Steward Malakor did not appreciate the slippers.
The chief steward stood on the gravel path with his hands clasped behind his back, his sharp nose twitching in disgust. For six full minutes, he watched Kaelen fumble with a loose hemp lace, yawn three times, and slowly pull a faded gray bathrobe over his linen shirt.
The robe had frayed hems, a scorched patch near the left pocket from an old brazier mishap, and smelled faintly of dried peppermint.
“Third Young Master,” Malakor said, his voice dripping with icy venom. “The tribunal was called for the morning bell. It is now past midday. The Baron’s patience is not infinite.”
“The morning air carries morning damp,” Kaelen said mildly. He tied the cloth belt into a crooked knot.
“If I walk into the wind on an empty stomach, the draft enters my marrow,” Kaelen added. “The sweeping staff would complain about the blood.”
Malakor’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. He turned on his heel and marched toward the main estate, his leather boots crunching angrily against the stones.
Kaelen followed at an agonizingly leisurely pace.
He took tiny, shuffling strides. Every thirty paces, he paused to admire a butterfly, inspect a wilted hydra-vine, or clear his throat with a dry, theatrical wheeze. By the time they reached the grand cobblestone avenue leading to the inner manor, the sun was sinking toward the western rooftops.
Above Kaelen’s forehead, the grey slate chimed with quiet satisfaction.
[The Fallow Slate: Stage 1 — Mortal Tally] [Current Abstinence: 18 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 19x]
Eighteen hours of pure, uninterrupted laziness, including the long wait outside Father’s tribunal, Kaelen thought. Let Derrick fume on his high throne. Every minute he wastes waiting for me is another multiple in the bank.
The heavy double doors of the Grand Martial Pavilion stood wide open.
Inside, the hall was vast, shadowed, and cold. Polished black granite floor tiles reflected the flicker of torchlight from bronze sconces along the walls. Two dozen senior guards in iron plate lined the pillars, their halberds held rigid.
At the far end of the hall, elevated on a three-tiered dais of carved ironwood, sat Baron Derrick Vance.
The patriarch of the Vance Clan looked like an aged mountain hawk. He wore heavy dark armor beneath a mantle of white wolf fur. His square jaw was lined with iron-gray stubble, and his eyes burned with the hard, unyielding discipline of a Mortal Pulse Rank 9 veteran.
To his right, reclining in a padded rosewood armchair, sat Madam Evelyn Vance.
The First Madam wore high-collared lilac silk trimmed with silver fox. Her black hair was pinned with jade needles, and her delicate hands held a painted sandalwood fan. Her skin was smooth as porcelain, but her narrow, tilted eyes possessed the cold patience of a coiled viper.
Below the dais stood Garrick Vance.
The second brother had wrapped his right wrist in clean white silk bandages, holding it against his ribs as if he had barely survived a massacre. Beside him lay a stretcher. Enforcer Douglas was strapped to the wicker frame, wrapped from neck to hip in plaster and linen splints, his breath rattling wetly through swollen lips.
Kaelen shuffled into the hall, his cloth slippers scuffing softly against the polished stone.
“Third Young Master Kaelen Vance arrives,” Malakor announced with a deep bow.
Derrick Vance did not wait for Kaelen to bow. He slammed his gauntleted fist onto the armrest of his ironwood throne.
BOOM.
The heavy oak structure shuddered. The guards along the pillars stiffened, their armor clinking in unison.
“Kaelen!” Derrick’s voice roared through the vaulted rafters like rolling thunder. “Look at this floor! Look at your clan brother!”
Derrick pointed a thick, calloused finger at the broken enforcer on the stretcher.
“You’ve shamed the Vance blade for three years by rotting in an herb shed, and now you turn our estate into a farce!” Derrick growled, his brow furrowing with dark fury. “Douglas is an eight-year veteran of the punishment hall, yet yesterday he was thrown through a five-foot stone wall with five fractured ribs!”
Kaelen stopped five paces from the dais. He pulled his faded robe tighter around his chest, letting out a soft, pathetic cough.
“The wind in the courtyard was very gusty yesterday, Father,” Kaelen said weakly.
Derrick’s eye twitched. “Gusty?”
“A freak gale,” Kaelen explained in a raspy, fragile tone. “Spring tempests often produce localized downbursts. I read about it in the imperial weather almanac.”
Garrick stepped forward, his face flushed with indignation. “Lies! He struck Douglas with a martial technique! He used the Crushing-Boulder Fist!”
Evelyn Vance tapped her sandalwood fan against her chin. A faint, venomous smile touched her red lips.
“My Lord,” Evelyn said, her voice smooth and sweet as poisoned wine. “We all know our third son has never possessed the strength to strike an enforcer. But violence occurred in the Third Herb Shed, and clan property was destroyed. A broken branch rots the surrounding grove.”
