The summons came at dawn.
Two guards rapped on Elias' chamber door, and without waiting, entered. No chains, no shackles—just the curt command: "The lord calls."
Elias followed, silent, heart tight against his ribs. He'd expected this. Ever since that night in the hall, he'd known curiosity would not be enough to shield him forever. Men like Hadrien did not keep curiosities idly—they tested them, weighed them, and if found wanting, discarded them.
The council chamber was no grand hall, but a long stone room hung with banners of black and crimson. A heavy table dominated the center, maps and parchment strewn across it, held down by daggers stabbed into the wood.
Lord Hadrien sat at the head. Beside him stood Silven Marrow, inscrutable as ever, his gaze sharp as a drawn blade. Kael lingered near a stack of scrolls, quill already in hand. Two lesser lords filled the table's sides: Sir Aldric, broad-shouldered, with the blunt face of a man who preferred battlefields to parchment; and Lord Merrowen, thin, sharp-nosed, with eyes that gleamed like a merchant's tally marks.
Elias bowed slightly, not too deep. A prisoner bowed deeply. A man of some standing did not.
Hadrien's lips curved faintly. "Elias of Nowhere. Sit."
He obeyed, the wooden chair groaning under his weight.
Silven spoke first, voice flat. "Tell me, stranger, what do you know of bread?"
The question caught him off guard. He blinked, searching Silven's unreadable face. "Bread?"
"Yes," Silven pressed. "Bread for an army. Bread for a city. Bread when harvests are thin and stores run low. You claim to come from another land—what do men eat there when the rains fail?"
A trap, Elias realized. Not about bread at all. About his story. About whether he could weave it tightly enough to hold.
He let out a slow breath. "In my homeland, when the grain failed, we stored dried roots and beans in clay jars. Hard to eat, but they lasted through the winter. Bread came only for those who worked the mills. The rest made do with what they had."
Merrowen leaned forward, intrigued. "Clay jars? With sealed lids?"
"Yes," Elias said. "The air kept out, the food lasted longer."
Kael's quill scratched furiously across parchment.
Silven's eyes narrowed, unsatisfied. "And armies? How would they eat?"
Elias forced a thin smile. "The same way as lords and peasants. By what could be stored, counted, rationed. A wise commander feeds men first, for hungry men desert. Bread, roots, beans, whatever lasts. Without it, no sword holds steady."
Sir Aldric snorted, crossing his arms. "Common sense, dressed in finer words. Any peasant could tell you the same."
"Yet few peasants say it to a lord's face," Hadrien said mildly.
Elias said nothing, only bowed his head slightly. The truth was simple—Aldric was not wrong. But Aldric had not lived in a world where ledgers won wars.
Hadrien shifted in his chair, eyes on Elias. "Kael."
The steward shuffled forward, setting a stack of crude records onto the table—grain tallies, supply counts, shipments noted by half-trained hands. "Our ledgers," Kael explained, embarrassed. "Kept by scribes, but… lacking order."
Hadrien's gaze slid back to Elias. "You claim to be of use. Show us."
It was not a request.
Elias rose, took the parchments, and scanned them. Numbers scratched without pattern. Weights in measures that shifted from page to page. Grain noted but not its quality. No tally of where it was sent, or how quickly it spoiled.
He felt the corner of his mouth twitch. This was not accounting—it was chaos.
He took a quill from Kael, dipped it, and began. Columns, neat and straight. Categories divided by grain, by destination, by quality. Dates marked with shorthand, simple enough that even a half-trained scribe could replicate it. He worked swiftly, steady as though back at a desk in another life.
Silence pressed in as the lords watched.
At last, Elias set the quill down. "This," he said, "will let you see where food rots, where stores run thin, and where men steal. Armies are not lost on the field, my lords—they are lost in the kitchens."
Kael's eyes shone with astonishment. He turned the page, studying the neat lines. "This… this is clearer than anything we've kept. You've done in minutes what my scribes fail to do in days."
Merrowen's lips curved. "A clerk's hand, not a peasant's."
Aldric grunted. "Bah. Ledgers win no wars. Swords do."
"Bread wins wars," Elias countered softly. "A sword cannot swing if the man behind it starves."
That silenced the table.
Hadrien leaned back, studying him with that wolf's gaze that always seemed to see further than words. "You speak with the tongue of a commander, yet claim no command. You write like a trained clerk, yet claim no station. And still, you stand here, alive, when you should be dust."
Elias met his gaze steadily, though his chest tightened. "I stand because I must. Because fate saw fit to bring me here."
A faint smile touched Hadrien's lips. "Fate, perhaps. Or something more."
His voice hardened. "You are useful, Elias of Nowhere. But useful is not free. Remember this: you live by my leave. One misstep, and the pit will welcome you again."
Elias bowed his head. Inside, his thoughts raced. He had survived another day. But survival was not enough. Not here.
Not in Orravia.