Monarch Chapter 193 (Patreon)

Chapter 193

Edran Sinclair, second in line of House Sinclair, felt a headache slowly building inside his head as he sat in his room, and once again, he found himself berating himself for going along with the whims of a prince of all people.

He should have known better.

Getting involved with royalty was the kind of thing that either drove a person insane or got them killed early, and yet his ambitious nature had pushed him toward accepting the request.

There was also the fact that Prince Caelan had promised to help his father with several matters within his territory in exchange for the assistance of his warband, which had made the decision far easier at the time.

More importantly, Commander Evans and Prince Caelan had been exchanging letters, although Edran had no idea whether the commander was truly part of the prince's faction or simply maintaining a useful relationship.

Still, he knew one thing. When Commander Evans had learned about the prince's request, he hadn't rejected it.

It wasn't as if his warband had nowhere else to go.

There were already rumours of more conflicts with the orcs and wildermen, and there would certainly be plenty of monster-subjugation requests and dungeon expeditions in different noble territories.

Yet Edran had chosen to take the quest to the Godless Ruins because Prince Caelan had guaranteed that they wouldn't be pushing into danger in an attempt to uncover the Lost Sanctum of the Sage.

Plenty of expeditions from Valeria had tried exactly that in the past, only to disappear into Hathras' halls.

A quest that involved nothing more than gathering artifacts and exploring the outer regions of the ruins wasn't a bad assignment.

It would also give Rayne the opportunity to work his way through his punishment, and Rayne was valuable to both Edran and Commander Evans at the moment.

At least, that was what Edran had thought when he accepted the request.

But it turned out to be the worst mistake of his life.

Only for one reason.

Prince Caelan wasn't here merely to gather artifacts from the ruins and return to Valeria with enough achievements to boast about later, hoping to attract more people into his faction.

No, there was something else going on.

Something far more important that Edran had no idea about, and he was almost certain that Rayne, one of his squad leaders, was involved in it.

Normally, Edran would have simply asked Rayne outright, but the prince was clearly protecting him, and that made everything considerably more difficult.

Rayne wasn't an idiot who would carelessly reveal something that could put him in trouble, especially when a prince was involved, so Edran couldn't simply corner him and demand answers.

He couldn't ask Caelan either, because the prince would most likely feign ignorance, and distrusting a prince was far too dangerous for a captain in the army.

All of it left Edran feeling increasingly depressed about what might be waiting for his warband in the coming days.

At least they had lost only a few soldiers so far, and none of them had been truly powerful. But that could change very quickly.

The deeper they went into the ruins, the stronger the monsters became, and if the prince's hidden objective required them to keep pushing forward, then more members of his warband could easily end up dead.

And it would all be because of—

"Like I told you before, worrying about it won't do anything."

Edran's thoughts were interrupted by Casper, who was sitting directly across from him.

The fire mage looked far more relaxed than Edran felt, although that wasn't particularly surprising considering how little stress she normally took even with grave matters.

Edran sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I know."

"If it was truly something that would put the warband in trouble, then Rayne would have mentioned it himself," Casper continued. "He isn't the type to keep quiet if he thinks we're walking toward something that could get everyone killed."

"I know," Edran repeated, though his voice carried far less conviction this time. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for several seconds before finally looking at Casper again. "But it's not something I should be kept out of."

Casper didn't immediately answer.

Edran's expression hardened as the frustration that had been building inside him finally came out. "Prince Caelan didn't send Rayne and the others to the artisan district. What would a puppet be doing there anyway?"

The question hung between them.

Edran had already suspected that something was wrong long back but today, Rayne's party returned with a bronze puppet of all things. But from what he knew the artisan district wasn't that wealthy or it wouldn't be in the outer city.

If they had truly gone there looking for old relics, then perhaps they could have found weapons, tools, some magical equipment or remnants of some ancient workshop.

But a puppet was extremely unlikely.

He could be wrong, but Edran trusted his instincts that the prince had lied to him.

He wondered where else they might have gone. If it was actually a puppet made by a mage, then he guessed only the inner city would have something like that, but that meant they had crossed that wall that was so imposing.

Rayne and the prince's retainers were powerful, but not that much.

Then, where else might they have gone? Edran knew of other places in the outer city that were less explored. He had gotten information from the baron of the city in exchange for an old wine secretly after all.

But if they have gone to those places, it would easily take over a day for them to return. That means it should be close to the artisan district at the very least.

Thinking of it, he looked at Casper again and asked, “Do you think Prince Caelan knows of locations within the ruins that are not known to others?”

Casper will open her mouth as if to reject his words, but then will say, “He might. Would explain more than a few things.”

Edran thought the same thing.

One thing was clear. Caelan was trying to do something in Sage City secretly, and he was taking Rayne’s help to accomplish it. But what was it?

Edran could think of several possibilities, though none of them seemed convincing enough to explain the prince’s actions.

There was a reason Caelan had brought an entire warband into the Godless Ruins, and there was a reason he had kept most of them away from whatever he was truly pursuing.

