The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

Ravian did not look at the contract this time, though he knew exactly where Alexander’s eyes had settled before he asked his question. He had signed the name Rayan Veyr in front of him, and now the old man was giving him the chance to choose which name he preferred to hear, after making certain he understood that the choice would conceal nothing.

He slowly settled back into his chair, giving himself a moment to decide what he could say without adding another piece of information to a conversation in which he had already given far more than he had received, something no one else could have forced him to do.

But a Calamity was a Calamity for a reason, after all.

”You seem to know both names already, my lord. What I’d like to know is how you got from one to the other,” Ravian finally said, unsure whether he would lose one of his lives at this terrifying old man’s hands today.

Alexander did not smile immediately; he ran his thumb over the top of his wooden cane as he studied Ravian, then spoke in a quieter tone:

”It began with my granddaughter, as you suspected, though not in the way you imagined. When news of what had happened in the capital reached me, I assigned one of my men to keep an eye on her until I could be certain of her safe return. She was moving through a city that had lost part of itself, and I had no desire to wait for another report before doing something.”

Ravian listened without interrupting. That was hardly implausible for a man in Alexander’s position, especially where Lysandra was concerned, but knowing why his man had been there still did not answer the question that mattered to him.

”My man saw her at Viola Manor, and he saw you meet her here. He never heard your real name from her, and she never came to tell me about you; what reached me was a description of a man she knew, whose physique turned out to be very different from the descriptions that surfaced later in our investigation.”

Ravian’s fingers shifted slightly along the armrest as cold sweat trickled down his back with every word Alexander Veyla spoke.

”So you decided to draw me into answering the questions you were curious about?” Ravian asked, wanting to smack himself with a shoe for being so quick to admit his connection to Lysandra.

”Do you know what makes you even more of a fool?” Alexander asked with a smile, then continued without giving Ravian a chance to answer. ”You confirmed it when you told me the two of you had been in the same squad at the border.”

Ravian recalled the exact words he had spoken at the beginning of the meeting, then remembered Alexander’s effortless reply when he assured him that Lysandra had told him about it. The old man had not needed to know the squad beforehand; he had drawn confirmation from Ravian, then made him believe he had revealed nothing new.

In truth, Ravian had been afraid the old man would suspect there was something more between him and Lysandra and kill him in a fit of anger, but it seemed he had been too quick to judge... and had been wrong again.

”My men knew you had met my granddaughter, but you confirmed the rest of the story they brought me after their investigations.” Alexander raised his eyes to him as he continued, ”In fact, once you met her in the capital, the search was no longer as broad as it had been. The Death Squad isn’t an entire army, and a new disciple of Karius Dmitri joining its ranks hardly goes unnoticed.”

A cold knot tightened in Ravian’s stomach at the sound of his master’s name, but this time he gave the old man no more than a steady look.

Alexander paused, then added as though answering an objection Ravian had not voiced:

”I didn’t need to send a man from the capital to the border and wait for him to return. The reports spies gather reach the people they serve, boy; what would be the point of having them otherwise?”

Ravian knew that, but he hated the way it had been said even more than the information itself.

”A young man with white hair and crimson eyes, who joined the squad on Karius’s direct recommendation, then disappeared.” Alexander leaned on his cane, his gaze passing over Ravian’s shoulders and chest before returning to his face. ”The changes to your body were significant enough to give my men pause, but my granddaughter knows you, and the alias you chose is intriguingly close to the name we found.”

Ravian made no attempt to explain why he had chosen the name, nor did he ask about the men who had written those reports. Each additional question would only bring him back to the same position, while the limits of what Alexander had revealed were clearer now than they had been a few minutes earlier.

He had found the connection to the Death Squad and Karius, and the difference between the body that had vanished and the one that had returned. As for what had happened between that disappearance and return, he had revealed nothing.

’So that’s all you know, then.’ Ravian breathed out in involuntary relief, concealing it from Alexander.

”Does Karius know you’re here?” the red-haired old man asked.

Ravian looked at his face, then at the hand resting on the cane. All the man had to do was decide to send another message to make Ravian’s plans for returning considerably more complicated, and perhaps he had already sent it before this conversation began.

Asking him to keep quiet would guarantee nothing, and Ravian did not need to test how foolish it would be to threaten him.

