Chapter Text
art by @scoutlings
“Be sure you take the time to familiarize yourself with our files.”
That was what Claude’s grandfather had said. What he’d meant, Claude knew, was that he ought to learn how to use the Leicester Conglomerate’s internal systems. He ought to learn about the companies under their umbrella, their profits and losses, which were struggling and which ought to be invested in.
But Claude knew all that. He’d known that for years - he’d learned it all in the months after he’d discovered that his mother was the daughter of the CEO of the Leicester Conglomerate, and he’d kept up ever since. Most of the information was publicly available, and what wasn’t had been easy to find. Going over it again would be a waste of his time.
Besides, there were much more interesting things to look for now that he had full access to Leicester’s internal network.
Claude had always wondered if he could access it from the outside, but he’d never seriously tried. Most of the megacorps had security that was expensive, complicated, and tight - which wasn’t a problem for Claude, really, but it also hadn’t been worth trying to crack. Not when he’d already been pretty certain it would be offered to him openly one day. The Riegan family had been CEOs of Leicester for generations - had been integral to the joint founding, in fact - and it had never been handed down to a non-blood relative.
That wasn’t uncommon for megacorps. Nepotism was the name of the game, because you couldn’t trust anyone but at least family usually had good reason to avoid betraying you. But when the presumptive heir, Godfrey, died in a messy car accident, things had begun to look a bit dicey for the Riegans.
Luckily, Claude’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. Luckily, he’d accessed his own mother’s files, easily broke her encryption, and discovered the truth of her Riegan blood.
He’d wanted out of Almyra, he’d wanted a chance to change things, and a path had been provided for him. One DNA test and quite a bit of behind-the-scenes politicking later, here he was, all of Leicester’s files in his lap and the CEO seat his so long as he managed to avoid any unfortunate ‘accidents’ until his grandfather stepped down.
That part, Claude wasn’t worried about. He’d been dealing with that sort of thing since before he could break the most basic of firewalls. What he needed now was to know where the threats might come from. He needed information, all the things you couldn’t get from publicly available stock reports and gossip on anonymous message boards.
The sorts of things that would be buried in the massive amounts of data on the Leicester Conglomerate servers.
It was too much to dig through - Claude couldn’t have read it all in his entire lifetime. He programmed some simple bots instead, set their parameters, sent them to dig through old reports and emails and trash bins that hadn’t been emptied in months.
Then he got comfortable, made himself some coffee, and set about reading everything the bots retrieved for him.
That was another bonus of the whole ‘future CEO’ thing. An office in a gleaming high rise, personal security, and all the free coffee he could drink. Oh, there’d been plenty of free coffee in the Almyran royal palace, but it hadn’t been safe to touch - not for him. He’d had to keep his own supply, tucked away and safe in one of his little bolt-holes in the city. For all that he was sure Leicester was just as much a nest of vipers, no one had tried to poison Claude yet. Mostly they didn’t know what to make of him.
And he fully planned to coast on that until he knew who was the biggest danger.
He sipped his coffee and raked through emails. Most of it was about what he expected - Goneril Personnel Solutions (a slick name for what amounted to an elite mercenary corps) was concerned with the growing power of the Almyran regime. OrdeliaSoft was pioneering some truly impressive new datalinks. Riegan’s many business ventures were causing problems for some, including Gloucester, apparently, who had sent a few fiery emails about one of Riegan’s subsidiaries poaching one of their textile suppliers.
That piqued Claude’s interest. He’d met the old man who ran Gloucester Incorporated, and he hadn’t liked him. He’d kept a smile on his face, of course, but the man had looked down his nose at Claude. He’d clearly been displeased to see a sudden Riegan heir, and Claude would bet that was because he was the most obvious choice for a successor if none had been found.
And it seemed now that there was more than just that to take into consideration.
He considered for a moment. Gloucester surely kept some files hidden - they all did. Claude wanted a deep dive, he wanted everything, and he could probably crack their security with some work. But why go to the trouble when there was an easier way?
