Chapter 747
After a long stretch of silence, Torvares finally began to speak.
“When Arslan got involved with Violette,” he said, voice measured, “I had him investigated.”
Ludger did not react outwardly, but his eyes stayed fixed on the old lord. Torvares gave a dry, humorless exhale.
“To tell the truth, at the time I had every intention of teaching him a lesson.” His mouth thinned slightly. “A harsh one, if necessary. He got involved with my daughter, then disappeared. That was not the kind of thing a father simply overlooked.”
His gaze shifted briefly toward the papers on his desk, though it was clear he wasn’t seeing them.
“Back then, I had no reason to think kindly of him. As far as I was concerned, he was a talented swordsman with poor judgment and even worse timing.” He paused. “But then Violette began to show signs of pregnancy.”
The words settled heavily in the room.
“And once that happened,” Torvares continued, “my priorities changed. Punishing Arslan stopped mattering nearly as much as protecting my daughter and preparing for what was coming. So I let that particular anger go. Not because he deserved mercy at the time, but because there were more important things to think about.”
Ludger remained silent.
Torvares folded his hands atop the desk.
“Regardless, the investigation had already been done. Or at least, enough of it.”
His expression darkened slightly as he pulled old memories into order.
“I found that Arslan’s family came from another territory. Not a powerful ducal line or anything grand like that, but they were far from nobodies. They had built a name for themselves through work rather than inheritance alone.” He looked at Ludger. “A few years before Arslan crossed paths with my family, his household had died in a fire.”
Ludger’s gaze sharpened.
“At the time,” Torvares said, “people assumed it had been an accident.”
He said it calmly, but Ludger could hear the distance in the old lord’s tone, the distance of a man revisiting information he once considered unfortunate, but unremarkable.
“An old tragedy. A respectable family was wiped out. One surviving son who was not present.” Torvares shook his head once. “Nothing in the reports I received back then pointed clearly toward foul play. Not enough to justify treating it as anything other than misfortune.”
He paused, then added more quietly, “Still, just as you said, another family of apothecaries took their place afterward. They grew quickly. Very quickly.”
That drew no response from Ludger, but the stillness around him deepened.
“At the time, it did not seem suspicious,” Torvares continued. “Markets shift when an established family disappears. Clients go somewhere. Contracts are absorbed. Influence moves. It is ugly, but it happens.” His brows drew together. “Only now, with everything you’ve brought to me, does it begin to look different.”
Ludger’s jaw tightened slightly.
Torvares leaned back, his eyes narrowing as he searched his own memory for details.
“Arslan’s parents were not ordinary merchants selling herbs and common tonics,” he said. “Nor was his elder sister.” He lifted a finger lightly against the desk as if placing each point into line. “They were fairly famous in the Empire for a time. Not court celebrities, but known in the circles that mattered. Healers, physicians, alchemists, nobles with practical minds, those kinds of people knew their names.”
Ludger’s focus sharpened further.
“They found new treatments for numerous diseases,” Torvares said. “Not one miracle cure, but several practical advancements. Better salves. Better compounds. Better ways to process ingredients. Methods that worked well enough to spread.”
His tone grew heavier.
“And most importantly, their treatments were far cheaper than the old ones.”
That hung in the room like a blade. Cheaper. Not merely innovative. Not merely effective. Dangerous.
Because in a world where healing, medicine, and recovery were all tied to profit, reducing the cost of treatment did more than earn gratitude. It threatened entire business structures. Old suppliers. Established families. Those who had grown rich by keeping relief expensive.
Torvares clearly understood that now, in hindsight, far better than he had then.
“People praised them for it,” he said. “At least publicly. They were seen as capable, useful, perhaps even benevolent by noble standards.” His mouth flattened faintly. “But making treatment cheaper does not only win you admirers. It also cuts into the purses of people who preferred the old order.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Ludger’s eyes darkened. Torvares saw it and gave a slow nod.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Now you understand why I am no longer comfortable calling that fire a simple accident.”
Torvares was quiet for a moment after that, then added, more slowly,
“At the time, I did consider the possibility that rivals had a hand in it.”
Ludger’s eyes remained fixed on him.
“Jealousy would have been the obvious motive,” Torvares said. “A family rising too quickly. Gaining attention. Earning gratitude. Disrupting established methods. Those things breed resentment as naturally as rot breeds flies.” He exhaled through his nose. “But I did not think someone truly powerful would be behind it. Not then.”
His expression hardened faintly.
“The Empire declared it an accident. A tragic fire. Nothing more.” He tapped a finger once against the desk. “And I accepted that judgment as well.”
There was no pride in that admission. Only irritation, likely directed more at himself than anyone else.
