Chapter 40 #3
“Maia.” The name landed differently here.
I kept my attention on Emrin’s dates. “She knew something. I don’t know what, but she did.
Before Edenlo was attacked, she was scared in a way she wouldn’t explain.
She and Ferin kept talking privately. The protections were failing. Ferin was watching the western road.”
Dax leaned forward, all teasing forgotten. “Did she ever tell you where you came from?”
“No.”
“Anything about Elyndor?”
“No.”
Emrin leaned her elbows against the table. “That doesn’t mean she was the one altering records. She would have to have been a wielder herself if that was the case. No Hollowborn would survive cross the veil.”
“I know.” She was right. There was no way Maia could have been a wielder. If she had been, things would have went differently at Turning. If she had been, she would still be alive.
“But whoever carried the secret forward after your parents died had to get you somewhere.” I looked at her.
She tapped the courier notice from her family.
“Our land records may help with that. They won’t care who was royal or who was forbidden.
They record roads, crossings, old rights of passage, freight routes.
If somebody moved you west without wanting the palace to know, there may be traces of the route even if there’s no name attached.
” The Balethorn packet was due before Solstice.
Outside the restoration room, the bells sounded again.
This time four notes.
Closer to evening. Closer to the celebration. Kieran had gone very quiet. He was studying one date in the Umbrael catalogue.
“What’s wrong?”
He turned the page toward me. “Another transfer.”
“Is it the same correspondence?”
“It’s elated classification.” The entry showed a restricted packet leaving crown custody during the same broad period as the earlier erasures.
“Where did it go?”
“Into a private collection.”
“Whose?”
“The family line is missing.”
Dax muttered under his breath.
Kieran ignored him. I traced the edge of the page. “So both sides were removing things.”
“It looks that way.”
Vareena glanced between the Elyndorian and Umbrael records. “Aurenya and Maerox could have been hiding themselves from both courts.”
Kieran answered without looking up. “That would have been necessary.”
The certainty in his answer caught me. “How do you know?”
His hand remained on the catalogue. “Because Elyndor and Umbrael both kept records of people who crossed political lines. If they were involved and wanted it hidden, erasing one side would have been useless.”
Later, I would remember that he had answered too easily.
At the time, there were too many other things to hold.
Lidia returned to the altered bindings. Raiden began copying the restoration dates in a cleaner hand.
Vareena reread her father’s note twice and then stopped, as if the third time might make it say something different.
Eiryx had not spoken in nearly half an hour.
I finally looked toward him. His chair was empty. “Where did he go?”
Kieran checked the far shelves. “He was here ten minutes ago.”
“You didn’t see him leave?”
“I saw him leave. I didn’t ask.”
Dax leaned back. “That relationship is deeply strange.” Kieran gave him a look. Dax returned to his papers. The door opened fifteen minutes later.
Eiryx came back alone. He was not breathing hard. His clothes were undisturbed. There was no urgency in the way he closed the door. That was what made everyone stop. Kieran set down the crown catalogue. “What did you find?”
Eiryx crossed the room and placed a narrow slip of paper on the table. “I checked the acquisition trail.”
The copied entry carried an old accession number with a newer notation beneath it. I could not read the code. Kieran could. His face hardened. “What is that?”
Vareena moved closer.
Eiryx pointed to the old mark first. “The Umbrael correspondence passed through a private estate before the Sanctum acquired its copy. The original family name disappeared when the estate changed hands, but the Sanctum kept the acquisition correspondence.”
“So you found the private collection,” I said.
“I found where the trail should continue.”
Should.
I looked at the newer notation. “And that?”
“Someone requested the same correspondence.”
The room went silent. “When?” Kieran asked.
“Three days ago.”
Before we had divided the research. Before Dax and Raiden had even known about the Codex.
Vareena picked up the slip. “Who requested it?”
“No claimant listed.”
“That’s impossible,” Raiden said.
“Under normal archive procedure, yes.”
Kieran held out his hand. Eiryx gave him the paper. “What authorization?”
“A generic internal mark. High enough to move material, low enough that no individual name was entered.”
Kieran’s thumb moved over the copied seal. “Was anything taken?”
“One packet is missing.”
My stomach tightened. “Missing as in misplaced?”
Eiryx looked at me. “No.” He did not elaborate. He didn’t need to. Someone had found the same trail before us. Not centuries ago. Now. The first erasure had happened while my mother was alive. The second after she died. And three days ago, someone had gone looking for what remained.