Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
FABLE
There’s something missing in the evidence stack—a gap that’s been nagging at me since I first started building this conspiracy case. The murders make sense. The falsified records make sense. The systematic dismantling of Zorath’s support base makes sense.
What doesn’t make sense is the timing.
Juk’s embezzlement from the treasury started decades ago.
Queen Seraphel discovered the irregularities twelve years before her death.
Twelve years. That’s an eternity in political terms—more than enough time for a schemer as careful as Juk to realize he was exposed, to take action, to eliminate the threat.
But he didn’t move against Seraphel until she threatened to tell the king. Didn’t move against Morvak until Zorath was almost old enough to rule.
Why wait?
I’ve asked myself this question a hundred times. Examined the evidence from every angle. The answer has to be here somewhere, buried in the documents I’ve spent two years cataloguing, hidden in plain sight the way Juk hides everything.
My fingers find the locket at my throat. Grandmother’s locket, the one possession I brought from Lythara that matters.
Think, Fable. What are you missing?
The treaties are a logical place to look. Juk controls trade—that’s his power base, the source of wealth that buys loyalty and silence. Any constraints on his activities would show up in official agreements between the orc kingdom and outside powers.
I’ve gone through most of them already. Trade regulations, tariff schedules, the mind-numbing bureaucratic details that govern the movement of goods and gold across borders. Nothing useful. Nothing that explains why a man patient enough to embezzle for decades would suddenly escalate to murder.
Unless the constraints weren’t about trade.
I pull a thick folder from the bottom of the stack—documents I set aside as irrelevant, treaties governing the exchange of scholars and diplomatic personnel rather than merchandise. The paper is yellowed, the ink faded, the formal language so archaic I have to translate it in my head as I read.
The original agreement between the orc kingdom and the Lythara Scholars’ Guild dates back sixty years. Standard terms, mostly. Access to archives in exchange for cataloguing services. Diplomatic protections for foreign researchers. Procedures for resolving disputes over document ownership.
And buried in the middle of the third page, a clause I somehow overlooked three times: “Any scholar of the Guild working within the territory of Ashkar Keep shall retain the right to bring evidence of criminal activity directly to the Guild Council for independent investigation, without interference from local authorities.”
I read it again. A third time. The implications unfold in my mind like a flower blooming in fast-forward.
External oversight. An authority outside the Regents’ control. A failsafe that meant any foreign scholar who discovered wrongdoing could bypass the entire orc power structure and report directly to an outside body.
My hands are shaking as I flip through the subsequent revisions. The treaty was amended twenty-three years ago. Again fifteen years ago. Again seven years ago.
The oversight clause disappeared in the first revision.
Juk’s signature is on every single document.
I pace the length of the storage chamber, documents clutched to my chest, my mind racing faster than my feet can carry me.
Twenty-three years. Juk has been planning this for twenty-three years. Longer, probably—the treaty revision was just the first step, the removal of the one safeguard that might have stopped him.
The embezzlement had already begun by then—quiet, careful, always one foreign scholar’s letter away from exposure. Removing the oversight clause didn’t start the conspiracy. It unleashed it.
After that, he was free to act. Free to embezzle without fear of exposure. Free to eliminate anyone who noticed the discrepancies. Free to build a conspiracy so vast, so patient, so methodical that by the time it reached its culmination, no one would be able to unravel it.
Except someone did.
Me. A disgraced scholar sent here as punishment. Guildmaster Veth’s way of burying an inconvenient truth-teller in a nothing assignment where she couldn’t cause trouble.
They buried me in exactly the right place.
The irony would be funny if people weren’t dying because of it.
I need to find Zorath. Need to show him what I’ve found, help him understand what it means.
This isn’t just evidence of murder—it’s evidence of a conspiracy spanning more than two decades, implicating every noble who signed off on these treaty revisions, every official who looked the other way while oversight was systematically dismantled.
Juk didn’t act alone. He couldn’t have. Someone had to propose the revisions. Someone had to argue for their passage. Someone had to make sure no one asked too many questions when the oversight clause quietly vanished.