He unclenched his jaw and replied without the courtesy that had weighed down so much of his speech:

”Do what you want with that information, Your Grace,” Ravian said, expecting a frightening reaction from the old man.

Saying anything else could put him in an even worse position sooner or later, so he decided to take the risk; if it failed, he still had lives he could use, and he braced himself for the red-haired old man’s next move.

But it never came.

A small smile appeared on Alexander’s face, calmer than Ravian had expected.

And the moment Ravian tried to read its meaning, the chair before him was empty.

He had not even seen the man rise. A moment ago, the cane had been between Alexander’s feet with both hands resting on it, then the man and everything he carried were gone, leaving the chair before Ravian as though it had never been occupied.

The muscles in Ravian’s neck tightened as he started to turn toward the door, but he checked the movement halfway through and forced himself to look around slowly instead. The most unsettling part was that he did not know whether the old man had truly left or was now standing somewhere he could not see him.

He remained seated for several seconds, listening more closely to the sounds of the house than thinking about what they had said to each other. When nothing happened, he finally rose, his body feeling strangely heavier than before, as though merely speaking to someone capable of crushing him with a thought had been more exhausting than he had imagined.

He found Patrick in a nearby corridor, talking to Shmichael after Charlotte’s departure. The moment the Earl saw him, he glanced toward the door to the room.

”Are you two finished?”

”He left suddenly as soon as he asked me about my relationship with his granddaughter.”

Patrick frowned and looked at Shmichael, who did not seem to have seen the Grand Duke pass him, then turned back to Ravian.

”And he didn’t say anything else?”

Ravian merely gave a small shake of his head, offering no further explanation. After a moment, the Earl set the matter aside, though the irritation did not leave his face.

Ravian took the opportunity before Patrick could think of another question.

”I need to leave for a few days, my lord. There’s a matter I should have settled already, and I’d prefer to take care of it before work on the project begins.”

”Now?” the Earl asked, his frown reflecting unmistakable irritation.

”Yes. You can begin preparing the site and arranging for workers as we agreed, and I’ll leave Shmichael all the notes the supervisors will need for this stage.”

Patrick did not seem pleased with the timing, but he made no attempt to stop him once he was satisfied that Ravian’s absence would not leave the initial work without instructions. He only asked him not to be away too long and to send word if anything happened to delay his return, and Ravian agreed without promising a date he did not know he could keep.

He had to return to the border before something happened that would make getting back more difficult.

He returned to his room and gathered what he needed, then separated the archive badge from the rest of his belongings and put it somewhere safe. He did not want anyone in the human camp finding something that linked the days he had been missing to research authorization issued by the capital’s academy.

He checked the two black daggers he had kept since the Rassasian’s attempt to assassinate him and secured their sheaths where he could reach them without hampering his movements. After finishing the notes for the supervisors and handing them to Shmichael, he left House Viola without looking for Larette.

Her silence when she left the meeting lingered in his mind, but he had no desire to find out what would become of that silence if he told her he was leaving again.

He walked until he was clear of the busier streets, then took a narrow passage between two high walls and stopped where the light was dim. The city had grown much quieter, with long stretches of silence separating the sounds of the occasional carriage.

He recalled the forest he had known before coming to the capital and chose a place he could recognize well, close to where he had killed the orcs before—near the waterfall, to be precise. From there, he would return on foot and restore his earlier appearance before approaching the soldiers in the camp, letting them find him coming out of the forest as someone who had disappeared there ought to return.

Appearing out of nowhere inside the camp would only invite questions no less irritating than Alexander’s.

He activated his ability, Void Traverse.

Energy drained from him in such a rush that he instinctively clenched his hands, and then he lost all sense of his surroundings, the ground, and the stone beneath his shoes. He could find no surface on which to fix his gaze, and the image of his intended destination remained in his mind until weight returned to his feet.

He landed on soft ground as the smell of scorched fat, meat, and thick smoke drifted into his nostrils.

Midnight had only just passed when he raised his eyes and saw an orc sitting in front of a black pot, a piece of meat in one hand, staring at him in surprise.

Tents and campfires stretched out behind the orc.

”Ah... Hello?” Ravian said, his expression caught somewhere between a smile and tears.

Apparently, he was done for.