The fragile peace of Duchess Elara Varent's final days was shattered with the dawn. Leon had been keeping vigil, dozing fitfully on a hard wooden chair pulled close to his mother's bedside, when the change occurred.
Her breathing, already shallow and labored for weeks, became almost imperceptible, a mere flutter beneath the heavy silken coverlet. He'd jolted awake, his heart instantly cold with dread, and had seen the stillness in her face, a serenity that was both beautiful and terrifying.
The physicians were summoned, their movements urgent but ultimately futile. By the time the first rays of the sun, weak and grey, filtered through the narrow window of the sick chamber, Duchess Elara was gone.
Leon felt as if the world had tilted on its axis. The grief was a raw, physical ache in his chest, a hollow void where her warmth and understanding had resided. He sat by her still form, holding her cold, unresponsive hand, the tears he had fought back for so long now streaming unchecked down his face.
The bustling activity of the physicians, the hushed condolences of the attending servants, the arrival of his father and brothers; it all seemed to happen at a vast distance, muffled and unreal. His mother, his only true ally, his confidante, the one person in this harsh, alien world who had seen his true worth, was no more.
The little glass bottle in his pocket, her last gift, felt like a leaden weight, a sad reminder of all he had lost.
The Varent castle, never a place of warmth for Leon, became instantly colder, more oppressive. The carefully constructed facade of familial concern that Duke Alaric had maintained during his wife's illness crumbled away with her last breath. There were no shared tears, no moments of quiet remembrance from his father or brothers.
Valerius looked vaguely inconvenienced, his brow furrowed as if annoyed by the disruption to his routine. Cassian was stoic, his expression unreadable, but offered no word of comfort to his younger brother. Duke Alaric himself was a man of grim purpose, his mind already turning to the practicalities, the political implications, of his wife's passing.
Leon was largely left to his grief for a few short days, a period of formal mourning that felt more like a political necessity than a genuine expression of sorrow from the ducal family. He wandered the cold stone corridors like a ghost, the vibrant memories of his mother a stark contrast to the bleak reality of her absence.
He found himself drawn to the small, neglected garden she had tended, a splash of defiant color in the otherwise stern grey of the castle grounds. He remembered her hands, stained with earth, as she'd explained the properties of different herbs, her quiet joy in nurturing life. Now, even the flowers seemed to droop in sorrow.
His engineering mind, usually a refuge, offered little comfort. Logic could not quantify this loss. Equations could not calculate the depth of his despair. For the first time since his reincarnation, he felt truly, utterly alone, adrift in a world that had never truly accepted him, and had now taken away the one person who had made it bearable.
He clung to the memory of her words about the castle in the bottle: "A sanctuary… a key… it will show you a path."
It was a fragile thread of hope in the overwhelming darkness. He would take out the bottle in the privacy of his chambers, staring at the miniature fortress within, willing it to offer some sign, some guidance. The light within still pulsed, a soft, steady beat, but its meaning remained elusive, a silent promise yet to be understood.
His isolation was short-lived. Less than a week after Duchess Elara's funeral: a grand, somber affair that felt more like a display of Varent power than a tribute to the woman she had been, Leon was summoned to a formal family council.
The summons was delivered by his father's stern-faced steward, a man whose disapproval of Leon was second only to the Duke's. There was an air of finality about it that sent a chill down Leon's spine.
The council was held in the Duke's private study, a dark, wood-paneled room dominated by a massive oak table and a fireplace large enough to roast an ox. The walls were adorned with hunting trophies of snarling wolf heads, the mounted antlers of giant stags, and stern portraits of Varent ancestors, their painted eyes seeming to judge all who entered.
Duke Alaric sat at the head of the table, a formidable figure in his dark, unadorned tunic, his expression as hard and unyielding as the granite of his castle walls. Valerius and Cassian were seated on either side of him, their faces mirroring their father's grim solemnity, though Leon caught a flicker of something akin to smug satisfaction in Valerius's eyes.
Leon was not offered a seat. He stood before them, feeling like a prisoner before a tribunal. The air was thick with unspoken accusations, with the weight of years of disappointment.
Duke Alaric wasted no time on pleasantries. His voice, when he finally spoke, was cold, devoid of any emotion. "Leon," he began, his gaze sweeping over his third son with unconcealed disdain. "Your mother, may her spirit find peace, is gone. Her… protection… over you, her unfortunate indulgence of your… peculiarities… is also at an end."