He grinned and tapped his screen, scrolling through the contacts until he got to the one that read Purebred. He tapped the call button.
“Hey, Lorenz,” Claude said, grinning as the call popped up on his viewscreen. Lorenz was frowning, as he always seemed to be when they spoke.
“Claude,” he said. “It’s nearly midnight.” He narrowed his eyes, squinting at the room behind Claude. “Are you still at the office?”
Was it really that late? Claude glanced at the time. Huh. He’d gotten a little too caught up in his research. Oh well - in this case, that would work in his favor.
“Yeah.” Claude said, easy and casual. “My grandfather wanted me to go over our financials, you know? And everything was going great, but…” He drew it out, biting his lip as if he was embarrassed.
“What did you do this time?” Lorenz said, frowning even more severely. He was so easy. Claude had to struggle not to laugh.
“I put in my password wrong and accidentally got locked out of the database. IT’s gone home already, so they can’t reset it… I’m seriously almost done, I just need to look at your profits from last quarter. Think you could log me in?”
Lorenz sighed, a long-suffering thing. Claude had heard it before. It always made him smile. “Really, Claude? I know they advise against it, but until you’ve memorized all your passwords you simply ought to write them down. That way you wouldn’t get into trouble like this.”
“You’ve got a good point,” Claude said. He tucked that little bit of knowledge away just in case he needed it someday - Lorenz’s idea of security was questionable at best. Meanwhile, of course Claude had memorized all his passwords. He had an algorithm that made them nearly impossible to crack, and in addition to that made certain they were never anywhere anyone else could get at without some serious work. Preferably in his head.
It was basic stuff, but he guessed Lorenz had never really needed to worry about things like that.
“I’ll help you out this time,” Lorenz said, that lofty tone in his voice, a nobleman doing some dirty upstart commoner a favor. Claude had rapidly become familiar with that, too. As the future heir to one of the largest companies under the Leicester umbrella and its soon-to-be CEO, they’d seen quite a bit of each other over the past few months. “I’ll log you in remotely. Do not forget to log out when you’re finished.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Claude said, and it was as easy as that. He’d have to work on security, really, if he was going to be the one in charge of all this someday. But for now -
For now, Lorenz’s account gave him full access to the Gloucester databases. He set his bots searching, got another cup of coffee, and settled in.
Claude had always been good at patterns and puzzles. It was what made him so good at this - breaking into someone’s system was really just a big puzzle. Half the time the solution involved exactly what he’d just done: finding the right human-shaped weakness. The rest was all coding and patience and creativity.
And a certain moral flexibility, of course.
Claude searched for all mentions of himself. Much of it was uncomplimentary, but it didn’t bother him. It wasn’t as if he expected to stumble across a plot against him - Gloucester wasn’t that stupid.
And that was why he was looking for something else as well, something much harder to put a finger on: empty spaces. Deleted files, things that should be there and weren’t. What wasn’t there could tell him almost as much as what was.
When he began to find those missing spaces, his curiosity started to grow. It was intuition more than anything - the sense that there was something big just out of sight. Claude knew better than to ignore that feeling. It had kept him alive more than once.
Slowly, he put the pieces together. There were just enough traces to finally see the shape of what was missing.
Gloucester had been in semi-regular contact with one of their competitors, the Adrestia Corporation. That wasn’t anything of note - all the megacorps were in contact with one another, trading information and resources, watching for weaknesses, waiting for a chance to strike. But there were old emails missing, emails from almost five years ago.
Had there been a deal made? Had Gloucester sold out Leicester, or one of the companies under its umbrella? If so, that was a long game to play. Adrestia hadn’t made any moves against Leicester in the past five years, as far as Claude knew. They hadn’t openly made a move against anyone.
But something was pricking at the back of his mind, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
He dug deeper.
It was hard to really permanently delete anything, not unless you knew what you were doing. It was especially hard to delete traces of emails from your official company servers, which always had backups. So Claude found it relatively easy to retrieve copies of at least some of those missing emails.
