The Archivist bowed, hand to heart. The Ninth followed suit.
They walked away at a measured pace, the soft echo of their steps swallowed by the hush of the Archives. At the threshold,Evelyne leaned just slightly toward Vesena, her words no more than breath between them.
“Do you have anything?”
Vesena didn’t look at her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “You’re not going to like it.”
Chapter 27
Alaric emerged from the council chamber with the distinct impression that his brain had been slow-roasted over the coals of diplomacy. Another two hours of bartering logistics and ceremonial phrasing—what Varantia should offer, what Edrathen demanded in return, how many horses constituted a generous gift without implying weakness. If he signed one more treaty, he feared his hand might detach itself out of protest and gallop back to Solmara on its own.
He rubbed at the corner of his eye with the back of his knuckle, vaguely aware that the wax from the last seal he’d pressed had likely stained his signet.
He rounded the corner of the corridor without paying attention to anything except the hope that, in his chambers, a glass of something aged and generous was waiting for him.
Instead, he collided squarely with someone in the hall.
Scrolls spilled to the floor with a soft, papery slap. Alaric instinctively reached out to steady the other figure but was too slow; the man had already crouched down, fingers carefully gathering the fallen parchment.
“My apologies,” Alaric muttered, stepping back.
The man looked up. Older. Bald. Dressed in long gray robes. The chain draped around his shoulders confirmed it.
Priest of Orvath.
He recognized him from a few Council meetings. The man had spoken little, but always at the precise moment silence grew heavy. Especially during that meeting—the one where the High Preceptor had suggested they “use the prominent occasion of the nuptials” to extend Orvath’s reach into Varantia by embedding a priest within the retinue.
Alaric had smiled, bowed politely, and filed the request exactly where it belonged.
No, thank you.
The man smiled faintly, a calm expression that bordered on serene.
“No harm done, Your Highness,” he replied. “It is I who wasn’t watching where I walked. That is the danger of old habits—my feet know the corridors better than my eyes these days.”
Alaric crouched beside him, helping gather the last of the scrolls. Thick parchment. The edges smelled faintly of wax and pressed herbs—something used to preserve vellum or perhaps something more ritualistic. He couldn’t be sure.
As the priest leaned forward to retrieve a wayward scroll, the sleeve of his robe slipped just enough to expose a portion of his forearm.
Alaric froze.
A tightly wound chain encircled the man’s arm just below the elbow. Brutal and plain. The skin beneath it was red, raw, and broken in places. The flesh had grown around it, or maybe the chain had been fastened too tightly for too long. His fingers were tinted with some kind of ink.
Alaric grimaced slowly, something cold unfurling in his gut. He cleared his throat and tried to sound normal.
“At least let me make amends by walking more carefully next time,” he said with a tired smile. “I’ve had enough treaties shoved into my hands today to start a second war.”
The old man chuckled softly, tucking a scroll under one arm. “Then may Orvath grant you strength to endure peace as well as you would endure battle.”
The man gathered the scrolls under his arm. His joints cracked softly as he straightened—or attempted to. His back had long since accepted defeat; he remained slightly stooped, as though bowing to invisible burdens no one else could see.The man was short, with a hooked nose that made him look perpetually halfway to a frown.
And yet, somehow, he didn’t seem sour. He seemed—what was the word?
Pleasant.
That in itself was the strangest part.
