Chapter 5
The west corridor looked nearly inviting—if you ignored the cold. Evelyne’s gown whispered with each step, Isildeth followed her at a respectful distance.
She was not wandering, not truly. She planned to visit the gardens before Prince Alaric’s arrival and the Veiling ceremony. But solitude was in short supply these days. Silverwards stood at every corner, and the Eclipsants of the Celestial Assembly searched for a reason to act.
They wore the mark of vow-bound silence—lips crudely stitched with black thread that glistened faintly, as if still wet.
Their eyes were too bright, too steady, gleaming like polished glass beneath the hoods of their white robes.
Even the air shifted when they passed, carrying a faint scent of burnt myrrh and iron.
They moved with eerie precision, each step measured, each turn identical.
Every gaze from those white-robed zealots felt like a ledger being updated.
They appeared during official events, but beneath the polished veneer, they were constantly hunting.
Always drawn to the scent or even a whisper of magic.
One of them glanced her way, and Evelyne tamped down the instinctive shiver that crept along her spine. As if she’d been caught in some silent crime she hadn’t committed.
And she was.
Just not in any way they could prove.
Could they?
She turned a corner and it started as a flicker.
Merely a raised cadence, leaking from the stone arch ahead.
The council chamber doors were shut, but the voices behind them had lost their diplomacy.
One of them was unmistakable: Grand Marshal Ravik.
The other—lower, colder, drawn out and nasal—belonged to the High Preceptor of Orvath.
Evelyne slowed her steps.
Nearby, the Silverwards noticed her hesitation.
She turned, voice calm. “Can you please give me some privacy?”
The younger of the two guards shifted uneasily. “Your Highness, we’re under strict instruction not to leave you unattended.”
“I won’t be unattended,” Evelyne remarked evenly. “I’ll be in plain sight. Just not within earshot.”
The older guard, a seasoned man with a scar over his cheekbone, offered a polite shake of his head. “We were ordered—”
“You were ordered to protect the future Empress of Varantia,” she insisted, not unkindly. “Which I am. And I assure you; I am safe here.”
That gave them pause.
She didn’t wait for full approval. “Remain at the end of the hall. If I’m not back in five minutes, you may escort me. Firmly, if you must.”
They exchanged a grim look, torn between duty and disobedience, but at last the scarred one gave a reluctant nod. “Five minutes, Your Highness.”
She inclined her head. “Thank you.”
As they retreated, boots echoing softly on the stone, Evelyne exhaled and angled back toward the chamber door.
She glanced around the hall. Empty.
Without thinking—no, she corrected, without stopping herself—she stepped closer to the door and tilted her head. Her hand rested lightly on the carved wood as she drew closer.
“My lady,” Isildeth gasped, “it’s not proper!”
As if propriety has ever stopped anything worth knowing, Evelyne thought, biting back a smile.
“Just a moment,” she murmured.
Isildeth held her breath in quiet disapproval.
Evelyne leaned closer to the door, the carved wood cool against her temple. This was, by all accounts, wildly inappropriate.
What would they do if they caught her listening—cancel the marriage? Rhyssa preserve, as if anyone in this castle possessed that much courage. Besides, she was bored, and Ravik’s arguments with the High Preceptor were always… entertaining. Like watching a sermon wrestle a sword.
Inside, Ravik’s timbre rang out, sharper than she was used to hearing it.
“—waiting is a luxury we can no longer afford,” he was saying. “The guards are spread thin, the lesser nobles are anxious, and your symbolism does nothing to anchor them.”
Oh…
The reply came in a lower voice, calm in a way that didn’t soothe.
“The rites are designed to speak to order, not panic. It is not the function of doctrine to mirror fear. Doctrine is what tempers fear.”
She imagined Ravik narrowing his eyes.
“You are mistaking stillness for stability.”
“No,” the Preceptor replied, tone unshaken. A chair scraped against stone inside the chamber, “We are not here to crush rebellion with swords. The wedding is a consecration, not a demonstration of might.”
Evelyne’s brows rose.
It was always Orvath behind the curtain—the silent painter of Edrathen's law. His faith, cold and ascetic, had long ruled not just the altars but the politics as well. A god for men who needed a divine excuse for the treaties they wrote.
