THE TRASH PRINCE'S BLUEPRINTS SYSTEM

CHAPTER 5: THE CHURCH'S PROBLEMS

A heavy downpour began in the late afternoon, hammering against the stained-glass windows of Conclave Cathedral with a fury that felt more divine omen than weather. By evening, it had softened to a steady hiss, rain pattering across slate roofs, spilling from carved gargoyle mouths, trickling like murmured curses into the cathedral's ancient gutters.

Inside the grand Conference Hall, warmth and light held dominion. Gas lamps enchanted with Holy Light magic flared against the creeping dusk, illuminating the long table of carved obsidian-veined mahogany. At its center blazed a hearth fire, roaring with divine heat, stoked to drive away not just the cold, but the gathering unease.

They dined like kings atop a grave. Shadowbeast venison stew simmered in gold-rimmed tureens, rich, dark meat spiced with crushed chilies, ground black pepper, garlic, and flame-charred tomatoes. Roasted boar, its hide crackled and honey-basted, steamed beside a sauce of spiced vinegar sharp enough to sting the eyes. Even the loaves, Wheat of Clarity, thick and white as bleached bones are said to sharpen the eater’s thoughts. Everything on the table tasted like something killed by steel and blessed with holy fire.

Wine of Grace, hot and laced with pepper and honey, flowed freely.

But the mood is not celebratory. Not truly. It is the measured laughter of wolves feasting on a carcass, aware another predator is circling.

Cardinals of the Holy Church. Merchant envoys. Minor lords and knights. All seated in silence or shallow conversation, careful not to look first, not to speak too loud. At the head sat Pope Aurelian Blackmoor, resplendent in deep crimson robes stitched with gold-thread runes. His sister, Lady Leonora Blackmoor, cold-eyed and colder-hearted, sat to his right. And beside her, radiating seething tension like a blade just before it swings, sat Crown Prince Alaric Vaelen Blackmoor-Thaloria.

Alaric drinks stew with long, deliberate motions, his golden eyes unreadable. His laughter, when it comes, is jagged and brittle.

“That insolent little bastard, Prince Theron Valeheart. The audacity to challenge us in the open theater. On Festival Day, no less. He always did have a flair for dramatics.”

Alaric's spoon clinks hard against the bowl, louder than it should. The laugh leaves his lips, but doesn’t touch his eyes. It’s the laugh of a man who’s already sharpening the knife behind the curtain.

Lady Martha Tudor, youngest daughter of House Tudor, leans in slightly. Her beauty is calculated, refined, a blade in silk.

“Your Highness,” she murmurs, “the Second Prince may have caused a spectacle, but fools who dance in the light rarely see the arrow in the shadows. You, on the other hand... you know how to aim.”

“Indeed,” says Madame Fiona Mazzet, an envoy from the Guardian Dealers Guild. Her voice is smooth, touched with a foreign accent, and her words bite through roast boar and wine alike. “Schemes cannot be brewed on an empty stomach, and vengeance served cold is best digested after venison stew.”

Alaric’s smile twitches. Brief. Tense. He raises his goblet but says nothing. Silence sharpens like a dagger in the room.

Then a screech cuts the air.

A white hawk—a bird of prey bred by the Church for storm-flight—bursts through the high glass slits of the cathedral and circles low. Its feathers shimmer with faint divine light, protected by a magical storm-barrier. It drops a sealed letter onto Lady Leonora’s lap, then, as if mocking the gathering, swoops down, snatches a chunk of honey-basted boar from a knight’s plate, and flutters back toward the hawkery.

The room bursts with laughter at the knight’s astonished expression.

But the mirth dies quickly.

Another hawk shrieks through the room. This one drops its scroll directly into Alaric’s lap. Without hesitation, it too helps itself to a slab of meat from the Crown Prince’s untouched plate, screeches, mocking, arrogant, and dodges the bolt of a crossbow drawn in anger.

The missed shot buries itself into a marble pillar with a solid thunk. A priest gasps. A merchant drops his fork.

Alaric's jaw clenches.

“That damn bird,” he mutters darkly, unsealing the scroll.

His eyes scan the letter. One word. Another. Then another.

And then the blood drains from his face like wine spilled over white linen.

He stands. Without words. Without thanks. Without pleasantries.

“Your Highness?” murmurs Lady Martha.

But Alaric is already storming from the room, fists clenched, golden eyes glowing with fury.

