Chapter 45: The Rot in Aedelgard
Iskander Briand
The rain had become a permanent state of being, a dreary percussion section to the symphony of misery that was Mainland Aedelgard.
Officer Dent—Hercule—had quickly proven himself an invaluable font of information, a living, breathing guidebook to the city's festering wounds.
It was a relief to have him; pestering Seris with every morbid curiosity felt like both a waste of time and a logistical nightmare to both of us.
"How many people live in Aedelgard?"
"The official census," Dent said, his voice a low, steady rumble beside me, "made by the bureaucrats of Sovereign Orlaeth, puts the population at a hundred thousand and five hundred."
We picked our way along what passed for a road, a river of churned mud and refuse. "Official?" I echoed, the word hanging in the damp air, heavy with implication.
Dent's lips thinned. "Sovereign Orlaeth cares mainly about the Island Borough. The numbers of the people in the Mainland… aren't important to him." The statement was delivered with a chilling neutrality, as if commenting on the weather.
"Why does a Vritra care so much about lessers at all?" The question was out before I could stop it. From Sylvia, I'd learned that Asuran indifference was the default setting; active interest was an anomaly.
'Orlaeth was very similar to Agrona in his fascination with lessers,' Sylvia's voice chimed in, a whisper of my ancient Asuran Encyclopedia to Everything. 'But still, it's strange. This meticulous counting… it feels acquisitive. Like an accountant valuing livestock.'
"A mystery, Highlord," Dent replied, his keen eyes scanning the wretched landscape. "Amongst all our Sovereigns, Orlaeth is one of the most mysterious, comparable to the High Sovereign himself."
I nodded, the mystery filed away for later contemplation. My attention was snagged by a new horror, one that made the surrounding squalor seem almost benign. Most of the slum's inhabitants were huddled inside their pathetic shelters, fighting a losing battle against the invading rain. But a few figures remained outside, and they were… wrong.
They were shrouded in ragged, crimson-stained bandages, the fabric soaked through and clinging to gaunt limbs. They didn't shuffle or beg; they were utterly still, curled in on themselves as if trying to vanish from the agony of existence.
One, a young man—he couldn't have been more than eighteen—was struggling to even lift his head, a wet, rattling sound escaping from within his wrappings.
"Dent?" I asked, my voice tight with a revulsion that was purely human, not Asuran. "What is this?"
"Blood Pox," he answered, his tone grim, final. "A terrifying and rare disease that devours those who can't use magic. It's a consequence of the Vritra blood inside all our people, though it's not contracted directly because of it."
The explanation was rote, a clinical description of a living nightmare.
'Agrona's cruelty is so meticulously crafted,' Sylvia's mental voice was sharp with a cold, ancient fury. 'He makes them believe the magic he 'gifted' them is their salvation, that it could heal this. But it's an easily treatable ailment for those with knowledge. It happens to pure-blooded Basilisks as infants, but our physiology overwhelms it before their first year. For these people… it's a death sentence dressed up as a natural flaw.'
Blood Pox. The name was brutally apt. Agrona wasn't just using them as soldiers; he was letting them die of a twisted, magical form of Asuran varicella, a childhood disease turned into a weapon of control, all to make them strive harder for the runes that would never actually save them from his system's inherent sickness. It was a new circle of hell, one conceived in a mind of pure, calculated evil.
"Is there a treatment?" The question was a desperate plea.
"No," Dent said, the word a stone dropping into a bottomless well. "Blood Pox is impossible to cure. Even Instillers can't heal it any more than they can other diseases that hit the unads."
A memory surfaced, sharp and painful: my brother Cassian, his face young and earnest, bent over medical textbooks, desperately trying to study for one day find a cure for the illness that was slowly killing me.
I'd spent years in sterile white rooms, surrounded by the smell of antiseptic and despair, watching doctors with their futile charts and nurses with their pitying smiles. I'd become an unwilling expert in my own demise.
These people… they were so similar to me. They were like Iskander Hyperion, doomed by a body that had turned against itself.
Ignoring Dent's warning, I moved toward the bandaged young man. The smell hit me first—a sweet, cloying odor of rot and fever sweat that cut through the rain's clean scent.
"Highlord!" Dent's hand clasped my shoulder, his grip firm. He had pulled the collar of his trench coat up over his mouth and nose. "While we are both mages, direct contact may infect you too."
