“Looks like she was dragged out,” Corwin muttered, crouched near the trampled straw. “See this line here? Body weight.”
“Mm,” Graham answered, but he wasn’t convinced.
He stepped farther in, scanning the chaos, not for what was obvious but what was missing. Too much mess. Too perfectly imperfect.
The blood, for one—barely a few drops, and only in one place, as if someone had placed it there. Then there were the broken reins. It was a clean break. They weren’t frayed. They’d been cut.
And there—he knelt—hoofprints. Clear. Unhurried. Leading out of the stables and into the woods. A calm departure. Not a scramble.
“Look at this.” The others moved closer as Graham touched his fingers to the indentations. “Whoever took the horse didn’t flee. There’s no struggle here. The animal wasn’t panicked. No gallop. No chaos.”
Corwin frowned. “You saying it was staged?”
“I’m saying that whatever this was, it wasn't a kidnapping.” Graham rose to his full height. “She went willingly.”
“Then who staged the mess?” Corwin asked. “Who leaves false blood, snapped tack, to make it look like she was taken?”
Graham’s mind was already turning, gears grinding behind his tight jaw. Snow was no fool. Naïve, maybe. Soft around the edges, certainly. But behind those dove-gray eyes was a calculating little monarch-in-the-making. She'd planned to murder a queen.
She had vanished, that much was clear. It wasn't without a trace. She wanted them to think she hadn’t planned it. But the question was?—
Who did she leave with? Who had the stealth? The knowledge of this place? The access?
There were too many variables. Too many hands in the dark. And worse—too many of them not his.
“Clean this up,” he said to Corwin, his voice like gravel. “Get the guards back on patrol. Make it look like we’re searching with the rest of them.”
“You’re not staying?” Corwin asked.
Graham shook his head once. “I need to find out who Snow trusted enough to run away with,” he said. “And what the hell she plans to do next.”
Because this wasn’t just a girl disappearing. It was the board shifting. What if he was chasing the wrong enemy?
As the men scattered into the night, lanterns bobbing in the darkness, Graham pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders and started the climb back toward the castle. The cold bit at his face. Raveena might be a queen made of strategy and secrets, but even a queen couldn’t play the right hand if she didn’t know all the cards.
He needed her to know everything. He needed her to see Snow clearly. Not as a naïve girl grasping at a crown. As a woman capable of playing dirty.
He thought of Raveena’s face when she planned, when her mind clicked into that deadly rhythm. He wanted to be beside her when that happened. Wanted to plan with her. Win with her.
Not just be her sword. But her match. Her equal. Her partner.
Graham prowled through the stone halls, boots muffled by runner rugs, hand resting lightly on the hilt of his dagger as he navigated the familiar passages by memory. Torchlight flickered low along the corridor walls, casting long, licking shadows that danced over his shoulders. The scent of wax and old stone filled his lungs as he made his way to her rooms.
The guards had changed shifts. Servants had retired. He hoped the queen had returned to her chambers and not his. Though the idea of her in his bed made his dick hard. Harder.
He didn’t knock. He slipped through the door of her chambers like he had so many times before—sometimes invited, sometimes not.
The room was neat, symmetrical to the point of obsession. Chessboards arranged with half-played games. Puzzles waiting for final pieces. A carved wooden box on the table, slightly ajar, filled with perfectly sharpened quills. This was Raveena distilled: ordered, strategic, always thinking three moves ahead.
It was the bed that caught his eye. Graham moved toward it slowly, warily. The sheets were smooth, tucked with precision. The scent of her skin lingered in the linens from last night—jasmine oil and sweat and sin. His sin. Their sin.
And yet…
He remembered how Charming had smirked during their fight, had spat those words like a man certain of his conquest. What was it the boy had said about her thread count? And her headboard? Her sheets were silk—no thread count to boast. The headboard was a latticework of dark metal.
What had the boy prince been going on about? Charming hadn't lied. Raveena had confirmed they'd slept together. Graham had seen the child's bruises on her inner thigh.
A sound pulled Graham’s attention toward the adjoining chamber—the old king’s room. The door stood slightly ajar. A sliver of pale moonlight cut through the gap.