Leonora sighs, sips her wine. Then delicately opens her own scroll.

“Oh... dear.”

She reads it twice. Then folds it, face unreadable, and hands it to her brother.

Pope Aurelian reads in silence. The silence stretches too long.

“Speak, Holiness,” says Lord Harland Vex. “What news sours the stew this evening?”

Aurelian clears his throat and stands. He does not need the voice amplifier, but uses it anyway—its crystal glow flickers as he places it near his mouth. The sound carries like thunder in a mountain pass.

“My lords. My ladies. Friends. Servants of the Flame. The letters are confirmed. Prince Cain Vailtair Thaloria, the disgraced Third Prince, presumed pacified in his exile to Frostmark, has committed treason.”

The murmurs start like mice in a granary. A whisper here. A curse there.

“Yesterday,” Aurelian continues, “he seized full control of Winterkeep. Every single Provincial Secretary we appointed, those we groomed, bribed, and bled to put in place, are dead. Executed in the very halls of governance.”

More than one noble rises from their seat. Lady Grenelle’s face goes pale as parchment. Lord Tyber clutches his goblet like it might bite him.

Leonora adds, voice calm as snow, “He threw their bodies to the beasts at the Shadowvale border. Left not a corpse to bury, not a name to mourn.”

“Bastard,” spits Lord Vex. “That arrogant, piss-born little upstart-”

“And that is not all,” Aurelian snaps. His voice cuts the room like a blade. “This morning, across the entire breadth of Thaloria, thirteen of our Holy Mages were found dead. Slain in alleyways, on rooftops, even the Kingsroad. Each body branded with the words: ‘Bastard prince. Hypocrite mages.’”

The room erupts.

Nobles scream. Wine goblets shatter. Forks clatter to the floor. One baroness faints.

And through it all, Lady Leonora calmly sips her wine, her fingers tapping a rhythm against her glass. She enjoys the chaos. Lets it swell.

Pope Aurelian raises a hand. The voice amplifier thrums again.

“Enough.”

The room hushes like a dog beaten into silence.

“We are not gathered here to mourn. We are gathered to act. Cain has crossed the line. Not only has he slain our men and declared himself lord over Frostmark, but he has armed himself with banned weaponry. We have reports, arcane dampeners, blueprint systems, forbidden constructs powered by Umbralith ore.”

Someone breathes, “Steam carriages? Airships?”

“Worse,” Leonora says. “Tactical automata. Rune-marked weaponry. Engineer heresy cloaked in princely silk.”

Lady Fiona speaks next, her voice low and serpentine. “Then you don’t need sympathy. You need knives. And coins. And spies.”

Pope Aurelian nods. “Which is why you’re all here. The Holy Church will formally declare Prince Cain a rogue noble. A traitor. A heretic. We will excommunicate him. Strip him of titles. And we will reward any man, woman, or rat who brings us his head with ten thousand gold crowns.”

“Too low,” grumbles a knight. “For a mad prince wielding heretic steel? You’ll need to double that.”

“And we shall,” Leonora says, smiling like a wolf admiring a limping calf. “In fact, I will add ten thousand more from House Blackmoor’s vaults, and offer Winterkeep’s command to whoever proves useful in reclaiming it.”

The room, just minutes ago in turmoil, begins to simmer with ambition. Eyes gleam. Fingers twitch. The scent of blood has shifted from fear to opportunity.

One voice rises above the others. A merchant lord from Port Meridia, his face red with indignation.

“And the Second Prince? What of Theron? You know he dances behind this, too. The graffiti. The mages. The stunts at the theater.”

Aurelian nods. “The Second Prince will be dealt with... differently. He is still within reach of the capital. His mistakes are more subtle. But make no mistake. The reckoning comes for him as well.”

Leonora turns to Lady Martha. “Inform your father. House Tudor is to deploy its spies. Discreetly. I want names of every blacksmith, mage, or builder Cain tries to recruit in Frostmark.”

Martha bows. “As you command.”

Aurelian gestures to the far end of the room, where a map of the provinces has been unfurled across a table of marble and silver.

“Let this night mark the beginning of the Reckoning. Frostmark will not be allowed to fall to a bastard prince with engineer delusions. If Cain wants war...”

He pauses, gazing over the gathered nobility, his eyes afire with sanctified wrath.

“In the name of The Sovereign, we will give him one.”

Outside, thunder growls faintly in the clouds above.

Inside, plots begin to bloom like rot beneath polished marble.