The action, the precaution… it struck me as odd. He'd said this was a rare disease. Yet he wasn't shocked. He was prepared. There was a knowingness in his eyes that went beyond a policeman's general awareness.
"Hey," I said softly, crouching down, the mud soaking into the knees of my pristine trousers. "Can you hear me?"
There was no answer. Only a faint, wet tremor that ran through his wrapped form. Up close, I could see where the bandages had fused with weeping, pox-marked skin. This wasn't just a disease; it was a consumption.
'There is nothing we can do, Child...' Sylvia's voice was thick with a helpless grief that mirrored my own. 'I could try to mend the tissue, pour aether into him… but he is too weak. His spirit is already more than half-gone. Aether would incinerate what little is left.'
I gritted my teeth until my jaw ached. The frustration was pure pain. I could warp space, freeze time, craft matter from nothingness, yet I was powerless before this microscopic horror. My power was a thunderous, and this required a scalpel I didn't possess.
I stood up, the motion feeling leaden. The rain felt colder now, accusatory.
"It's better if we go, Highlord," Dent said, adjusting his hat. His demeanor had shifted from informative to urgently cautious.
"There's something you haven't told me about the Blood Pox, right Officer?" I asked, my voice low, cutting through the patter of rain. I turned to face him fully. "You don't seem that surprised to see a supposedly rare disease."
Dent held my gaze for a long moment, the silence stretching between us filled only with the dismal rhythm of the downpour and the ragged breathing from the ground.
"You are right, Highlord," he finally conceded, his words measured, chosen with extreme care. "I thought you knew about it too…" He paused, his eyes searching mine for something. "Especially considering what happened to your predecessor."
A cold that had nothing to do with the rain seeped into my bones. "What happened to him?" The question was a numb whisper.
Dent leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur meant for my ears alone. "He died from Blood Pox."
The world seemed to tilt. Stephane Briand was his name, a Highlord, a mage of significant power, laid low by a disease that supposedly only preyed on the magic-less?
"And it doesn't take a genius to understand," Dent continued, his eyes hard, "that he didn't die naturally from it. He was poisoned with that disease."
The revelation landed like a physical blow. Murdered. My predecessor wasn't just another victim of Agrona's neglectful system; he was assassinated by it.
The political landscape of Aedelgard, of my own position, suddenly looked far more sinister, far more dangerous.
The rain-soaked slums, the suffering, the political maneuvering—it all coalesced into a single, chilling point of focus. This wasn't just a city of suffering; it was a battlefield.
"Let's talk somewhere else," I said, my voice tight.
Dent simply nodded, his expression grimly satisfied. The conversation was far from over. It had only just begun.
—
"Thank you for inviting me into your estate, Highlord," Officer Dent said, his voice a low, respectful murmur that seemed to absorb the cavernous silence of the Briand Manor's entrance hall.
His eyes, sharp and observant, took in the high, vaulted ceilings, the worn but still impressive tapestries, the subtle layer of dust that spoke of a greatness in gentle decline.
I gestured for Officer Dent to follow me. "We'll speak in the dining room."
The Briand Manor's dining room, accessible directly from the Grand Hall, was a space designed for exactly this kind of meeting—spacious enough to be imposing, furnished with a long, polished mahogany table and high-backed chairs, but lacking the oppressive, cold formality of a true political chamber.
It felt like a place where actual conversations could happen, not just the exchange of veiled threats and empty pleasantries.
"Anyway," he continued, leaning forward slightly and steepling his fingers on the table's dark surface. "I think it's time we address the elephant in the room, don't you think?"
"And what is that?" I asked, playing along, though my mind was already racing ahead, trying to map the contours of the conspiracy he was hinting at.
"You previously asked why Sovereign Orlaeth is so interested in keeping track of the population, right?" he asked, and I gave a slow nod. "While the true reason is a mystery, as I said, we can say for sure that Aedelgard is special."
"In what sense?" I prompted, my full attention now on him.
"Not only is Aedelgard the second largest city in the Dominion of Sehz-Clar after the capital, Sandaerene, but it was the reason for the war between Vechor and Sehz-Clar. Or, better to say, the proxy war between Sovereigns Kiros and Orlaeth."