Those someones have names. Names on documents. Names that will destroy Juk’s coalition if I can get them in front of the right people at the right moment.
I gather the most damning papers into my satchel and head for the door.
The refuge chamber is quieter than before. Most of the warriors have dispersed to their positions, preparing for the assault that’s supposed to begin at nightfall. A skeleton crew remains—runners, a few of Vaela’s agents, the healers who will be needed when the wounded start arriving.
Zorath stands alone at the map table, his back to the entrance, his shoulders carrying tension I can read from across the room.
He’s in full armor now—volcanic glass plates over leather, his grandfather’s war-hammer strapped across his back.
The black mourning clothes are gone, replaced by the dark green of the Flamebound line.
He looks like what he is: a prince going to war.
He looks like what he’s becoming: a king.
Something tightens in my chest at the sight of him. The memory of last night rises unbidden—his hands on my skin, his mouth on mine, the tremor that shook the mountain in answer to our joining. I push it aside. There will be time for that later. Assuming there is a later.
“I found something.”
He turns. The exhaustion on his face transforms into alertness, that unwavering focus that makes him so dangerous. His gaze drops to the satchel at my hip, rises to my face. “Evidence?”
“Better.” I cross to the map table, pull out the documents, spread them across the tactical layouts.
“I’ve been asking the wrong question. I kept wondering why Juk waited so long to move against your parents.
The embezzlement started decades ago. Your mother discovered the irregularities twelve years before her death.
Why didn’t Juk eliminate her immediately? ”
“Because he’s careful.” Zorath leans over the documents, his shoulder brushing mine. The contact sends heat spreading through me. “He doesn’t act until he’s certain of success.”
“That’s what I thought. But careful isn’t the same as passive.
Juk spent twenty-three years preparing for this.
Twenty-three years building the foundation for everything that came after.
” I tap the oldest treaty revision. “This is the original agreement between Ashkar Keep and the scholars’ guild.
Notice anything interesting on page three? ”
He reads. His brow furrows. “An oversight clause. Foreign scholars could report crimes directly to the guild council.”
“Could bypass the Regents entirely. Could bring evidence to an external authority that Juk couldn’t control, couldn’t silence, couldn’t make disappear.
” I flip to the next document. “This is the first revision. The clause is gone. And here—” I point to the signature block.
“Juk. He proposed the revision. Argued for it. Made sure it passed.”
Understanding dawns in his eyes. I watch it happen, watch him reach the same conclusions I reached an hour ago. “He removed the safeguard before he started the embezzlement.”
“Before he could be stopped. As long as that clause existed, any foreign scholar in the Keep could expose him with a single letter to Lythara. Once it was gone, he was free to act. Free to steal, to kill, to build the conspiracy that murdered your parents.”
Zorath straightens. His hand finds the small of my back—not claiming, not possessive, just contact. Just the need to touch that’s become natural between us since that night in the cavern. “This is premeditation.”
“On a scale I didn’t think was possible.” I lean into his touch despite myself. “Juk has been planning the destruction of the Flamebound line for longer than you’ve been alive. And he didn’t do it alone.”
I spread the rest of the documents across the table—the subsequent revisions, each one signed by multiple nobles, each one further eroding the protections that might have stopped the conspiracy before it began.
“Lord Dareth signed the first revision. He’s dead now—natural causes, supposedly, eight years ago.
Lord Kraveth signed the second. He’s one of Juk’s strongest supporters, commands two hundred warriors in the northern territories.
Lord Fennik signed the third.” I look up at Zorath.
“These aren’t minor functionaries. These are powerful nobles who either knew what they were enabling or were too stupid to read what they were signing. ”
“Kraveth isn’t stupid.”
“No. He isn’t.” I hold his gaze. “Which means he was complicit. He knew Juk was removing oversight. He helped him do it. He’s been part of this conspiracy since the beginning.”
Zorath’s jaw tightens. “Kraveth is commanding troops for Dura. If he knows we have this—”