"The meeting went better than I expected."
Kyrventhas was reviewing a parchment as he spoke, his eyes moving over the lines. Outside, the streets of Stormvale passed by in darkness. Kyrventhas was Thailon's chief strategist, one of the best on the entire continent. He had brought him to the highest level, building every move with a precision few could match.
Thailon watched out the carriage window.
"The vote was overwhelming, more than we projected even in the best-case scenario."
"Varen couldn't do anything, there he was with all his authority and all he did was stand there watching everything slip out of his hands."
"Xytherion moved fast, I didn't expect him to force the vote so soon but it worked perfectly."
"The old man knows when to bet, he's survived three family heads and you don't get to that age being stupid. He saw the wind is changing and decided to move before ending up on the wrong side."
Kyrventhas folded the parchment carefully, putting it away in his tunic. There was a silence. Thailon looked out the window again.
He was thinking.
The image of Varen in the center of the amphitheater, defeated, still gave him satisfaction. But it wasn't enough. A victory in the assembly meant nothing if he couldn't turn it into something permanent.
"Did he act alone or do you think someone pushed him?"
"He probably didn't act alone but the result is the same, Varen lost control of his own assembly and once you lose that you lose everything else."
Thailon nodded.
"The next moves are what matter now, we have to coordinate with the confirmed partners and secure the new ones who are considering joining. Who is confirmed at this moment?"
"The eastern commanders have been yours for months, those are already completely secured. Three regional lords have sent discreet messages confirming their support, not public yet but clear enough to know where they stand when this gets tough."
"And the commercial executives?"
"More complicated with them, they don't care about glory like the commanders or lineage like the lords. They are looking for numbers that make sense and a strategy they can defend if someone starts asking uncomfortable questions."
"Then we give them more concrete results." Thailon leaned forward. "The next conquest cannot be a minor fortress like the last one, it has to be something that makes everyone on the continent turn to look at us. Something that shows that the old way of doing things no longer works."
Kyrventhas watched him for a moment.
"There is a risk in moving too fast with this, if you push too hard Varen might respond in ways we don't expect and he still has considerable influence in addition to resources he can mobilize."
"I know that perfectly, that's why I need the partners to be firmly committed before he has time to reorganize and think clearly. Once enough pieces are in place it won't matter what he tries to do because it will already be too late."
"The problem is not Varen."
Thailon stopped. He looked at Kyrventhas attentively.
"What do you mean?"
"Varen is going to react, that's for sure. He's going to try to regain control, he's going to move his pieces, he's going to look for allies wherever he can find them." Kyrventhas paused. "But Varen is predictable in his way of acting, he follows established patterns, he acts as expected for his position. The real problem is Silas."
Thailon frowned.
"Silas."
"Silas is the intelligent one of the two, he is the one who truly handles Varen's important operations while he takes care of maintaining the image. If Varen is the head then Silas is the brain, and a brain can function without a head for a while but a head without a brain can do absolutely nothing."
The carriage turned a corner. The streets became darker.
"He's been asking questions about you for weeks," Kyrventhas continued. "Discreet but consistent and increasingly specific. About your finances, about your troops, about the supplies you've been moving between territories. He's not doing it on Varen's direct order, he's doing it because he knows something doesn't fit the big picture and he can't let it go without investigating to the bottom."
"How much can he find if he keeps investigating?"
"If he has enough time to dedicate himself completely to this, he can find everything." Kyrventhas didn't sugarcoat the answer. "The records are superficially clean and the transfers are spread across enough accounts to confuse someone less meticulous, but if Silas dedicates months to tracking every line and every hidden connection he will eventually connect all the dots. And when he does, he will have enough concrete evidence to destroy everything we have built for years."
Thailon was silent, processing the information.
"How much time do we have before that happens?"
"Four months in the best-case scenario, maybe five if he has other priorities that distract him. It depends on how fast he works and how many resources Varen assigns him for the investigation. But it is inevitable if we let him continue uninterrupted."
