Closing His Mouth
As the darkness deepened, faces became easier to read.
Even without words, it was clear.
Until moments ago, the man had been calculating something. At the very least, it was the face of someone who had hoped to use this place as bait — someone who wanted us to miss the waterway leading toward the main keep.
But now something was different.
The floodgate had closed. The channel toward the main keep was blocked as well. One of the moves he had trusted had just gone wrong.
The princess stepped in front of him, very slowly.
"I'll ask again."
The man gripped his bleeding wrist and kept his mouth shut. It was no longer the blank expression from before. His jaw had locked tight; his breathing had gone short. This was the face of a man sorting a discardable card from one he could not afford to lose.
The princess's voice sank low.
"If this place is the bait, then where is the real one?"
He twisted the corner of his mouth as if he had tried to smile and failed.
"Even if I talk… would you believe me?"
This time I spoke first.
"Whether we believe you or not isn't for you to decide."
He looked my way. Under the low lantern light, his eyes were younger than I expected — as if someone else's skin had been forced over the face of a marketplace errand boy, and it sat there awkwardly.
I took another step closer.
"Who hired you for this?"
Silence.
Dein clenched his teeth.
"Young master, a bastard like this—"
"Quiet."
I cut him off short, and Dein closed his mouth. I looked down at the man again.
"You know the layout here. The wells, the waterways, even the order for hitting the outer palisades. But your actions are strangely clumsy. You may have drawn the map, but the real mastermind is someone else."
The man's eyes wavered, just barely.
That was the answer.
The princess did not miss the flicker either. She spoke very gently.
"It seems Lord Elverhart is correct."
The man clenched his teeth. Without smiling, the princess continued.
"Fine. Then let's narrow the range. Someone who knows the geography inside the main keep, the old waterways, the closed management offices, every well location. And someone who also knows what would frighten the people of this region."
The lady added coldly.
"And not someone who just arrived from outside the territory."
At those words, the man's head turned once. I was certain then.
"Someone from inside the main keep."
Kyle swallowed hard behind me. Dein choked back a curse. Father said nothing to the end.
The man finally muttered low.
"…Even if it's inside the main keep, not everyone is the same."
The princess's eyes narrowed.
"Go on."
He licked the blood from his lips with the tip of his tongue and spoke.
"I only opened the gate… I couldn't have done everything myself."
As expected. I asked immediately.
"What is the client's name?"
He lowered his head, then slowly raised it.
"I never heard a name."
A lie. An errand runner who valued credit above all else claiming he never even heard his client's name.
Father finally spoke.
"The title."
The man shifted his gaze that way. Father was leaning against the wall. His voice only grew lower.
"What did the people around him call the one who hired you?"
The air in the room shifted, ever so slightly. No one else interrupted.
The man worked his lips.
"……Clerk."
Kyle's eyes went wide. Dein almost reflexively repeated it.
"Clerk?"
I narrowed my eyes. There was no such title in the main keep. At least not officially. Only someone who held the ledgers and reports together would be called that.
The princess spoke very slowly.
"Who in the territory is addressed by that title?"
Kyle hesitated.
"It isn't an official title. However…"
"Speak."
At Father's short command, Kyle answered at once.
"There was a document officer who used to oversee the outer repair ledgers and tax settlements. Now he handles the main keep's supply ledgers and the distribution of outer materials, and people half-jokingly call him the Clerk behind his back."
Something stirred in a corner of my memory. A thin build. Hands that always smelled of ink. A man of few words with a dull gaze.
"…Bren."
Kyle nodded with a very stiff face.
"Yes. Bren Theo."
The man finally closed his eyes. It was the face of someone finished — the face of a man who might never have heard the name himself, but knew it was certain.
Dein shoved him roughly with a curse.
"That bastard from the inside—"
"It might not be him yet."
I cut him off. The commotion in the room stilled for a moment. I looked at Kyle.
"Where is Bren now?"
Kyle's face hardened further.
"Until before evening he would have been at the supply depot on business. After that, even I don't…"
Hearing that far, I looked at the princess. She wore the same thought on her face.
The supply depot. The wells, the palisades, and the stored water. They had been hitting only the places that would make people anxious the fastest. And if those fell next, the most fatal would ultimately be food and supplies.
