Because it was the first time, he had seen Evelyne look afraid. Not annoyed. Not composed in that way she wielded silence like a scalpel.
Afraid.
And gods help him; she still walked out ahead of them. Chin high, shoulders squared. Straight through the guards who could’ve arrested them all on the spot.
He wanted to find whoever had written that list and burn their name out of history. And he didn’t know if that made him irrational or dangerous, but it didn’t matter.
They didn’t speak. Just four shadows moving through stone. As if they hadn’t just broken into a tomb full of secrets. As if Evelyne’s name hadn’t been the last one left unmarked on a death ledger.
They regrouped in her private study. The room was small, almost humble by royal standards. One tall window let in a curtain of setting sun. There was a sturdy writing desk beneath it, stacked neatly with papers, quills lined like daggers. A round table in the center. Two armchairs, high-backed and worn at the edges.
Cedric made a beeline for the desk and dropped into the chair. Vesena stayed by the door. Evelyne took one of the armchairs.
Alaric lingered in the doorway longer than he meant. Watching her. She sat with her hands on her lap, fingers folded carefully, like she was holding herself together one knuckle at a time. The shadows carved hollows beneath her eyes, and thelight made her look almost too still, as if one more piece of truth might turn her to stone.
He finally moved and sank into the armchair opposite hers and put the scroll they took from the chamber to the table.
Evelyne’s voice broke the silence, low and flat.
“I don’t know what to do.”
Alaric’s hands clenched around the arms of the chair before he even registered the motion.
“We will confront him,” he said. “The High Preceptor. We will go to him now.”
Her head snapped toward him with sharp precision.
“To the High Preceptor?”
“Yes,” Alaric replied, “the High Preceptor’s hands are closer to the fire than he admits. The Celestial Assembly was once Orvath’s own branch. The symbols carved into bodies, the verses in that book we found, the tunnels beneath their chapels. And the Assembly? They bury it neatly, as if tragedy were just another rite to be catalogued.”
Her jaw tightened. “But it’s Ravik. He wasn’t at the wedding, yet somehow, he held the Assembly’s letter in his hands. The sigil turns up in his reports. He buries other murders beneath convenient accidents. And every time he’s there. Close to erase the trail before anyone else even sees it.”
Alaric tilted his head. “Or he erases them to keep you alive.”
She stared at him, incredulous. “You think this is protection?”
“I think,” he pondered, “that Ravik doesn’t care about innocence or guilt in the way most people do. It’s… ruthless. But it’s not malice.”
“You’re giving him too much credit.”
“And you’re giving the High Preceptor too little.”
They held each other’s gaze.
Alaric didn’t answer right away, fingers drumming lightly on the armrest. She could be onto something. The man had all but accused Varantia of orchestrating the Maroon Slaughter.
Alaric’s jaw tightened. Of course, Ravik “suspected” them. That was the move, wasn’t it? When someone starts tugging on the thread too close to your own secrets, you accuse the person who suspects your guilt.
He leaned forward, fingers steepled. “Or maybe we’re both right,” he said at last. “Maybe it isn’t one or the other. I think they’re both in this. You overheard them speaking, which means they both know something. The question is whether they’re still aligned. Maybe they were working together before, but now… not anymore.”
She didn’t speak right away. Her eyes had gone distant again, flickering behind a mask of stillness so practiced it would be easy to miss the tremor beneath.
“What broke between them, then?” she pondered. “Was it the method? The choice of who gets sacrificed? Or the reason behind it all?”
Alaric leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Now we have another perfect opportunity for mass, ritual murder,” Alaric added. “And they justified the lack of logical security by sayingall personnel are being redirected to the castle for the wedding.”