It seemed like Gloucester knew enough not to send anything too dangerous from his company email, which was honestly more than Claude had expected. There was nothing incriminating, not quite, but -
There were emails between Adrestia and Gloucester, coming from a name Claude recognized. Volkhard von Arundel, long-time strategic advisor to the leaders of Adrestia - Claude hadn’t met him, but he’d seen his face on the feeds often enough.
And there was a third party, too. An outside email from a free provider - likely a throwaway address. That was what really got Claude’s interest - that, and the veiled references to something being ‘completed to our satisfaction.’
It wasn’t enough to actually mean anything, but now Claude’s curiosity was piqued. He’d taught himself to break into databases and get past security systems as a way to survive - the more information he had, the safer he would be. But he’d discovered quickly that it dovetailed perfectly with his desire to know more, to learn all that he could.
He logged off Lorenz’s account. He couldn’t do the rest from here. Riegan Holdings had top of the line systems, infinitely fast connections, and elite private security - but it would be far too easy to track him, and if Claude’s intuition was correct, this might be something big.
He could be wrong. He’d been wrong before.
He didn’t think he was this time.
Getting to his safehouse turned out to be the most tedious part. Since accepting his position as the CEO’s successor, Claude’s grandfather had insisted he have their private security forces on him at all times in case of an assassin. It was smart, Claude knew, but to him it felt stifling. He’d always been able to move freely before, and the large men in dark suits who followed him everywhere were really cramping his style.
Claude had a long history of taking care of himself, and mostly preferred that, but in this new position there were more eyes on him. He couldn’t just dismiss his security detail and walk out of the office - especially not in the middle of the night. So he let the intimidating black-clad folks call him a car, and then accompany him in that car, and then walk him to the door of the fancy high-rise he now lived in. Trying to talk them into not accompanying him all the way upstairs to the ridiculous penthouse apartment his grandfather had housed him in was a trial, but as much as they were paid to be immoveable objects, Claude had spent his life learning how to be an unstoppable force.
He charmed them, and reminded them that the place had its own security force, and promised them that if someone crept in and killed him while he slept then he’d make sure they didn’t take the blame, really. It was exhausting, but in the end they left, entrusting Claude’s safety to the probably less well-trained and well-paid high-rise security force. After that it was easy to simply slip out one of the service entrances. He went upstairs only long enough to trade his fancy businessman costume for something more unobtrusive. He didn’t spend that much time in the penthouse normally, only stopping there to sleep from time to time.
His grandfather had placed a tracker on him during his medical screening back when they’d first met, of course, and Claude had found it ages ago. It was a boon, really - all he’d had to do was hack in, and then he could make it say he was anywhere at all. No doubt the bodyguards had access to it as well, for his ‘safety’. As long as it said he was upstairs, browsing the feeds or sleeping or doing whatever the idle rich normally did, he’d have plenty of time to do what needed to be done.
And so he did.
He’d known he’d need somewhere totally unconnected to ‘Claude von Riegan’ in order to get any real work done, and so he’d found a run-down apartment in the slums and set it up as a safehouse. It was unremarkable, one of many, down a wet and dark alleyway lit by neon signs high above. His neighbors sold designer drug knockoffs and were in and out at all hours, and that was perfect. No one would look for him here.
It wasn’t the scummiest part of the city. It was just where all the unwanted folks without dangerous dreams ended up, all the people who slid under society’s radar and wanted to keep it that way. Claude had always fit right in in those sorts of places
He had a respectable setup in that small apartment. It had nothing on Riegan tech, of course, but it was as untraceable as he could make it, and it did its job. He settled in, checking the time briefly. It was late, but since he wouldn’t be expected in the office tomorrow - it was a weekend - he could safely spend as much time as he needed here. Set up a few food deliveries to his penthouse, maybe swing by to show his face, and no one would ever know he’d been gone.
Still, what a hassle. Claude briefly let himself miss the freedom he’d had back in Almyra. He’d been able to roam at will there, the palace security long since having given up on him - those that wouldn’t have been happy to see him dead. He’d gone wherever he liked, met all kinds of people. Perhaps eventually he’d have that freedom back.
