The banquet hall was silent after Teresa finished recounting her story, receiving more than a few queer gazes from the nobles around her. How could they not look at her like that? She was evidently still rather mentally rattled so she had spoken without filtering her words as she usually would.

Hallucinations, magic of a type they had never heard of before, random bouts of illness, emotions that seemingly arose out of nowhere. It sounded like a fairy tale, a funny little story, a…

“Are we supposed to put our faith in the deranged now?”

…A nonsensical story born from a deranged mind. Yeah, of course it would seem like that to outsiders. Gabriel was the one who sent Teresa out on this mission to begin with, he had known and worked with her her for several years already, but even he didn’t know what to make of this story.

He naturally knew about her poison affinity so that wasn’t what was confusing him. He could even somewhat understand the emotions that seemed to arise out of nowhere, he had experienced it himself a few times in the past, it had been especially bad when they visited the Barong estate.

But the hallucinations? Outsiders could easily dismiss them because they didn’t know how much information Teresa had been given before the mission, but Gabriel knew. That secret room… He hadn’t told Teresa anything like that. No, Gabriel didn’t even know that such a room existed. But the hallucination, something that was generally produced by your own subconsciousness, knew about it.

As for the random bouts of illness… he couldn’t say that he was entirely unfamiliar with those either. He hadn’t experienced anything like it, but the description Teresa gave matched what Alice had felt on the way back from the Barong estate, when she had her nightmare. Was it a coincidence? Possibly. But Gabriel knew better than to just dismiss strange situations as coincidence, that’s how you ended up finding yourself surrounded and ambushed.

His gaze slid to the side and landed on Alice, who was looking at Teresa and the bloody child with furrowed brows. She wasn’t showing much of an expression, but Gabriel could recognize the dark swirls in her crimson pupils. Barely contained fire. Her own gaze moved sideways and locked with his for a moment, the two exchanging silent words for a moment before Alice wrapped her arms around Teresa to hold her close.

“Shh, you don’t need to speak anymore. You’ve done well, better than we could ever have hoped for. Get some rest, you must be drained both physically and mentally.”

Teresa’s eyes closed as Alice’s warmth wrapped around her. The doctor called on by the emperor was already handling the girl she had brought along so there was nothing blocking Alice from pulling her in close. She could feel a tremble, a quiver that ran through Teresa’s entire body.

Alice had actually experienced something similar so she could easily empathize with Teresa. That feeling of being in your body yet having next to no control, to feel like you were someone else… It was sickening.

She didn’t lower her voice as she embraced Teresa, she spoke just loud enough for the nobles around them to hear her. She couldn’t just let them call her friend deranged so she had to make up an excuse for her. They were in front of the emperor, and had the whole empire watching through the mages transmitting everything, this wasn’t the time or the place to dig into the nobles for speaking of her friend like that.

Still, she made sure to memorize their faces should a chance arise some time later down the line. Was it wrong of them to think that Teresa was a bit deranged after the story she just shared? No, not really, it was one that would be extremely hard to believe if you didn’t know everything. But Teresa was her friend, Alice wouldn’t let others speak poorly of her, even if they weren’t actually wrong for doing so.

So she gazed at the nobles while stroking Teresa’s back to comfort her. She’d already said her piece, Gabriel would take care of the rest.

“Please forgive my friend, Your Esteemed Highness. Looking at her state I believe it would only be fair to say that she suffered a fair bit while trying to get her hands on that information for the sake of the empire’s safety. Both her body and mind must be terribly shaken after such a tough ordeal, only held together by her intense desire to protect this empire and its people, a desire I am sure that everyone present can understand.”

Gabriel gave a slight tilt of his torso while placing his hand on his chest, a polite and respectful bow as he addressed the emperor. Things were going in a slightly unexpected direction thanks to Teresa’s strange experience, but that just meant that he had to steer things back towards the outcome he desired. Luckily, that shouldn’t prove too hard.

