Chapter 50
The castle infirmary smelled of burnt sage and old metal, sharp and bitter on the tongue.
Pale stone walls rose around them, lined with narrow windows that allowed only a thin spill of daylight.
Iron candelabras flickered near the rafters, casting long shadows across rows of narrow beds and cluttered tables.
Physicians moved quickly through the space, their voices low and urgent.
A groan broke the quiet behind one of the linen curtains.
In the corner, a glass slipped and shattered. No one paused to look.
Evelyne sat on the edge of the cot, propped up with far more pillows than necessary.
Her arms were scraped, wrists stung, and her backside throbbed from where she’d met the stones in an entirely unroyal manner.
It hadn’t hurt at all during the chaos. Now, seated and safe, the aches had arrived with punctual vengeance.
She hadn’t been given anything for the pain—Edrathen didn’t believe in dulling it. Pain was to be endured.
They’d wrapped her in bandages and recommended rest. She nodded graciously. And ignored them.
Isildeth hovered beside her, muttering about evil and why in the gods’ names she’d worn such light shoes. Vesena stood a little further off, arms folded, eyes on everything, body angled slightly toward the canopied bed across the infirmary.
Ravik’s.
He was behind the curtain. Blood loss, they said. Deep but clean wound. He’d live.
Evelyne’s gaze remained fixed on that canopy. She couldn’t look away. He had stepped in front of her. Taken the dagger meant for her ribs. And now she didn’t know what to think.
Was it calculated? Even he wasn’t that reckless. No man would offer his life to a blade just to tilt the narrative. But then again, men had done worse. Especially when power was at stake.
She shifted slowly upright, as if that would keep Isildeth from noticing.
It didn’t.
“Milady,” she warned. “Back. To. Bed.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“Isildeth, please.”
She huffed with all the force of a woman denied a crisis.
Vesena had filled her in between physician inspections and Isildeth’s fussing.
One moment Evelyne was pressed to the cold stones, pulse hammering, Alaric crouched over her like a living shield.
Second, he handed her to Cedric, barked something sharp, drew his sword and was already halfway across the square before she found her breath again.
He had barely waited for her to be swept behind Silverward shields before he launched into action.
The courtyard had been sealed. Guests detained. Thalen secured. Entire squads were surrounded, searched, and questioned. One company had been a ruse: men in her country’s colors, armed with curved blades etched with that cursed sigil. Fortunately, there were only a few wounded on the Edrathen side.
One of the physicians emerged from behind the curtain holding blood-soaked materials.
“Excuse me,” she called, “When he wakes I want to be informed immediately.”
The man murmured an acknowledgment, already turning back.
The doors to the infirmary opened with a hiss of old hinges. She looked up. Alaric entered first, her father followed a step behind.
Alaric’s gaze found her instantly. And gods help her, some ridiculous part of her relaxed the moment it did. No blood, no bruises, just that quiet, steady presence that had become something like... constant.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, coming closer.
“I’m alright,” she assured, her tone cold. “And you?”
“Now better.”
Her father stepped to her bedside.
“The suspects are in the cells,” he noted, voice clipped. “We’ve questioned several of them. Through persuasion, they confessed to a coordinated assassination attempt against the royal family.”
Evelyn’s blood ran cold.
“Do we know who gave the orders?”
“They said it came from a man they called Thandros. No description. The Lord Justiciar and his magistrates are handling it now.”
She looked at Alaric. He looked back. A beat passed between them. Her father caught it.
Evelyne turned toward him fully.
“It’s time you knew,” she said. “What I’ve discovered. What we’ve discovered.”
Alaric stepped closer, as if to say we are doing this together.
And they told him everything.
Every thread, every hidden chamber, every sigil traced in blood. Her father didn’t interrupt, didn’t so much as flinch when they described Ravik’s orders, the missing guards, the tunnel under the chapel. He merely stood there, hands clasped behind his back.
And when they finished, he gave her the look she remembered from childhood—stern, unreadable, and quietly, infuriatingly immovable.
“I don’t believe Ravik was behind it,” he declared. “I’ve trusted that man with my life for decades.”
Evelyne took a deep breath and forced herself to stay calm. “You trust him. I understand that. But how do you explain the letter tied to the Maroon Slaughter found in his private possession? And the conversation with the High Preceptor. He actually confessed.”