For now, though, he started to dig.
He started with the mystery email, the throwaway account that had been in contact with Gloucester. It wasn’t hard to break in, and he considered it a stroke of luck that the whole thing hadn’t been deleted. There wasn’t much there. It had clearly been set up to be used briefly and then abandoned. But it yielded more cryptic messages and more emails to access, and Claude let himself sink into the rhythm of it all.
He was good at this. He always had been. He’d been breaking into his brothers’ accounts since he was old enough to know he needed to look out for himself - since he figured out it was a lot safer if he saw them coming. It had been self-preservation at first, but then it became a hobby, even a way to relax.
Claude wanted knowledge, wanted information. In the process of getting it, he’d made a name for himself, one that had never been traced back to a lonely young Almyran prince. And now it would help him carve out a little bit of safety for himself, maybe.
It was a couple hours later in the depths of another throwaway email account that he saw the word Blaiddyd and felt a chill down his spine. Something clicked into place.
The fall of Blaiddyd Industries five years ago had been international news. Their headquarters had been attacked during an annual board meeting. Hundreds of lower-level employees had been killed and nearly every board member had been slaughtered. They’d had codes to disable the automatic defenses, and the Blaiddyd security forces had been utterly destroyed. Even now, no one knew who had commanded the force that took down the company. A tentative peace had reigned ever since, with every megacorp looking over their shoulder, wondering if they would be next.
Single assassinations were relatively normal. A murder here, a mysterious accident there - all for the sake of taking out a business rival or climbing the ranks. That was simply how things worked. But an entire megacorp wiped out in the space of a few hours?
No one had expected it. Except, apparently, whoever had been in contact with Gloucester.
It’s been completed to our satisfaction.
Sent the day after the Blaiddyd massacre, if Claude remembered right. He felt a chill go down his spine.
Blaiddyd still existed, albeit as a bare remnant of what it once had been. Cornelia Arnim, one of the only survivors, had taken over its operations, but she seemed uninterested in attempting to restore her company to its former glory. It was a cautionary tale, a mystery that people hadn’t bothered to try to solve, whether out of fear or simple greed.
Claude still didn’t know who the emails belonged to. None of them had been signed. Gloucester’s involvement seemed peripheral at best, though Claude would have to keep an eye on him. His only real lead, it seemed, was Volkhard von Arundel - and Adrestia.
His attempts to look into Arundel didn’t turn up much. The man was too smart for that, and short of breaking into Adrestia’s servers - which Claude had started to consider - he couldn’t find anything useful. To all appearances, Arundel was simply a wealthy businessman. Powerful, certainly, but not with the kind of influence that could utterly destroy a megacorp.
There was more to this, and Claude felt certain he was on the right track. Blaiddyd’s fall had benefited Adrestia, certainly, more than any other megacorp, but they’d never claimed responsibility. If Arundel had been part of orchestrating it, wouldn’t he have made it clear that it had been done in his name? What better way to send fear through every one of your possible opponents?
Deep in thought, Claude opened up the social media feeds. He typed in Edelgard von Hresvelg, and scrolled through the endless stream of photos and articles and speculation. He hadn’t met the president of Adrestia Corporation yet.
He could only get so much from her public appearances and the gossip that swirled around her. About his age, but she’d taken up her position a year or two before - notably after the Blaiddyd massacre. She was known to be uncompromising and had a good head for business. Under her leadership, Adrestia was doing well.
Did she know what pies Arundel seemed to have his fingers in?
Claude glanced at the time. Late, but not too late - the clubs would still be open. He opened his contacts and tapped on the one that read Princess. It rang for quite awhile before the call was picked up, video popping on to fill Claude’s small room with thumping background bass. If Claude squinted, he could almost tell which club she was in - Hilda had dragged him out to most of the ones popular with the rich kid set.
“Hey you,” she said, grinning into the camera, lipstick perfect and eyes blurry. She sounded like she’d had a few drinks, or maybe snorted something shiny. “Change your mind about coming out tonight?”