“Over the years,” he continued, “I gathered some intelligence on the other family. The one that rose after Arslan’s family was destroyed… and the one that was also ruined more recently.”
Ludger’s focus sharpened. Torvares nodded once.
“I did not stop watching them entirely. Not because I had proof of anything, but because the timing had always lingered at the back of my mind.” His gaze narrowed. “Still, I found no openly suspicious behavior. Nothing clear enough to justify action. No obvious use of stolen research from Arslan’s family. No public breakthrough that looked too perfectly inherited. No sudden revelation of techniques that could only have come from the dead.”
Ludger frowned faintly. That was strange. Torvares seemed to agree.
“If they stole anything,” he said, “they hid it well. Or they were more cautious than greedy.”
He paused, then his tone grew heavier.
“However, one thing did stand out.”
The room seemed to still be around those words.
“They stopped working openly about a year ago.”
Ludger’s eyes narrowed. Torvares leaned back slightly in his chair.
“Not completely vanished,” he said. “But they pulled inward. Reduced visible operations. Became more private. Fewer public dealings. Less open research. Less movement through the usual channels.” His mouth tightened. “At first glance, it could be dismissed as a family choosing discretion. Wealthy people do that whenever they become paranoid, ambitious, or afraid.”
“But?” Ludger asked.
Torvares looked at him directly.
“But my spies found something buried beneath that silence.”
He let the words settle for a beat.
“They were researching matters related to curses.”
Ludger went still. Not visibly. Not dramatically. But the kind of stillness that came when a thought locked into place so hard that everything around it had to reorganize. Torvares saw it immediately.
“I never found enough to know the exact purpose,” he continued. “Whether they sought to remove curses, create them, contain them, or profit from them in some other fashion. My reports were incomplete. Fragments. Indirect purchases. Certain books acquired quietly. Certain specialists contacted through intermediaries. Ingredients and materials that had little reason to be grouped together unless the topic was darker than ordinary medicine.”
Ludger’s expression turned colder with every word. Torvares folded his hands.
“At the time, I treated it as troubling, but not urgent. Odd research in itself proves little. Powerful families often dabble in things they should leave untouched.” His voice lowered. “But now, with suspicious illnesses, buried dead, old fires, and your talk of trees tied to hatred and labyrinth sickness…”
He did not need to finish the thought. Ludger could do that part himself. Because it no longer sounded like disconnected rot. It sounded like a line.
A line stretching from Arslan’s dead family, through a rival apothecary house that rose in the ashes, through secret research into curses, and into the recent deaths of nobles who had begun moving toward something important before suddenly collapsing. Torvares studied Ludger for a second before adding one final piece.
“I found no proof that they were the hand behind everything,” he said. “But I am no longer willing to assume they were innocent either.”
Ludger said nothing. He didn’t need to. At this point, innocence was starting to look like the least likely explanation in the room. Ludger stood in silence for a few moments, turning the pieces over one by one before he finally spoke.
“I still don’t have enough information to confirm it,” he said.
Torvares watched him without interrupting.
“But I’m starting to believe that someone in the Empire is using their influence to remove people who are about to gain a great deal of power and standing through major breakthroughs.”
His voice remained calm, but each word landed with increasing weight.
“Not political heirs. Not random rivals. People on the verge of changing something.” Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Cheaper treatments. New methods. access to knowledge. discoveries. anything that would shift influence too quickly, or in the wrong direction.”
Torvares’s expression darkened. Ludger continued.
“And whoever is behind it doesn’t work alone.”
He placed a hand lightly on the desk, more to anchor the shape of the thought than from any need for support.
“They have a large network of allies.” His gaze sharpened. “Enough reach to bury investigations. Enough influence to guide official conclusions. Enough control to erase evidence, contain witnesses, and make unnatural deaths look unfortunate, but acceptable.”
The room felt colder by the time he finished that sentence.
Ludger’s eyes lowered briefly, the logic still moving.
“I think the second family learned too much,” he said. “The apothecaries who rose after my father’s family died.” His tone flattened further. “They probably discovered part of the truth. Or enough of it to become dangerous.”
Torvares said nothing, letting him continue.
“And instead of staying quiet,” Ludger said, “they decided to use that knowledge to gain even more standing in the Empire.”
That part fit far too easily. A family that inherited a vacant market. A family that rose in influence. A family that later turned inward and began researching curses. Not because they were innocent scholars stumbling into forbidden knowledge by accident. But because they had seen the machinery from up close and wanted to claim more of it for themselves.
“They were disposed of for it,” Ludger said.
There was no hesitation in the conclusion now.
“Most likely because someone is using curses to get rid of people,” he went on, “and they do not want anyone else finding solutions to that. Or finding ways to expose it. Or worse, finding ways to fight back.”