Chapter 425: No Audience

Chapter 425: Chapter 425: No Audience

Arik spent the first week watching Lucien Ravel pretend to be an idiot.

The performance was impressive.

Lucien arrived late to breakfast twice, asked one of the household staff which fork was intended for fish despite having grown up in a royal court, misremembered the name of a provincial minister he had greeted the previous evening perfectly, and spent an entire lunch complaining that Nurian economic reports contained too many numbers.

Cassian nearly choked on his wine.

Arik said nothing.

He simply kept changing the questions.

The first test happened during a tour of the western administrative wing.

Lucien walked beside him in a dark blue coat whose embroidered cuffs bordered on offensive, listening with apparent boredom while an official explained how provincial tax revenue was divided between local administrations and the central treasury.

Arik interrupted midway.

"What percentage should remain with the province?"

Lucien blinked.

"Sorry?"

"The percentage."

Lucien looked toward the official.

"I thought we were discussing architecture."

"We were not."

"Oh."

He scratched the side of his jaw.

"Forty?"

The official visibly winced.

Arik continued walking.

Three hours later, he deliberately left a treasury memorandum open on the table in the private library.

Lucien spent less than a minute alone with it.

That evening, during dinner, he casually asked whether Nuria intended to increase provincial retention in districts still rebuilding pre-Gate infrastructure.

Arik looked up from his plate.

Lucien froze for a second, then smiled.

"I heard someone mention it."

"No, you didn’t."

Lucien reached for his wine.

Arik let him escape.

The second test was more entertaining.

He invited Lucien to sit in on a meeting with Cyran concerning agricultural subsidies and deliberately introduced an incorrect calculation into one of the projections.

Nobody corrected him.

Cyran knew better.

Cassian knew what Arik was doing almost immediately.

Lucien lasted six minutes.

Then he shifted in his chair.

Another two minutes passed.

Finally, he spoke.

"That number is wrong."

Silence.

Lucien stared at the projection and moved it to Arik.

Arik raised an eyebrow.

Lucien looked as though he had accidentally stepped onto thin ice.

"The... formatting."

Cyran covered his mouth.

Arik leaned back.

"What about the formatting?"

Lucien’s eyes narrowed.

He knew.

Arik could see the exact moment he realized the trap had already closed.

"The subsidy projection assumes the eastern production estimates remain stable," Lucien said slowly. "They won’t. You are using last year’s yield despite reducing imported fertilizer dependence by nearly twelve percent."

Cyran’s hand dropped.

Cassian smiled.

Arik nodded toward the projection.

"Continue."

Lucien hesitated, but decided to give up pretending.

"If domestic replacements scale at the rate listed in the previous report, production costs decline, but yield becomes less predictable for at least two seasons. The reserve should be larger."

"How much larger?"

"Six to eight percent."

Cyran looked toward Arik.

Arik said nothing.

Lucien stared at the table for several seconds.

"I suppose I am terrible at numbers again tomorrow."

Cassian laughed so hard he had to put down his glass.

By the seventh day, Arik had learned enough.

Lucien was intelligent.

Not spectacular in every area, which Arik preferred. He understood economics and institutional structures quickly, had a particularly good memory for political relationships, and possessed the cautious habit of asking why a system existed before proposing how to change it.

He also knew how to disappear inside a room.

That interested Arik more.

Lucien could speak for ten minutes and leave someone remembering only that he had been pleasant.

A useful talent for someone who had survived Gerard.

So Arik stopped testing him.

He found Lucien late one afternoon in the smaller palace library, seated beside the fire with an economics text open across his knees. Snow pressed against the windows beyond him, and the room smelled faintly of old paper, cedar shelves, and the coffee Lucien had abandoned untouched on the side table.

Lucien looked up.

Then immediately slouched.

Arik stopped in the doorway.

"You can stop that."

Lucien blinked.

"Stop what?"

"That."

"I am reading."

"You were reading properly until I entered."

Lucien looked down at the book.

Arik crossed the room and sat opposite him.

"You don’t have to pretend anymore."

The change was subtle.

Lucien’s shoulders straightened.

His expression emptied of the vague, harmless confusion he wore so easily.

For the first time, Arik saw the man Marius had described.

Lucien closed the book.

"Gerard has people here."

"Had."

That made him still.

Arik rested one ankle over his knee.

"Three members of your diplomatic staff were reporting directly to him."

Lucien’s jaw tightened.

"I knew about two."

"The third was your assistant."

Lucien stared.

"Elias?"

"Yes."

For several seconds he said nothing.

Then, very quietly, "Fuck."

Arik almost smiled.

"He was good."

"He has worked for me for four years."

"He was still sending reports."

Lucien rubbed both hands over his face.

"So now what?"

"Nothing."

Lucien lowered his hands.

Arik looked toward the fire.

"Mezos killed them."

The room became very quiet.

"All three?"

"Yes."

Lucien stared at him.

"And Gerard?"

"Still receiving reports."

Understanding arrived slowly.

Arik continued.

"Mezos replaced them with his own people. Same communication patterns. Same schedules. Gerard currently believes you are attending ceremonial dinners, misunderstanding half your lessons, and spending an unreasonable amount of money on clothing."

Lucien looked down at his coat.

"This coat was expensive."

"I know."

"And I like it."

"That part is unfortunate."

Lucien laughed.

Not the airy, foolish laugh he used in public.

A real one.

It changed his entire face.

When it faded, relief remained.

"So I can stop?"

"Yes."

"All of it?"

"Inside secured areas, yes. Publicly, keep enough of the act that Gerard does not suddenly wonder why his useless nephew has become competent."

Lucien leaned back into the chair.

For the first time since arriving in Nuria, he looked his age.

Maybe younger.

Arik remembered then that there were only two years between them.

As Arik, at least.

That qualification had become increasingly irritating over time.

Lucien exhaled and looked toward the ceiling.

"Gods."

Arik watched him.

"You hated it that much?"

"I have been pretending to be stupid since I was sixteen."

That wiped away the last trace of humor.

Lucien looked back at him.

"Do you know what happens when you do that long enough?"

Arik waited.

"People stop asking what you think. Then eventually you stop answering before they ask."

His fingers tightened around the closed book.

"I had to fail exams I could pass. Laugh when Gerard insulted me. Pretend not to understand policies that affected people I knew personally because showing interest would make him suspicious."

Arik understood more of that than Lucien realized.

Lucien glanced toward him.

"And now?"

Arik stood.

"Now you learn."

Lucien looked at the shelves surrounding them.

"From you?"

"Unfortunately."

A small smile appeared.

"And Cassian?"

"He already thinks you belong to him."

"That sounds dangerous."

"It is."

Lucien rose, still holding the economics text.

Arik reached the door before he spoke again.

"Arik."

He turned.

Lucien’s expression had become serious.

"Thank you."

Arik studied him for a moment.

"Do something useful with it."

Then he left.

Behind him, Lucien opened the book again.

This time, when the next member of the palace staff entered the library, he did not pretend he could not understand what he was reading.