“Gotta pass,” Claude said with a grin. “I’ll make it up to you. But hey, I had a question. You know Edelgard, right?”
Hilda rolled her eyes. She had to speak loudly to be heard over the club’s music, so she made a point of sighing loudly, too. “Ugh, yes. Such a buzzkill. I used to run into her at all those boring parties our parents would force us to go to. You’re so lucky you missed out on all of that.”
Hilda seemed to know every company heir and rich young brat in the city. Claude had struck up a friendship with her almost immediately after arriving, and to his surprise it had turned out to be both useful and fun. She was smarter and more competent than she tried to appear, and she always seemed to know every bit of apparently inconsequential gossip. Claude adored her.
“What do you know about her?” It was a more straightforward question than Claude would have asked anyone else, but this was Hilda. She was happy to serve as an information source, so long as he didn’t ask her to do any actual work. She didn’t much care about his reasons for asking.
“Besides that she doesn’t know how to have a good time? Hmm.” Hilda picked up a drink nearly the same shade of pink as her hair, taking a sip while she thought. “She became president young, so she never ended up running with any particular crowd. Too busy with work. She’s pretty serious and determined. Honestly, I don’t have any good gossip on her, she never does anything scandalous. Or maybe she’s just really good at hiding it.”
So either a company president dedicated to her work, or someone really good at covering her tracks. Or maybe both. Claude thought it over.
“Did she have anything to do with the Blaiddyds?” It was a stab in the dark. Edelgard had certainly known them - all the rich families knew each other - but it felt like there had to be something more there.
Hilda blinked at him in surprise. “Oh, wow. That’s super old stuff, you know?”
Five years was an eternity in the land of capitalist billionaire gossip, Claude knew, but - “It hasn’t been that long since they were around.”
“No, no. That’s not what I meant.” Hilda leaned in, just the way she would have if they’d been together in person and she had a secret. “Before that, like years before, there was this big rumor about Edelgard’s mom having an affair. With Lambert Blaiddyd.” She eyed him, almost suspicious. “Did you hear that somewhere? That’s like ancient history. Everyone stopped talking about it after, well, you know.”
Claude grinned, though all he felt in that moment was the frustration of thwarted curiosity. How did the pieces fit together? It felt like it was just out of his reach. Edelgard was connected to the Blaiddyds - so had she been involved in the massacre? Maybe out of some kind of revenge for her mother? She would have been young, but Claude knew better than to make snap judgments based on age. Or maybe her mother had been the one involved? He didn’t know. Couldn’t know.
There was really only one person who did.
“Thanks, Hilda. I don’t know, maybe I did hear it somewhere? Anyway, I owe you one.”
Hilda rolled her eyes, letting just the hint of a smile through. “Fine, whatever. I don’t care about your weird schemes, and if Edelgard’s involved, I definitely don’t want the details. But you do owe me! I’m making you come out with me sometime soon. You know how much free stuff clubs will give us just to have the Leicester CEO show up?”
“I’m not the CEO yet,” Claude said, “and don’t they give you a ton of free stuff anyway? But all right. Next time you call, I’ll come.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Hilda said with a sugary smile. “Now go back to your world domination plans or whatever. I have a drink to finish and at least five hotties to dance with.” She blew him a kiss and closed the connection.
Claude sat in silence for a long moment, planning his next move. Then he opened one of his own throwaway email accounts and started typing.
You don’t have to come alone, but don’t bring anyone you don’t trust.
It was that line that had decided Edelgard. The rest of the anonymous email had piqued her interest - mentions of the fall of Blaiddyd Industries, a reference to some information that had been uncovered - but she hadn’t been sure what to make of it. She didn’t know how much the sender knew, or thought they knew, and her mind first went to blackmail or some kind of trap.
But Edelgard had received those sorts of messages before. There was always some kind of veiled threat, a promise that if she didn’t do what was asked she would pay in some way. Generally, Edelgard simply forwarded them on to Hubert and let him deal with it.
