Chapter 210: Go on...
"One that might ruin your mood far more than those helpless girls ever could," Charles said, his voice dropping to a confidential, almost intimate level. He let the statent hang in the fragrant air, watching his brother’s face closely for the first flicker of reaction.
’ Once you here about this, I assure you brother, you’ll be no different than a leaf in the palm of my hand... I’m afraid I can’t let you continue with your silly delusions any more.’
A soft breeze blew by, causing the wisteria blossoms to sway along with it, their sweet, cloying scent now feeling thick and heavy to Henry. He watched his brother, Charles, whose expression held a flicker of knowing amusent, as if he were about to reveal a particularly juicy piece of gossip rather than world-shifting news. Henry’s own impatience was a hard knot in his stomach, a tension that made the lingering chill in the air from his earlier magic feel like a welco in contrast.
He saw his brother’s impatient look, the slight arch of one eyebrow that seed to ask, Are you ready for this?
" Well go on, tell what it is you so desperately feel the need to." So as not to appear weak or intimidated, Henry waved his hand calmly, showing his impatience
’ Well aren’t you a good actor.’ Charles snickered at his brother’s remark.
He didn’t mind Henry’s reaction, quite the contrary, he was expecting it. He’d baited the hook, and gotten the fish to bite, now it was ti to reel him in.
"I’m afraid your plan to use the kidnapped victims as an excuse to combat the McClains has been thrown out the window," Charles said, his voice dropping to a conversational, almost sympathetic tone.
For a mont, the words didn’t quite land. They bounced off the fog of Henry’s lingering anger. Then they sank in, cold and sharp as shards of glass.
"What ever do you an?" Henry unconsciously leaned forward, the plush cushions of his seat, groaning in protest.
A deep, thunderous scowl erged on his face, erasing the last traces of his earlier indolent pleasure. The temperature seed to have dropped several degrees as well.
Charles gave a small, apologetic shrug that wasn’t apologetic at all. "Turns out, just today, a certain soone was able to return all the kidnapped victims back to the city. Well, the ones who were still alive, anyway." He paused, letting the first part of his words to land, so his brother could grasp the current situation properly.
"But the main point of discussion, brother, is that he was able to defeat the one behind all of this. The source of your perfect excuse has been... removed."
"That’s IMPOSSIBLE!" Henry openly denied such a claim, His fist ca down on the ornate iron table between them with a crash that made the abandoned grape bowl jump. The sound echoed across the quiet patio, startling a pair of jewel-colored birds from the wisteria vines. Henry looked utterly agitated, his face flushed, the veins in his temple standing out.
’There’s no way soone could’ve been able to pull this off. It was a fortress I personally set up myself, a trap designed to consu even the most skilled adventurers in the city! Just who could have done such a thing?’ His mind raced, discarding faces and nas from the city’s roster of powerful figures. None of them had the motive, the sheer reckless force, nor the stupid luck to walk into that nightmare farm and walk back out again.
A cold, sickening suspicion coiled in his gut. ’Don’t tell it was Victoria?!’ The thought caused his blood to boil, hints of panic in his thoughts.
’ No, it couldn’t be her, even if it was, there’s no way she could’ve traced it back to with the restrictions I had placed.’ Henry took a breath to calm himself.
She was strong, fiercely loyal to a fault, and had been acting oddly distant lately. If she had taken it upon herself to clean up his ss... it would be just like her stubborn, misguided nobility.
’But how could she have defeated...’ His thoughts trailed off into a dark pit of confusion. He knew what he had summoned, what he had bargained with and then tried to leash. It wasn’t sothing a single fighter like her, no matter how gifted, could simply walk up and dismantle. The thing grew stronger with every soul it claid, its power was no different than an ugly knot of death magic and despair. The farm wasn’t simply a battlefield he had created but a feeding ground sure to devour any if not all tier 3 and below that walked into it.
"Of course, all is not lost," Charles said, his voice cutting through Henry’s spiraling contemplation without much effort. He watched the play of anger, fear, and confusion on his brother’s face with the detached interest of a spectator observing a specin. "There is a way for us to salvage this situation."
Henry’s head snapped up. The furious energy re-focused, sharpening into a blade aid at his brother. "And what is it you are proposing?" he frowned, asking with a squinted, suspicious gaze.
He was half-convinced now that Victoria must be the one behind this rescue, and the fact that Charles had been behaving with an odd, almost cheerful detachnt lately didn’t have him feeling one hundred percent reassured about this brother of his. Not that he had ever trusted Charles completely in the first place. In the Montgory family, trust was a currency spent only on oneself. He didn’t even fully trust his own reflections in a mirror so days, let alone his flesh and blood.
Charles leaned back in his chair, his current appearance looked like the picture of relaxed strategy. "Why don’t we comnce with the attack soonest, before Father begins to grow cold feet? The excuse is gone, yes, but the army is still mustered. The supplies are still stockpiled."
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