Her father exhaled through his nose, the way he always did when forced to acknowledge something inconvenient. “Yes,” he admitted. “It’s suspicious. Deeply. But Ravik is not reckless. If he kept those documents, he had a reason.”
A hollow laugh nearly escaped her lips. “A reason? A reason to kill my fiancé? To murder his family? Children, father?”
His gaze snapped to hers. “Mind your tongue, child. Do not speak as if verdicts come before the trial. You know better.”
The word child dropped like a stone in her stomach. It silenced her, but not because she agreed. Because it being the future empress didn’t stop her from still being a woman.
She held his stare, unblinking. But she could feel it—her fury rising like a tide she could no longer command.
“And the proceeding you gave him in the square? The names you read? You risked more than your dignity with that performance,” he raised his voice. “You stood in front of our military, our people, and cast doubt on the very man sworn to protect you. You could have broken the spine of this court.”
She clenched her fingers around the sheet. “And if I am right?” she returned. “Then he has already broken it.”
His shoulders squared. She could see the soldier rising in him again. She wanted him to believe her. Desperately. Just once. Just this one time, when it actually mattered. When truth wasn’t strategy, and her voice wasn’t another calculated risk on the chessboard of their lives.
“Your Majesty,” Alaric cautioned, “in the face of this evidence, I must recommend that we question the Grand Marshal and High Preceptor.”
Rhaedor turned his eyes to Alaric, and for a breath, Evelyne couldn’t read him.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
“I must agree.”
“Your Majesties…”
The physician approached from the side and bowed.
“Your Majesties. The Grand Marshal is awake.”
Evelyne was on her feet before the sentence finished. Pain flared at the base of her spine but she ignored it. She crossed the room in purposeful strides and pulled the curtain back herself.
Ravik lay propped against a mound of pillows, colorless and drawn, his torso wrapped in thick bandages, a dark patch of blood already seeping through. His eyes snapped to attention the moment he saw them.
“Your Highnesses...” he began, his voice hoarse. He tried to rise, muscles twitching beneath the gauze.
“At ease,” Rhaedor said sharply.
Ravik sank back, grimacing.
“What happened?” he rasped, scanning each of their faces.
“You were stabbed protecting my daughter from an assassin. We’ve captured the squad responsible. One of them named their employer: a man named Thandros.”
Ravik's jaw clenched at the word.
“A religious fanatic,” he muttered after a pause. “They’ve been stirring again in the northern ranges.”
Evelyne studied him, one brow lifting with slow precision. “Do you know this Thandros?”
Ravik turned to look at her and whatever was in his eyes made the back of her neck prickle.
“I’m sure it is not me,” he said at last; voice stripped of irony.
Evelyne swallowed hard, the motion slow and deliberate. “Strange, then, that none of this was mentioned at the Council’s meeting.”
His gaze flicked to hers. “You are not in the Council.”
“She doesn't have to be,” Alaric replied firmly. “Because I addressed the issue many times.”
Ravik fixed his attention on him, mouth hardening to a thin line.
“Kelvar’s Cross?” Alaric pressed.
The Grand Marshal nodded.
Alaric’s jaw clenched with barely contained anger.
Rhaedor took a slow breath. “We’ll need your full account, Marshal. Everything you know. Every detail.”
Ravik exhaled, slow and shallow. The sound was closer to a groan than a sigh.
“What do you know?” he asked.
“I found the symbol,” Evelyne confessed. “The same one carved into Dasmon’s mouth, etched into the dagger that nearly killed me. It’s in your notes.”
Ravik’s brow creased. For a moment, he only stared at her. Then, he gave a strained, humorless laugh. It broke midway into a grimace.
“I scribble when I think,” he muttered. “Margins, backs of pages... when something gnaws at me, it ends up on parchment. That symbol—” he paused, eyes distant “—it haunts me.”
Evelyne blinked. What?
Her attention flicked to Alaric. He seemed equally unsettled, though he held his tongue, watching Ravik with that precise, assessing calm that meant he was committing every detail to memory.
Ravik drew back slightly, eyes closing for a brief beat before he continued. “I’ve been investigating the Maroon Slaughter. And a pattern emerged. Each year brings some new catastrophe. Most never reach the official ledgers—but I kept my own records. And in time… I saw the connection.”
Rhaedor folded his arms. “What sort of connection?”