Chapter 47 - The Son

Chapter 47: 47 - The Son

- Léon’s POV -

Léon found his father in one of the smaller rooms of the main Arquenay mansion, sitting alone with a drink he had clearly forgotten about. Gaspard looked as if he had been there for a while, one hand against his mouth, several papers spread across the table in front of him.

He had been like this since returning from Greymoor. Thinking, pacing, shutting himself away, then thinking again. Léon had given him time, more than enough in his opinion, and still nothing had happened.

"Father, are we really going to sit here and do nothing?"

Gaspard looked up slowly. Judging by his face, this was not the conversation he wanted. "Sit down."

"I’d rather know what we’re doing."

"Then sit down and listen."

Léon’s jaw tightened, but he took the chair across from him. Gaspard leaned forward and tapped one of the papers with two fingers.

"Do you genuinely not understand the position we’re in?"

"I understand that Adrien Clairmont knows about the camp and we’re letting him hold that over us."

"That’s a very simple version of it."

"But do you really think he might have evidence that incriminates us?"

"Most likely."

"And instead of taking them back, we’re waiting for him to decide when he wants to use them."

Gaspard’s fingers tightened against the table. "And how exactly would you take them?"

"Greymoor is weak. We have more men."

For a second, his father looked like he might laugh. He didn’t.

"And the moment those men cross into Clairmont territory? What then?"

"We finish it quickly."

"You think that fixes anything?"

"It fixes Adrien." Léon leaned forward. "And honestly, who is going to care what happens to the house of a traitor? Clairmont is already dying. If we don’t finish them, somebody else will sooner or later."

Gaspard stared at him for several seconds.

Then he stood and struck him across the face.

The slap snapped Léon’s head to the side hard enough to leave his cheek burning. He remained frozen beside the table, more shocked by the fact that his father had hit him than by the pain itself.

"You understand absolutely nothing, do you?" Gaspard said. His voice had gone quieter, which somehow made it worse. "You foolish boy. Do you think a name stops mattering because the Crown executed one man?"

Léon slowly turned back toward him. "They were declared traitors."

"Alaric was declared a traitor. House Clairmont still sits among the Ten Great Houses of this Kingdom, and that name carried enough weight twenty years ago to make kings think twice before provoking them." Gaspard jabbed a finger against Léon’s chest. "People may laugh at what they have become, but every noble in this kingdom is watching to see whether they recover or finally collapse."

He stepped back and pointed toward the table.

"If we march into Greymoor and slaughter them, nobody will shrug and say they deserved it. They’ll ask why Arquenay suddenly needed Adrien Clairmont dead badly enough to invade his territory."

Léon rubbed his cheek. "Then we don’t make it look like Arquenay."

Gaspard gave him a look filled with exhausted disbelief. "And when Adrien’s documents appear afterward? When somebody finds out our men were involved? When one frightened soldier decides his life is worth more than his loyalty? You think removing our banners makes every witness blind?"

"We can’t keep letting him hold this over us."

"You think I don’t know that?" Gaspard snapped. "I’ve spent eleven years keeping this house alive with half the wealth the others have. Eleven years making sure nobody looked too closely at the north, paying the right men, moving goods through routes the Crown had stopped caring about and keeping every loose end as far from this family as I could."

He shoved the papers across the table.

"Then Adrien Clairmont walks into the middle of it and finds enough evidence in a few days to put our entire house on trial. Yes, Léon, I know something has to be done. What I’m trying to decide is how we do it without putting the rope around our own necks first."

Léon’s jaw tightened at Adrien’s name, and Gaspard noticed immediately.

"There. That expression again." He pointed at his son. "This is exactly why I told you in the carriage to stay away from him. You cannot even hear his name without thinking about that duel."

"You think this is about losing a staff?"

"I think you lost a duel, lost Umbral Root and had a princess laugh while it happened. Since then, you’ve been walking around as though Adrien personally took something from you that you’re entitled to get back."

"That has nothing to do with what’s happening now."

"It has everything to do with whether I can trust you to think before you act." Gaspard lowered himself back into his chair. "And right now, I can’t."

That landed harder than the slap.

Léon’s hand dropped from his cheek. "So that’s what you think of me? That I’m useless?"

