Kel's fingers tightened on the door handle.
The corridor lay ahead of him—cold, pale, lined with gray stone and thin winter light. His shadow stretched out into it like ink spilled on frost.
He took one step out—
Then a thought slid into place in his mind like the final piece of a blade being locked into its hilt.
He stopped.
A slow, almost amused breath left his lips.
"…Ah."
He turned back.
The door groaned softly as he pushed it open again.
Count Vanhart and Viscount Malloren looked up from the letters they'd begun to sort. Their expressions were still carrying the weight of his last instructions—blacklists, false names, invisible shields.
Kel stepped inside once more.
He remained near the doorway this time.
He didn't bother returning to his seat.
No—this was something best delivered standing. Half in shadow, half in light.
"Count," he said, voice unhurried, almost casual. "I just realized something."
Elaine Vanhart straightened.
"Yes?"
Kel's gaze flicked to him, then to Malloren, measuring both of them in a glance.
"We should let our enemies buy our stock."
There was a heartbeat of silence.
Both Count and Viscount spoke at once.
"…But you just said—"
"—to blacklist them."
Kel's lips curved.
Not fully.
Just enough to reveal the ghost of something sharp.
"Mhm," he hummed. "Directly."
He tilted his head, eyes faintly narrowed with mischief.
"Not indirectly."
Malloren's brows drew together.
"Indirectly?" he echoed. "Do you mean—"
Kel raised one hand, palm lightly up, gesturing as if laying out pieces on an unseen board.
"Think of it this way," he said. "We keep the blacklist. We do not allow certain houses or guilds to purchase directly from Vanhart. That part stands."
He shifted his weight slightly, coat whispering around his frame.
"But," he continued, "we allow them to purchase from the ten premium buyers instead."
Vanhart's gaze sharpened.
Kel's smile edged a fraction deeper.
"At five times the price."
The air in the hall changed.
The fire cracked, sending a faint spray of sparks upward.
Malloren stared.
"Five… times?" he repeated slowly.
Kel's eyes glinted.
"Why not?" he said softly. "Your enemies are not coming to you. They are coming to the ones who got here first. They want what you offer, but refuse to kneel at your door. Pride is expensive. We simply give them the privilege to pay for it."
Vanhart leaned back slightly in his chair.
"Explain fully," he said.
Kel nodded.
His tone stayed calm, but something in him seemed to hum—a sharper edge, a deeper game unfolding.
"This is the structure," he began. "You have ten primary buyers. Merchant houses, guilds, maybe one or two noble intermediaries like Viscount Malloren. You deal only with them directly."
"The first tier," Malloren murmured.
"Exactly," Kel said. "You sell to the first tier at agreed terms: volume obligations, discounts, and commission clauses."
He lifted two fingers.
"These ten are your veins. Your allies. Your channels."
He lowered one of the fingers.
"Now, when your enemies—or those we blacklisted—come seeking harlroot, you refuse them at the Vanhart level. That doesn't change. But you do not forbid your ten premium buyers from dealing with them."
Malloren's eyes widened a fraction.
"You let us sell to them."
Kel inclined his head.
"At whatever price the market will bear," he said. "Five times, ten times. Whatever desperation demands."
His tone remained eerily mild.
"You will earn. They will profit. And Vanhart—"
He looked at the Count.
"—will receive its commission on all harlroot-based revenue regardless. Even from those who were not allowed to approach you directly."
Vanhart's gaze dropped to the stack of letters on the side table.
His fingers drummed gently against the wood.
"So in the end," he murmured, "we make our enemies pay us to hate us."
Kel's smile sharpened.
"That," he said, "or they go without."
Malloren let out a low, disbelieving breath that might have been a laugh strangled halfway.
"You… you want us to become the only road to winter's medicine," he said slowly. "And then force those who despised us to walk it on their knees."
"Not on their knees," Kel corrected softly. "On contracts."
He stepped further into the room, leaving the door half-open behind him. The draft from the corridor stirred the hem of his coat, making it sway around his legs.
"You don't need to humiliate them," he went on. "You just need to make them dependent."
The word hung in the air like fog.
Kel continued.
"Humiliation only breeds rage. Dependence breeds… calculation. They will tolerate their wounded pride if the alternative is seeing their own lands collapse in winter while yours endure."
The Count's eyes darkened—something old stiring behind them.
"And in that time," Kel added, "you learn their rhythms. Their habits. Their shortages."
He lifted his gaze to Malloren.
"Because people talk," he said. "Especially to merchants they work with over years. They complain. They boast. They hint at future expansions, projects, shortages, alliances."
A faint, knowing cold touched his tone.
"I promise you this: if your ten premium buyers become the favored suppliers of your enemies… then their ledgers will hold more than numbers."
Malloren swallowed.
"Information," he murmured.
Kel nodded.
"Information," he confirmed. "Hidden wounds. Hidden strengths. Secret investments. You're not just getting money from them. You're buying a map of their vulnerabilities."
Vanhart's chair creaked quietly as he leaned forward.
"So," he said slowly, "we sever their ability to touch us directly—yet shape their supply from the shadows."