She turned her cold, elegant gaze toward Kaelen.
“The autumn tournament approaches,” Evelyn continued softly. “Our eldest son, Cassian, is at the critical bottleneck of Mortal Pulse Rank 8. His sword arts require every ounce of clan nourishment. We cannot allow unproductive outposts to hoard silver and medicine.”
She folded her fan with a soft snap.
“I propose we shutter the Third Herb Shed today,” Evelyn declared. “Transfer its herb reserves to Cassian’s training courtyard, and assign Kaelen and Mina to the laundry quarters where they can be properly supervised.”
Kaelen felt a cold spike in his gut.
Cassian is popping poison pills to fake a breakthrough, Kaelen thought. And Evelyn wants to strip the shed so Mina freezes to death in the washbasins. A truly loving stepmother.
Derrick Vance leaned forward, his piercing gaze bearing down on Kaelen.
A heavy wave of Rank 9 martial pressure swept off the dais. The Baron’s probing Qi pressed against Kaelen’s chest, testing his pulse gates and searching for hidden strength.
Kaelen didn’t resist.
He simply allowed his Rank 4 Qi to sink completely into his lower dantian, wrapping it in the still, dormant rhythm of the True Fallow State. To Derrick’s probing senses, Kaelen’s meridians felt stagnant, fragile, and utterly sluggish.
Derrick scowled, withdrawing his aura with obvious disdain.
“His pulse is limp as a dead eel,” Derrick muttered, shaking his head. “Stagnant. Rank 2 at best. He didn’t punch Douglas.”
“I couldn’t punch a turnip, Father,” Kaelen said in a flat, raspy voice. “My pulse gates are completely dormant from chronic spleen exhaustion. It was Old Barnaby.”
The hall went utterly silent.
Garrick blinked. “What?”
“Old Barnaby was boiling turnip soup,” Kaelen explained earnestly. “When Douglas kicked the door off its hinges, splinters flew into the soup pot. You know Old Barnaby. He is eighty years old, has only one arm, and cares about his turnip soup more than his own life.”
Kaelen gestured with both hands, mimicking a clumsy swinging motion.
“Barnaby swung the cast-iron cauldron lid to protect the pot,” Kaelen said. “Because he lacks a left arm, the centrifugal force carried his torso in a wild circle. Douglas charged forward, slipped on a pile of wet peppermint, and caught the rim of the lid directly against his chest plate.”
Derrick stared at him. “A cauldron lid?”
“A very heavy one,” Kaelen confirmed. “Cast iron, three inches thick.”
Kaelen paused to cough. “Douglas panicked, slipped on the stone, and tumbled through the garden wall. The mortar was seventy years old, Father. A goat could have knocked it over.”
Garrick turned beet-red. “Father, this is absurdity! Douglas is Rank 5! He wouldn’t slip on peppermint!”
“Then ask Douglas,” Kaelen said mildly.
Everyone turned toward the stretcher.
Douglas lay under his bandages, his eyes rolling back in terror. The memory of Kaelen’s casual, crushing punch through the stone wall was burned into his soul. Douglas knew that if he told the truth, Kaelen would find him later and finish the job.
Douglas made a weak, gurgling sound in his throat.
“Soup...” Douglas wheezed through his swollen lips. “Too... much... peppermint...”
Douglas promptly closed his eyes and faked unconsciousness.
Garrick stood frozen, his mouth opening and closing like a landed trout.
Derrick Vance rubbed the bridge of his nose, letting out a long, disgusted sigh. The patriarch looked at Douglas, then at Garrick, his expression thoroughly sour.
“An eight-year veteran,” Derrick growled in humiliation. “Defeated by an octogenarian’s soup lid and a handful of mint. The Vance Clan’s internal guards are becoming a laughingstock.”
Evelyn’s smile had vanished entirely. Her painted fan trembled in her grip. “My Lord, the shed—”
“Enough!” Derrick barked, waving his hand in dismissal. “I will not confiscate an outpost over a brawl with cooking utensils! The elders would mock me for a month!”
The Baron glared down at Kaelen with cold disappointment.
“You are a disgrace to the Vance name, Kaelen,” Derrick said harshly. “Your brother Cassian trains eighteen hours a day with an iron blade, while you spend your days hiding behind one-armed cooks. Get out of my sight. Go back to your straw.”
“Yes, Father,” Kaelen mumbled with a respectful bow. “I will try to rest more.”
He turned and shuffled out of the Grand Martial Pavilion, dragging his slippers along the polished granite.
Behind him, Evelyn’s venomous glare burned into the back of his neck, but Kaelen didn’t care.
The facade had held. The shed was safe, Mina’s medicine was untouched, and his streak remained completely unbroken.
