Chapter 269
Elara’s POV
“Unlock the archive. I want the second drawer.”
The clerk fumbled with the keys. Dust lifted when the oak slid open. Old parchment. Rope seal. A tiny brass locket set on top like someone wanted me to find it. I did not touch the locket. I took the letter.
Vessa stood at my shoulder, quiet. Mira held the doorway with a shield and a stare. The archive smelled of oil and dry ink. Far off, hammers clicked on the yard wall.
“Whose hand,” Vessa asked.
I tilted the page to the light. The strokes were neat. The edges were pressed with a thin weave I knew. “My mother’s.”
Silence folded around us. I read.
If you are reading this, he has lied to you already.
My throat tightened. I kept going.
They came when your father was still strong. Not with blades. With numbers. With debts that were never ours. With maps that showed floods that never came. They told him our name would carry if he signed their paper. That is how they get in. Not with war. With ledgers. When I begged him to stop, they sent a man who smelled of bitter oil. He said we had a daughter who liked to stand stubborn in doorways. He said he could
teach her to bow.
Mira glanced back. “Seed oil,” she said. “Same stink as the heel needle.”
I kept my eyes on the lines.
When your father refused, they forged his answer. They wrote in his hand. They wrote letters to packs he never met. They traded our crops on paper until the barns were empty. When the men came to collect, they said his word was bond. He bled for a promise he never made. I tried to burn their book. The man with the reversed wolf on his ring smiled and told me fire makes ink honest,
A ring, Reversed wolf. Not Cael’s seal. Not any we carried. I turned the page,
If you ever sit where he sat, remember this. They do not need to kill a leader to end him. They only need to make his people believe he sold them first. If they come to you with a ledger, break their hand before you read it. I will hide this where stubborn daughters look first, not last. In the drawer I could never keep you from opening.
The script stopped. The rest was blank. My hand shook once. I folded the page and slid it into my jacket. I looked at the locket. I still did not touch it.
Vessa’s voice was soft. “Say what you need.”
“I am done letting strangers write our promises,” I said.
Chapter 269
A shadow crossed the glass of the archive door. Quick. Light. Mira’s stance changed.
“Hold,” I said.
55 vouchers
The door opened a finger’s width. A clerk’s cap peeked in. The boy we used for ink runs. He smiled too fast. “Message for the Gamma.”
“Who sent you,” Mira asked.
“The bronze room,” he said.
Vessa moved. The boy’s hand flashed. A thin blade snapped from the reed pen and darted for my side. I twisted. The point grazed leather. Mira slammed the shield into his wrist. The blade skittered. He rolled under the desk, fast and trained. The locket toppled and spun.
“Alive,” I said.
He kicked a stool into Mira’s shin and lunged for my legs. I stepped aside and caught his collar. The pen blade folded and tried for my rib again. Vessa’s boot pinned his hand. The blade bit wood.
He hissed and spat bright on the floor. “She said this would be easy.”
“Stand him up,” I said. “Careful of the other hand.”
Mira twisted his arm and locked it. Vessa took the pen, then the second, smaller sting hidden in his sleeve seam. She raised a brow. “Both hands carried poison.”
“Who packed you,” I asked.
He laughed. “Ask the Luna who sleeps on stone.”
“Miela,” Vessa said.
He smiled wider. “Your pet queen.”
I stepped close until he could not look anywhere but up. “Say the words she used.”
He swallowed. “Tell the Gamma her mother liked letters. See if she likes knives.”
“Cute,” Mira said. “Try again.”
He tried to buck free. Vessa’s elbow made a point against his ribs. The fight went out of him,
I took the pen blade, turned it, and pressed it against the table top. The metal left a smear the color of old almonds. I wiped it with cloth and handed the cloth to Mira.
“Check for resin,” I said.
Mira sniffed. “Wolfsbane dust. A trace only.”
The boy’s eyes flicked to the locket. He masked it, but not fast enough.
Wed, Sep
Chapter 269
87
55 vouchers
I picked the locket up. It was warm from sun long gone. I opened it. A pressed sprig of something silver, long dead, lay inside. Not wolfsbane. Lavender. A smear of dried ink marked the hinge. The same weave as the letter. My mother’s.
I closed it and slid it into the same pocket as the letter. “Take him to the inner cells,” I said. “No visitors. No water until he gives a name that is not hers.”
He snarled. “You talk like you have time.”
“I make time,” I said. “You will learn that when your mouth is dry.”
Mira moved him toward the door. He twisted once more and spat the last thing men say when they think they are brave. “She promised you would bleed before noon.”
“Look at the sun,” Vessa said. “Noon left without you.”
They dragged him into the corridor. I exhaled once and set my palms on the desk. The letter burned through my coat like it could light the archive.
Vessa watched me and did not speak. She had learned the weight of quiet. I learned with her. I let the space hold until my heart stopped throwing itself at my ribs. Then I stood straighter and used the weight.
“Eden,” I said into my bead. “To the archive. Bring a clean kit and two readers. I want the ink tested and the hand matched.”
“On my way,” he said.
I looked at Vessa. “Find who cleared that boy for the bronze corridor.”
“On it,” she said. “If it was a clerk, he will be missing and nervous. If it was an officer, he will be present and too calm.”
“Start with calm,” I said.
We left the archive. The corridor felt thinner. Guards passed with crates. A runner jogged by with a sealed tube. I took it from his hand and pressed two fingers to the wax. No crest. Clean fold.
“Source,” I asked.
