“Marshal Ravik,” she said.
He returned it with a short incline of his head. “Your Highness,” he said, tone clipped and toneless. “Shouldn’t you be inclass?”
Evelyne didn’t lift her gaze from the scroll she wasn’t reading. “I’m taking a break,” she replied smoothly. “Surely even future empresses are allowed those.”
A neutral truth. She wasn’t lying. Just omitting the part where she was also trying to understand whether her kingdom was quietly rotting from the inside.
Ravik’s boots clicked softly against the stone as he crossed the room. “Not usually in the king’s solar.”
She smiled—barely. “I wasn’t aware you’d begun monitoring my study schedule.”
He moved across the chamber with that same efficiency she’d known since childhood. Precise, unreadable, and without a hint of indulgence. He carried a silver tray stacked with fresh reports and placed it on the carved stand near her father’s chair. That was the ritual. That tray was his altar. Anything Ravik deemed worthy of the king’s eyes was placed there, without exception.
“I monitor everything that passes through this room. Including who lingers in it.”
Her eyes flicked toward the tray. “Then you know I’m here to study.”
She could feel him behind her, not close, but present. Like a shadow cast from a colder sun. His attention was on her, sharp and assessing.
“Do you intend to study the king’s reports before he’s read them?”
“If I were to read them, Marshal, I assure you it would be with the full intent of better understanding the matters of this realm.”
“Understanding,” Ravik echoed. “An admirable goal. Provided one is prepared for what that understanding might cost.”
“I’m always prepared to pay the cost.”
Ravik inclined his head, his gaze lingered on the scroll stack she just shuffled. “Then I trust you’ll know when to be patient. And when not to overstep.”
Evelyne smiled again though her palm trembled. “Of course.”
She stood and crossed the room. At the threshold, she paused, her hand resting lightly on the doorframe.
“Thank you for the use of the solar, Marshal,” she said, voice smooth, each syllable carefully measured. “Your diligence in keeping it so well ordered is reassuring.”
“I’m glad it meets Your Highness’s expectations,” he replied evenly. “Do let me know if I ever fall short of them.”
“I’m sure you won’t.”
With that, she stepped out, the door closing behind her with a soft, decisive click.
Outside, she exhaled. Slow, shallow, and strained. Her pulse thudded at the base of her skull. She walked quickly. One foot after the other. But beneath the poise, beneath the practiced calm, something in her still throbbed.
A phantom echo of blood on marble.
Of a sigil carved in flesh.
She pressed a hand to her ribs as if to cage it in, but it pulsed anyway—her body remembering what her mind refused to say aloud:
You saw it again.
And you are not safe.
Chapter 14
Cedric was in his assigned servants’ room, which generously earned the title only if one stretched the definition of “room” to include a glorified broom closet with a cot, a chair that squeaked like it was haunted, and exactly one window. Compared to the clean, modest luxury of Varantia’s quarters, this place felt more like a supply cupboard that had been given a pity bed.
Still—he’d managed. His shirts were folded, his belt hung with habitual neatness, and his carving knives gleamed in an orderly row beside a growing army of whittled figures lined along the windowsill: wolves, stags, one highly questionable eagle, and a smug-looking feline that absolutely resembled Alaric on purpose.
