Chapter 26
The next morning, under the neat guise of reorganizing diplomatic correspondence ahead of the transition to Varantia, Evelyne and Vesena made their way to the castle Archives.
Technically true—they would be organizing things.
Specifically, Ravik’s movement reports and military assignments.
If the Grand Marshal had ordered anything—repositioned patrols, dispatched riders, authorized equipment transfers—it should be recorded.
Isildeth had been gently redirected to another task for the morning—told, quite truthfully, that Vesena was ready for more responsibility and that she herself had earned some rest. But as Evelyne passed the sunlit northern corridor and watched Isildeth’s silhouette vanish around the corner with a satchel of linens and one last worried glance, she felt the weight of it anyway.
But guilt was one thing, clarity another.
They had work to do.
And if she kept telling herself that, maybe it would drown out the rest of it. Like the memory of the previous afternoon.
She usually didn’t get offended like some conceited debutante with wilted pride and too much taffeta. She wasn’t built that way. But Evelyne had spent far too much of her life with men deciding things for her. Her father. His council. Tradition.
And while she respected tradition, knew her place and what it asked of her, she also couldn’t keep surrendering to whatever direction someone else pointed. It didn’t feel right anymore.
It doesn’t change the fact that she could have simply said, “No, thank you. I still wish to check the Archives,” and that would’ve been that. She would’ve had her boundary and an ally. But no—because he was the one saying it, her whole being had decided to start misbehaving.
Thinking turned to feeling. She wasn’t used to that.
Very becoming of you, Evelyne.
With him, the lines started to blur. A word offered lightly could wedge itself beneath her ribs and settle there. It left something behind. Something that wanted. A desire to know.
She had wanted to lean into it. Into the promise of ease, of partnership, of not carrying the weight alone for once. So, she pulled away. Recoiled like a burn victim at the first sign of warmth, terrified that this time, it might not be a lie—and even more terrified that it might be.
She hated herself a little for it.
Vesena didn’t comment.
But Evelyne saw the look. The quiet “so we’re doing this without him now” flicker that passed over her face—there and gone in an instant. She just watched, understood, and, maddeningly, offered nothing more than her usual silence.
It was worse than being scolded.
Still, Evelyne held her head high as they made their way down the corridor. And if she still felt vaguely haunted by the way he’d looked at her, then that was her own foolishness to wrestle with. Privately.
They reached the Archives just as the bells struck the hour. Two Silverwards opened the great carved doors with a bow.
Inside, the air was filled with the dry, pleasant scent of paper and time.
They crossed the hall side by side. The castle Archives were nothing short of a cathedral to order.
Shelves rose to the ceiling, five stories high, wrapped in curling ironwork and fitted with tall sliding ladders.
Rows of long oak tables sat neatly between the stacks, each one outfitted with shaded lamps and weighted inkwells.
The windows were tall and curtained, letting in just enough filtered light to glow through the dust without risking damage to the pages.
This was a place built for quiet minds. For careful work. For piecing things together.
“Your Highness,” came a warm voice.
The First Archivist approached from behind a desk; hands folded over the front of his maroon-colored robe. An older man with a kind face and pale eyes that had likely memorized more scrolls than most of the court had read in their lives. He bowed—not low, but deeply respectful.
Evelyne returned the gesture with an incline of her head, the corners of her mouth softening just enough. “Archivist Elorith. You’re looking well. Has your granddaughter recovered from the spring fever?”
The question caught him gently off guard. His face brightened with quiet surprise before settling into a pleased smile. “She has, Your Highness. Thank you kindly for remembering. Back to climbing furniture and refusing bedtime like nothing ever happened.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Evelyne said, and meant it. “Do let her know I still have the shell she sent.”
“I shall pass it along. It will make her day.” The Archivist let out a low chuckle, some of the formality leaving his posture. “May I be of service?”
Evelyne offered a small nod in return. “Yes. I’ll require access to the patrol orders from this and past year. I’m reviewing records ahead of the transition. My maid will assist me.”
There was a beat—then a nod. He turned at once, already moving toward the shelves where the ledgers were kept, robes sweeping like a curtain drawn between eras.
Most days, a request like this would have required her tutor’s signature.