But Caelan couldn’t be stupid enough to try looking for the Lost Sanctum of the Sage, right?

The thought crossed Edran’s mind, and he immediately dismissed it, though not with as much confidence as he would have liked.

If the prince was actually searching for the sanctum, then Rayne was even worse in the head for accepting such a thing.

The inner city was dangerous in a way that the outer edges weren't. Just being there was a battle in itself with the mana pressure in the air, not to mention every other threat that crawled there that they didn't even know of.

And yet Rayne had gone along with this plan of the prince. Not only that, but he had taken a small group of men and gone somewhere else without informing the rest of the warband.

Edran didn’t know whether that was because Rayne had been ordered to do so or because he had willingly chosen to assist the prince, but neither possibility made him feel any better.

Whatever Caelan was planning, Edran needed to think about what he was going to do about it.

Remaining ignorant while his men continued to follow the prince into increasingly dangerous parts of the ruins was not something he could simply accept.

The problem was that even if he tried to stop whatever was going on, would it actually work?

They were in the border region, far away from the central kingdom and the noble houses that held influence there.

In a place like this, the authority of a prince was absolute.

Caelan might not have been the heir to the throne, but he was still a member of the royal family, and Edran was not foolish enough to believe that his own position as a captain would allow him to openly challenge the prince.

The army might have sent him here, and Commander Evans might have maintained a certain amount of influence over the expedition, but that influence could only go so far.

If Caelan decided that Edran was interfering with royal business, then the consequences would not be limited to a simple disagreement between a prince and an army captain.

The only reason Edran had been kept in the dark was probably because Caelan didn’t want to involve the rest of the warband in whatever he was trying to accomplish.

The more people who knew about it, the greater the chance that the information would spread or that someone would act carelessly.

Caelan had therefore limited the number of people he trusted, choosing Rayne and a few of the men who had been with him for a long time.

Should he try asking one of them?

The thought came to him naturally. If they were ordinary soldiers, then perhaps he could question them directly and force them to reveal something.

They might be easier to crack open than Rayne, who was far too careful with his words and had already demonstrated that he knew how to manoeuvre verbal battles since he had performed well in the truthsayer trial.

Edran could summon one of his squad members, ask a few casual questions, and observe their reactions.

If he was careful, perhaps he could uncover at least a part of the truth.

But as he was thinking about which one of them to approach, Casper, who had been sitting across from him and gazing at him for some time, spoke again.

“You should trust him a bit, Captain.”

Edran lifted his eyes towards her. “You are asking a lot when we are in the Godless Ruins.”

Casper nodded, her relaxed expression not changing. “I know. But trust in a subordinate is something your family knows how to enact really well, so you should do the same.”

Edran frowned slightly at her words, though he didn’t interrupt.

Casper had never been the kind of person to speak without considering a lot of things, even if her casual manner sometimes made it seem as though she wasn’t taking things seriously.

She leaned back in her seat, her fingers resting loosely against the armrest, before continuing.

“In the end, Rayne has never let you down.”

Edran remained silent. That was true.

Rayne had never let him down. The man had been involved in more trouble than most soldiers could imagine, and his background alone should have been enough to make Edran wary of him.

A Forsaken. A duke’s bastard. Someone whose very existence had placed him in an uncomfortable position among the nobles of Valeria.

Rayne’s blood had made him a target, and his actions had only made him more noticeable.

Yet despite all of that, he had consistently proven himself reliable.

He followed orders when orders needed to be followed. He acted without hesitation when action was necessary.

More importantly, he knew when to make decisions on his own, and those decisions had repeatedly saved the lives of the people around him.

Edran had watched Rayne grow stronger since the young man had joined the warband, and although he still didn’t fully understand the source of that strength, he could not deny the results.

The fact that Rayne had survived this long was almost a miracle in itself.

He had been thrown into battles that should have killed him, faced enemies that were far stronger than him, and continued to walk away from situations where even experienced soldiers had fallen.

But Edran knew that Rayne’s survival was not simply the result of luck.

It was his skill.

His instincts, his adaptability, and his willingness to take risks when necessary had all played a part in keeping him alive.

That, however, did not mean Edran could simply ignore the danger surrounding him.

“What if things go wrong?” Edran asked at last. “You know they can.”

Casper nodded as she pushed herself up from her seat. “I know they can go wrong, but you very well know that we are tied up here right now. So, we should just trust Rayne a bit.”

Edran watched her as she straightened her clothes.

“They have kept the warband away from whatever is going on,” she continued. “So I believe we should be fine. If not, then we would simply have to rely on our skills.”

After saying that, Casper bowed slightly and left the room, leaving Edran alone with his thoughts.

He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, turning her words over in his mind.

Trust was not something he gave easily, especially when the person he was expected to trust was involved in a secret operation led by a prince inside the most dangerous ruins on the continent.

There were too many unknowns, and Edran had spent enough time in the army to know that unknowns were often more dangerous than enemies one could see.

Still, Casper had raised a point he couldn’t ignore.

Rayne had never let him down.

The question was, just how much did he trust Rayne?