The pieces clicked into place with a cold, logical finality. Of course. The war wasn't about resources or borders; it was a clash of egos between two god-like beings, fought with mortal lives as their currency. And Aedelgard was the prize.
"And what was the result of the war?" I asked, though I could already guess.
"Nothing," Dent said, a bitter twist to his mouth. "The High Sovereign himself stepped in and ordered Sovereigns Orlaeth and Kiros to stop after a disastrous battle between the Scythes of the two Domains: Seris and Dragoth Vritra."
The image flashed in my mind: Seris locked in combat with another Scythe. A battle that forced Agrona to intervene. It explained the strange, tense peace, the statue of Agrona looming over the bay like a stern parent separating two squabbling children. He hadn't stopped it out of compassion; he'd stopped it because it was ruining his toys.
"However," Dent continued, his voice dropping another degree, "the current political situation in Aedelgard has been changed by the war. Many Vechorian Named Bloods and Highbloods transferred to the city. And due to the death of many prominent exponents of Sehz-Clar origin… the politics of Aedelgard turned to Vechor's favour."
He paused, letting the implication hang in the air between us.
"If it wasn't for Scythe Seris having her residence not too far from the city, then Aedelgard would be all but officially Vechorian."
"And what's the problem in that?" I asked, genuinely curious about his perspective. To my outsider's view, it seemed like choosing one cruel master over another that both answered to Agrona in the end.
Dent shook his head, a flash of genuine passion in his eyes. "Highlord, the people of Aedelgard need a leadership that comes from their own land. Not some people imported from other Dominions. Especially not Vechor."
"You speak of Vechor rather aggressively, Officer," I noted, a faint smile touching my lips.
"I am saying the truth, Highlord. Vechor isn't a stranger to influencing the other domains, much more than the others have on Vechor itself," he insisted. "Recently, Named Blood Vale from Etril was officially granted status as a Vechorian Named Blood."
The strategy was clear as day. "I see... Vechor is trying to gain more influence through politics now that war doesn't work," I observed, and Dent nodded grimly.
Sylvia, does this make sense? I asked internally. I mean, would Kiros Vritra do this?
'Yes, Child,' her voice confirmed, laced with ancient disdain. 'Kiros has always been the most warmongering of the Vritra Clan—a clan composed of scientists who forgot their microscopes and became obsessed with scalpels. He craves expansion and control.'
The puzzle was now complete, and the picture it formed was chilling. The death of Highlord Stephane Briand—a influential figure loyal to Sehz-Clar and supported by Seris—from a disease that shouldn't touch him.
The outbreak of Blood Pox in the Mainland, a tool of terror and control. It was all a coordinated, cold-blooded campaign. Kiros Vritra was conquering Aedelgard not with armies, but with plague and assassination.
And Agrona, as long as his war machine in Dicathen was unaffected, would let it happen. He might even encourage it, especially if it helped flush out a certain troublesome reincarnate hiding in the city.
"Thanks for telling me this, Officer," I said, the words heavy with the weight of this new understanding. "My last question is. How do the ele—"
My voice was cut short, severed not by a sound, but by its utter obliteration.
The room suddenly exploded.
The towering windowed wall that separated the dining room from the manicured street outside ceased to exist. One moment it was there, a mosaic of rain-streaked glass and carved stone framing the gloomy evening.
The next, it was a swirling vortex of splintered wood, powdered glass, and shrapnel-like stone, hurtling into the room with the force of a localized hurricane.
The air itself was ripped from my lungs. The magnificent mahogany table was lifted, flipped, and smashed against the far wall like a child's toy. I was thrown backward, my chair disintegrating beneath me, the world a deafening roar of destruction.
My aether core flared in instinctive defense a spear-like shard of window frame impaled my chest. But it shattered against my body.
Through the storm of debris, a figure crashed into the center of the ruined room, landing in a crouch that cracked the marble floor beneath its feet. The rain and the Manor's dust swirled around it like a malevolent halo.
Silence descended, abrupt and absolute, broken only by the patter of continuing rain through the gaping hole that was once a wall, and the frantic, ragged sound of my own breathing.
Time seemed to stretch, each second an eternity. Officer Dent was pushing himself up from behind the overturned ruins of the table, his face a mask of shock and cuts. My eyes, however, were locked on the intruder.
They slowly rose from their crouch.