Rumors move faster than fire through dry brush. It was in the smoke-filled backroom of a tavern in Dalewick that I first heard the whispers, my ruin had not been wrought by chance alone.
A man named Corwin, a servant once loyal to my house but now reduced to drink and misery, beckoned me with a trembling hand. His eyes were sunken, his breath foul, yet his words struck with the force of a musket ball.
"They sold you," he muttered, leaning close so none but I could hear. "Not the heavens, not fate, it was men, men you trusted. They watched your fall and took their share of the spoils."
My blood chilled. "Speak plainly, Corwin. Who?"
But he only shook his head, his gaze darting nervously toward the tavern door. "Names cost more than I can afford. I've already said too much."
I left him there, but the poison of his words seeped deep into me. That night I lay awake, the fire of suspicion burning hotter than any fever. I thought of those who had sat at my table, who had drunk my wine, who had called me brother. Which of them had betrayed me? Which had seen the flames consume Dalewick and smiled in secret triumph?
The answer came sooner than I expected.
A letter arrived by courier the next morning, sealed with the crest of Baron Ashcombe once my dearest friend, my confidant in all matters of business and estate. My hands trembled as I broke the seal and read.
It was not addressed to me, but to another lord. By chance or Providence the courier had mistaken the names. And there, in the flowing script of the man I had once trusted as a brother, lay the truth.
He spoke of lands gained cheaply, of debts "settled" in the wake of my downfall. He boasted of Dalewick's vineyards now under his control, and of how neatly the pieces had fallen once my household collapsed.
My chest tightened. The room spun. This was no rumor. This was betrayal inked upon parchment.
I staggered to the hearth and threw the letter into the flames, but its words were already seared into my soul.
Baron Ashcombe. My friend. My Judas.
For hours, I sat unmoving, staring into the fire. Betrayal is a colder blade than grief. The loss of my children had hollowed me, but this treachery set that hollow aflame. My ruin had not been the blind hand of fate, nor merely the silence of some hidden god, it had been crafted, sharpened, delivered by the hand of one I loved.
"Why," I murmured, "where did it all go wrong?"
The words tasted bitter, a question not only to heaven but to myself. Had I been blind? Or had I chosen blindness, preferring to believe in loyalty rather than face the rot beneath?
I left the house before dawn, walking the lanes where the air smelled of wet earth and decay. My mind swirled with thoughts of vengeance. What justice was there in silence? If a higher existence would not punish Ashcombe, then was it left to me?
Yet even as I clenched my fists, I felt the weight of weariness. My body was frail, my soul battered. Could I even strike, if I chose to? Or would I become nothing more than a ghost, screaming into the night while the living feasted upon my bones?
When I returned, a new letter awaited me this time addressed correctly. It was from Ashcombe himself, dripping with false sympathy. He wrote of praying for me, of "trusting Providence," of how he wished he could do more to ease my sorrow. And then, at the bottom, the dagger hidden in silk: "If ever you find yourself unable to maintain the lands that remain, know that I would gladly take them into my care, to preserve what legacy you have left."
I crushed the letter in my hand until my nails dug into my flesh.
In that moment, all illusions were stripped away. My suffering was not only the cruelty of chance, nor the silence of a god who would not speak. It was the treachery of men, clothed in friendship, feeding upon the ruin of others.
If the heavens would not act, then I must. Not with fire, nor blade for my body was too broken but with words. With truth. I would drag Ashcombe's name through the very mud he had shoved me into.
The void had been silent. The heavens hidden. But betrayal had given me a new voice, and I would make it thunder.