This one, though, felt different. It asked for only a meeting in a busy cafe - somewhere public, where the threat was minimal. It told her she could bring backup. And if the person who’d sent the email really had information about the Blaiddyds… well, Edelgard couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
And so there she was, across the street from the cafe, minutes before the requested meeting time. It wasn’t far from Adrestia’s headquarters in the business district, on the intersection of two busy streets, the area clean and well-patrolled by the private security employed by the nearby megacorps. If this person had meant Edelgard harm, she imagined they would have chosen somewhere in the lower city, the districts where security rarely stepped foot. Somewhere people could easily disappear.
But this cafe was nothing like that. In fact, she was pretty sure it was where Ferdinand picked up pastries before their meetings sometimes.
“Yellow jacket,” Byleth murmured. Edelgard’s personal bodyguard stood next to her, eyes also on the cafe. “In the back corner.”
She had sharp eyes. Edelgard could barely make out the person she was referring to, their figure obscured by the people coming in and out. “Just keep an eye on their hands while we’re in there.” It was a safe meeting place. That didn’t mean they couldn’t be planning something.
“Yes,” Byleth said. Brief and businesslike. She hadn’t needed the reminder - Edelgard felt a little foolish for saying anything at all. This was Byleth’s job. She’d foiled no less than four attempts on Edelgard’s life since Edelgard had taken the position of president. She was competent and talented, and there were few that Edelgard trusted more.
When she’d read don’t bring anyone you don’t trust, Byleth was the first person who had come to mind.
She had thought of bringing Hubert as well, but as intelligent and talented as he was, he was only passable with guns and absolutely abysmal at hand-to-hand. His skills lay elsewhere, in the computer systems that he ran and the research he oversaw. He knew about the meeting, and was tracking her position through the GPS chip in her wrist implant. If she got anything at all from this meeting, they would take it apart later and he would likely make connections she would not even have considered.
But for something like this, a face-to-face meeting with an unknown, Byleth was who she wanted at her side.
It was time. Edelgard considered making the stranger wait - it was a move common among executives, exerting your power in a small way, knowing that they would have no choice but to wait for you. But she rarely indulged in such displays, and doing it when there was so much unknown could be foolish.
Instead she crossed the street, Byleth following close behind, and entered the cafe.
The person in the dull yellow jacket had secured a small table for themselves. Only two chairs, but she knew that Byleth would prefer to remain standing anyway in case sudden movement was required. Edelgard did not waste time. She made her way over to the table and sat across from the person she was meeting.
“Hello,” he said with a smile. “Right on time!”
For a moment, Edelgard was taken aback. That smile, those eyes - where had she seen them before? Then it came to her, the flash of a memory, and her brows drew down.
“Claude von Riegan,” she said.
They had not met, though it was inevitable that they would - Leicester and Adrestia were the two biggest companies in the city now. In the country, in fact. It was only a matter of time before they’d find themselves at fundraisers and society parties together, or looking at each other across a boardroom table.
And Claude had made a splash when he arrived in Fódlan, the previously unknown grandson and heir to one of the most powerful megacorps in existence. Edelgard had seen this face in the tabloids, the newsfeeds, social media. She’d seen it in the report Hubert had prepared for her, which had contained shockingly little information.
He looked different in person. No, that wasn’t quite it - he had the same smile, the same sharp eyes. It was the clothes he was wearing that made him look different. In the photos she’d seen, he’d always been in a suit that was just barely on the tasteful side of flashy. He stood upright, casual but straight, and his smile seemed to promise the world.
The man across the table from her wore street clothes. The cafe had a mix of patrons, so his outfit didn’t stand out, but no one would ever wear clothes like that inside one of their offices. His smile, when he looked like this, seemed to promise nothing but secrets.
“Edelgard von Hresvelg,” he said, matching her tone. His grin hadn’t gone away. “Sorry, I didn’t know what you might want. Bergamot okay?”
She glanced down at the cup he pushed towards her, narrowing her eyes. Bergamot was one of her favorite blends. Either he’d known that and was lying, or he was very lucky. She wasn’t sure which was more likely.
