Chapter 9 #2
I hold up the first document. A death certificate—my father’s official record, stating he died of sudden illness.
I set it on the obsidian table. “Note the handwriting. Note the date.”
I hold up the second document. A draft, crumpled and preserved, recovered from the archives by a human scholar who noticed what no one else bothered to examine.
“This is a draft of the same certificate, dated two days before the official version.” I set it beside the first.
Murmurs begin. Nobles lean forward, trying to see the documents. Some exchange uncertain glances—doubt creeping in where certainty once lived.
“My father was strangled.” I let the words land. Let them settle into minds that have accepted the Triumvirate’s version of events since his death. “Then the death certificate was falsified to conceal the murder. The draft was supposed to be destroyed. It wasn’t.”
Juk finds his voice. “This is absurd. A forgery, obviously. The prince’s grief has—”
“Regent Juk.” I turn to face him, let him see everything I’ve been hiding behind careful performance. “I’m not finished.”
More documents. My mother’s letters—her elegant script accusing Juk of embezzlement, threatening to expose him, dated three days before her fatal riding accident.
I spread the letters across the table. “She confronted Regent Juk over embezzlement.”
“Lies.” Juk’s voice has lost its smoothness. “The queen’s death was a tragic accident—”
“Her horse was sabotaged.” I produce another document—a stable hand’s testimony, recorded and hidden by someone with the foresight to preserve evidence.
“A witness who has since ‘disappeared’ observed Juk’s men in the royal stables the night before her ride.
They left something in her saddle. Something that would frighten even the calmest horse. ”
The murmurs are growing louder. Nobles who have spent years accepting the Triumvirate’s narrative are being forced to reconsider. Forced to acknowledge that maybe—just maybe—the official story is a lie.
“But the evidence doesn’t end there.” I turn to address the full chamber, letting my voice carry to every corner.
“Since my father’s death, someone has been systematically falsifying historical records.
Altering succession documents. Creating evidence of madness in the Flamebound bloodline—evidence that doesn’t exist in the original records, only in recent additions. ”
I gesture to the satchel still hanging at my side.
“I have documentation of every alteration. Every forged signature. Every contradictory date and mismatched handwriting. Examined and annotated by an expert in historical analysis, someone with no stake in orc succession and no reason to fabricate findings.”
“A human.” Kreth’s growl rumbles through the chamber. “You’re basing these accusations on the word of a human spy.”
“An archivist.” I meet his gaze—the dead stare of someone who enjoys causing pain. “One who has spent two years in these archives learning our history, our language, our succession law. One who was sent here as punishment for exposing lies and found more lies waiting to be exposed.”
“One who should be dead.” Kreth’s smile never wavers. “Strange that the poison didn’t take.”
The chamber goes silent. Even nobles who might have dismissed my evidence pause at the casual admission.
“You’re not denying it.” I take a step toward him. “You’re not even pretending innocence.”
“Why bother?” Kreth rises from his seat, massive and scarred, that butcher’s cleaver already in his hand. “You’ve made your accusations, princeling. Now let’s see if you can back them up.”
“Kreth. This is a council meeting, not a—” Juk stops. Rises to his feet, smooth politician’s voice returning. “These accusations are unsubstantiated. Forgeries assembled by a foreign agent. The prince is clearly—”
“I killed his father.” Kreth’s announcement stops Juk mid-sentence.
“I held Morvak down while the poison worked. I watched the light leave his eyes while he begged me to spare his son.” His grin stretches wider, showing too many teeth.
“There’s your admission, serpent. What are you going to do with it? ”
The chamber erupts.
Nobles shouting—some in outrage, some in fear, some in sudden, desperate support for the true king they’ve been ignoring since the regency began.
The Triumvirate on their feet, united front crumbling.
Dura calling for guards, her warrior’s instincts demanding order.
Juk still trying to salvage something from the wreckage of his conspiracy.
But order doesn’t come.
Because the guards who answer Dura’s call wear House Emberclaw colors beneath their armor.
Because Vaela’s warriors have been replacing the regular guards for days, positioning themselves throughout the Keep, waiting for exactly this moment.
Because the power the Triumvirate thought was absolute was never more than fear and manipulation—and I have just given the fearful a reason to fight.