“Outer gate,” he said. “Courier dropped it, then ran into trees. We did not follow. Orders.”
“Good,” I said. I broke the seal and slid the paper free. Four lines. No signature.
—
Your numbers are wrong.
-Your wells drink lies.
-Your walls listen.
–
Ask the girl with bare feet.
11:51 Wed, Sep 24
Chapter 269
Vessa’s eyes narrowed. “Her again.”
“She never stopped,” I said. “She only learned to speak from a chair.”
Mira’s voice crackled in my bead. “Inner cells locked. Boy is down to jokes. I have time.”
“Make him use it,” I said.
55 vouchers
Eden arrived at a run with two readers and a case. He took the letter from my pocket like it was a live coal. He did not touch the new note. “Mother’s hand,” he said, scanning the first lines. “No question.”
“Test the ink anyway,” I said. “If they once forged my father, I will not let them forge her.”
He nodded. “Give me an hour.”
“You have half,” I said. “We move at the bell.”
He paused. “What bell.”
“The one I ring when I am done being polite,” I said.
Thorne stepped in from the far end, as if the corridor made room for him. He looked at the pen blade in Vessa’s palm, the note in Eden’s, my hands, then my face. “Alive,” he asked.
“Alive,” I said. “And busy.”
His shoulders dropped a line. “Good. Say what you need.”
“Lock the bronze level tighter. Two she–wolves at the door. Rotate every hour. No men in that hall until I say.”
“Done,” he said. “And your mother.”
“Wrote a warning,” I said. “They did not cut my father with steel. They used paper and rumor until he bled alone.”
Thorne’s jaw worked. “We do not let them write us.”
“We break their pens,” I said.
He looked at the tube in my hand. “Another taunt.”
“Another mirror,” I said. “They want us to look at Miela when we should be looking at the hand behind her.”
“Then skip her,” he said. “Go for the hand.”
“I will,” I said. “But first I close her mouth.”
We turned for the bronze corridor. Two guards stiffened when we approached. Vessa checked their badges
and their boots. She did not smile.
Inside, the air ran cool. The bronze room sat like a cave. Miela heard us before she saw us. Her voice came
Chapter 269
55 vouchers
sharp. “Came to beg.”
I did not step inside. I stood at the door and let my voice carry clean. “You sent a boy with wolfsbane on his sleeve. Clever. Next time send a wolf.”
She laughed. “Next time I will send myself.”
“Try it,” I said.
She moved into the slit of light, hair neat, ring on her finger. Her eyes flicked to Thorne. “You think she can keep you safe from men who have rings he cannot afford.”
He did not answer her. He spoke to me. “End this.”
“Soon,” I said. “After I use her.”
Miela leaned against the wall like a lady at a feast. “You have always used people, Elara. You use him. You use your brother. That is why I will win. I offer freedom. You offer orders.”
I watched her mouth and not her words. Her lower lip pulled tight when she lied. It pulled now. She looked calm. She was not. Good.
“Keep talking to your stone,” I said. “I will talk to the ones who move.”
I turned away. Thorne followed. Vessa closed the small window with a click. The hall felt lighter when Miela’s voice stopped.
At the corner, Eden caught up. “Ink tested. The letter is true. Your mother wrote it. The paper came from the old storehouse, pre–war stock. No one prints that weave now. The note from the gate is new. Not hers. Not ours. Same hand as the last taunts.”
“Good,” I said. “Lock my mother’s letter in the inner safe. Make three copies. One for Cael. One for me. One that burns if it ever leaves the room.”
Eden nodded. “And the locket.”
“That stays on me,” I said.
We reached the stair down to the well house. Two guards waited with spears and dry mouths. Vessa checked the seals on the lids. “All tight. Barrels only.”
A small print of dirt showed on the stone by the back door. Bare toes. Small foot. New.
Vessa crouched, “Girl with bare feet.”
“Not her,” I said. “Her echo”
A soft scrape came from beyond the door. Mira’s voice bled into my bead. “Dusk Wing reports motion near the orchard road. Two figures. One limps. One leads. They left a mark on a fence post. Reversed wolf.”
The world narrowed. Heat left my hands. “Understood.”
11:51 Wed, Sep 24
Chapter 269
…
Thorne leaned in. “Say it.”
“The man behind the ring is ready to show his face,” I said.
He nodded. “We make him.”
87
E55 vouchers
I looked at Vessa. “Pull Night Wing off the north bridge and fold them toward the orchard road. Quiet. No flags. If the mark repeats, we take the second one alive.”
Vessa rose. “On it.”
I took a breath and let it out slow. Then I spoke into my bead. “Council hall. Clear the rail. I am calling the bell.”
The bell rope waited in the arch like a vein. I wrapped my hand around it. The leather was rough and sure. I pulled. The sound climbed the stone and ran out across the keep. Not a warning. A call.
Thorne watched the hall fill. Officers took places. The clerk held his pen steady for once. The air thrummed. He turned to me and spoke low. “You wanted proof. You have it.”
“I want him,” I said.
“Then say what makes him step out,” he said.
I nodded and stepped to the rail. My voice carried clean. “Hear this. We are done with letters. We are done with borrowed knives. Bring me the man with the reversed wolf.”
A runner broke through the door like he had been thrown. He went to one knee, breath tearing. “Message from the outer field,” he panted. “A rider is at the north road. He wears the ring.”
“Who sent him,” Thorne asked.
The runner lifted his face. His eyes were wild. “He says he sent himself.”
“Then show me,” I said. “Now.”
