it. His visor was half-raised and he gripped his massive glaive in both hands, ready to cleave apart the last remnants of the Nomikos family where they knelt. He stopped only when Theodorus turned his gaze on him.

He looked at him in a silent question, and Theodorus shook his head.

Conflict passed across his face, but after a long moment he lowered the glaive and withdrew back outside.

“My sister,” Apostolos pleaded, eyes fixed on the ground. His voice was hollow now, scraped clean of defiance. “Spare my sister. At least her…”

He looked like a man who had already accepted his own death.

Theodorus held him in silence just long enough to let it sting.

“Do you surrender Suyren and any claim on Theodoran land?” Callousness edged the question.

Apostolos’s mouth worked for a moment before sound came. “I… yes. I do.”

The fight had gone out of him. Whatever defiance had carried him into the tent had been stripped away, leaving only exhaustion, shame, and desperation.

“At least grant the Nomikos kin exile,” Cassandra seemed to understand that, with her brother’s capitulation, the negotiation was over. There was no bargaining left to do, no leverage remaining. It was a request, a plea.

“I will write to the Prince and advise it,” Theodorus said. “That is all I can promise.”

And he was speaking the truth. He did not wish harm upon the whole of House Nomikos for the actions of its patriarch, nor did he see wisdom in butchering an entire lineage simply because Adanis had dragged them all into ruin.

Zeno entered the tent in the heavy lull that followed. His gaze swept across the scene with admirable speed, taking in the kneeling Nomikos heir, Cassandra beside him, the armed men holding the edges of the space, and Theodorus’s cold expression. A lesser man might have asked questions immediately. Zeno understood enough to keep quiet.

“We must arrange an armed escort for Apostolos Nomikos to the capital,” Theodorus said. “He has agreed to capitulation and to forfeiting any claim on northern Theodoran land.”

Zeno’s eyebrows rose slightly even as his eyes glinted with appreciation at Theodorus’s efficiency. The methods the boy had employed were beyond unorthodox, and had very nearly endangered Zeno’s own life, but they had undeniably worked. Not having to lay siege to the fortress or dirty their hands with unlawful kidnapping and execution would solve quite a few hassles.

A signed surrender, an heir in custody, and a castle ready to open its gates was the best outcome possible.

“And the girl?” Zeno asked.

“I am going with him,” Cassandra said at once.

“Absolutely not.”

The refusal came not from Theodorus or Zeno, but from Apostolos. He remained on his knees, already surrendered and half-broken, but managed to muster enough command for that.

“I will not have you go with me,” he said, trying weakly to push her away. He did not want his sister accompanying him to the chopping block. He had already given himself over. He would not give her too.

“You cannot command me,” Cassandra said, glaring at him through tear-reddened eyes. “You do not make the decisions.”

Then she looked to Zeno and Theodorus.

“Sending the girl is the most logical choice,” Zeno said, lifting a hand thoughtfully to his chin. “She is the only other direct claimant to the lands. All she has to do is remarry and give birth to a son for us to find ourselves enjoying a second version of this rebellion in a few years.”

The callous ease with which he spoke somehow made it worse. There was no malice in it, this was simply the language of power stripped of ornament. Bloodline, legitimacy, inheritance, and medieval politics reduced human lives into pawns.

“Theodorus,” Apostolos said.

He looked to him with naked desperation in his eyes.

“I cannot take back what has been done. And I will not judge you for hating me.” His gaze dropped again to his hands. “I hate myself.”

The tent went quiet.

Taken from NovelFire, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“The things I did were…” Apostolos swallowed, struggling to force the words through his throat. “They were unspeakable. There is no other word for it. And I must live with them.”

Theodorus watched the display with outward dispassion, measuring every tremor, every pause for its sincerity.

“This rebellion my father pushed for was folly,” Apostolos continued. “It brought only pain and suffering to us all. And we will pay our dues. Kyriakos, he…he did not deserve to die,” Apostolos’s eyes were hollow, as if fixed on that day.

“I have not forgotten him,” he whispered. “How could I? But I tried. I tried to forget, because I could not live with myself otherwise.”

Tears ran freely down his cheeks.

“But Cassandra had nothing to do with it,” he said, lifting his head suddenly. His face was pitiful. “Nothing to do with any of this!”

Cassandra looked stricken, as if hearing him plead for her wounded her.

“Even if your love for her was never real,” Apostolos said, “even if our friendship, our camaraderie, all of it was only another plot...if there was anything at all that was true from your time with us, do not kill her. Please. Do not do it.”