The lady said quietly.
"After the main keep's stored water, the next step is the supplies."
The princess gave a short order.
"Dein."
"Yes, Your Highness!"
"Double the guard on the supply depot immediately, and don't let anyone who was inside come out. Don't call any names, and don't explain the reason."
"Yes!"
Dein turned at once.
In that moment, the man who had been pressed down suddenly let out a breath like a laugh.
"Too late."
Dein stopped. I turned my head as well. The man bared his bloodstained teeth and spoke.
"That place… is already finished."
I almost reflexively grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up.
"What do you mean."
"Fire."
A single short word. The air in the room froze.
Kyle muttered with a face gone pure white.
"The supply depot…?"
And almost at the same time, someone outside screamed like a madman.
"Fire—!"
It couldn't be.
"There's a fire at the eastern supply depot!"
Dein cursed and bolted out. Kyle tried to follow, but Father moved first.
"Kyle, you evacuate the people in the main hall. I will attend to the imperial guests."
The situation was bad. Fire was catastrophic on its own, but right now it was even worse. If contamination had been used to shake people's hearts, fire was used to shake their attention. If the supply depot burned after the stored water, people would feel they had lost water and food at the same time. If the true purpose was terror, it was a perfect sequence.
I released the collar and shoved the man to the floor as if throwing him.
"Your Highness."
The princess was already turning toward the door.
"I know."
The lady said shortly.
"Interrogation comes later. Right now, the scene."
We ran straight out of the management office. Into the night air, the sky not far away was already stained red. The eastern side of the main keep — the direction where the low-roofed warehouses clustered. If the wind caught, it could spread in an instant.
Father called me.
"Rion."
I answered without looking back.
"Yes, Father."
"You know what's in the supply depot, don't you?"
"I do."
It would have been a blessing if it were only edible grain. Winter horse feed and medicinal herbs, and waterproof tarps. On top of that, some spare barrier stones were stored there as well. If that place burned, it wouldn't end with just putting out the fire later. The repair of the outer lines and the maintenance of evacuation itself would stop.
Father said shortly.
"Then run."
At those words, strangely, my head grew clearer. I took the lead at once.
The night path from the waterway management office toward the main keep was steeper than before, but there was no room to hesitate. Behind us, the rough footsteps of knights and the scrape of armor followed hard, and the lady's coat hem cut through the wind. The princess did not try to mount a horse either. She had judged that running herself would be faster.
By the time we crossed the outer palisade of the main keep again, the firelight had grown larger. Red flames flashed beneath the sky, and acrid smoke rode the wind and struck our faces.
In that moment, I realized this was no accidental fire. It was not the shape of flames just beginning to spread from one building to another — it had started in three places at once from the beginning.
"Damn it…"
A proper curse left my mouth for the first time.
The lady said beside me.
"Is there a problem?"
"It's not one place. It's three."
The princess asked shortly.
"Are you certain?"
"Not certain, but—"
Before the words finished, another louder shout erupted from inside the main keep.
"It's spreading to the western warehouse too!"
It was truly fast. They had tied us down at the waterway management office and set fire to the supply depot in the meantime. And not just one supply depot — they had chosen locations that would make people scramble in confusion and lit them all at once.
I clenched my teeth as I ran. They had already laid the next move, and the one after that. And to catch up, from now on we too would have to choose faster what to abandon and what to protect — not put them out one by one.
When we entered the eastern courtyard of the main keep, the flames were already climbing the warehouse roofs. People ran with water buckets. Horses screamed. The smell of burning tangled together with smoke and firelight all at once.
I did not stop and shouted at once.
"Abandon the western warehouse! Save the second eastern warehouse and the central herb store first!"
In that instant everyone looked at me. There were too many eyes, but this time I did not avoid them.
"We can't abandon that place!"
Someone shouted. I yelled straight toward them.
"The west is already lost! The fire will ride the wind! If we don't abandon it now, it'll reach the center!"
After a short silence, Dein was the first to roar until his throat tore.
"Move as the young master says! Cut off the west — start with the center and the herb store!"
Only then did the people split.
You cannot hold everything that is collapsing. The method of choosing first what can be saved. In the capital they only talked about such judgments with their mouths, but here people moved by who took responsibility first.
And I was already standing in the middle of it.