Chapter 387: Inheritance
The witch was through the lobby door before either man could speak.
Roland turned his head slightly. “Were they both telling the truth?”
“Both of them,” Nightingale murmured at his ear.
He thought it over quickly. What is spoken truthfully isn’t necessarily the truth — only what the speaker believes to be true. The fault line was in their family history records. Four hundred years of a story, filtered through generations of transcription, could accumulate any number of distortions without anyone intending to deceive.
“You’ve come a long way from Longsong Stronghold,” Roland said, turning to the Duke. “Don’t leave yet — stay at Ferlin’s house for a few days and take in the town. I’ll speak with her, and perhaps you’ll have another chance to talk.” He let warmth into his voice, though the Duke’s expression was still somewhere between shock and grief. “I make no promises, but let me try.”
“Is — is that truly possible?” The Duke gathered himself and bowed. “Then I am deeply in your debt, Your Highness.”
“One more thing. The Magic Stones and the old books you brought — where are they?”
“More than ten boxes, still on our boat.”
“Bring them all to the castle.” Roland nodded. “I suspect that seeing her belongings — things that survived four hundred years — may do more than any explanation I could offer.”
After dinner, Roland called Agatha to his office.
He laid out the Duke’s account in full: the family history as the Elteks understood it, the inheritance of objects they believed were entrusted to their care, the journey here to return them. “Whatever your housekeeper actually did, this man has carried your belongings here intact across four hundred years of family history. He may be trying to right something his ancestor did wrong. That’s worth hearing.”
“My housekeeper deceived his descendants. That makes them innocent — they owe me nothing.” Agatha’s pout was brief and precise. “And witch families carry no weight now. They belong to the Western Region nobility. If I acknowledge them, you’d have complications with your plans for absorbing the region’s ruling authority — that is your intention, isn’t it?”
Roland looked at her for a moment. The fact that she’d already considered the political angle was either impressive or faintly unsettling. He shook his head. “You’re right. But you don’t seem to be blaming them.”
“I can’t place my anger at a man from four hundred years ago onto his living descendants, especially when they don’t know what actually happened.” She said it the way she said most things: as if it were simply obvious.
An enlightened member of the witches’ kingdom. Roland thought. Whether it was mortals or unfamiliar ideas, she extended the same calibrated willingness to reconsider. This was probably rare even in Taquila — possibly why the Quest Society had kept its distance from her. “Then I’ll do the explaining,” he said. “Do you want to look through your belongings?”
Agatha rolled her eyes and looked away. “They’re not mine. They’re the Quest Society’s.”
Every box was brought to the castle basement.
Agatha, Roland, Tilly, Sylvie, and Anna gathered as they were opened one by one. Sylvie supervised. Ten of the fifteen boxes held Magic Stones. Roland picked up a fist-sized crystal and turned it in the light.
“You said these were all converted from God’s Stone of Retaliation. A stone this size must be worth two or three hundred gold royals.”
“Two or three hundred?” Agatha looked at the stone in his hand with the mild contempt of someone who finds the scale of comparison inadequate. “Magic Stones can only be produced by Chaos Beasts. Every piece is effectively priceless.”
“What kinds are these?” Tilly asked, studying the open boxes. “They seem difficult to carry.”
“Stones of Light.” Agatha pressed her finger against the stone Roland held and channeled power into it. Pale yellow light streamed from the crystal, brightening rapidly, flooding past the reach of any torch — and then she lifted her hand, and it stopped. “More than half the boxes are Stones of Light. The ones not produced by Chaos Beasts were battle spoils, taken from Devil’s Towns.”
“How were they cut to different sizes?” Anna’s question was thoughtful. “God’s Stone of Retaliation resists magic power and is too hard for ordinary blades. Yet these clearly weren’t all born in the same shape.”
“An entire block?” Agatha turned to Anna, surprised. “Are you speaking of a vein?”
“It’s beneath Border Town’s mines.” Roland explained the treasure map, the expedition, the surface that had barely dented under a flintlock’s ball.
“I see.” Something eased in Agatha’s expression — almost a smile. “You used this map to find my laboratory tower. Yes — the Quest Society drew it to mark the God’s Stone of Retaliation vein. The site was designated as a candidate location for the next Holy City.”
“Holy City?” The word passed through all of them in near unison.
“Why else would there be hundreds of ordinary cities on the Fertile Plains, but only three Holy Cities?” Agatha allowed herself a genuine smile this time. “The so-called Holy Cities were all built above God’s Stone of Retaliation veins. We needed large quantities of the stone to research the relationship between magic power and Magic Stones, and to prevent large-scale collateral damage in conflicts between witches. Hermes is the same — the church built its Holy City on the Barbarian Ridge, which is what you now call the Hermes plateau.”
“Then you intended to build a new Holy City at North Slope Mountain?” Roland said.
“Yes. If we hadn’t been defeated so quickly in the Battle of Divine Will.” She paused. “The church continued using the term ‘Holy City,’ which makes it even more plausible that they’re descended from the Union.”
Tilly frowned, working through the implications.
Thank goodness they didn’t build it in the Western Region. Roland exhaled quietly.
“Regardless,” Agatha continued, returning to the practical question, “the God’s Stone of Retaliation is nearly indestructible. Cutting it requires a specific solution.” She paused. “It contains the blood of witches, or the blood of demons.”
“Blood?” Sylvie’s eyes went wide.
“Yes. The amount required depends on the size of the stone.” Agatha spread her hands matter-of-factly. “In the Holy City, all adult witches were required to donate blood. Once separated from the body, it loses its magic power quickly, so it had to be used immediately. Every two to three years, eligible witches were called to the mines. Any captured demons were also used for the purpose.”
“Did you do this as well?” Anna asked.
“Of course. Even the Three Chiefs of the Union were not exempt.”
“What about demonic beasts?” Sylvie pressed. “Some hybrid forms seem to carry a degree of magic power.”
“Their magic power is too low. Their blood can only be used on fractured stone — it has no effect on the full vein.” Agatha folded her hands in her lap. “After the God’s Stone is cut, its hardness decreases proportionally with its size, and its effective range shrinks as well. The stones that people carry on their persons can be crushed with a hammer.”