Gustav fingers curled once against the wood.
“In truth, we were building a machine that fed itself.”
Silence followed. Real silence this time.
Then Ludger asked, voice level and cold, “And when did that machine start eating children and families instead of just enemies?”
Gustav closed his eyes.
“Earlier than I admitted to myself,” he said.
Gustav let out a slow breath, then continued in the same rough, worn voice.
“I admitted to myself that the Empire had stagnated,” he said. “That was the truth of it. However much pride people wrapped around our banners, however many ceremonies or victories they recited, the core of the Empire had slowed. It had grown heavy. Slow to adapt. Slow to strike. Slow to change.”
His gaze lowered for a moment, fixed somewhere on the ground between the wheels of the chair.
“And while we told ourselves that our size and history would keep us dominant, the countries that had once been part of the old Empire were developing quickly. Faster than we were. Their structures were changing. Their economies. Their ways of fighting. Their methods of governing.” His mouth tightened faintly. “Some of them were becoming leaner while we stayed proud and bloated.”
No one interrupted. Because in the ugliest way possible, it made sense. Gustav continued.
“Orleandul saw that clearly. He began working politically while using his influence as commander to shape the military at the same time. He understood that rank alone would never be enough. A commander could move soldiers, yes, but soldiers were only one piece. Real power required support in noble circles, in supply networks, in administration, in law, in information.”
His eyes shifted toward Ludger again.
“So he built all of it.”
The words carried equal parts resentment and lingering admiration, which made them somehow filthier.
“He worked on senators, noble houses, officers, and anyone useful enough to be turned. Publicly, he was the disciplined, forward-looking commander who wanted a stronger Empire. Privately…” Gustav’s voice flattened. “Privately, he was already deciding which people and structures needed to be cut away.”
A silence followed that for a second. Then Gustav went on.
“Armandis became his right hand. Not formally. Not in any position that could be cleanly written down and proven. But in practice, that was what he was.”
Eclaire’s expression hardened further. Gustav noticed, but didn’t slow.
“Orleandul could shape the military and influence the state. Armandis could do what a commander in uniform could not. He could strengthen the military through channels that never appeared in official reports. Recruitment. procurement. pressure on certain houses. deals with people who should never have been allowed near state power.” His jaw shifted once. “He was useful because he lacked limits where respectable men pretended to have them.”
Ludger’s eyes stayed cold.
“And me?” Gustav gave a tired, ugly little smile that vanished almost immediately. “I worked with money first.”
That drew Jennifer’s attention even more sharply.
“I paid underworld guilds,” Gustav said. “At first, that was all. Discreet contracts. Pressure work. Information gathering. Silent removals when silence was useful. I didn’t need to dirty my hands directly because there were always people willing to do ugly work for coin, especially if they thought they were serving someone powerful enough to shield them from consequences.”
He paused.
“Eventually, that stopped being enough.”
The camp felt even quieter.
“Buying pieces is never the same as owning them,” Gustav said. “Mercenaries shift loyalty. Criminal guilds have their own interests. Middlemen skim information, hide assets, sell details twice, and vanish the moment pressure becomes real. I got tired of relying on hands that were only half mine.”
That, at least, sounded completely believable.
“So I created my own guild.”
His voice had lost almost all shame now. What remained was confession without ornament.
“The Obsidian Sword.”
The name sat there like rot.
“I wanted stronger pieces at my command. Reliable ones. Controlled ones. The sort of people who would act when I told them to act and disappear when I told them to disappear.”
Rufas stood very still. Eclaire didn’t take her eyes off Gustav. Ludger, on the other hand, looked almost unnaturally calm now, which probably should have frightened everyone present more than his earlier anger.
Gustav kept speaking.
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“I recruited anyone skilled and strong enough to obey me. That was the real requirement. Obedience. Competence. Usefulness.” His voice turned drier. “I did not care what kind of crimes they had committed in the past. Smugglers. killers. traffickers. deserters. extortionists. men too violent for ordinary guild work and too disciplined to be simple rabble. If they could follow orders and survive hard work, I found a place for them.”
Jennifer’s face twisted openly now.
“That’s one way to build loyalty,” she said.
Gustav glanced at her.
“It was one way to build results.”
Ludger spoke before Jennifer could say anything sharper.
“And you thought that was acceptable,” he said.
Gustav looked back at him.
“At the time?” he asked. “Yes.”
That honesty made the answer worse.
“I told myself I was selecting tools, not endorsing sins. That I was taking useful filth already crawling through the Empire and pointing it in a direction that served a greater purpose.” His expression dimmed. “That was the lie, of course. A convenient one. Men like that are never just tools. Give them structure, coin, and protection, and they do what they have always done, only now they do it under a banner.”
He lowered his gaze again.
