The office changed.
Aldren's attention sharpened so fully that Lucien felt it like a blade drawn halfway from its sheath.
"A one-month leave," Aldren repeated.
"Yes."
"On the day of your awakening."
"Yes."
"To do what?"
Lucien met his father's gaze. "To settle a few matters while they are still small."
Aldren studied him.
Lucien gave him nothing more.
That was difficult. Not because he feared his father, though some part of him always had, but because he wanted absurdly to explain. He wanted to say that war was coming. That Blackmere Ford would become a grave. That Harren's Field would become a chain. That Marian's marriage would become a tower window. That Malgrave would one day hang him in their courtyard. That he needed to go to Prav because in his first life, he had stumbled through that city drunk and desperate and learned too late of opportunities, names, cards, and people that could now be reached before they vanished.
He could say none of it.
Truth had already earned him The Fool.
More truth might earn him a cell.
Aldren walked back to his desk and placed one hand on its edge. "I don't mind if you take it to clear your head, but you must know, I won't be supporting your month of absence extravagantly."
"I only need enough to feed myself. Ten coins is enough."
"Ten?" Aldren's brows drew together. "That's less than what the servants make a day. That's not enough to feed you, nor last you a month." He opened a drawer, removed a small ledger, then closed it again without writing anything. "I'll give you a hundred, and another once fifteen days go by, if you need more, but you must return if you are out of coins."
"That's more than enough."
"Where are you going?" Aldren asked.
"Prav. I'll go to Prav."
His father's eyes narrowed.
Prav was not the answer a noble father wanted to hear from a son who had just awakened a disgraced ability and stood at the edge of scandal. Prav sat near the southern trade road, where the Valehart border softened into merchant law, old debts, traveling performers, mercenary halls, gambling dens, cheap temples, cheaper miracles, and redlight districts bright enough to make young nobles forget consequences had names.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
"It's not for the redlight districts," Lucien said before Aldren could speak, "nor is it for the gambling dens. I have a few matters to take care of there."
Aldren did not blink.
Lucien realized too late that denying both specifically made him sound exactly like a man going for one or the other.
Then again, perhaps that was useful.
His father sighed through his nose. "Fair enough. But don't let me be disappointed in you, Lucien."
The words entered him like old poison.
He remembered hearing them before. Not precisely there, perhaps not in the same tone, but close enough
Lucien bowed his head.
"That will never happen again, Father."
Aldren's hand tightened on the desk.
The sentence had been too heavy. Lucien knew it the moment it left his mouth. Eighteen-year-old sons did not say things like that unless something had already broken in them.
Aldren noticed.
Of course he noticed.
"Lucien," he said.
Lucien lifted his eyes.
Aldren seemed on the verge of asking something that would have been dangerous for them both.
Then a knock came at the door.
A servant's voice followed. "My lord, the formal records await your seal."
The moment passed.
Aldren looked away first. "You will receive the money before sunset. Take one of the family horses, not a carriage. Fewer questions that way. And Lucien."
"Yes, Father?"
"Whatever you think you are doing, do not mistake secrecy for wisdom."
Lucien paused.
Then nodded.
"I won't."
That was probably a lie, but at least it was a useful one.
He left the office with his back straight and his heart beating harder than he liked. The corridor outside felt louder than before, though it was empty. The house was alive around him, servants moving, doors opening and closing, distant laughter from guests, the muffled sounds of a family estate pretending an F-rank awakening was not a wound in its noble pride.
Lucien walked through it all as though through a battlefield he remembered losing.
By late afternoon, the celebration had thinned into smaller clusters. Visiting nobles had either departed or stayed to feast, depending on how much gossip they hoped to harvest before nightfall. Marian's Living Ink had become the proper story of the day. That helped. Every toast raised to her ability buried his own disgrace a little deeper under polite irrelevance.
A servant found Lucien near the rear courtyard, where he had been watching stablehands saddle a dark bay mare named Vela.
The servant bowed and offered a leather pouch. "From the Count, Young Lord."
Lucien accepted it. The weight of coin settled into his palm.
One hundred silver crowns.
In his first life, he had spent more than that in three nights trying to prove he did not care about money, dignity, or tomorrow. Looking at the pouch now, he felt a strange disgust at the memory. Not moral disgust. Practical disgust. A hundred crowns, used properly, could change a road, open doors, buy information, secure silence, or save a life at the right moment.
What had he done with his first life?
He tied the pouch inside his coat.
"Thank you."
The servant bowed again, eyes flickering with curiosity but not daring to ask.
Lucien turned toward the horse.
Vela was strong, fast, and ill-tempered enough that most servants avoided her unless ordered otherwise. She tossed her head when he approached, black mane shifting over her neck, but Lucien placed a hand beneath her jaw and let her smell him. In his first life, he had taken softer horses, easier horses, horses that did not challenge the rider because he had hated being challenged by anything that could not be mocked.
Vela huffed against his palm.
"I know," Lucien murmured. "I'm not impressed with me either."
The horse snorted.
"That makes two of us."
He was fastening the last strap of his saddlebag when Gareth's voice reached him from the archway.
"I heard you're going to Prav," his brother said.