The council chamber smelled like cold marble and old anger.
Lord Varnhart stood rigid near the center of the room, fists clenched behind his back, boots echoing faintly against the polished floor with every strained shift of weight. Across from him, lounging with easy disdain, Count Drex barely spared him a glance.
Two aides flanked the count, ink pots and parchment already waiting atop the stone table between them. No witnesses beyond that. No protection.
No dignity.
Lord Varnhart dipped his head, not out of deference, but because it was easier than meeting Drex's gaze.
"We request an... arrangement," he said, the words scraping his throat raw.
Count Drex didn't move immediately. Only the slow tap of his gloved finger against the armrest filled the silence.
"An arrangement," Drex repeated, his voice a blade honed on years of court battles. "Your son crippled mine. In front of half the noble houses of the western provinces. And you want an arrangement?"
Lord Varnhart's jaw locked. A thousand replies burned on his tongue, but none would change the outcome.
"You have my apologies," he managed instead, feeling the bile rise as he spoke the words. "And the assurance that House Varnhart will take full responsibility."
Drex leaned forward slightly, a glint of something cruel flickering in his pale eyes.
"Responsibility?" His smile was thin, bloodless. "Then you understand the gravity of what you've cost me. The cost of reputation. Of alliances. Of honor."
Lord Varnhart nodded once, stiff as a statue. "Name your terms."
Count Drex sat back, folding his arms lazily across his chest. "Simple," he said. "One and a half million gold coins, paid within ten years. Immediate surrender of the Varnhart Silver Mine, effective today."
Lord Varnhart stiffened, breath caught in his throat.
"The mine is our lifeline," he said, voice dropping low.
"Was," Drex corrected, lazily examining his nails. "You forfeit the right to speak of ownership when you let your drunken whelp spill blood onto noble floors."
The aides scratched notes onto parchment, slow and deliberate.
"And," Drex continued, tone brightening as if discussing the weather, "you will stand at the next gathering of noble houses and offer a formal apology. Publicly. Kneeling, of course."
A pause stretched long between them, broken only by the scrape of quill on parchment.
Lord Varnhart said nothing.
Behind the silence, behind the battered shield of noble pride, a part of him broke.
He saw it: the estate sinking further into ruin. The mine stripped by Drex's merchants. The workers leaving. The banners torn down.
The Varnhart name dragged into the mud because of one night.
One son.
One failure.
Count Drex watched him with thin amusement, the faint smile never quite reaching his eyes.
"You have until the end of the day," Drex said. "Sign, or face formal challenge and exile."
Lord Varnhart drew a breath so shallow it barely stirred the fabric of his coat.
The aides pushed the contract across the table.
Ink shimmered black and final.
His hand hovered for a long moment before finally lowering.
The quill scratched his name across the thick parchment, each letter digging into the page harder than the last.
When it was done, the aides folded the contract, sealing it with red wax stamped by Drex's ring.
No ceremony. No declarations.
Only the quiet certainty of loss.
Lord Varnhart turned without another word. His boots thudded dully against the cold stone as he crossed the chamber.
Behind him, Count Drex's voice floated lazily through the air.
"Be grateful," he said. "Some houses aren't even given the dignity of paying their debts."
Lord Varnhart didn't look back.
As the doors swung shut behind him, the last fragments of the pride he once wore like a cloak seemed to slip from his shoulders, left to rot on the marble floor.
The memory thudded in Leonel's skull like a hammer as he stood across from Callen Drex in the crowded banquet hall.
The sneers.
The laughter.
The weight of every coin his father still owed, carved into the cracks of House Varnhart's broken walls.
Leonel's hand tightened at his side, the unfinished duel still hanging between them.
Callen leaned lazily against the pillar, twirling his goblet as if he hadn't a care in the world.
"What's wrong, Varnhart?" Callen called, voice dripping smugness. "Afraid you'll trip over your family's debts on the way over?"
Around them, the nobles pressed closer, scenting blood.
Leonel took a step forward, not to retreat — but to close the distance.
His jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
This wasn't just about an insult.
It was about the mine they lost.
The servants they buried.
The estate halls grown cold and empty.
The pride his father swallowed.
This was a debt, too.
And Leonel intended to start collecting.