"Then we don't let him continue."
Kyrventhas nodded slowly.
"That's the logical conclusion if we want this to work. Silas has to be completely eliminated from the equation. Without him, Varen will be blind to what is really happening, without precise information, without detailed analysis, without someone who can see three steps ahead like us. He will become completely reactive instead of proactive and by then it will already be too late for him to do anything significant."
Thailon looked out the window again, thinking.
Eliminating Silas was not simple. He was not a commander on the battlefield where an accident was easy to arrange. He was not a lord in a distant territory who could disappear without raising immediate suspicion. He was the closest advisor to the family head, always watched, always protected by multiple layers of security.
"How do we do it without it being traced back to us?"
"There are several options I've been evaluating." Kyrventhas spoke as if he had already calculated every possible scenario. "The most obvious is a convincing accident, something that cannot be easily traced to a specific source. A carriage that loses control on a steep street, a sudden illness that doctors cannot clearly explain, a fire in his residence during the night. But Silas is extremely careful with everything he does, he will suspect anything that is too convenient for us."
"What are the other options then?"
"Completely discredit him before Varen and the council. If we can plant solid evidence of treason or corruption against him, Varen will have no choice but to remove him from any position of power. He doesn't necessarily need to die, he just needs to lose his position and all his political influence."
"That will take time."
"Yes, it will take time but it is significantly safer for us, much less risk of someone being able to trace the planted evidence back to its real origin."
Thailon thought about it. Both approaches had strategic merit. Both had risks that had to be considered.
"Which one do you recommend based on the current situation?"
"It depends entirely on how quickly you need to move with your next plans." Kyrventhas looked at him directly. "If you have two weeks before your next major conquest there isn't enough time to properly discredit him, you would need the accident and accept the risk that comes with it. But if you can wait a full month, maybe two at most, we can build a solid case against him that Varen won't be able to ignore without looking like an idiot to everyone."
There was a long silence.
Thailon closed his eyes for a moment, evaluating all the variables.
"Do it in parallel then," he finally said. "Start planting the necessary seeds to properly discredit him but have the accident completely ready as an immediate backup. If I see that he is getting too close to something critical before the discrediting works we eliminate him directly without waiting any longer."
"I understand."
Kyrventhas took out a smaller parchment and began taking notes. He didn't write much, only specific keywords that only he would understand later.
The carriage continued moving. Outside, the buildings changed in character. Fewer noble residences, more warehouses and commercial structures.
"The financial movements are completely clean for now," Kyrventhas said after a moment. "The transfers for the next phase are all secured without problems. The merchants on the coast are cooperating although some are visibly nervous about the attention all of this could eventually attract."
"Let them get used to the pressure because this is only going to grow from here."
"And those who are already too scared to function properly?"
"As long as they keep cooperating without causing problems we leave them alone and continue to use them. If they start talking too much or leaking information..." Thailon left the threat completely implicit.
Kyrventhas nodded.
"There is something else that came up while you were at the assembly, something unexpected."
Thailon looked at him with curiosity.
"What is it?"
"A knightly order has recently enlisted. It is independent, not part of the official military council."
"Who is funding an independent order right now?"
"Varen's fourth son. The youngest."
There was absolute silence.
Thailon remained completely still, looking at Kyrventhas as if he had just heard something impossible. For a second he said nothing, just processed the words trying to understand if he had heard correctly.
"The fourth son?" The question came out slow. "Are you talking about Varen's fourth son?"
"Yes."
"How old is that child?"
"Eleven according to our most recent records."
Thailon blinked. He opened his mouth. He closed it again. Then he shook his head as if that could reorganize the information into something that made sense.
"Eleven years old? An eleven-year-old boy has an independent knightly order?" The disbelief was evident in his voice. "How is that possible? Who gives resources to a brat for something like that?"
"Apparently he has gained some fame recently in specific circles."
