Chapter 25 #2
Her attention drifted far past the town, the lake, the wind-swept trees. Maybe even beyond the horizon itself.
The light caught her cheekbone, glancing over her skin just enough to make it unfair.
Stars, she was beautiful. Not in the shallow, practiced way courtiers meant it, but in a way that demanded quiet.
There were silver circles in her blue irises, like frost threading glass, and a single curl had always escaped her coiffure, grazing the long line of her neck whenever the wind shifted.
A small beauty mark rested just above her lip.
She was soft and strong in the same breath—shoulders held with discipline, mouth calm but never cold.
“I’m afraid,” she admitted pulling him back from his thoughts, eyes still fixed on the distance. “That someone I know was behind this.”
Alaric clenched his jaw.
To her, it wasn’t politics or duty. It was personal. And she had chosen to trust him with it. With a man with questions and a fixation he hadn’t fully untangled from his purpose.
He was hoping she might help him dig deeper into what lay beneath Edrathen’s polished silence. Into the stories no one told. But what mattered more now? Chasing his obsession? Or showing up for the woman who had bled history at his feet?
A future empress. His future wife. Not a mystery to solve. A person.
“I think everyone knew what happened that day,” she went on, “and played their part in hiding it. Even if none of them carved that symbol on Dasmon’s lips... they insulted him by pretending it meant nothing.”
She set her plate down on the blanket.
“I won’t let that memory rot,” she declared, still not looking at him. “Not his. Not mine. I won’t sleep until I’ve uncovered the truth. And once I have...”
A pause. Her jaw tightened slightly.
He felt it before she finished, the force behind her words. Her conviction landed like a hand on his shoulder.
“They’ll answer for it. Whatever it takes.”
She finally looked at him, and he saw it—conviction burning through the composure, steady and terrifyingly alive. It wasn’t duty speaking. It was her. And it left him breathless with the need to answer.
“Then I’ll help you find it.”
He met her eyes and didn’t look away. The weight of the moment pressed close, too close, and something in him resisted it. He cleared his throat, reaching for safer ground.
“So,” he said lightly. “Ravik, The High Preceptor. Did you analyze anyone else? The Assembly, or Calveran itself?”
Her head turned slowly, and when she looked at him, there was no trace of humor. Her gaze was sharp, unflinching.
“Yes. I suspected Varantia.”
“Oh, wonderful,” he winked. “Treason at breakfast. My favorite way to start the day.”
He nervously sipped his wine and she didn’t even blink.
“Okay. Very funny,” he muttered, forcing a smile. “Hilarious, really. Now seriously…”
That instead of answer earned him a precisely measured side glance. He laughed once, too loud, then stopped when she didn’t join him. He stared at her for a moment.
“You’re serious.”
“I turned that idea over once or twice,” she admitted sweetly. “You were the one to accept the marriage offer from my family. Some might call it brave.” She tilted her head, just slightly. “Others might call it convenient.”
Alright, that wasn’t the answer he’d expected.
She kept going, the line of her mouth unmoved. “A bride with blood on her hands, rescued by a golden prince from the west,” her gaze didn’t waver. “No concern for reputation.”
Alaric let out a breath and scratched the back of his neck. “Alright, that’s… suspicious when you put it like that.” He leaned back slightly.
She raised a brow. “Imagine that.”
Alaric’s throat felt dry all of a sudden, like someone had pressed a thumb to the ancient part of his chest.
He saw a flicker, like déjà vu pulled tight across an old bone.
A woman stood in the moonlight, draped in red and shadow; her lips moved, though he couldn’t hear the words.
They felt warm and cold at once, sinking into him like a memory he shouldn’t have.
A rush of betrayal followed, sharp and sudden, leaving behind the hollow ache of something once loved and long lost.
He blinked few times, and the cliff was back. Evelyne was still watching him, with eyes that made him feel like he’d been caught dreaming out loud.
“You…you really think I orchestrated your fiancé’s murder,” he murmured carefully.
“I think I’d be a fool not to consider it,” she replied. “Especially when your court had every reason to benefit. Like the army, for example.”
He swallowed; the vision vanished into nothing. “That’s fair.”
She tilted her head, the breeze catching a loose strand of her hair. “You play this game well, Alaric. But you’re not untouchable.”
“I didn’t come here to manipulate you,” he explained finally, voice quieter now, rawer. “But I see why you’d question.”
“Yes, you’re good at questions,” she countered. “Not so much at answers.”
“It was convenient. I am not going to lie to you,” he admitted. “But no—I didn’t kill him. And if I were plotting something like that, I probably wouldn’t have sent my most obvious self to follow through on it.”
“Or maybe you’re arrogant enough to think no one would question you.”
He forced the lump down his throat. “You’re terrifying, you know that?”
Terrifying, in the best possible way.
“I’ve just had enough of men deciding my direction and expecting me to look pleased about it.”
Alaric’s jaw tensed. For a moment, he was still, watching her as if something in her had shifted beyond his comprehension.
He leaned in. “You’re not alone in this, Evelyne.”
“Am I?”
He didn’t have a clever line waiting.
“We need a plan,” she declared, tearing her gaze away. “A proper order. I’ll go to the castle Archives. It’ll be easier to justify my presence there—Vesena will accompany me.”
Alaric leaned back on one hand, the other resting near the heel of the wine bottle. “No offense, but that’s a waste of time.”
She turned to look at him—slow, sharp, like she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “No offense?” she repeated, incredulous.
“If we want real answers, we should be searching the tunnels,” he explained.