In fact, not so long ago, she wouldn’t have been allowed here alone at all.
The Archives were a man’s domain. But now?
Now she was a future empress. And more importantly: there simply wasn’t time.
The preparations were too vast, the bureaucracy too bloated, and no one wanted to assign a permanent escort when she had already proven herself capable.
Apparently, one of the few rewards for a lifetime of obedience was that when you finally did something you weren’t supposed to, no one questioned it. Or noticed at all.
“I must say, Your Highness,” the First Archivist called gently from the shelves, “it’s been quite the season for the Archives. I imagine I’ll be recording your name upon a number of chapters soon enough. It’s an honor.”
Evelyne smiled faintly, her hands still moving with quiet precision over the ledger in front of her. “Then I hope, at the very least, they’ll make for decent reading,” she said, her tone light but threaded with something real. “And that you’ll be kind with your footnotes.”
The Archivist chuckled, clearly pleased. “I’ve never been accused of cruelty in the margins, Your Highness.”
“Then I’m in good hands,” she replied.
She chose the table nearest the north-facing windows. Vesena stood beside her, hands clasped behind her back like she belonged here more than Evelyne did.
Her fingers twitched. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder, eyes flicking toward the entrance.
When the First Archivist returned, he was followed by a young man, carrying a stack of bound ledgers in both arms. The soft maroon of his robe marked him as part of the Order, but it was the number stitched in silver thread at his shoulder that drew Evelyne’s eye.
Nine.
Ninth Archivist. Newly initiated. Likely still memorizing ink codes and spill procedures. The boy set the books down with care, then stepped back as the elder took his place.
“These,” the First Archivist began, laying a hand atop the top volume, “are the daily patrol assignments and security postings dating from the last twenty-six months. They’ve been logged chronologically and color-coded by region.
Each entry is cross-referenced with the corresponding royal decree, request, or formal amendment.
Notes from the Marshal’s office”—he tapped the edge of one volume—“are annotated here, with margin codes in red.”
He looked at her then, kind but keen. “If you require assistance deciphering the system, we are at your disposal.”
Evelyne nodded once. “Thank you. We’ll manage.”
The Archivist bowed and withdrew, the Ninth trailing behind like a silent punctuation mark.
Vesena slid into the seat opposite her. Without a word, she began dividing the ledgers, arranging them by month with a speed that suggested she had already decided how they would split the work before they even sat down.
They were in the year 1319 now, the sixth month—Orvakar. Nearly one year to the day since the chapel turned red and every name associated with her future had bled out on stone.
Vesena took the stretch of time that followed the Maroon Slaughter.
Evelyne took the rest. The thick tome for Orvakar 1318—the month of Dasmon’s death—sat in front of her like a sealed confession.
Alongside it, she pulled the archives covering twelve months prior.
If there were warning signs, missing pages, orders that didn’t line up, they would be there.
She opened the ledger.
Four hours passed in silence, and flutters of pages. Quills scratched only when notes were worth making—which, depressingly, was rare.
The records were clean. Too clean.
Everything in the months preceding the Maroon Slaughter had been noted with mechanical precision.
Dates, troop rotations, rosters—they followed identical rhythms to the year before, almost as if someone had taken the old records and simply rewritten them line for line.
Perfect symmetry. Not one unexpected shift in the guards, no amended patrol logs, no sudden gaps.
It was the kind of perfection that rang louder than any mistake. Or it was simply Edrathen’s perfection.
The thought lodged somewhere sharp. Alaric had warned her. She’d dismissed it then, cloaked in instinctive pride. Edrathen didn’t bend to Varantian scrutiny. Edrathen didn’t lie.
Except, maybe it had. And maybe he’d seen it first.
The possibility made her sick. Not because he’d been right, but because he’d looked once and noticed what she’d lived inside and missed for years.
She hated that. Hated it with a quiet, unflinching heat.
Across the table, Vesena leaned in, keeping her voice to a whisper. “There’s nothing. This week’s logs aren’t in here yet. They’re likely still in Ravik’s office.”
Evelyne didn’t sigh, though she wanted to. “And last year security was under Calveran jurisdiction.”
“They’ll have records,” Vesena mused, glancing around them. “If they exist.”