Theodorus felt the grief in him, raw and unguarded. He felt Cassandra’s pleading stare, Zeno’s sharp scrutiny from the edge of the tent, and the vows he had made to these people, to this Principality.

He made his choice, he would-

A sudden cold bound around him. A grip that seemed to constrict him. No, not only him - but the very world around him, freezing it in place.

A shot of fear raced through Theodorus. What was happening? The answer came into blinding clarity.

A chain that held him from this decision, that took away his free will.

He had made a promise, and now it came time to come due on it. An almost supernatural force pulled on him, and Theodorus understood that the chains binding him to this place weren’t imagination, but very much real.

“She will be sent into exile,” Theodorus said at last, the world racing back into motion. It was as if nothing had happened, but something had, something terrible. “So long as she abdicates any claim to rulership.”

Apostolos looked as though the words had kept him from falling apart entirely.

“I will not do it,” Cassandra refused. Her face was streaked with tears, but her spine remained straight, as if the simple act of rejecting anything Theodorus offered had become the last dignity left to her.

“Then you will die,” Theodorus replied, unsurprised by her reaction and still reeling from the supernatural event.

The thought did not seem to frighten her.

“Gladly.”

Apostolos seized her wrist with both hands. “Do not die for me,” he said, voice cracking.

“I will not leave you alone,” Cassandra answered.

Apostolos looked up at Theodorus then, a request in his eyes. For one brief moment there was no hatred between them, only understanding. The deal was struck.

“Seize her,” Theodorus ordered.

Christos and the men waiting outside came inside to carry out the order. Cassandra twisted away, but the scarred veterans caught her before she could take more than a step. In their hands, she was as helpless as a mewling kitten.

“No, you cannot do this,” she cried, struggling hard enough that one of the soldiers had to grip her by the shoulders. “You cannot!”

Her eyes found Apostolos as they dragged her toward the tent flap.“Brother, please!”

Apostolos did not have the courage to see her go.

“Thank you,” he said, and he seemed hollowed out.

“Do not mistake this for kindness,” Theodorus cut him off immediately. “You will sign the treaty, and you will cooperate on the journey to the capital. That is the price.”

Apostolos’s smile died. He rose slowly, gathering the last scraps of his dignity around him like a torn cloak, and met Theodorus’s gaze. Then, without another word, he allowed himself to be taken into custody.

“It went well, all things considered,” Zeno spoke after Apostolos had been carted away, his tone thoughtful rather than pleased. “But the girl could prove troublesome down the line.”

“Plenty of accidents can happen on the road,” Theodorus said.

Zeno turned toward him, eyes widening with open surprise. For once, the man’s mask slipped enough to show genuine intrigue beneath it.

“Truly?”

“We cannot afford mistakes.” Theodorus kept his voice flat, leaving no space for doubt or argument. “I will handle the preparations myself. Our position is precarious, and we cannot allow anything that might threaten our legitimacy.”

In the end, he couldn’t escape the chains that bound him. Even if he’d wanted to have done things differently, he could not. First that Italian boy, and now this…what was happening?

Zeno was quiet for a moment, considering him with a newly sharpened interest.

“I must say, you are more ruthless than I expected, Theodorus.” There was no reprimand in his voice. If anything, he sounded almost impressed. “Very well. You seem to have the situation in hand. Take care of it. We can finally move on to the business inside the castle, and there is much to do.”

His expression shifted as he said it, the tension of the last few minutes giving way to something almost eager. He looked eager to sink his teeth into the bowels of castle administration.

Theodorus gave a curt nod and watched him leave.

As if summoned by the silence that followed, Demetrios entered through the tent flap, his pace hurried. No doubt the commotion of the Nomikos siblings being dragged away had reached half the camp by now.

“My lord, were they-”

“Yes,” Theodorus cut him off, too rattled to bother with conversation. “Demetrios, I need you to do something for me.”

The old steward stopped, understanding something was wrong. “What is it, my lord?”

Something in Theodorus’s expression made the hairs at the back of Demetrios’s neck rise.

“I need to make someone disappear.”

Demetrios’s eyes widened. For a moment, he seemed unable to reconcile the words with their meaning.

He could not believe what Theodorus intended to do.

Zeno walked through the heavy main gates of Suyren with an army at his back and a beautiful castle before him.

The Nomikos heir had signed the writ of surrender quickly enough, and his order for the garrison to stand down had done the rest. The castle yielded with almost disappointing promptness, though Zeno doubted it could have offered much resistance even if it had tried. He saw only a few dozen men scattered across the vast battlements, their postures uncertain, many too old or young.