Kel's eyes glowed faintly in the half-light.
"Yes."
"Vanhart remains above," he continued softly. "We deal with our ten. They deal with the rest. Anyone blacklisted believes they're avoiding dependence on Vanhart by avoiding direct purchase."
His lips curved again.
"But coin is blind to insult. It flows where product comes from. They think they are only dealing with Dreyl or Malloren or some other house. In truth, every transaction keeps pouring back into Vanhart. Into your fields. Into your revival."
He fell quiet.
Then added, almost gently:
"We become the mouth of the river. They just don't realize where the water starts."
Malloren's fingers trembled once where they rested on the table.
"Five times…" he repeated softly, more to himself. "Harlroot will become… costly."
"For them," Kel agreed. "Not for those who came first. Your premium buyers will still receive discounted stock from you. Their profit margin will widen ridiculously once the blacklisted buyers grow desperate."
He tilted his head slightly.
"Yes. Let your enemies pay five times. Six. Seven. Let them fight to secure contracts with your intermediaries. Let them believe they are too clever to come to you directly."
He shrugged.
"Fools who think they have escaped the spider because they don't see the web."
Vanhart exhaled slowly.
"And the ten we do choose…"
Kel's expression cooled again.
"Grow wealthy," he said simply. "Faster than their peers. Stronger. More secure."
He looked from one noble to the other.
"And tell me, Count, Viscount—"
His voice lowered.
"—who will those ten thank when winter passes and they find themselves rich beyond expectation while others barely survive?"
Malloren's lips curved, small and tightening.
"…Vanhart," he whispered.
Kel's eyes didn't leave him.
"Or," he said, "Heral."
A moment of soft silence.
Only the fire spoke.
The rest of the world outside felt far away.
In this hall, it was simply three minds and a strategy that did not belong to this world's age.
Malloren sat back, shoulders shaking once in a suppressed, disbelieving laugh.
"You are a dangerous child," he said finally.
Kel shook his head faintly.
"I am an impatient one," he replied. "The world's pace is too slow. I only… encourage it."
Vanhart's gaze was sharper now.
"Do you intend," he asked quietly, "to control all our enemies' resources?"
Kel met his eyes.
"No," he said.
The count frowned slightly.
Kel continued.
"I intend to control access."
He held up his hand, fingers splayed.
"We don't need to own their resources. We don't need to seize their mines, their fields, their granaries. That would be loud. Obvious. Unstable."
His hand slowly closed into a loose fist.
"We only need to grip the road between their hands and those resources staying useful. Between their people and what keeps them alive in winter."
His voice dropped, calm as ever.
"Choke the road, not the city."
Malloren stared.
Vanhart felt his skin bristle faintly at the cold logic.
Kel's eyes were clear.
"No army marches on empty stores," he said. "No noble plots when his own people are rioting for food. If, at some point, your enemies move against you, you will already know the exact places to cut."
He spoke it as if commenting on weather.
"As long as their harlroot, their alchemy, their recovery, their mana-boosting medicines pass through hands you chose… you will never be blind."
The Count closed his eyes again.
The faintest tremor of something like awe—or unease—passed through him.
"How," he asked softly, "does a thirteen-year-old boy speak like this?"
Kel's answer came without pride.
Without hesitation.
"Because I've watched this world collapse once," he said quietly, "from the outside."
He opened his palm again.
"I have no intention of watching the same ending twice from the inside."
Malloren inhaled sharply.
Vanhart's eyes opened.
The boy standing near the door…
no longer looked merely like a slightly-built heir with a strangely mature gaze.
He looked—
for a moment—
like a story that did not accept the ending it had been given.
Sairen's presence brushed the edge of his mind.
Her tone was cool.
"…This is not a net you're weaving."
No? Kel answered silently.
"It is a maze."
Then I'll make sure we hold the map.
He tugged the door open a little wider, the corridor's pale light spilling across the floor again.
"Well then," he said softly, glancing back over his shoulder at them. "How does it sound, Count? Viscount?"
His eyes gleamed.
"A plan where we take money from our enemies, secure our allies, and listen to our foes confess their weaknesses over wine to those they think are "only" merchants?"
Malloren laughed under his breath.
It was not loud.
But genuine.
"It sounds," he said, "like something this world is not ready for."
Vanhart's lips lifted, slow and deliberate.
"It sounds," he murmured, "like control."
He inclined his head.
"We'll do it."
He glanced at Malloren.
"Carefully."
"Of course," Malloren replied. His gaze locked onto Kel one last time. "We won't waste what you've handed us."
Kel's expression smoothed again.
"See that you don't," he said.
Then he stepped out into the corridor.
The door closed behind him.
In the hall, the fire burned on.
Two nobles sat in its glow, staring at letters and seeing, not ink and paper, but roads branching outward from their land.
Visible.
Invisible.
In the shadowed air, the faint echo of a wanderer's words lingered:
"We're not asking the world's permission. We're informing it that the North has decided not to die on schedule."
Now—
it would not merely survive.
It would feed the wolves.
And hold their leashes through other hands.