“Lords of Ashkar!” My voice carries over the chaos. “You’ve heard the evidence. You’ve heard Regent Kreth’s confession. The Triumvirate are murderers who seized power through assassination. Will you continue to serve them? Or will you stand with your rightful king?”
Movement throughout the chamber. Lords rising—some fleeing, some drawing weapons, some pushing toward me with expressions of desperate loyalty.
House Ironvein, House Shadowmere—lesser houses who have chafed under the Triumvirate’s rule—declaring for the true king.
Major houses hesitating, reading the room, waiting to see which way the wind blows.
Vaela appears at my side. “The Keep is divided. We have perhaps half the guards, less than half the nobles. The Triumvirate still controls the upper levels.”
“Then we take them.”
“With what?” She gestures at the chaos surrounding us. “Half-loyal soldiers and panicking nobles? We need to consolidate, retreat to defensible positions—”
“If we retreat now, we lose momentum.” I scan the chamber, tracking threats and allies.
Kreth is pushing through the crowd toward me, cleaver raised, already closing the distance.
Juk has vanished—slipped away in the confusion, probably racing to rally his supporters.
Dura stands alone, surrounded by guards who won’t meet her eyes.
“We don’t retreat. We advance.”
“Zorath—”
“I’m done hiding.” I draw my hammer from its loop, feel the familiar weight land solid in my grip. “I’m done waiting for the right moment. The right moment is now.”
Kreth breaks through the crowd. We face each other across a space suddenly cleared by nobles scrambling to avoid the violence about to erupt.
“Round two, princeling.” He raises the cleaver—that massive blade, still stained with my blood from the archives. “This time, no horns to save you.”
“This time, I don’t need saving.”
We clash in the heart of the Council Chamber, surrounded by nobles and warriors and the shattered remnants of a three-year conspiracy. His cleaver meets my hammer in a spray of sparks. I feel the impact shudder through my wounded shoulder, send fire racing down my arm.
Pain is temporary. Victory is permanent.
We trade blows. Not clean strikes—there’s no room for clean fighting in this chaos, bodies pressing on all sides, nobles fleeing and warriors engaging throughout the chamber.
I take a cut across my forearm. Give him a broken finger when he overextends.
Duck a swing that would have taken my head, feel the blade whisper past my ear.
“You’re slower.” Kreth presses his advantage, recognizing my wounds from the archive fight. “The shoulder’s bothering you. How long before it gives out entirely?”
He’s not wrong. Every swing costs more than it should. The stitches Gravik placed are holding, but barely—I can feel warmth spreading beneath the bandages, blood seeping where movement tears healing flesh.
I don’t need to win this fight. I just need to survive it.
“Fire!”
The shout comes from somewhere behind Kreth. I see orange light blooming, smell smoke mixing with the copper scent of blood. Something is burning—something big, spreading fast.
“If we can’t rule,” Kreth snarls, “then you’ll burn with us.”
He throws something toward the chamber’s far wall. A flask, glass glinting in the torchlight. It shatters against stone, and fire erupts—not natural fire, but something chemical, something that spreads too fast and burns too bright.
More flasks. More fires. The chamber is becoming an inferno, oil planted throughout the space igniting in a wave that threatens to consume everything.
“Kreth!” Juk’s voice, from somewhere in the chaos. “The escape route!”
The butcher grins at me—all teeth and malice, gaze dead as stone—and backs toward a section of wall I never knew held a hidden passage.
Dura is already there, her warrior’s pragmatism choosing survival over confrontation.
Juk emerges from the crowd, silk robes singed, political mask finally cracked.
“This isn’t over, princeling.” Kreth raises his cleaver in mock salute. “I still owe you a slow death.”
Then they’re gone, vanished into passages even I don’t know about, leaving a burning chamber and a divided kingdom behind.
“We need to move!” Vaela grabs my arm, pulls me toward the main entrance. “The fire’s spreading too fast—if we don’t get out now—”
She’s right. The heat is becoming unbearable, smoke filling the upper portions of the chamber, nobles and warriors alike choking as they scramble for exits. The ceremonial surface is cracking under the temperature, seventeen generations of councils ending in flame.
I let her guide me toward the door. Not because I’m retreating—because dead princes don’t reclaim thrones. Because Fable is waiting in the crypts, trusting me to return. Because this battle is lost, but the war has just begun.