NOVEL NEXT Chapter 170: [170] Just Entertainment
Haverford had let him escape, but only to drive him deeper into the mountain where he'd be even more isolated, even more helpless. The Duke was playing a longer game, using Xavier's own desperation against him.
But then Xavier noticed something that didn't fit the pattern—a section of the tunnel floor that looked different from the rest. The stones were newer, fitted more carefully, and when he pressed his weight against them, they shifted slightly. His heart leaped. Naomi. This had to be one of her contingencies, one of the bolt-holes she'd mentioned during their planning sessions.
Xavier dropped to his knees and felt along the edges of the stones. There—a hidden catch, disguised as natural wear in the rock. He triggered it, and a section of the floor slid away with a grinding sound that seemed impossibly loud in the confined space.
Below was darkness. Complete, absolute darkness that swallowed his vision like a hungry mouth. The smell that rose from the opening was rank—old water, decay, and something else Xavier couldn't identify. But it was a way out. A path Haverford hadn't planned for.
Xavier pulled the journal from inside his shirt and stared at it in the dim tunnel light. The leather cover was warm to the touch, and he could swear he felt something moving beneath the surface—some kind of tracking enchantment, perhaps, or worse. The King's Gaze had been right. Carrying it was like wearing a beacon.
But it was also evidence. Proof of what had been done.
Footsteps echoed from the tunnel behind him—guards finally catching up, their pursuit timed to arrive just as Xavier found this escape route. Of course. Even this had been anticipated.
Xavier made his choice. He dropped the journal into the darkness first, listening as it tumbled down what sounded like a long chute. Then he heard Haverford's voice, carried by the tunnel's acoustics from somewhere above.
"Run, Thornslayer." The Duke's words echoed off the stone walls, rich with amusement. "Tell your friends what you've learned. Spread your panic through the city like wildfire. It will make tomorrow's Masquerade so much more entertaining when they realize how powerless they truly are."
The guards rounded the corner just as Xavier swung his legs into the opening. Their torchlight illuminated his face for a brief moment, and he saw something in their eyes that chilled him more than the mountain air—pity. They weren't pursuing him because they were following orders. They were letting him go because they knew it didn't matter.
Xavier dropped into the darkness.
The chute was steep and slick, carved from natural rock and worn smooth by centuries of water flow. Xavier tumbled down it like a stone, his borrowed noble's clothing tearing further on the rough edges. The journal's leather binding scraped against stone somewhere ahead of him, its sound distinct from his own desperate scrambling.
He landed hard in freezing muck that came up to his ankles, the impact driving the breath from his lungs. The smell here was overwhelming—sewage, decay, and the mineral tang of volcanic runoff. Xavier struggled to his feet, his fine clothes now ruined beyond recognition, and felt around in the darkness until his fingers found the journal's familiar shape.
Above him, impossibly far away, he could see a faint circle of light where the chute opened. And there, silhouetted against that distant glow, stood a figure in noble's attire.
Haverford.
The Duke's voice drifted down through the darkness, conversational and unhurried. "You know, I almost admire your tenacity. Most people would have given up by now, accepted their fate with whatever dignity they could muster. But not you. You keep struggling, keep fighting, even when you must realize how futile it all is."
Xavier pressed the journal against his chest and backed away from the opening, his boots squelching in the muck. The tunnel stretched away in both directions, lost in absolute darkness. He had no idea where he was or how to get back to the surface.
"That's what makes you such an excellent test subject," Haverford continued. "Your refusal to accept defeat provides such wonderful data about stress responses and survival instincts. I've learned so much about human nature by watching you and your friends scramble about like mice in a maze."
Xavier's hands shook as he clutched the journal. Not from cold, though the underground air was frigid enough to make his breath mist. Not from fear, though terror sat like a stone in his stomach. He shook with rage—pure, incandescent fury at being manipulated, at being used, at being reduced to nothing more than an entertaining variable in someone else's equation.
"I'll stop you," he called up through the darkness. His voice echoed strangely in the confined space, distorted by the tunnel's acoustics.
Haverford's laughter drifted down like falling snow—light, crystalline, and utterly without warmth. "With what? You have no allies, no resources, no plan. Your friends are being collected even as we speak. By dawn, they'll all be secured in the ritual chambers, ready for tomorrow night's grand finale."
The Duke's silhouette shifted, and Xavier caught a glimpse of something metallic in his hand—a small device that pulsed with soft light. "The journal you're clutching so desperately? I wrote half of those entries myself, seeding Torval's research with exactly the information I wanted you to find. Even your righteous anger is part of my design."
Xavier's grip on the journal tightened until his knuckles went white. Every revelation, every desperate hope, every small victory—all of it had been orchestrated. He wasn't a hero fighting against impossible odds. He was a puppet dancing to strings he couldn't even see.
"Run along now," Haverford said, his voice already growing fainter as he moved away from the opening. "Find your way back to the surface. Warn whoever you can. It won't matter in the end, but the effort will provide such delicious drama for our future proceedings."
The circle of light disappeared as the Duke moved away, leaving Xavier alone in the absolute darkness of Hearthome's forgotten depths. The silence that followed was complete—no dripping water, no distant voices, no sound at all except his own ragged breathing and the frantic beating of his heart.
Xavier stood there in the freezing muck, clutching Torval's journal, and faced the truth that cut deeper than any blade.
He wasn't playing chess with Haverford. He wasn't even a player in this game.
He was just entertainment.