His gaze flickered up to Byleth. Clearly taking note, cataloging her as a bodyguard, and - well, normally bodyguards were treated as furniture. Ignored, unless they were needed to do their jobs. But Claude tapped the other cup he was holding and said, “I didn’t know if anyone else would be coming, so I didn’t get anything. But you can have mine if you want.”
Byleth blinked. Her face did not move, but Edelgard knew her well enough to see the surprise there. “No thank you.”
“Your call,” he said, and looked between them, taking a sip of the drink Byleth had refused.
“Why are we here?” Edelgard said. She tapped her wrist implant, bringing up her schedule. “I have a conference call with a Dagdan textile company in twenty minutes. If this is some kind of joke -“
“It isn’t.” Claude still smiled, but there was something serious about his eyes, something dark that she’d never seen in any pictures of him. “I’ve been going through our files. I found some interesting things - like a trail of breadcrumbs that led me to your door.”
The cafe around them was loud enough to offer some privacy, but Edelgard inclined her head, knowing Byleth would catch the movement. Her bodyguard would activate the jammer she carried, keeping them from being recorded.
If Claude had any sense, he had one of his own, but Edelgard wasn’t sure what to expect from him yet.
“You mentioned the Blaiddyds.” She was uncertain about revealing her interest in the fallen family so soon, but merely showing up had been enough to do that. It was pointless to pussyfoot around.
“Yes,” Claude said. “Well, let’s get right to it, then. I have reason to believe that someone within Adrestia - maybe multiple someones - were responsible for the destruction of Blaiddyd Industries.”
At their table, a brittle silence fell, while around them the cafe hummed with the business of living.
She knew that, of course. Edelgard had known that for some time, and she’d been watching her back ever since. They’d had to be careful, so careful, while investigating it. And even now, as certain as she was, Hubert had been unable to deliver her anything she could act on.
But how had Claude found out? And why had he come to her?
“Do you think it was me?”
She watched his face as he considered the question, but couldn’t read anything useful from it. She didn’t know him well enough, and it was clear he was used to hiding his thoughts.
“Not really,” he said finally. “Don’t get me wrong - I think it’s possible. You are in charge of Adrestia, so it’s hard to believe something like this could have happened without your knowledge.” He leaned in, smiling, and Edelgard felt Byleth tense next to her. “You were just the heir then, though, so I think it’s more likely that you weren’t involved.” A pause. “But you know something about it.”
What had given her away? Nothing, probably. He was guessing, based on whatever he’d learned.
But he was right.
“And if I do? Is this an attempt at blackmail? Because you have no proof, and I can promise you won’t get anything out of it.” She kept her voice cold and hard, and in return she saw him smile. Annoying.
“No way, I’m not that stupid. If I had blackmail on you I definitely wouldn’t set up an in-person meeting.” He leaned in, lowering his voice a little. “Mostly I’m curious. The Blaiddyd massacre has been a mystery for years, and I’d love to get to the bottom of it.” Then he paused for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was colder, his smile sharp as a blade. “And it seems that someone in my organization may have been involved. Peripherally, I hope, but I’m sure you understand that when my grandfather steps down I fully intend to clean house.”
Edelgard did understand. It was the first thing Claude had said that she understood unreservedly. After all, she had done the same.
They’d expected her to be a figurehead like her father had been. Instead, with some help, she had torn power from the hands of the board and installed her own people there - Ferdinand taking his father’s seat after a timely reveal of his embezzlement, Hubert taking the seat that had belonged to the Vestras for years after his own father suffered an unfortunate accident.
But she hadn’t done it alone. And she had known even then that there would be a price to pay - one that she was not willing to give. One that would be to the detriment of the entire city, or more.
Perhaps Claude von Riegan could help with that.
She took stock of the man across the table from her, considered her options, and made a decision. “There is someone operating behind the scenes. A group.”
Claude’s eyes lit up, but he said nothing, waiting for more.
“I’ve been aware of them for some time, and I’ve had someone looking into them as well. We’ve found traces, but nothing solid. Nothing we can use to take action.” That wasn’t the full truth, but Claude didn’t need to know that Edelgard had accepted their help, that she knew her uncle was one of them. That really, she hadn’t had much of a choice. Either he would come to that conclusion on his own or he wouldn’t, but she wasn’t going to hand it to him.