Leon flinched inwardly at the casual cruelty of his father's words, but kept his expression carefully neutral. He had expected no less.
"The Varent Duchy faces challenging times," the Duke continued, his voice rising slightly, taking on the oratorical tone he used when addressing his vassals. "Enemies press at our borders. Internal stability must be maintained. Every member of this family, every Varent, has a duty, a responsibility, to contribute to the strength and prosperity of our house. You, Leon, have consistently failed in this duty."
Valerius smirked openly now, while Cassian stared impassively at a point on the wall just past Leon's shoulder.
"You possess no discernible magical talent," Duke Alaric stated, as if reading from a list of charges. "Your martial skills are… laughable. Your interests are foolish, unproductive, and unbefitting of a son of my blood. You are, to put it plainly, a drain on our resources, a source of embarrassment, and a weakness in our lineage."
Each word was a hammer blow, yet Leon stood his ground, his grief now overlaid with a cold, simmering anger. He would not give them the satisfaction of seeing him break.
"For years," the Duke went on, "I have tolerated your presence, your… existence… largely out of respect for your mother's sensibilities. That consideration is now removed." He paused, his cold eyes boring into Leon. "A decision has been made regarding your future. A future where you will no longer be a burden to this family, or a stain on the Varent name."
Leon's heart pounded. He knew what was coming. Exile. It was the traditional fate of inconvenient, 'useless' nobles, a way to remove them from sight, to effectively erase them from the family ledger without the scandal of outright disinheritance or… worse.
"You will be granted a… fiefdom," Duke Alaric announced, the word dripping with sarcasm. "A chance to prove your worth, to make something of yourself, far from the comforts and responsibilities of this castle."
Valerius snorted, a sound of taunting amusement. "A fiefdom? In the Blighted Marches, I presume, Father?"
"Precisely, Valerius," the Duke confirmed, a grim smile touching his lips. "The easternmost tract of the Blighted Marches, bordering the Howling Peaks. A land… rich in opportunity for a man of… unique talents."
The Blighted Marches. Leon knew of them. Every child in Eldoria grew up with tales of that cursed, desolate wasteland.
A vast expanse of barren plains, twisted forests, and monster-infested swamps, it was a place where the very land was said to be sick, where nothing wholesome grew, where only outlaws, desperate exiles, and creatures of nightmare could survive. To be sent there was, effectively, a death sentence, a slow, miserable demise far from prying eyes.
"You will be provided with minimal supplies," Duke Alaric continued, his voice a cold, emotionless drone.
"A horse, a sword you will likely never learn to use, and enough food for a week's journey. A token escort will see you to the border of the Marches. Thereafter, you are on your own. What you make of your… 'fiefdom'… is entirely up to you. Succeed, and you may, perhaps, one day be remembered as something other than a failure. Fail… and you will be forgotten, as is fitting."
It was a pronouncement of utter abandonment, delivered with the cold precision of a political decree. There was no room for appeal, no hint of mercy. Leon looked at his father, at his brothers. He saw no flicker of doubt, no trace of familial feeling. Only hard ambition, cold calculation, and a chilling indifference to his fate.
His grief for his mother was now joined by a profound sense of betrayal, a bitterness that tasted like ash in his mouth. Yet, beneath the pain, a tiny spark of defiance began to glow. They thought him useless, a failure.
They were casting him out to die. But they did not know about the castle in the bottle. They did not know about the whispers of a sanctuary, the legacy of his mother's line. They did not know the mind of an engineer, a mind that, even now, was beginning to analyze, to calculate, to search for a path through the seemingly impossible.
He met his father's gaze, his own eyes, for the first time, holding not fear, but a cold, quiet resolve. "When do I leave?" he asked, his voice surprisingly steady.
Duke Alaric looked momentarily surprised by his son's lack of overt despair, then his expression hardened further. "At dawn. Your presence here is no longer… required."
Leon nodded once, turned on his heel, and walked out of the study, leaving his father and brothers to their cold, political machinations. He did not look back. The inevitable loss had come. The ducal decree had been issued.
His old life was over. As he walked back to his chambers, his hand instinctively went to the small bottle in his pocket. Its faint, rhythmic pulse seemed a little stronger now, a silent counterpoint to the pronouncements of his doom. A sanctuary. A key. A path. His mother's words echoed in his mind. The Blighted Marches. A death sentence? Or perhaps, just perhaps, the beginning of something entirely new.
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