By the time dawn broke over the Ridge, Cael's ledger lay closed but not forgotten.

He had fallen asleep at the desk, cheek pressed to the faint scratchings of his own sums, and when Matilde woke him with a sharp knock and a muttered warning that "your lord father wants you now," the ink on his hands had already dried to smudges.

Now he stood before Baron Edric Varissen in the great hall.

Cael kept his back straight, chin level, not because he thought it would please Edric but because he refused to give him another reason to sneer.

Edric stood with his hands clasped behind him, a dark silhouette before the tall windows.

Jorlan loitered nearby, golden and immaculate in his practice armor, pretending not to watch.

"You're up early," Edric said at last, voice dry.

"Yes, Father," Cael answered.

"I didn't summon you for your wit," Edric continued, turning finally to face him. His gaze raked over Cael. "I summoned you to tell you plainly, boy, whatever little game you're playing in the dark corners of my house, it ends now."

Cael's stomach tightened.

So he had been seen.

He kept his voice level. "I'm not playing any game."

"Don't lie to me."

The words cracked against the stone floor.

Jorlan flinched slightly at the tone. Cael didn't miss it. He never missed those things anymore.

Edric stepped closer, his boots striking sharp against the flagstones.

"I hear you've been skulking around the counting house. Peering at the ledgers and scribbling in books." Edric's lip curled. "If I wanted a merchant's son, I would have taken one of their bastards into my hall. But I didn't. I have you. A noble son. Yet you behave like some moneychanger's apprentice."

Cael's nails dug into his palms.

So here it was.

The contempt was naked now.

He bit back the first reply that came to him.

Better to be a moneychanger than a fool bleeding coin into the gutters.

But he swallowed it because he wasn't a fool either.

Instead, he said, "I wanted to understand our debts. The household..."

Edric barked a laugh. Cold and hollow.

"Our debts? Do you even understand what the word means, boy? This house owes nothing to you. You are the debt. Every breath you take, every bite of bread, every scrap of wool on your back, is paid for by men like me. And someday, God help us, by your brother, if you don't ruin even that."

The words landed heavy, but Cael let them hang there.

He didn't flinch.

And as Edric's face tightened, Cael saw something beneath the rage.

Not just disappointment. Not even contempt.

Fear.

It was there, small but sure, like the tension he'd seen in Jorlan's jaw days ago.

That brittle hum of terror under the weight of all that pride.

Ah.

So even Father feels it.

The realization cooled something in him.

Edric stepped even closer now, voice dropping.

"You think numbers will save this house?" His sneer deepened. "You think scratching columns in a book will matter when the king's levy comes calling? When House Erran sends riders? When the guilds cut us off?"

"Yes," Cael said simply.

The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut skin.

Even Jorlan's head turned at that.

Edric's brow darkened.

"You insolent little…" His voice trailed into something dangerous, but Cael saw him stop himself, saw the calculation flicker in his father's eyes.

A moment passed before Edric straightened, fixing Cael with a look that could have frozen water.

"You don't know what it costs to hold this hall, boy," Edric said finally, almost quietly now. "What it costs to keep the banners flying and the servants fed. You play at sums while real men bleed for this house. For centuries we've kept our honor by sword and soil, not by counting coppers like some guild rat."

Cael felt his teeth grit before he could stop himself.

But still he said nothing.

Edric's voice rose again.

"Do you think merchants respect us, Cael? Do you think they admire the great Varissen name? They don't. They use us. They circle like crows and pick at our debts. And when we're bled dry, they'll move on to the next lord too soft to hold his sword."

He began to pace then, boots ringing against stone.

"I've sat across from those men," Edric snarled. "Fat fingers, ink-stained, stinking of foreign spices. They smile with all their teeth and count your silver while they curse you behind your back. That's what you're trying to become?"

Cael swallowed the rising heat in his throat.

"I'm trying to understand how we keep ourselves from being devoured," he shot back before he could stop himself.

Edric's head snapped toward him.

The silence afterward was suffocating.

Cael thought, There it is again. That little crack. You hate me for seeing it, don't you?

Edric's jaw worked. He turned abruptly, as though even looking at Cael now would poison him.

"You disgust me," he said.

Then he waved his hand.

"Get out of my sight. And if I catch you so much as breathing on the counting house door again, I'll have the steward lock you in this tower until you learn what it means to be a son of mine."

Cael didn't move at first.

He stood there a heartbeat longer than he should have, watching Edric's back as the man leaned against the long table.

Even Jorlan avoided meeting his eyes.

Finally, Cael turned and walked out.

He didn't stop walking until he reached the far stairs, where the draft of the Ridge cooled his flushed skin.

He leaned against the stone wall and pressed his palms to his face.

You disgust me.

The words replayed in his skull like a bell.

But the strange thing was, they didn't sting the way he expected.

Because for all Edric's shouting, for all his talk of pride and banners.

Cael had seen it.

That same fear.

In the way Edric's fingers had clenched too hard on the table. In the way his eyes flicked to Jorlan now and then, as though even his golden son might fail him someday.

Cael let out a slow breath.

Even you're afraid the house will collapse, Father. You just can't admit it aloud.

He straightened, smoothing his tunic where Edric's words had creased it more than his hands.

"They fear merchants," he murmured under his breath.

And wasn't that telling?

For all the disdain in Edric's voice. Stinking of spices…fat fingers…guild rats. He still sat at their tables, still signed their contracts, still needed them.

Needed men who didn't carry swords but carried ledgers.

And yet he mocked them.

What did that say about our position, Cael wondered, if even Father had to kneel to those he despised?

The Ridge was crumbling beneath them. Slowly, invisibly.

And none of them. Edric, Jorlan, even the master of coin, seemed willing to name it for what it was.

Only Cael.

Only the boy who "disgusted" his father.

That night, he sat at his window, ledger in his lap, the moon laying pale stripes across the page.

He traced the columns he'd drawn the night before, lips moving silently as he calculated.

Five thousand kephs. Thirty-seven crowns.

"Less than what the king's levy demands in a single season," he murmured.

His eyes flicked to the notes he'd scrawled about guild dues, grain levies, road tariffs.

Edric's words came back to him, bitter and heavy: They use us. They circle like crows.

And yet…

Cael smirked faintly.

"Better to be a crow than carrion."

He jotted the thought down in the margin.

Below, the yard was quiet but he could almost hear the echo of Edric's boots, the faint edge in his voice as he'd spoken of merchants.

"You're as useless as a merchant's son," Edric had spat.

Maybe.

But if the numbers didn't lie, and they never did, then soon enough the only thing standing between House Varissen and ruin would be the work of a merchant's son.

He closed the ledger softly and rested his head back against the cold stone.

"If you can't see the cracks," he whispered to himself, "you'll never know where to start shoring up the walls."

And in the silence that followed, he allowed himself the smallest of smiles.

***

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