I Reincarnated as a Prince Who Revolutionized the Kingdom-Chapter 164: Espionage

The capital of Orosk, was cold even in spring. Snow lined the rooftops in thin crusts, and the rivers still carried fragments of ice drifting like slow knives. Inside the dim halls of the Ministry of External Affairs, the temperature was warmer—but only barely.

Lord Pavel Orlov, Director of the Oroskan Intelligence Bureau, lit a cigarette with shaking fingers and leaned over a table covered in sketches, notes, and a single grainy photograph.

It was a photo of the Hawkfire.

Taken from over a mile away, the image was blurred at the edges, but unmistakable. The swept wings, the twin-engine mount, the impossible silhouette of a machine meant for the heavens. And yet—it had flown. The agent who captured the photo hadn't returned.

Across from Orlov, a woman in a fur-lined coat sat with her legs crossed, eyes scanning the image with slow calculation.

"So it's true," she murmured in a clipped accent. "Elysea has broken the air."

"They didn't just break it," Orlov growled. "They've claimed it."

The woman—Eliska Weiss, chief spymaster of the Kingdom of Germania—tilted her head. "And we allowed them to."

"You didn't allow anything," Orlov spat. "You let your diplomats giggle and gossip while Elysea built a war machine. My man died getting this photo. Don't lecture me about vigilance."

She smirked. "Oh Pavel. You and I both know the real war hasn't started yet. But it will. And we won't be the ones starting it."

Orlov flicked ash into a tray. "Then we move now. I want a team in Elysee before the month's end. No diplomats. No fools in uniform. Trained eyes. Trained hands. We don't steal the plane—we steal how it thinks."

Weiss nodded. "I'll provide the linguists and handlers. You supply the muscle. And in return, Germania gets a full copy of the Hawkfire's schematics."

Orlov narrowed his eyes. "You'll get what we find. But if your people botch this—"

"They won't."

Across the table, the two clasped hands, sealing an unspoken alliance forged not by loyalty—but by necessity.

In Elysee, the mood had changed.

Though the public knew nothing of the Hawkfire, the inner circles buzzed with hushed voices. The Royal Aeromechanical Division tripled their guards. Foundry One was now under direct military jurisdiction, with only numbered passes and biometric markers granting entry.

But secrecy bred curiosity.

And curiosity, when left unchecked, invited the wrong kind of visitors.

The two agents arrived under different names, through different ports.

The first—an Oroskan man in his thirties—entered through the southern merchant coast, disguised as a mapmaker's apprentice from Astare. He spoke Elysean with a faint provincial accent and carried forged documents listing his assignment to a new infrastructure survey.

He called himself "Darin."

The second—Germanian—was a woman in her late twenties with auburn hair and freckled skin. She entered through the capital by rail, posing as a traveling translator hired by a minor publishing house. Her credentials were impeccable.

Her name, at least to Elyseans, was "Marta Kess."

They did not meet. Not directly. But their handlers had given them the same objective: infiltrate Port-Luthair.

Bruno sat in his office overlooking the courtyard of the Royal College. Piles of scrolls and stamped reports cluttered his desk, most of them concerned with supply chains and refinery output. Not one of them mentioned espionage.

But his instincts were louder than paper.

He stood and walked to the far cabinet, unlocking a drawer that hadn't been opened in months. From within, he retrieved a single folder—black and sealed with his personal wax emblem. It bore a simple label:

"Athenaeum: Counterintelligence Initiative"

Bruno placed the folder on his desk and opened it.

It was time.

In Port-Luthair, Marta had already secured a room at a modest inn overlooking the sea. From her window, she could just barely see the tips of the hangars on clear days. She made her way through the port daily, carrying a notebook and muttering in different languages—Germanic, Astaran, even coded Elysean gibberish—just enough to pass as eccentric but forgettable.

She took note of guard routines, flight schedules, and which soldiers took their lunch in silence versus which ones spoke after too much ale.

She never asked questions.

She only listened.

And one evening, she followed a lieutenant drunk on plum wine down a back alley. He talked too much. She took just enough from him—names, codes, a rough sketch of the airfield perimeter—before letting him stumble back toward the tavern, none the wiser.