Still, a bloodless capture was no small thing. It would look excellent in the message sent back to the capital, as would the seizure of the Nomikos heir alive.

His uncle, Philemon, for all his many vices, had never been a lustful man. He had died without direct heirs, and the rest of the fops in the side branches of the family had either died a miserable death while on campaign, or were about to be given over when the Genoese marched back through to Funa and accosted the lot of them to be sent to the Prince to rot in his dungeons. The enviable Nomikos bloodline had been the main points of uncertainty on the rebellion's resolution. But now that was taken care of.

All in all, the civil war had ended in a complete victory for the Principality, and at a surprisingly tolerable price.

More crucially, it was the breakthrough Zeno had needed.

It was unfortunate that he would have to share stewardship of the territory with the Sideris boy, but misfortune came in degrees, and this one was manageable.

The boy possessed an unscrupulous streak around him. Surprisingly so. Zeno had thought him merely clever at first, yet the more he watched him, the more he learned he was just like Zeno, who had deceived his uncle, his sister, and Markos besides.

Theodorus had walked into a hostile castle, cozied up to the Nomikos while cultivating contacts to turn against them in the rebellion, and apparently even gotten a girl to fall in love with him just deeply enough to pry loose whatever contribution he had needed from her.

Zeno chuckled under his breath.

He could almost feel proud.

Servants and retainers bowed their heads all around them as he and Theodorus passed through the main courtyard side by side. The gesture was familiar in form and unfamiliar in direction. Zeno had had to bow and scrape plenty throughout his life. He could get used to the feeling of being on the receiving end of such displays.

It was a bit harder to enjoy the fear on everyone’s faces though.

They looked as though he and the Sideris boy had come to cull them all. Zeno found the thought morbidly amusing, mostly because it was not absurd. A tyrant like his uncle might well have done exactly that, securing his power cheaply through fear.

But Zeno had no wish to become anything like that man.

He would give them a chance to prove their worth and loyalty. Those who did would keep their places. Those who did not would be thrown out before they could foul the rest of it - nothing too drastic, but not too soft either.

Zeno never did things in half measures, and he expected the same from those beneath him.

He noticed how often the eyes of the servants flickered toward his partner. The Sideris boy was a known quantity here. Knowing his modus operandi, he had likely cultivated contacts in the castle during his stay, just like he’d done with Zeno when he had first arrived at the capital.

They crossed the courtyard toward the tall pole where the standard of the northern Nomikos House was still held aloft. Vanity incarnate, Zeno thought, that the Northern Lion had raised his own banner instead of the Principality he served.

At Theodorus’s signal, two soldiers stepped forward. The blue flag with its golden antlers was lowered slowly, its colours folding in on themselves as the watching household stood in tense silence. Then the purple and white of the Principality rose in its place.

With that, Suyren had officially been captured by the Crown.

“M-My lords, w-welcome.”

A rather rotund man waited near the courtyard entrance leading into the inner keep, his hands folded anxiously before his stomach and his head bowed low enough to make the gesture almost theatrical. The clink of keys at his waist and the drab, practical cut of his robe identified him to Zeno as the local steward.

“I-I am T-T-Theophylact, S-Steward of Suyren.”

It seemed the man suffered from a significant speech impediment as well, which was truly unfortunate. Coupled with his soft appearance and nervous manner, it made him look every inch the fool, but Zeno would try not to judge based solely on appearances. He had yet to see the man work after all.

The steward rose from his bow, lifted his gaze, and froze.

“T-Theodorus?” he asked, eyes widening until they looked absurdly round, his chin trembling with disbelief.

Theodorus stepped forward, closer than might have been proper for a victorious commander addressing the steward of a captured fortress. “It is good to see you, Theophylact,” he said, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder with a familiarity that immediately caught Zeno’s attention.

“A-Are you at the head of the a-army?” Theophylact asked.

His gaze drifted past them toward the soldiers stationed behind Zeno as if trying to clear up a mirage by staring at it long enough. Zeno could hardly blame him. The Sideris boy was scarcely sixteen.

It seemed impossible that he had been granted stewardship over a conquered castle and an army. Zeno had spent years trudging through tedious service and courtly humiliation before being granted so much as a real opening. Theodorus seemed to have tripped into opportunity and landed atop a fortress.

“I have been granted stewardship of Suyren and tasked with the defense of the northern province,” Theodorus said.

“U-Unbelievable.”

Zeno felt a small irritation at the wording. The statement made it sound as if the entire administration of the province had been placed on him alone.

