Evelyne smiled faintly, her hands still moving with quiet precision over the ledger in front of her. “Then I hope, at the very least, they’ll make for decent reading,” she said, her tone light but threaded with something real. “And that you’ll be kind with your footnotes.”
The Archivist chuckled, clearly pleased. “I’ve never been accused of cruelty in the margins, Your Highness.”
“Then I’m in good hands,” she replied.
She chose the table nearest the north-facing windows. Vesena stood beside her, hands clasped behind her back like she belonged here more than Evelyne did.
Her fingers twitched. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, eyes flicking toward the entrance.
When the First Archivist returned, he was followed by a young man, carrying a stack of bound ledgers in both arms. The soft maroon of his robe marked him as part of the Order, but it was the number stitched in silver thread at his shoulder that drew Evelyne’s eye.
Nine.
Ninth Archivist. Newly initiated. Likely still memorizing ink codes and spill procedures. The boy set the books down with care, then stepped back as the elder took his place.
“These,” the First Archivist began, laying a hand atop the top volume, “are the daily patrol assignments and security postings dating from the last twenty-six months. They’ve been logged chronologically and color-coded by region. Each entry is cross-referenced with the corresponding royal decree, request, or formal amendment. Notes from the Marshal’s office”—he tapped the edge of one volume—“are annotated here, with margin codes in red.”
He looked at her then, kind but keen. “If you require assistance deciphering the system, we are at your disposal.”
Evelyne nodded once. “Thank you. We’ll manage.”
The Archivist bowed and withdrew, the Ninth trailing behind like a silent punctuation mark.
Vesena slid into the seat opposite her. Without a word, she began dividing the ledgers, arranging them by month with a speed that suggested she had already decided how they would split the work before they even sat down.
They were in the year 1319 now, the sixth month—Orvakar. Nearly one year to the day since the chapel turned red and every name associated with her future had bled out on stone.
Vesena took the stretch of time that followed the Maroon Slaughter. Evelyne took the rest. The thick tome for Orvakar 1318—the month of Dasmon’s death—sat in front of her like a sealed confession. Alongside it, she pulled the archives covering twelve months prior. If there were warning signs, missing pages, orders that didn’t line up, they would be there.
She opened the ledger.
Four hours passed in silence, and flutters of pages. Quills scratched only when notes were worth making—which, depressingly, was rare.
The records were clean. Too clean.
Everything in the months preceding the Maroon Slaughter had been noted with mechanical precision. Dates, trooprotations, rosters—they followed identical rhythms to the year before, almost as if someone had taken the old records and simply rewritten them line for line. Perfect symmetry. Not one unexpected shift in the guards, no amended patrol logs, no sudden gaps.
It was the kind of perfection that rang louder than any mistake. Or it was simply Edrathen’s perfection.
The thought lodged somewhere sharp. Alaric had warned her. She’d dismissed it then, cloaked in instinctive pride. Edrathen didn’t bend to Varantian scrutiny. Edrathen didn’t lie.
Except, maybe it had. And maybe he’d seen it first.
The possibility made her sick. Not because he’d been right, but because he’d looked once and noticed what she’d lived inside and missed for years.
She hated that. Hated it with a quiet, unflinching heat.
Across the table, Vesena leaned in, keeping her voice to a whisper. “There’s nothing. This week’s logs aren’t in here yet. They’re likely still in Ravik’s office.”
Evelyne didn’t sigh, though she wanted to. “And last year security was under Calveran jurisdiction.”
“They’ll have records,” Vesena mused, glancing around them. “If they exist.”
“But Calveran is under the Assembly’s authority now. We won’t be granted access without a formal request.” Evelyne mused. “It must bear the King's seal and be sent directly to the Prime Threnarch of the Celestial Assembly. Even then, there’s no guarantee he'll agree.”
For a long moment, they didn’t speak. If they didn’t find proof soon, the silence around the Maroon Slaughter would harden into myth. And she was not going to let her truth be rewritten to serve someone else’s legacy.
Finally, Evelyne leaned back, the chill of the archives sinking a little deeper into her bones.