Instead of taking the grand central avenue back to the outer gardens, Kaelen took a detour. He turned down the narrow, shaded service alley running behind the clan’s metallurgical storehouses.
The alley was quiet, paved with cracked flagstones and bordered by high, moss-covered brick walls. The afternoon sun had dipped below the horizon, casting the passage in deep purple twilight.
Above Kaelen’s brow, the slate pulsed as another hour ticked over:
[Current Abstinence: 20 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current Multiplier: 21x]
Kaelen stepped lightly, making no sound. His newly opened Rank 4 senses picked up the faint scent of sulfur and coal smoke drifting from the southern gate.
A low murmur of voices reached his ears.
Kaelen paused behind a stack of empty cedar crates, peering through the wooden slats.
Twenty yards ahead, beside the heavy iron-bound service gate, stood three massive freight wagons. Each wagon was harnessed to a pair of heavy draft oxen. Coarse brown burlap tarpaulins covered the beds, but beneath the cloth, the dark, metallic sheen of Vance black-iron ore was unmistakable.
Standing beside the lead wagon was Garrick Vance.
The second brother had already discarded his silk wrist bandages. He was holding a leather ledger under his arm, his fingers counting a thick stack of silver taels.
Beside him stood the outer gate captain, a burly man with grease on his leather armor.
“Three full wagons,” Garrick whispered, his voice sharp and hurried as he thrust five silver taels into the captain’s palm. “High-grade ore from the deep vein. Hound-Lord Briggs is waiting at the quarry boundary. The wagons must clear the perimeter before the third watch.”
The gate captain pocketed the coins with a crooked grin. “No worries, Young Master Garrick. The night patrol has been reassigned to the eastern orchard. But what about the paperwork? The quartermaster expects twenty tons of ore for the clan forge.”
Garrick sneered, tapping his ledger.
“I logged twenty tons as slag loss from the smelting furnaces,” Garrick whispered smugly. “And I skimmed thirty percent off the outer sheds’ allowances to cover the transport bribes. Nobody checks the slag records. Derrick is too busy watching Cassian swing a sword to count wagon wheels.”
Behind the crates, Kaelen watched with narrowed eyes.
Garrick isn’t just skimming pocket money, Kaelen noted. He is smuggling hundreds of tons of high-grade military iron to Hound-Lord Briggs. That’s treason against the provincial garrison.
A dry maple leaf crunched beneath Kaelen’s slipper.
The sound was barely louder than a mouse’s footstep, but Garrick’s head snapped around instantly.
“Who’s there?” Garrick hissed, his hand dropping to the hilt of his short sword.
Kaelen didn’t panic. He casually stepped out from behind the crates, pulling his faded bathrobe tight around his shoulders and letting out a loud, shuddering sneeze.
“Excuse me,” Kaelen mumbled, wiping his nose with his sleeve. “The alley has a dreadful draft. Do you know which way leads to the latrines?”
Garrick stared at him, his face twisting through shock, suspicion, and finally pure, venomous malice.
“You,” Garrick snarled under his breath. “Were you listening?”
“Listening to what?” Kaelen asked with an innocent, empty stare. “Is someone singing? The wind in this alley whistles in my ears. My doctor says ear-whistling is a sign of severe kidney depletion.”
Garrick glared at him for three tense seconds.
Kaelen’s hunched shoulders, frayed bathrobe, and glazed, sleepy eyes were the exact picture of a brainless invalid. Yet Garrick’s paranoia flared like dry brush. He had too much silver riding on this shipment to take even the slightest risk.
“Get out of here, you useless trash,” Garrick spat.
“Going, going,” Kaelen muttered, shuffling past the wagons toward the outer herb path. “Don’t shout. Shouting agitates my gallbladder.”
Garrick watched Kaelen’s back until the third brother disappeared around the corner of the brick wall.
The second brother’s jaw worked with venomous rage. He turned toward the shadows beneath the gatehouse eaves.
Two rough, broad-shouldered men stepped forward from the gloom. They wore foul-smelling leather aprons stained with forge grease and latrine waste, carrying iron buckets covered in damp burlap.
Night-Soil thugs. The ruthless, disposable scavengers who handled the manor’s toxic waste.
“Young Master?” the lead thug whispered, his yellow teeth bared in a cruel grin.
Garrick reached into his robe, pulling out an iron flask stamped with a red skull.
“Take ten ounces of toxic smelting slag from the forge,” Garrick ordered in a vicious whisper. “Wait until the midnight watch. Slip into the Third Herb Shed and dump the entire flask straight into their drinking well.”
Garrick’s eyes burned with cold, murderous satisfaction.
“Let the cripple and his little sister drink poison by morning,” Garrick hissed. “Let them choke on their own vomit. We’ll see how many cauldron lids that old dog can swing then.”