“Speak not of it, there is nothing to forgive. If anything, I should thank her for suffering so much distress for the sake of my people. Her actions will surely protect the safety of many.”

It didn’t matter whether he wanted to or not, Emperor Arthas had no choice but to go along with what Gabriel was saying. The citizens were watching their every move, and with Gabriel bringing up the topic of illegal slaves and colluding with other countries, the entire empire was sure to look upon them with rapt attention.

Gabriel only had to bring up something as simple as ‘for the empire and its citizens’ to leave Arthas with no choice but to go along. What was he going to do? Call Teresa’s story into question after she arrived covered in blood while bringing evidence of this corruption? It would be one thing if the evidence turned out wrong, but what if it ended up being true? He would be the emperor who ignored a threat to the empire because he thought a story sounded strange. He could not risk it, not with the citizens watching.

“Barong, Vritara, Woodime, attend to me!”

Arthas called out two of the unrelated ducal families, as well as the Eastern family, holding close the rolled up papers that Teresa had brought. Inwardly he was cursing his idea to broadcast the banquet for the citizens to cheer for their new heroes. Everything that happened here today would be a lot easier to handle if it hadn’t been revealed this publicly. But regret was worth very little at this stage, he had no choice but to move ahead.

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“Here.”

“We hear your orders, your highness.”

“We are ready to listen.”

The heads of the three families stepped forward and gave Arthas a small bow. They could already guess what he was going to ask of them, but the world of politics was one of theatrics so they would have to play along and at least wait for the emperor to state his orders.

“I will summon Nerissa Sylla and the Amber Inquisitors, I order all of you to summon a platoon of your own Inquisitors to work together with them to uncover the truth! I give you one hour to get them ready and summon them, I want them to head out posthaste so that our citizens can rest easy as quickly as possible!”

The inquisitors. If the assassination squads were the dark side of the larger families then the inquisitors would be the light side. The assassins took care of enemies outside of the family and the law, the inquisitors took care of enemies inside the family and within the law.

They existed for the sole purpose of digging up corruption and judging sinners within the family, receiving special rights to complete their tasks. In the eyes of many, the leader of the inquisitors was on the same level as the leader of the family, having the power to execute even the head should he stray too far from the family.

Well, at least that was the public knowledge. Gabriel wasn’t so jaded as to believe that the inquisitors actually followed those beliefs. They may have when they were first formed, but many years had passed since then, and the more time passed, the harder it became to keep things clean.

“Duke Sorin, I expect your full cooperation during this investigation. Show the citizens that the great house of Sorin has nothing to hide.”

The Emperor gave Duke Sorin another reminder, mainly for the publics sake. The leaders of the three ducal houses, as well as the Eastern family, were all his close friends. They worked together closely, both in the dark and in the light, so he knew that Duke Sorin would not be even close to involved in this thing.

The problem was that the accusation wasn’t pointed at Duke Sorin but rather his third son. Naturally, the emperor knew a fair bit less about Sorin’s son so he couldn’t confidently state that he wasn’t involved in such matters. And if this turned out to actually be true… then he could only hope that his close friend could forgive him for what he had to do to his son. The public was watching, he would be forced to take a strong stance.

“That is only natural, your highness. The house of Sorin would never do anything to disgrace or harm the empire so we can accept this investigation with a light heart.”

Duke Sorin was in the same position as Emperor Arthas, the citizens were watching so he had no choice but to go along with everything. Internally however, he was cursing his son. He didn’t know for sure that his son was involved in these things, but he wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he was, his third son had always been a bit worse off than the rest of his sons.

First he went against one of the ground rules they had been taught from a young age, its fine to break the law a bit, just don’t be too drastic. But then he was also careless enough to get caught. It was fine to have high ambitions, just be strong or smart enough to actually back them up. Arthas nodded his head after the duke accepted, turning his head so that he could address the citizens that were watching.

