Gunmage
Chapter 110: Eyes that don’t match yours

Chapter 110: Chapter 110: Eyes that don’t match yours

Back in his sparsely furnished room, lit only by dim candlelight, Lugh’s eyes narrowed. A suspicion he’d long held had just been confirmed.

Enemy operatives had infiltrated the manor.

The details were now clear. Isolde had been attacked. But curiously, only the family’s longtime guards had been killed.

To make matters worse, their quarters had collapsed in the night, taking even more lives.

Whether by accident or design, the Von Heim estate was being peeled open from the inside. This would necessitate immediate restaffing.

Backgrounds could be checked, of course, but loyalties? Loyalties were much harder.

And, just as he’d overheard earlier in the whispered conversation between Isolde and her lascivious brother-in-law, the usual vetting protocols had been... compromised. All thanks to a web of internal power struggles.

Infiltration, then, had not been some extraordinary feat. It had simply been inevitable.

Lugh sighed.

Now he needed only to determine the enemy’s goal.

If he considered the situation from their perspective, and assumed, as the conversation suggested, that their aim was to fracture the Von Heim family from within... then the next likely step was—

Killing Edrin.

How devious.

From what he overheard, the kitchen would most definitely be their route—poison.

It was late. No one would be eating at this hour, so there was still time.

His smaller, rodent self had already slipped in through the window. Moving quickly, Lugh retrieved a pen and paper, scribbling out a letter on the dimly lit desk.

It wasn’t formal, just clear enough to deliver the essentials.

"Hark. Edrin’s end simmers near the cookfires, though shadows stretch beyond. Eyes that don’t meet yours hold the keenest threat. The air tastes wrong. Listen to the silences. Something sharp waits"

He stared at the note for a long moment. Then he held his head, squeezing his eyes shut. No he couldn’t use this. Too cryptic. Too unnatural.

He crumpled the page and tossed it into a growing pile.

He began again, this time simpler:

"There are enemies among your guards and servants. They plan to kill Edrin. Focus on the kitchen—but don’t neglect the other areas"

This would do.

Folding the paper neatly, he handed it to his rodent self, who clenched it in its mouth. He had no string or fastener.

Yes, the edges might get soggy, but the message would survive.

Just before the rat set off, Lugh paused, fished out his pen again, and added a final line:

—Lugh

As a vessel of many souls and lifetimes not his own, he had long since learned the value of clarity.

A single misunderstanding could tear up households or jeopardise armies.

The rat skittered through the mansion’s underbelly, weaving between shadows.

Stairs were a challenge, they were wide open and perilous. But Lugh’s mouse-body climbed steadily, quietly.

He knew this place intimately now. Every hallway, every creak in the floorboards.

He neared Isolde’s chambers.

And then—an impact.

The rat’s body jerked, tumbling, and stopped moving.

Lugh frowned.

Hmm?

Back in the hallway, the rodent form twitched once, then lay still, its spine had been severed.

In its final flickering moment, it saw the assailant clearly.

That goddamn cat.

Lugh stood abruptly, pushing his chair back with an icy calm. Walking to the door, he whispered a spell. The lock broke with a soft snap.

This had become a nuisance. He was going to kill that cat.

He moved through the hall like a specter.

The feline was already trotting away, prize in mouth, tail raised in arrogant victory.

Lugh materialized behind it, silent and sudden.

Startled, the cat dropped the limp mouse and turned to flee, its instincts screamed danger.

But Lugh was faster. His hand snapped out and seized it by the scruff of its neck.

The cat shrieked, hissing and scratching violently. Its claws raked his arms, but Lugh didn’t flinch.

Unlike his puppets he felt pain, he was just indifferent to it.

He had lived too many lifetimes for such a thing to matter.

A faint green glow shimmered across his wounds. Emrys’s famed healing arts, brought with him through memory and essence, worked quickly ...even if their current opponent was a feral housecat.

He squeezed. The cat wailed in pain.

Then he stopped.

Not out of pity. But calculation. There were better uses for the creature.

Holding it in both hands, he turned it around, and the faint glow of the Mawglass began to stir—

"Hey! What are you doing to Reginald Pouncealot the Third, Esquire!?"

Lugh blinked.

For the first time in ages, his expression wavered, faintly bewildered.

"...Reginald Pouncealot?"

"The Third, Esquire!"

She corrected, as if that detail were the most vital thing in the world.

Two figures had climbed through the hallway windows, dressed in loose-fitting men’s clothes.

The first and second daughters of the Von Heim family. Selaphiel and Mirelle.

Mirelle darted forward and snatched the cat away.

"What were you doing to my poor baby?!"

"Why did you sneak out of your room?"

Selaphiel demanded, eyes narrowing.

Lugh blinked at her. Then replied flatly

"Why did you sneak outside the house?"

He took a longer look at her. Selaphiel’s flowing black hair, usually styled to conceal half her face, was now tied into a high bun—revealing sharp features and mismatched, heterochromatic eyes.

Curious. He hadn’t noticed that before.

But it didn’t matter now.

He turned back to the floor, his eyes scanning.

"I—"

She began to retort, then stopped herself.

"Mirelle! Lirienne!"

"Oh no, Mother!"

It was too late for them to flee.

Isolde emerged into the hallway like a storm.

"When I get my hands on you two I’m gonna—"

Then she paused.

"Lugh?!"

"Who is Lugh?"

Came another voice, calm and curious.

The hallway froze.

Everyone did, except for Lugh who continued searching around.

Edrin stepped out of the shadows, his expression calm and unreadable.

"Who is Lugh?"

He repeated, his eyes locked on the boy.

The scene was a mess, a tangle of names and motives, timing and suspicion.

But none of that mattered to Lugh.

Because the letter—the one meant for Isolde—was gone.