“We should work together,” Claude said. “If they destroyed Blaiddyd, they’re a threat to us as well.”
Edelgard had realized that long ago, too. Whoever they really were, she had only been meant to be a pawn. Likely if they learned she was looking into them they would strike against her next. Hubert had been forced to be incredibly careful in his investigation. But if Claude was the one looking -
She nodded, quick and decisive. “Yes. You seem to have access to resources I don’t. It only makes sense that we combine our efforts. I’ll have Hubert send you his data.”
“And I’ll share what I have,” Claude said with a smile. They would both hold things back, but that didn’t matter. This was something. This was more than she’d had before. “There’s really nothing to work with?”
Edelgard considered. “Not nothing. Just nothing we can get to. Our information points to Blaiddyd - or the remnants of it. Cornelia Arnim is, without a doubt, working with this group, and as you know she has taken control of all that’s left of Blaiddyd Industries. We’ve gotten everything we can, but we believe she’s holding more information in the Blaiddyd vaults. There’s no way to get in there.”
“No way?” Claude looked unconvinced. “There’s always a way in.”
“The only person with access to the vaults is Cornelia. One of Blaiddyd’s products was extremely high-security DNA locks. Unhackable even now, and it was keyed to only board members. Cornelia is the only one left.”
“Only board members?” Claude said, tapping the top of his tea. “So all the Blaiddyds too, then.”
“Yes,” Edelgard said, and ignored the pang of regret that went through her. “But they’re all dead.”
“Sure,” said Claude. “But their DNA might still be around. Frozen eggs, blood donations, medical waste…”
“That all gets destroyed.”
“Not necessarily.” Claude was thinking hard, it was clear in his eyes. “Especially for people that high profile. You can make a buck off of anything these days.”
Edelgard wasn’t sure how Claude knew this. What an odd person. “What are you saying?”
“Just that it might not be impossible.” Claude smiled suddenly. “Do you trust me?”
“Absolutely not.”
He started to laugh. “Good. Well, give me a little time anyway and I’ll see what I can dig up.”
Edelgard hesitated for a moment, then nodded. It wasn’t as if she would lose anything by doing so, and if Claude really could find out more it would be more than worth it. She and Hubert had run up against a wall, unable to learn more, all their avenues exhausted. If Claude von Riegan was their best opportunity to dig deeper, she was going to take advantage of it.
“Can I contact you through the same email address?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’ll get in contact with you again soon, but if you need me before then - well, better to use that address than my business one.” He grinned and stood, taking his cup of tea with him. “Sounds like I’ve got some work ahead of me. It was nice to finally meet you, Edelgard.” Claude nodded at Byleth, altogether too casual, and left them in the cafe.
Edelgard watched him go, watched the easy way he moved and the smile he tossed at the cafe employees. He wasn’t really like she’d thought he would be at all. He wasn’t at all like his serious, business-minded grandfather, who Edelgard had met plenty of times. She wondered for a moment what Leicester would be like under Claude’s leadership. As the new generation of heirs took power, things were changing.
If only Dimitri had gotten his chance, too, she thought, and then banished that, swallowing down her regret.
“What do you think of him?” she asked, looking up at Byleth, who had also watched Claude leave. Who had been watching Claude steadily throughout the conversation, no trace of her thoughts visible on her face.
Byleth didn’t answer immediately, thinking it over. “He’s clever. He tries to act untrustworthy, but I don’t believe he’s any danger.” She paused. “He came here alone. No bodyguard. I think he had a weapon on him, but if so he didn’t touch it. He seemed to trust that we wouldn’t hurt him, at least.”
“A gamble,” Edelgard said. But she trusted Byleth’s assessment - she trusted her bodyguard more than nearly anyone living. If she thought Claude wasn’t setting up some sort of elaborate trap, Edelgard would believe her. “Well, let’s see what he brings us. This should be interesting.”