“My people! In this time, we will need your aid to ensure that no evildoer manages to escape! If you see someone packing up or leaving, please notify the inquisitors when they arrive. Do not be afraid to tell them of even the smallest things, just think that it may be your children disappearing in the future if these heinous men get to escape!”

He had to address the people. Everything he was being broadcast to the entire empire so if there really were slave traders and traitors then they too would be able to see this. Knowing they were caught, they would naturally try to flee as quickly as possible. That was another reason that Arthas made the other families gather their inquisitors with such little notice.

Normally, this would be where Gabriel would wash his hands of the matter and step back. He had sown the seeds and made it so that everyone would focus on this case rather than on him and Alice publicly rejecting the people the emperor was trying to set them up with. Let the ones in charge sort it all out and mess about with their problems. But Alice had looked at him before she embraced Teresa, fire swirling in her eyes. Thus, he spoke up again.

“May I offer my services in this investigation, your Esteemed Highness? I feel that just bringing this injustice to light is not enough to thank you for granting me the Viscount of War title, I wish to aid you in seeing it through to the end so that we may punish the traitors. I beseech you, use my knowledge on this matter. You may even use this chance to keep an eye on me to ensure that I do not try to flee should it turn out that I was wrong.”

Naturally, quite a few gazes landed on Gabriel as he offered to help. He was the one who came with this information, the one who made the accusation, you’d have to be a fool if you thought that he wasn’t the one who knew the most about this matter. Taking advantage of him here would be the most sensible decision, especially since you could use the inquisitors to keep him in check and make sure that he didn’t try to plant evidence.

But there was a part of the emperor that wanted to reject him. He wasn’t a fool, he could tell that Gabriel and Alice had been playing him since the start of the banquet. They kept pushing him about as they pleased, and he had no choice but to go along with it all. Sure, they hadn’t actually done anything that was bad for the empire, but that didn’t mean that it was pleasant to be played like a puppet.

But, he didn’t have a choice in the other matters so why would he have a choice now? He knew more than anyone present on the matter so it would be foolish to not use him, the public knew this and Arthas knew this. So, while he was annoyed that he was being played like this, he still wanted to do what was best for the empire so he kept playing along.

“Good. The empire will surely thank you for your willingness to help. I will put you under Nerissa Sylla, she is the leader of the imperial family’s inquisitors, the Amber Inquisitors. She has personally dug out and killed many a traitor in her time so you can trust her. Naturally, I will also expect you to follow her orders during the investigation.”

Someone was already striding through the hall as the emperor spoke, heading straight for him. The Amber Inquisitors worked directly beneath the emperor, when he called they would come to his side without wasting even a single second. Thus, they were the first of the inquisitors to arrive, their leader naturally at the front.

“Thank you for allowing me to provide further aid, your Esteemed Highness. And worry not, I will follow orders perfectly. I will greet Head Inquisitor Sylla in a moment, but please allow me to say my farewells to my fiancee first.”

Gabriel gave another polite and respectful bow, waiting for the emperor to nod before he spun on his heels. Alice was still embracing Teresa, comforting her quietly. Gabriel could see the slight tremble that ran down her spine and spread through the rest of her body. He’d seen many people like this in his past life. Trauma, no matter its cause, clung to you like a maggot.

He bent the knee and locked eyes with Alice for a moment before wrapping his arms around her. It was awkward because of Teresa, but it brought them close enough to where Alice could whisper to him, just loud enough for both of them to hear.

“They made Teresa cry, Gabriel. They only need a single mouth to confess.”

It wasn’t an order, Alice never gave him orders. But even if she didn’t give orders, he never disappointed. He finished the hug and gave Alice’s forehead a quick kiss, a slight tremble running through her body before her muscles tensed. Once he was finished he stood up and spun around to join up with the inquisitors.

It was just like he said, he would follow orders perfectly. And right now, his lady desired enough blood to compensate Teresa for her tears and fears.