“That’s dangerous. Someone will notice. Do you think you can wander under the Orvath’s chapel without being seen?”
“Do you think the Archives are any better?” He raised his brow. “A princess nosing around in dusty ledgers doesn’t raise suspicion?”
“I have a reason prepared,” she countered.
Alaric let out a breath through his nose. “You won’t find anything.”
“Why are you so certain?” she asked.
“Are the Archives publicly accessible?”
Evelyne nodded once. “To the royal family and the Council, yes.”
“Then there’s nothing worth finding.” He shrugged, tossing the bread aside untouched. “Anything there is either falsified or sanitized. If it’s allowed to be seen, it’s already been cleaned.”
Her brow furrowed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you won’t find truth in curated ledgers and stamped approvals,” he said. “You’ll find omissions and propaganda.”
“If you want the truth, you don’t look in what’s been permitted. You look in what was meant to be erased. In the places where symbols outlived the stories.”
She gave a tight, almost imperceptible shake of her head. “So, you assume I wouldn’t recognize a lie.”
“That’s not what I said.” Alaric gestured with his hand. “I think that it’s better to act than sip tea with a clerk and wait for censored footnotes.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Alaric caught Cedric dragging a hand down his face in a full-body why-are-you-like-this gesture. Beside him, Vesena looked as if someone had just passed something particularly rancid beneath her nose.
Evelyne turned her head. Slowly. That kind of slowness that signaled danger in every language.
“I beg your pardon?”
He replayed his words in his mind, then glanced at her face, at Cedric’s raised brows, back again. Damn it. He was an idiot.
Alaric hesitated trying different approach. “I meant that your methods are too… clean. Too polite.”
She stared at him.
Her eyes narrowed, lips pressing into a line that managed to be both unimpressed and devastating.
“My apologies,” Evelyne objected, her voice smooth as velvet and cold as frost. “I was under the impression I needed a partner. Not a patronizing strategist with an exaggerated sense of his own brilliance.”
Seriousness had never sat well on his tongue; it felt like armor he hadn’t earned. When things got too real, he always reached for the nearest joke—as if laughter could buy him a breath.
“Exaggerated? I assure you, Your Highness, my brilliance is well-documented. There are records.”
“Yes,” she sighed, rising to her feet with a grace that suggested she might also enjoy throwing him off the ledge if she deemed it efficient. “Most of them penned by yourself, I imagine.”
Alaric stayed seated, looking up at her now, the sun cutting a sharp edge along her profile.
All right. Jokes weren’t working. What a shock.
“Thank you for the enlightening conversation. I’m sure I’ll treasure every word,” she said sharply, already turning away.
Alaric stumbled to his feet. “I was just trying—”
“No,” she cut in, her voice flat. “You were being a typical man I’ve dealt with. ‘Let’s do it my way,’” she said, mimicking his tone so perfectly he might have laughed—if he wasn’t fairly certain it would earn him a swift execution.
“Unbelievable.” She shook her head. “This is about memory. About justice. About my family.”
She didn’t wait for a response. She turned to Vesena, already dusting off her gloves with ruthless efficiency. “We’re leaving.”
Alaric approached her, hand reaching. “Evelyne, please wait—”
She cut him off with a look sharp enough to peel paint. “Forget it.”
With all the grace and fury of someone who could break bones without raising her voice she mounted her horse, “I’ll take care of it myself, Your Highness. With just politeness.”
Ang then she rode off—cloak snapping in the wind like a banner in retreat. Vesena and two Silverwards followed.
Alaric stood there, utterly still, as the hoofbeats started and then faded. He watched her go like a man watching the sea retreat—knowing it would never bring back what it took. And he was a drowning sailor. In someone who hadn't even looked twice.
Behind him, Cedric made a noise.
“Don’t,” Alaric warned.
Cedric crossed his arms. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You said it. With your face.”
Cedric gave him a long, theatrical look of disgust. “And yet you both somehow keep proving me right.”
Alaric sighed, dragging a hand through his hair as he watched the last flutter of Evelyne’s cloak disappear beyond the bend. Brilliant. He’d turned a moment of actual progress into a disaster with a single ill-timed joke. A masterpiece of self-sabotage.
“That was your best not reading the room performance since the incident of—”
“Shut up,” Alaric muttered approaching his horse.
Cedric arched a brow. “Honestly, I thought you’d learned after that one.”
“I did,” Alaric said dryly. “Just not enough to survive this court.”
Cedric gave a low whistle, glancing toward him with that irritatingly knowing half-smile. “Tragic, really. You’d think nearly dying of humiliation would be a better teacher.”
Alaric shot him a sidelong look. “Remind me why I still speak to you.”
“She just rode off,” Cedric noted. “Are we backing down now?”
Alaric stared after the dust still settling on the path where Evelyne had vanished.
“Absolutely not,” he said, voice flat with certainty.
His pride was bruised. His ego had taken a minor, but well-deserved beating. But he’d spent enough time around nobles, soldiers, and philosophers to know when something mattered.
He smirked, finally turning to Cedric with a glint in his eye. “Besides, the princess still needs to learn a few things about me.”
Cedric raised a brow. “Such as?”
Alaric clasped his hands behind his back with a perfectly mock-serene expression. “That I don’t give up that easily. And—” he added, already anticipating the eye-roll, “—that I’ve always liked a bit of competition.”
Cedric exhaled slowly. “You know you’re going to perish by her hand one day, right?”
“Probably,” Alaric agreed. “But what a lovely way to go.”