“We have been assigned the titles of Strategos and Hypostrategos of the North, respectively,” Zeno said, stepping forward before wrong conclusions could be reached. “Perhaps you could guide us somewhere more private? There is much to discuss.”

“We need to review the castle’s current situation and get our men settled,” Theodorus added.

“Ah, y-yes, my lords.” Theophylact still looked utterly floored by the turn of events, though the astonishment on his face was rapidly giving way to something like joy. Zeno noted that too. “H-How long will these men be staying?”

“Only a fortnight or so,” Theodorus assured him. “Long enough to make sure everything is in order and the situation is stable.”

“T-Then the r-rebellion…”

“We won,” Theodorus said, smiling and, strangely enough, the steward smiled back.

Zeno frowned. Either this was the least loyal steward in the Principality, or Theodorus had somehow managed to turn the steward of Suyren against the house he served. An impressive thing, given the near-devotional loyalty the Northern Lion had enjoyed cultivating among his dependents.

“Come,” Theodorus said, beckoning both of them with a trace of warmth in his voice. “There is much to discuss, some of it professional and some of it decidedly less so.”

“Ah, y-yes, of course.”

Theophylact followed him almost eagerly, like a little bird fluttering after the first person to offer shelter from a storm.

Zeno paused long enough to call over one of the nearest officers, a newly fledged captain named Stathis. The man had a narrow face, a soldier’s careful posture, and the look of someone who understood that promotion often came with enough rope to hang oneself.

“Secure the perimeter,” Zeno said. “Disarm the remaining retainers. I want access to the treasury and armoury secured as soon as possible.”

“I will establish a working perimeter and schedule patrols,” Stathis replied, moving before he’d even finished the sentence.

“Without knowing the layout of the castle?” Zeno asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I served here for close to ten years, HypoStrategos.” The man gave a lopsided smile, saluted, and went off to see it done.

Zeno remained still for a moment.

Ten years. He had served here for ten years, and yet he had fought on the side of the Crown.

The pieces began arranging themselves with unpleasant clarity. The giant captain with the glaive, the half-Tatar retainer, the steward who smiled at Theodorus like a rescued friend, and an officer who had defected from Suyren alongside Theodorus. Zeno had been named co-ruler of Suyren, but the men and supporting cast already gathered around the new administration were decidedly Theodorus’s.

He felt a brief pang of something almost like hurt before he smothered it.

That the Doux would put such blatant favoritism on his side…Zeno had been set up to fail in every regard. He had been handed a title meant to satisfy the Prince and placate factional sensibilities, while the power was placed in Theodorus.

A lesser man might have raged. A stupider one might have complained.

Zeno did neither.

The board had been set against him, but that was hardly new, he had been clawing uphill ever since the fire. He knew how to work from a disadvantage, how to smile while counting knives.

Men who believed themselves favoured often grew careless in the shadow of their own certainty.

Zeno looked toward the keep where Theodorus and the stuttering steward had disappeared, and allowed his expression to smooth back into courteous calm.

He was not worried. In the end, he always came out on top.

They filed into Adanis Nomikos's office, and Theodorus felt an almost uncanny sense of trespass settle over him the moment he crossed the threshold.

The room looked just as he remembered it. The same heavy desk dominated the far side, dark wood polished to a deep sheen by years of use. The only times Theodorus had stood here, the Lion had been seated on the other side of the desk.

Crossing to that side felt almost illegal, as if some invisible boundary still remained even after the man himself had been cut down and his House broken.

There was only one chair behind the lord’s desk, and neither Theodorus nor Zeno moved to claim it. Since they remained standing, Theophylact followed suit, and so the three stood awkwardly inside the study.

“Tell me, Theophylact,” Theodorus said. “What does Suyren look like right now?”

The steward swallowed. “E-Empty, my lord. H-House Nomikos was large, and its members were entrenched in every position of importance in the north. N-Not only here in the castle, but in the surrounding lands administered by relatives, cousins, and lesser branches of the family.”

“Just how much sway and land did they hold?” Theodorus asked.

“R-Roughly two thirds of the lands in the north,” Theophylact said.

“So much?” Theodorus could not keep the surprise from his voice.

“The Lion had a talent for driving smaller landowners to ruin if they did not play by his rules,” Zeno said. He had moved to one of the shelves, idly scanning the spine of a ledger without touching it. “They either cooperated, granted him special privileges, and tied themselves to his interests, or he found ways to strong-arm them into selling their holdings. Debts, marriage pressure, tribute disputes, accusations of disloyalty. There are many ways to skin a man while leaving him technically alive.”