Darin had found employment with a civil survey unit. It took less than a week for him to gain access to topographic records of the coastline surrounding Port-Luthair. He spent most of his days drawing elevation lines and recording wind patterns, but what truly mattered were the pages he kept hidden.

Runway angles.

Fuel depot locations.

Hangar layouts.

Twice, he slipped away under the guise of cartographic "revision scouting," only to return with rough sketches of secondary tunnels and lesser-used access roads.

Each night, he encoded his notes in a cipher keyed to ancient sea charts and mailed them back to Velmir hidden within architectural scrolls.

Neither Marta nor Darin knew of each other's presence. And yet, both slowly chiseled at the edges of Elysea's greatest secret.

Rena, the young assistant engineer, had begun to notice things.

Tools moved without being signed for.

Supply manifests adjusted themselves after delivery.

And once, she spotted a stranger in the market asking questions about "military fuel grades"—questions no commoner had reason to ask.

She told Hartwell. Hartwell told Amalia. And by the end of the week, Bruno was at Port-Luthair in person.

He didn't arrive with fanfare. He wore no crown. Just a travel cloak, dusty boots, and sharp eyes.

He met with Amalia and Hartwell in a sealed office within Hangar Two.

"We've sprung a leak," he said.

Amalia crossed her arms. "You suspect spies?"

"I don't suspect," Bruno said. "I know."

Hartwell rubbed his temples. "We've locked down everything. Hell, we even count spoons in the mess hall."

"Good," Bruno replied. "Then it'll be easier to find the ones who don't belong."

He produced the Athenaeum file and laid it open on the table. Inside were profiles, techniques, and counter-espionage protocols.

Bruno pointed to a section marked "Passive Detection."

"Start listening to what isn't being said. Who never asks questions they should? Who's always in the right place, but never has dirt under their nails?"

Amalia's expression sharpened. "You're activating the network?"

Bruno nodded once. "We built it for this. It's time to use it."

The next week saw small changes.

The taverns had new bartenders.

The postal clerks looked a little more attentive.

And a wandering violinist in the port market seemed to linger longer near groups of off-duty soldiers.

But none of them were what they seemed.

The Athenaeum Network had been born years ago, back when Bruno first ascended the throne. He had known then that war wouldn't always come with banners and cannon fire. It would come in whispers. In keys. In shadows. And so he built a shadow to match it.

The net was cast wide.

And it began to tighten.

One night, Marta returned to her room to find the window latch disturbed.

Nothing missing. Nothing obviously touched.

But the air felt… different.

She froze.

On the inside of her travel case, someone had scratched a single word into the leather.

"Watched."

She burned all her notes that night and prepared to leave.

But she never made it to the rail station.

Darin was caught near a restricted access gate, claiming to be collecting wind speed data.

The guards didn't question him. They simply smiled and escorted him back to the barracks.

The next morning, his belongings were gone. No one remembered him checking in.

Not officially.

Bruno stood in the debriefing chamber deep beneath the capital.

Amalia stood beside him, arms folded. Hartwell was still at Port-Luthair.

Two captured operatives. Dozens of intercepted messages. Several new cipher keys now under Elysean control.

"I doubt they sent their best," Leclerc muttered. "This was a probe."

Bruno nodded. "And they got pricked."

He turned to the intelligence officers present.

"Send word to Orosk and Germania," he said. "Nothing formal. Just… a whisper."

"A whisper of what, Your Majesty?" one asked.

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Bruno looked toward the firelight dancing across the wall.

"Let them know that the sky is no longer empty."

"And neither is our patience."

As the agents were quietly disappeared into holding cells buried beneath Elysee's deepest vaults, the message was already traveling—carried not by courier, but by rumor. Whispers in trade halls. Glances exchanged between foreign envoys. A coded phrase etched into a merchant manifest bound for Velmir.

"The hawk watches now."

In the icy halls of Orosk and the granite towers of Germania, generals and ministers would wake to silence in their telegrams—and a chill deeper than winter.

Elysea had seen their reach.

And answered.

Far above, a lone Hawkfire soared over the cliffs, her engine humming softly.

Waiting.

Watching.

Daring.