It had been this way for generations. In Edrathen, to challenge The Doctrine of Orvath was to challenge the very bedrock of the kingdom itself.
Isildeth clasped her hands together, twisting the edge of her sleeve as if to keep from pulling Evelyne away by force.
“This sickness,” the High Preceptor drawled, “is not eradicated by spectacle. This marriage is not merely political. It is a purification. If properly upheld, it will anchor Varantia to Edrathen. And her to us.”
She almost didn’t notice Ravik’s pause before his next words.
“And if it won't work?”
A silence answered him. The kind that made her wonder if the Preceptor was smiling.
“Then we won’t have the luxury of waiting for the constellations to align in another lifetime.”
Evelyne’s blood chilled, a shiver threading down her spine. Her grip on the carved wood tensed, the grooves biting into her palm.
The Preceptor’s murmur was quieter now. “I understand the need for strength, Grand Marshal. But strength without clarity is little more than blind momentum.”
A heavy thud rattled through the wood, as if a fist had struck the table. Ravik’s reply came quickly. “I am doing what is necessary to preserve the structure of this realm. You should understand something about that.”
“You silenced names that still sit in people’s mouths,” the Preceptor noted calmly. “And now you speak of preserving order as if it were a living thing you’re feeding.”
What?
Ravik’s voice dropped lower. “Truth is a privilege in times of peace. But in times of change? Truth is a risk. One that I, unlike you, am not free to indulge.”
The Preceptor’s tone stayed level, but it had lost its patience.
“Call it what you wish. But I’ve buried enough people to recognize what’s being built when people start using words like necessary.”
“You have no idea what would have happened if we hadn’t intervened,” he snapped at last. “The blood spilled that day saved the realm. Not just for the crown—but for the people. We cut out the infection before it rotted the entire body.”
Evelyne’s mouth went dry.
That day…Maroon Slaughter?
There had been an investigation, yes. Performed with all the gravity a royal massacre demanded. But it had gone nowhere. Every possible suspect had died that day. The Silverwards had been cleared early. Evelyne’s own family had been scrutinized, but they had all been accounted for.
And the chapel itself had been under the protection of the Dvorenic Family Guard.
All of whom had died.
Eventually, people stopped asking. Superstition did the rest. The nobles whispered that the chapel was haunted.
Eventually someone came up with a story that Evelyne was cursed and it was probably her fault.
As if tragedy could be reduced to a convenient little phrase suitable to whisper behind fans and goblets.
“I acted in the name of the greater good. I’d do it again.”
“Of that,” the Preceptor murmured, “I have no doubt.”
Evelyne staggered back from the door as if struck, her breath catching hard in her throat. The corridor tilted. No sound. No thought. Just the thundering pulse of blood surging in her ears like a warning drum.
Her fingers had gone numb. She stared down at them as if they might not be hers, nails pressing faint crescent moons into her palms.
Isildeth’s hand was suddenly at her elbow. Evelyne barely registered it. Her eyes were fixed on the sealed door as if it might open and drag her in.
No… not now.
Her legs moved before her mind could catch up, carrying her several paces away, down the hall. She braced one hand against the cold stone wall, struggling to pull breath into her lungs.
The echo of her heartbeat had barely settled when quick footsteps broke the stillness.
Evelyne inhaled through her nose and straightened her spine like it hadn’t just curled with fear.
Control. Calm. Focus.
By the time the castle messenger appeared around the corner, her expression was once again composed. Hollowed, perhaps. But composed.
He stopped before her and bowed, breath catching from the pace he’d kept.
“Your Highness.”
“Yes?” Her voice faltered for a moment. Raspy and too high. She cleared her throat.
The boy straightened. “Prince Alaric is at the gates.”
Evelyne didn’t respond at once. A faint ringing still hovered in her ears. She glanced back at the sealed chamber, the place where old men wrote futures in blood and called it clarity.
Nothing good ever came from half-heard words behind closed doors. Context twisted everything, and she knew better than to linger on fragments not meant for her. It was nothing. It had to be nothing. Enough, she told herself. Do not wallow. Do not invite ghosts where they aren’t welcome.
“Very well,” she acknowledged.
She let one breath and count to three. When she looked up, nothing trembled.
“Let’s greet him.”