Theophylact gave a shy nod. He had likely helped enact many of those same things in the name of his Lord.

“There were even rumours,” Zeno continued, “that he pocketed part of the tribute from those lands for himself. Nothing easy to prove, naturally.“

“So the administration?” Theodorus pressed.

“C-Completely stalled,” Theophylact answered, looking as though the admission physically pained him. “P-Perhaps even worse than t-that, my lord. M-Many of the men who directly d-dealt with the villagers are gone. I have the ledgers, but t-there were private understandings, personal exemptions, o-oral arrangements.”

Theodorus exhaled slowly.

The north had been hollowed out. The learned elite that managed its estates, collected its dues, and kept its many lesser gears turning had vanished almost overnight. Such a thing could paralyse a bureaucracy, especially one built around blood ties and personal loyalty rather than clean institutions.

Yet it might also prove an unforeseen boon.

“This is good,” Theodorus said after a moment.

Theophylact blinked at him, Zeno turned from the shelves.

“Growing pains are to be expected,” Theodorus continued, “but this gives us a chance to rip out the corrupt system by the roots. We can rebuild the administration with men loyal to the Crown, train them properly, and end Nomikos nepotism.”

Zeno nodded slowly, and there was no mistaking the approval in his expression. “A house that large leaves rot everywhere. Better to clean it while the walls are already open.”

“Any other pressing problems, Theophylact?” Theodorus asked.

The steward’s expression fell further.

“The villages, my lord,” he said. “A-Always the villages.”

Theophylact shook his head in exasperation, and the keys at his waist gave a soft, unhappy clink. “T-the last round of extraordinary taxes we collected, to match the privateer scheme initiated by the Crown, p-pushed them to the breaking point. W-We went above and beyond to gather those funds.”

Theodorus could not help a bitter smile. They had wrung goods from exhausted villages only to fund rebel armies.

“W-With the casualties from the war everything is i-in dissarray.” Theophylact continued, “S-Survivors are trickling back after the Crown’s successful ambush, talking about h-how they were butchered. And now with news of the G-Genoese besieging the capital, the villages have grown disillusioned. M-Many think the north will be invaded, e-either by the Crown’s army enforcing punishment or by the Genoese marching through once the capital falls. T-That there is no e-end in sight for the war.”

Theodorus’s expression grew serious. “Do you believe they are thinking of fleeing?”

Theophylact nodded.

“Having villages disappear would be a disaster,” Zeno said, grimacing. “It would disrupt the entire food cycle of the region and encourage other villages to follow. Without the Nomikos landowners in place to keep order, there is no one to keep them at their fields and no one to stop them from taking flight.”

“A-And it grows worse,” Theophylact said.

Both Theodorus and Zeno turned to him.

“A good portion of our food reserves were eaten up by the army that marched south,” Theophylact said. “W-With Lord Philemon’s lands b-being devoted almost entirely to viniculture, the burden of feeding the host fell heavily on Suyren’s stores. G-Grain, salted meat, beans, oil, fodder for animals, nearly all of it was drawn down f-faster than we expected."

“How much are we talking about?” Theodorus asked, already dreading the answer.

“The villages barely have anything left,” Theophylact said. “A-And the reserves in Suyren are at an all-time low. If nothing is done, we will have a f-famine.”

There was no more dreaded word in the medieval world. War could be survived. Taxes could be endured. Famine reaped over all the poor in equal measure. It made men sell heirlooms first, then tools, then animals, and finally daughters. It turned loyalty into a question of bread.

“We will have to request relief from the Crown in a worst-case scenario,” Zeno said, already trying to find solutions.

“While Mangup is well stocked, spring planting was disrupted by the war, and next year’s crops will suffer for it,” Theodorus countered. “They will be reluctant to give much, especially since they have not received the customary tribute of food from the north.”

While it was not impossible, the matter was far from simple.

“We could buy it, then,” Zeno said.

“N-No, we cannot” Theophylact replied. “B-Because the treasury sits empty.”

For a moment, neither Theodorus nor Zeno spoke.

The words seemed too absurd to belong inside the room. Suyren should have possessed enough reserves to weather a season, it should have coin. Instead, there was nothing.

Only an emptied administration, villages on the edge of flight, and rising unrest.

The appointment was not a prize, it was a trap.

The north was not a land standing ripe for development. It was a disaster held together by fear and dwindling stores, and now even those supports had begun to crack.

Everything hung in the balance.