Vesena was sorting through correspondence. Letters already opened, nothing sealed. Evelyne opened a drawer. Neat rows of ink pots, perfectly arranged collection of sealing stamps, lined up by size, and a wolf brooch. She closed it again carefully, letting the click settle before moving on.
She felt like a girl again. Like someone who’d made a mistake she couldn’t undo. Vesena caught her eye for a second, her expression confident. It was irritating, how composed she was. In her element.
Evelyne took a calming breath and turned her attention to a stack of reports. Routine. Dull. Nothing marked as restricted.She thumbed through them anyway. Something might be hidden in plain sight. She hoped.
Minutes passed. Or hours. She couldn’t tell anymore. She kept thinking:This is stupid. This is necessary. This is dangerous. This is the only way.
She pressed a hand flat on the edge of the shelf to steady herself. She couldn’t afford to fall apart. Not here. Not now. Not when they were in too deep.
A soft tap.
Vesena’s fingers moved across the surface of the desk, drumming with purpose. Evelyne turned her head. The rhythm changed—controlled, deliberate. She’d found something.
She stepped closer, careful not to knock into anything. Vesena was drawing another pin from her collection—one thinner than the last—and wedging it into the seam beneath the top drawer. Vesena adjusted her angle, pressed, shifted, pressed again.
Click.
The drawer gave way with a soft groan, revealing a false bottom, tucked beneath the velvet lining was a single envelope. Heavy. Expensive parchment. Deep red wax sealed its flap, broken, stamped with a symbol Evelyne recognized immediately—though she wished she didn’t.
Sun torn down the middle. The seal of the Celestial Assembly.
Vesena slid the letter free and held it between two fingers. She offered it to Evelyne without a word. Evelyne hesitated only a second before opening.
The parchment inside was written in a tight, slanted hand, crisp and formal.
To Grand Marshal Ravik Kordane of the Edrathen Silverwards,
Authorization granted for controlled disruption under the authority of divine purification.
Target: Palace of Binding in Calveran.
Date of action: 14th of Orvakar, 1318.
One week after the Maroon Slaughter.
Evelyne stared at the words. Her mind tried to make sense of them—rearrange them into something sane. It didn’t work.
Controlled disruption. Purification?
The Assembly? That couldn’t be right. They rooted out mages and sympathizers, yes—but they did it quietly. Discreetly. Not like this. Not with an altar made of corpses.
Her fingers tightened around the page.
Dasmon. His family. Their guests. Accused of—what? Magic?
It was absurd. Ridiculous. Dasmon couldn’t light a fire without three attempts and a flint stone. His father once had a bard thrown out for suggesting dragons still lived.
None of them were heretics. None of them practiced magic.
She let go of the paper before she crushed it, it fluttered slightly as Vesena took it back.
None of it made sense.
Then—voices.
Faint at first. From afar.
Evelyne froze. For one suspended moment, she considered staying. Confronting whoever it was. Demanding answers. She was a princess, wasn’t she? She had the right to be anywhere in this castle. But the pounding in her chest said otherwise.