"I think you’re angry, humiliated and desperate to prove you’re neither of those things. That’s a dangerous combination for a man who believes violence solves every problem in front of him."

"I can handle Adrien."

"This isn’t about whether you can beat Adrien in a fight!" Gaspard struck the table with his palm. "This is about what happens the day after. And the week after that. And what every other house does when they smell blood."

Léon pushed his chair back and stood.

"So your answer is still to sit here while he decides when to destroy us."

"My answer is to find an option that leaves House Arquenay standing when this is over." Gaspard’s eyes hardened. "And until I find it, you will stay out of this. You will not go near Adrien, Greymoor or anyone carrying the Clairmont name. Have I finally made that simple enough for you?"

Léon’s face remained tight, but he forced himself to nod.

"Yes, Father. I understand perfectly."

Gaspard watched him for another moment. "I hope you do, because I won’t repeat myself again."

Léon turned and left before his father could say anything else.

The corridor outside was empty. He walked through it with his cheek still burning and his father’s words following him all the way toward the rear stairs.

’He thinks I can’t be trusted.’

That was what bothered him most.

Gaspard could dress it up as caution or politics, but the meaning had been obvious. His own father thought he was a liability. Somebody who needed to be ordered away while more capable men fixed the problem.

’Then I’ll fix it before he can.’

There was a simple answer Gaspard refused to see because he was too busy imagining everything that could go wrong. Adrien had something House Arquenay needed, and Léon could take something Adrien valued in return.

An exchange.

Something for something.

’That’s fair.’

Once he brought his father what he needed, Gaspard would finally understand. Léon wasn’t useless. He wasn’t a spoiled son who lost one duel and needed to be protected from himself.

He could solve this.

Léon took the rear stairs down into the lower yard, where ten men were already waiting beside saddled horses. None wore Arquenay colours, exactly as he’d ordered.

Every one of them was Two Stars. They had trained with Léon, hunted with him or owed their positions to him personally. More importantly, their loyalty belonged to him before it belonged to anyone else in the house.

One of the soldiers stepped away from the group. "My lord, everything is ready. We can leave whenever you give the order."

Léon looked over the horses and packed bags before asking, "Nobody spoke to my father or mentioned where we’re going?"

"No. As far as the household knows, we’re heading out to hunt for a few days. Nobody questioned it."

"Keep it that way." Léon took the reins of his horse. "Once we’re outside Arquenay territory, we stay off the main roads wherever we can. I don’t want anyone remembering our faces if this becomes complicated."

The soldier nodded. "Understood. We’re still following the route you gave us?"

"Exactly the same."

Léon climbed into the saddle, and the ten men mounted behind him. His father could stay inside that room and keep searching for a perfect solution that probably didn’t exist.

Léon was done waiting for one.

"Let’s move. We’ve already wasted enough time."

The gates opened and the group rode out without banners or house colours. Léon kept his eyes on the road ahead while the Arquenay mansion slowly disappeared behind them.

His cheek still burned where Gaspard had struck him.

He would remember that too.

’Consider this repayment, Adrien.’

Léon’s grip tightened around the reins as the horses picked up speed.

’Everything comes back around eventually.’

They rode until the light started going, and Léon kept his own plan turning over the whole way.

He was not going anywhere near Greymoor. His father had been right about one thing, even if he’d said it while shouting: marching into Clairmont territory and attacking the house directly was exactly the kind of decision that ended with Arquenay banners hanging in front of a Crown court.

Nobody had said anything about what left Greymoor.

Léon had spent two days asking careful questions of people who had no idea why he wanted the answers. Clairmont still held villages and towns of its own, and someone from that house went out to visit them on a schedule that had barely changed in twenty years. Complaints, tax records, repairs. Tedious work that nobles usually handed to an old retainer.

Adrien Clairmont was rebuilding a house and had a mother running the accounts. Neither of them had time to sit through a farmer explaining the state of a road.

That left one person.

The soldier riding beside him spoke without turning his head. "My lord, if the girl doesn’t come out at all?"

"Then we wait and try again next week." Léon looked at the darkening road ahead. "She’ll come out. She’s fifteen and she’s been sitting in that house since her brother started playing at politics. She’ll take any excuse to leave."

The man nodded and said nothing else.

Léon rode on, and for the first time since Valebrand, the weight sitting behind his ribs felt like something he could finally put down.