Chapter 3 #2
“I have more.” I push forward before the rage can harden into something uncontrollable.
“The falsifications aren’t random. They’re systematic.
Concentrated around specific events and dates.
” I spread more documents across the desk—the pattern I’ve been building for months.
“Someone has been constructing a narrative. Madness in the Flamebound bloodline. Violent tendencies. Treasonous statements you never made, attributed to witnesses who were conveniently silenced.”
His gaze snaps to the documents. The rage shifts, sharpens, becomes something colder. More focused.
“They’re building a case against me.”
“They’re building a justification for removing you from succession.
” I tap the stack of forged records. “These documents are waiting to be ‘discovered’ at the right moment. Probably right before they crown their puppet king. The realm will believe they had no choice—the prince was unfit, dangerous, a threat to the kingdom’s stability. ”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Reading. Processing. I watch his expression shift from fury to cold calculation, the picture of someone who has just understood the true scale of what’s been laid against him.
“How long?” His voice is flat now. Controlled. “How long have you been investigating?”
“Two years. Though I didn’t understand what I was finding until six months ago.
I was sent here to catalogue historical records.
A nothing assignment. Punishment for embarrassing Guildmaster Veth—whose falsified research I’d been unwise enough to publish the truth about.
Instead, I found inconsistencies. Then patterns. Then murder.”
His gaze lifts from the documents. Finds me. Holds me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle, makes something in my chest tighten—a reaction I shove aside for later dissection.
This close, I can see the details the reports never mentioned—the way his tusks curve, filed sharp but not cruel. The intelligence in those amber-gold eyes, sharper than most people give him credit for. The way grief has carved lines into features that should be too young for such marks.
“Why tell me?”
“You’re the only one with the authority to act on it.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” He leans forward, and suddenly the space between us shrinks, fills with his heat and presence and the violence held barely in check, waiting for release.
“You’re human. You have no stake in orc succession.
If the Triumvirate discovered what you know, they would make you disappear without a trace.
Why risk yourself for a kingdom that isn’t yours? ”
The question cuts deeper than it should.
I’ve asked myself the same thing—in the dark hours before dawn, when fear wins and determination wavers.
The smart answer would be self-interest. Political advantage.
Something he could understand, something that fits in the boxes where he categorizes the world.
I give him the truth instead.
“I believe in truth.”
His expression flickers. Skepticism, maybe. Or confusion. As if the concept is foreign to him, a language he’s forgotten how to speak.
“That sounds naive.”
“It probably is.” I hold his gaze, refusing to flinch.
“I’ve watched powerful people rewrite history because they had the authority to do it.
I’m not going to sit in these archives and let another lie stand unchallenged.
” I gesture at the documents spread between us.
“Your father was murdered. The killers rule in his name. And someone needs to care about that, even if it’s just a human archivist with more spite than sense. ”
Something shifts in his face. The mask cracks, just for a moment, and I see something younger beneath. Wounded. A boy who watched his father die and has been waiting three years for someone to acknowledge the injustice.
“You believe I’m not what they say.” Not a question. A test.
“The prince who has spent three years surviving in a court that wants him dead—that’s not instability. That’s intelligence.”
He goes still. Completely, utterly still, something shifting in his expression—the fury receding, replaced by an attention so focused it feels like pressure. I’ve said something wrong. Pushed too hard. Seen too much of what he’s hiding beneath the fury.
Then he moves.
One moment there’s a desk between us. The next, he’s standing, and I’m standing, and he’s close—too close, close enough that his heat washes over me, that I have to crane my neck to meet his gaze.
His eyes burn in the dim light. His presence fills the space around me, crowds out air and thought and the careful distance I’ve been maintaining.
“You don’t know what I am.” His voice drops low. Dangerous. A rumble that I feel in my chest more than hear with my ears. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
Every nerve screams retreat—the same instincts that have kept me alive through two years in this hostile court. He’s trying to intimidate me. Trying to make me flinch, to prove that I’m like everyone else, just another courtier who sees the monster and runs.
I plant my feet instead. Hold my ground. Lift my chin and stare into those amber eyes from inches away.
“Then show me.”
His breath catches. Just barely—a hitch in his chest, a moment of surprise that breaks through the careful menace. He wasn’t expecting that. Wasn’t expecting a human woman half his size to stand her ground when he’s looming over her with violence radiating from every pore.
“Help me find the rest of the evidence.” The words come steady despite my hammering heart. “Let me help you take back your throne the right way—through truth, not just blood.”
“What’s your name?”
“Fable.”
His gaze searches my face. Looking for something—deception, ulterior motives, the angle I must be playing. I let him look. Let him see the exhaustion and the determination and the stubborn belief that truth matters, even in a kingdom built on lies.
“You’re either very brave.” His voice is rough. “Or very foolish, Fable.”
His amber gaze sharpens. Surprise, maybe. Or respect. Or the first crack in armor he’s worn so long he’s forgotten what exists beneath it.
His mouth opens. He’s going to answer—
Shouts echo through the Keep.
We both freeze. The sounds come from somewhere above—guards mobilizing, armor clattering, voices raised in urgent command. Not the normal patrol rhythms. Not the quiet efficiency of the night watch.
An alarm. Someone has raised an alarm.
Zorath’s expression transforms. The crack seals over, replaced by cold calculation, something harder and more focused taking control. His hand closes around my wrist—warm, calloused, strong enough to shatter bone if he squeezed—and he pulls me away from the desk.
“The Regents know you’re investigating.”
“What—”
“That note I received.” He’s moving, dragging me toward a section of wall that looks solid, that looks like every other section of volcanic stone. “They received a copy, too.”
My blood goes cold. “That’s not possible. I only sent one—”
“Someone copied it. Someone who wanted us both exposed.” His free hand presses something in the stone—a catch, a trigger, something I never would have found in a hundred years of searching. The wall shifts. Opens. Reveals a passage beyond, dark and narrow and smelling of dust and ancient secrets.
“Someone is playing both of us.” His grip tightens on my wrist. Not painful, but inescapable. The strength in his hand is terrifying and reassuring in equal measure—the reminder that whatever comes next, I’m not facing it alone. “Move. Now.”
I grab the documents from my desk—can’t leave them, can’t let the evidence fall into enemy hands—and let him pull me into the darkness. The wall grinds closed behind us. The shouts grow louder, closer. Guards entering the archives. Searching.
We run.
His hand never leaves my wrist. His heat never stops radiating against my skin.
The passage is ancient—carved stone worn smooth by centuries of use, the emergency routes of paranoid kings who understood that thrones are never truly secure.
I stumble in the darkness, and his grip shifts, steadies me, keeps me upright without breaking stride.
Behind us, through stone and shadow, I hear the guards searching. Shouting orders. Overturning my workspace, probably destroying months of careful organization. My documents—but no. The important ones are clutched against my chest. The evidence survives, even if everything else is lost.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, beneath the fear and the adrenaline and the desperate calculation of survival, a single realization takes hold:
Someone wanted us caught in the same place.
Someone wanted us caught.
And I still don’t know if that someone is friend or enemy.