Had it been a good bargain, in her father’s eyes? Or did the smell of blood still cling somewhere in the back of his mind the way it clung to her. Rusted, iron-slick, impossible to wash out? Or worse—had it all turned outconvenientlyin the end? A clean loss yielding a better gain. He had always been a king before he was a father. And kings didn’t mourn casualties. They used them.
She looked down, trembling fingers digging softly into the folds of her skirt, grounding herself in the texture.
Dasmon had died for nothing. Or perhaps forthis. In Edrathen, the past was useful if it taught you how to survive the next nivalen.
And she had no time left for mourning—only for the precise, elegant business of not repeating history.
Chapter 5
The west corridor looked nearly inviting—if you ignored the cold. Evelyne’s gown whispered with each step, Isildeth followed her at a respectful distance.
She was not wandering, not truly. She planned to visit the gardens before Prince Alaric’s arrival and the Veiling ceremony. But solitude was in short supply these days. Silverwards stood at every corner, and the Eclipsants of the Celestial Assembly searched for a reason to act.
They wore the mark of vow-bound silence—lips crudely stitched with black thread that glistened faintly, as if still wet. Their eyes were too bright, too steady, gleaming like polished glass beneath the hoods of their white robes. Even the air shifted when they passed, carrying a faint scent of burnt myrrh and iron. They moved with eerie precision, each step measured, each turn identical. Every gaze from those white-robed zealots felt like a ledger being updated. They appeared during official events, but beneath the polished veneer, they were constantly hunting. Always drawn to the scent or even a whisper of magic.
One of them glanced her way, and Evelyne tamped down the instinctive shiver that crept along her spine. As if she’d been caught in some silent crime she hadn’t committed.
And she was.
Just not in any way they could prove.
Could they?
She turned a corner and it started as a flicker. Merely a raised cadence, leaking from the stone arch ahead. The council chamber doors were shut, but the voices behind them had lost their diplomacy. One of them was unmistakable: Grand Marshal Ravik. The other—lower, colder, drawn out and nasal—belonged to the High Preceptor of Orvath.
Evelyne slowed her steps.
Nearby, the Silverwards noticed her hesitation.
She turned, voice calm. “Can you please give me some privacy?”
The younger of the two guards shifted uneasily. “Your Highness, we’re under strict instruction not to leave you unattended.”
“I won’t be unattended,” Evelyne remarked evenly. “I’ll be in plain sight. Just not within earshot.”
The older guard, a seasoned man with a scar over his cheekbone, offered a polite shake of his head. “We were ordered—”
“You were ordered to protect the future Empress of Varantia,” she insisted, not unkindly. “Which I am. And I assure you; I am safe here.”
That gave them pause.
She didn’t wait for full approval. “Remain at the end of the hall. If I’m not back in five minutes, you may escort me. Firmly, if you must.”
They exchanged a grim look, torn between duty and disobedience, but at last the scarred one gave a reluctant nod. “Five minutes, Your Highness.”
She inclined her head. “Thank you.”
As they retreated, boots echoing softly on the stone, Evelyne exhaled and angled back toward the chamber door.
She glanced around the hall. Empty.
Without thinking—no, she corrected,without stopping herself—she stepped closer to the door and tilted her head. Her hand rested lightly on the carved wood as she drew closer.
“My lady,” Isildeth gasped, “it’s not proper!”
As if propriety has ever stopped anything worth knowing, Evelyne thought, biting back a smile.
“Just a moment,” she murmured.
