Kaavi stood near the far wall when Edric spoke his name.
He had been resting with one shoulder against the stone, arms folded loosely across his chest, but the word drew his attention immediately. His eyes moved toward the Baron without urgency, the way a man watches the weather before deciding whether it matters.
He pushed away from the wall.
"Evening Baron."
Edric inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement.
"I've heard part of what happened beneath the city," Edric said. "But not all of it."
Kaavi nodded once.
"There were tunnels beneath the granary district," he said. "Old drainage routes, partially collapsed in places. Someone reopened them."
"Who?" Dave asked quietly from near the door.
Kaavi shook his head.
"We didn't find the one giving orders."
He walked to the long table in the centre of the chamber and rested one hand against its edge as he continued.
"But we found the work."
The room grew quieter.
"Bodies on tables," Kaavi said. "Weeks old. Some months. They were preparing them there… cutting joints, sealing the eyes, stitching the mouths. And God knows what."
The words were simple, but the meaning settled heavily in the room.
"They had storage crates stacked along the far wall," he continued. "Wooden boxes lined with straw."
Edric listened without interrupting.
Kaavi said. "They were being moved somewhere."
"That matches the convoy Asha intercepted," Edric said.
Asha nodded slightly.
"Then Whitehold wasn't the source," Kaavi finished.
"Maybe it was the destination."
A faint silence followed that realization.
Corren spoke next, his voice low.
"If those crates had reached the city…"
"They would have replaced half the council," Asha finished grimly.
Dave's expression darkened.
"And we wouldn't have known until it was too late."
Kaavi continued.
"The tunnels connected to the river routes. There were markers carved into the stone walls...directions for transport. Whoever set this up knew the old infrastructure better than most of the city engineers."
Edric absorbed that quietly.
"Infiltration," he said.
"Yes."
Kaavi glanced briefly at the others before adding one more detail.
"We also found documents. Shipping ledgers, coded markings on the crates."
"Anything useful?" Dave asked.
"Enough to confirm one thing."
Kaavi's gaze returned to Edric.
"This wasn't a local conspiracy."
Edric's eyes narrowed slightly.
Across the room Viktor watched the conversation quietly.
Most of the words moved past him in fragments...tunnels, crates, missing people…but the tone was clear enough. The adults spoke with the calm voices people used when the truth was worse than anyone wanted to say aloud.
His attention drifted toward the window on the far wall.
Through the narrow glass he could see the faint glow of fire in the distance.
The pyres.
Even from here the smoke still rose above the rooftops, dark against the evening sky.
For a moment Viktor remembered another fire.
A smaller one.
The day his parents had been laid on a wooden pyre, the smoke rising slowly while he stood in silence around it.
He had watched the flames that day the same way he watched them now.
Trying to understand what they meant.
Across the room, Gavril finally drank the medicine Joren had been holding out to him. His face twisted immediately afterward.
"That is absolutely horse piss," he muttered.
Joren smiled.
The brief exchange eased the tension in the room just enough for people to breathe again.
Edric looked back toward Kaavi.
"The Maw," he repeated.
"If they were preparing replacements inside the city, then this attack wasn't just about destroying Whitehold."
"No," Kaavi agreed.
"It was about taking it."
Edric considered that quietly.
Outside, somewhere beyond the walls of the castle, a bell rang once in the distance.
The sound drifted through the city like a reminder of everything that had changed.
Edric turned away from the table.
"Rest tonight," he said to the room.
"We will decide our next move tomorrow."
Then he looked once more at Kaavi.
"We're not finished with this conversation."
Kaavi gave a small nod.
"I know."
Edric moved toward the door again.
Dave followed him out into the corridor, leaving the others in the quiet lantern light.
Inside the room, Viktor kept watching the smoke rising beyond the rooftops.
The corridor outside.