“And once they begin succeeding for you, it becomes very easy to ignore what else they are doing at the edges. What they enjoy. What they steal for themselves. What they become while carrying out your orders.”
Ludger’s mouth flattened slightly.
“Hans.”
Gustav nodded once.
“Yes. Men like Hans.”
That name seemed to darken the air all over again. Gustav exhaled slowly.
“At first, I believed I was building an instrument for statecraft beyond the law. Something sharp. Necessary. Capable of doing what official structures could not.” His fingers curled lightly against the wood of the chair. “But the longer it lasted, the more it stopped being a hidden blade for the Empire and became a pit full of monsters I kept feeding because they were still useful to me.”
No one said anything for a few seconds. Because there was not much to add to that.
Then Ludger asked, in the same cold, even voice, “And when did you realize you were no longer controlling it?”
Gustav gave a humorless breath.
“When I started needing monsters to restrain monsters,” he said. “And by then, of course, I told myself that meant I had no choice but to continue.”
Ludger let the silence sit for a moment after Gustav finished.
Then he asked, “What was your connection with the Roderick family?”
That question landed differently from the others.
Not with the same raw weight as the Obsidian Sword. Not with the same immediate pressure as Gustav’s confession about Orleandul and Armandis. But it still cut sharp enough that Gustav’s face changed by a degree.
Barely. Enough.
“I met them a few times,” Gustav said. “But we didn’t have any real business together.”
Ludger glared at him. No raised voice. No interruption. Just that stare. Cold. Flat. Unblinking. The kind that made it painfully obvious he did not believe a single word of what had just been said.
Gustav noticed. He let out a faint breath and looked away for a second, like a man already regretting the effort of trying to trim a lie down into something survivable.
“That was not a full answer,” he admitted.
“No,” Ludger said. “It wasn’t.”
The camp stayed quiet around them. Even the wounded farther back seemed to understand that they were standing near a part of the conversation where one wrong answer might get someone killed.
Gustav shifted slightly in the chair, grimacing at the movement before continuing.
“I wasn’t sure whether they worked for the Regent or not, or even Orleandul” he said. “Not directly. Not officially. But I was certain of one thing.”
His eyes lifted again, meeting Ludger’s.
“The Regent wasn’t showing all his allies to all the others, nor did Orlenadul.”
That rang true immediately. Ugly. But true.
“He never would have been stupid enough to gather every hand that shared his thinking into one room and have them all act together in ways that could be traced cleanly,” Gustav continued. “That kind of coordination creates patterns. Patterns create suspicion. Suspicion creates investigations.”
He looked tired again now, but the words kept coming.
“People who shared his ideas were useful precisely because they did not always know one another. Separate circles. Separate channels. Different fronts of influence. Some connected by coin. Some by ideology. Some by mutual benefit. Some by fear.” His mouth flattened. “That was safer.”
Ludger said nothing after that.
He just stood there, eyes fixed on Gustav while the implication settled into place. If the Rodericks had any real connection with the Regent, then this fit.
Too well.
Still…
Something about it grated against the current situation. Because if the Rodericks had been tied to the Regent strongly enough to matter here, then they should have returned by now.
Or at least sent word. Unless they were delayed. Unless they were already dead. Unless they had chosen distance the moment the capital started choking on its own lies.
That line of thought stayed in Ludger’s head for only a second before he cut away from it. Interesting, yes. Useful later, perhaps. But not the point that mattered most right now.
He looked at Gustav again.
Then he asked, voice flat and cold enough to scrape the air raw, “How and why were my father’s parents killed?”
That changed everything. The center of the camp seemed to go still in a different way. Not tense. Heavier.
Because even people who didn’t know the full history could hear it in the question now. This was not political curiosity. Not strategic digging. This was blood.
Gustav lowered his head. For once, he didn’t answer right away.
He sat there in the crude wheelchair, shoulders slightly bowed, eyes turned toward the ground, considering his words with visible care. More care than before. Not because he had suddenly found dignity, but because he understood exactly what kind of answer this was.
The wrong phrasing could end him. The right one might still do the same.
Rufas said nothing.
Even Rufas’ uncle remained silent now, face set in a grim line, as though he already knew this part would be among the ugliest.
At last, Gustav drew in a slow breath. Then he opened his mouth again. Gustav kept his head lowered for another second before finally speaking.
“I received orders,” he said, voice rougher now, “to kill people who had either betrayed Orleandul… or who had the potential to become a nuisance to his goals.”
The words were careful. Not false, but arranged with the kind of restraint men used when they were trying to walk through fire without admitting how much of it they had helped build.
“When the order came regarding Arslan’s parents and sister,” Gustav continued, “it wasn’t because they were political actors. Not directly. They weren’t organizers. They weren’t part of any opposing network I knew of.”
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