"Fame?" Thailon almost laughed. "An eleven-year-old boy has enough fame to justify a knightly order?"
"He defeated Rylan in a duel."
The silence that followed was even deeper than the previous one.
Thailon stared at Kyrventhas without blinking, his mouth slightly open. Then he closed his eyes, ran a hand over his face, and let out a long exhale.
"Wait." He raised a hand. "Wait a moment. Are you telling me that the golden heir of House Drayvar, Rylan, the one who is supposedly the next generation of greatness according to Varen, lost a duel against an eleven-year-old boy?"
"That's right."
"How?" The question came out with genuine confusion. "How is that possible? Rylan is what, seventeen years old? eighteen? He's been training since he could walk."
"From what I understand from the reports it was more spectacle than a real technical duel," Kyrventhas explained. "The boy survived longer than expected and pressed enough to impress some observers. It was not a clean technical victory but it was enough to publicly humiliate Rylan."
Thailon leaned back against the carriage seat, his expression still showing absolute incredulity. He shook his head several times, processing the information.
"Rylan must be burning with shame right now, the perfect heir defeated by his younger brother who hasn't even reached puberty." There was something akin to amusement in his voice now. "That has to hurt on a level I can't even imagine."
"Probably." Kyrventhas kept his tone completely neutral. "But what really matters here is not Rylan's humiliation but the fact that Varen gave a knightly order to the fourth son. At that age. Without going through the approval of the military council as all established protocols dictate."
The amusement disappeared from Thailon's face immediately.
He stared out the window without saying anything for several seconds, his mind working.
"What is the order called?" he asked after a moment, without turning his head.
"The Black Cobra."
Thailon winced involuntarily.
"Sounds exactly like something an eleven-year-old would invent while playing in the training yard."
"Maybe," said Kyrventhas without changing his expression. "But the fact that the order exists in the first place is the strange thing here. Varen would never give so much real responsibility to one of his sons at that age, much less the fourth. The invisible one. The one everyone ignores because he supposedly isn't worth mentioning."
"No, he definitely wouldn't." Thailon frowned deeply. "Varen is completely predictable in how he manages his family, he favors the heir in everything, follows all traditions to the letter, maintains the established order without deviating. This doesn't fit that pattern at all."
"Exactly my point."
There was another silence while Thailon continued looking out the window, thinking.
"What are you really thinking?" he finally asked.
"That there is something important we are not seeing in all of this." Kyrventhas spoke slowly, as if he were evaluating multiple possibilities simultaneously in real-time. "Varen does not make significant moves without a calculated reason behind them. If he gave a knightly order to the fourth son there has to be a real purpose beyond simply compensating for Rylan's public humiliation. It may be that he is preparing political pieces that we still don't know about, it may be that the boy has something specific that makes him more valuable than he superficially seems, or it may be something completely different that we haven't considered yet."
"Do you think he could be a real threat to us?"
"I don't think an eleven-year-old boy is an immediate threat that requires urgent action," Kyrventhas admitted. "But the blind spots in our information always turn into problems eventually and I prefer to know exactly what is going on here before it becomes something we cannot adequately control or predict."
Thailon nodded slowly.
"Do it then. Find out everything you can about him."
"I will."
The carriage began to slow down noticeably. Through the window, Thailon recognized the familiar buildings. Discreet warehouses. Barracks hidden among commercial structures. Places where his troops constantly prepared away from watchful eyes.
They were arriving.
Kyrventhas opened the door and descended first, efficiently checking the immediate area. When he gave the sign that everything was completely clear, Thailon followed him.
The night was cold. The wind blew from the distant sea bringing that familiar smell of salt.
"Let's go," Thailon said, heading towards the main building with firm steps. "We have a lot of work to do."
Kyrventhas followed him in silence, his own thoughts already organizing the next necessary actions.
And behind them, the carriage remained empty, with the lit lamps casting long shadows on the ground.