The torches along the walls burned low, their light softer than before, and the castle had settled into the slow rhythm that followed long battles. Somewhere far below, boots echoed along stone floors as soldiers carried supplies through the keep. A door closed. Another opened.
Life continued.
Edric walked beside Dave in silence until they reached the far end of the hall.
Dave pushed open the door to a smaller room used by the city guard. Maps covered most of the walls, some pinned with small iron markers that tracked patrol routes and supply movements. A table stood near the centre with a single lantern burning above it.
Edric stepped inside.
Dave closed the door behind them.
For a moment neither man spoke.
Edric walked to the map of Whitehold mounted along the wall. His eyes traced the familiar lines of the city…the market square, the outer gate, the river channel cutting along the lower district.
The places where the explosions had struck earlier that day were already marked with charcoal.
Small black circles.
Too many of them.
"You really think this Maw will come back?" Dave asked.
Edric studied the map without turning.
"They didn't send an army."
"No."
"They sent preparation."
Dave nodded slowly.
"They were building the city from the inside."
"Yes."
Edric reached up and moved one of the iron markers slightly farther down the map.
"If they had succeeded," he said quietly, "Whitehold would still be standing tonight."
Dave frowned.
Edric looked at him.
"The streets would still look the same. The walls would still hold. The people would still walk their routines."
He paused.
"And none of it would belong to us anymore."
Dave absorbed that in silence.
Edric turned away from the map and rested one hand against the edge of the table.
"You saw the square tonight."
"Yes."
"You saw what they did to our people."
Dave's jaw tightened.
"I did."
Edric's gaze lowered slightly.
"I could not protect them."
The words were simple.
Just spoken as fact.
Dave shook his head.
"My lord..."
Edric raised a hand.
"I am not asking for comfort."
He looked at the lantern on the table, its flame moving gently in the draft from the door.
"You know what the crown gives me, Dave?"
Dave said nothing.
"Authority," Edric answered himself. "Command. The power to decide how others will live and die."
He let out a quiet breath.
"And yet I could not protect the people who trusted me."
The silence between them stretched.
Finally, Edric spoke again.
"What do you think should be my punishment?"
Dave stared at him for a moment.
Then he stepped closer to the table.
"My lord," he said slowly, "serving them is your punishment."
Edric looked up.
Dave's voice did not rise, but it carried the weight of long years of war.
"You carry that crown because someone has to," he continued. "Not because it brings comfort or makes life easier."
He rested one hand on the table.
"You carry it because if you stop, someone worse might take it."
Edric watched him quietly.
"The burden ends when you stop breathing." Dave said.
The lantern flame flickered.
Dave met his eyes.
"So, you keep walking."
A long moment passed.
Then Edric nodded once.
"Yes," he said quietly.
"Yes... I suppose I do."
Inside the chamber down the hall, the lantern still burned low.
Most of the Hallow Swords had finally settled into uneasy rest. Gavril snored faintly near the wall while Joren leaned back against a rolled blanket, eyes closed but not fully asleep.
Viktor remained awake.
He sat near the window, watching the faint orange glow of the pyres across the city.
After a while Kaavi moved to stand beside him.
For a time neither of them spoke.
Finally, Viktor asked quietly,
"Grandfather… why do they burn them?"
Kaavi looked out toward the distant smoke.
"So, the living can let them go," he said.
Viktor watched the firelight flicker above the rooftops.
Then he asked the question that had been sitting in his chest all evening.
"Where do people go…after the fire?"
Kaavi did not answer immediately.
The smoke outside drifted slowly across the darkening sky.
"Some believe the fire returns them to the order of things," he said at last. "Back to whatever balance keeps the world turning."
Viktor considered that.
"And if someone breaks that balance?" he asked.
Kaavi's eyes moved briefly toward the distant mountains beyond the city walls.
"Then someone has to restore it son."
The firelight continued to glow against the night.
And somewhere beyond the mountains, unseen and patient, the forces that had reached for Whitehold were already moving again.