Chapter 41 #3
“I think knowing how compromised intelligence is used gives me a responsibility you don’t currently like.
I know how records become bait. How someone is made to believe she is following a trail when the trail was built specifically for her.
I will not watch you follow one because interfering might make you hate me. ”
That was too precise. “So you think this trail was built for me.”
“I think it could be.”
“And you know that because?”
His face closed. There it was again.
“Enough.” I stepped back. “Keep the mystery. Put it on a shelf beside everything else you’ve decided I can wait to understand.”
I moved around him. His hand struck the balustrade instead of touching me. Stone cracked beneath his palm. I stopped. Looked at the fracture. Then him. “Very controlled.”
His eyes flashed. “You have an astonishing talent for making self-control difficult.”
“That sounds like a personal failing.”
“It is becoming one.”
Heat moved beneath my skin. Wrong moment. Wrong man. Wrong everything.
“Do not go back to that archive,” he said.
“You already ordered me.”
“I’m asking you to hear the reason beneath it.”
“And I’m asking you to understand what happens if you use your rank to force the issue.”
He went quiet.
“You can warn me. Advise me. Tell me I’m reckless until your voice gives out. Stand in front of the damned door yourself.” I stepped closer. “But if you use your position to punish me for disagreeing with you, whatever exists between us changes.”
That landed.
“What exactly are you saying?”
“I think you’re smart enough to know.”
For once, Kieran Nyxara had no immediate answer. I walked away. He did not stop me. That hurt more than I wanted it to.
Emrin found me outside the dining hall. Dax stood beside her crushing a courier notice in one hand.
“Our family packet arrives tomorrow,” he said. “And someone already requested collection before it’s inside the Sanctum.”
Emrin handed me the notice. The Balethorn shipment had reached the outer station early.
It would enter the western receiving vault after midday.
Beneath the delivery notation: Collection authorization already requested.
Identity verification required upon arrival.
I read it twice. “You didn’t request this? ”
Emrin shook her head.
“And your father?”
Dax snorted. “My father would rather wrestle an ox than complete Sanctum paperwork.”
Footsteps sounded behind us. Kieran and Eiryx appeared at the end of the corridor.
Eiryx saw the paper first. “What happened?”
I handed it over. He read it and went still before passing it to Kieran. Whatever anger remained between Kieran and me disappeared the moment he read the first line. Not softened. Gone. The man from the bridge vanished. In his place stood the prince raised by a king who made monsters of men.
Kieran angled the notice beneath a wall lamp and scraped his nail beneath the wax. Black residue gathered on his fingertip.
Eiryx swore.
“What is that?” Emrin asked.
“Lampblack mixed with sealing oil. Someone warmed the wax, opened the notice, then disguised the disturbed edge before resealing it.”
Dax stared. “You can tell that from soot?”
“I can tell because I’ve done it.”
Silence.
Raiden appeared from the dining hall. “I feel like I arrived at an unfortunate sentence.”
“You did,” Lidia said behind him.
Kieran tapped the intake number. “This tells whoever opened it when your records arrive, where they’ll be stored, and who is supposed to collect them.”
Emrin went pale.
“Neither of you goes near that vault tomorrow.”
Dax stared at him. “Those are our family records.”
“And someone now knows exactly where they’ll be.”
“So we leave them there?”
“We prevent whoever opened this from getting the person they expect to retrieve them.”
“You don’t know they’re waiting for us.”
“No. I know someone breached Sanctum courier procedure to obtain an intake number for records with no value unless they know why we requested them. That is enough.”
Dax’s Earth stirred beneath the floor. Kieran looked down. “Dax. Think carefully before you try to intimidate me with Earth magic while we are standing inside a mountain.”
Raiden immediately took one step backward.
Lidia caught his sleeve. “Where are you going?”
“Somewhere I’m not between them when Balethorn makes a poor decision.”
Kieran turned to Eiryx. “Routes into the receiving vault?”
“Three public approaches, one service passage, two restoration corridors. Lower routes should be sealed.”
“Should?”
“You’re welcome to trust thirty-year-old ward maps.”
“I don’t. Blind points?”
“Two. Possibly three.”
“Check them.”
“I was already going to.”
“I’m coming.”
Dax looked between them. “So you two can go but the people whose names are on the records cannot?”
“We are checking the route.”
“That distinction is remarkably convenient.”
“It is intended to keep you from arriving exactly where someone expects you.”
Emrin crossed her arms. “And if someone removes the records while we wait?”
“Then the vault itself is compromised and we have a larger problem.”