12 #2
Day Forty brought a lull in the blizzards, but the freeze deepened, turning the road mud into ridges of black iron that shattered horseshoes.
That afternoon, as I folded linen sheets in the upper-floor antechamber, Oria slipped down the corridor with the quiet caution of a shadow.
She paused by the wicker hamper, pretending to inspect the seams of a counterpane, and spoke without looking directly at my face.
“Mother moved the papers,” she whispered, her eyes glued to the main staircase.
My hands froze over the folded linen.
“What papers?”
“Your mother’s appendix,” Oria replied, dropping her voice lower still.
“The sheet she tore from the main will before leaving for Asteria. It isn’t in the false drawer in the study anymore.
Last night, while Celene was arguing with her over dowry money, I saw Mother go upstairs with a black silk pouch and hide it in the rosewood escritoire in her bedroom. ”
A sudden rush of heat surged through my chest.
“In the escritoire?”
“Yes. In the upper compartment, the one locked with the little silver-heart key. She keeps it at the bottom of her jewel box, beneath my grandmother’s imitation pearls.”
I looked at my stepsister. Her pale, round face mirrored a tangle of desperate loyalty and sheer terror.
“Oria… If she catches you helping me—”
“She won’t catch me if you’re fast,” she broke in, catching my sleeve with cold fingers.
“Master Barel is dining here tonight to go over grain accounts. Mother ordered Mina to roast mutton, and she’ll head down to the dining room at eight sharp.
They’ll be downstairs for at least two hours.
Celene is staying with them to coax Barel into lending her coin for spring gowns. ”
“I’ll have the upper floor to myself,” I realized, my heart leaping into my throat.
“You will,” Oria agreed. “But you have to be careful, Liora. Mother is desperate. The parish notary sent a formal letter this morning stating he cannot register the sale of the eastern parcel without a certified copy of Elayne’s original will.
She knows she’s missing the main clause, and she’s terrified Crown clerks will discover she’s been pocketing rents from your land without legal authority.
If she finds an excuse to blame you, she won’t hesitate to ruin you before the guard reaches our gates. ”
“I won’t give her an excuse,” I said, smoothing down the last sheet with a steady hand. “I only need to take back what belongs to me.”
Oria held my gaze for a heartbeat longer, gave my arm a quick squeeze through the wool, and hurried down the corridor toward her room before Maevra’s heavy tread began ascending the grand staircase.
At half past eight on the night of Day Forty-One, the manor house fell under a muffled drift of clattering china, wine goblets, and forced laughter floating up from the ground-floor dining room.
I slipped out of my wooden clogs on the service landing, setting them beside the rail, and padded barefoot down the upper corridor over threadbare runners.
The door to the master bedchamber stood ajar.
I slipped inside with the lightness of a night creature, easing the oak door open just enough to pass through before pulling it back to the frame without letting the hinges creak.
Maevra’s bedchamber smelled of dried lavender, rice powder, and the tallow of beeswax candles burning on the mantelpiece. Embers from the hearth cast dull red shadows across the dark damask hangings of the four-poster bed and the rosewood escritoire tucked into the eastern corner beside the window.
I glided toward the desk without making a sound.
Across the slanted writing surface of tooled leather lay several parchment-bound account books, a goose quill resting in its pewter inkwell, and the green velvet jewel box where Maevra kept her family trinkets.
I lifted the velvet lid with steady fingers.
I pushed aside strings of glass pearls and tortoiseshell combs, searching the bottom of the satin lining. My fingernails caught on a tiny ridge of metal: a little silver key with its bow carved in the shape of a heart.
I took it, fitted it into the lock of the escritoire’s upper compartment, and turned it to the right.
The latch gave with a soft, barely audible click.
The wooden door swung downward, revealing a narrow recess holding a parcel of black silk tied with a ribbon of unbleached linen.
I untied the ribbon with a racing pulse.
Inside the silk lay a single sheet of heavy parchment, yellowed by the years but meticulously preserved. My mother’s slanted, elegant script, penned in walnut ink, stood out with painful sharpness in the firelight.
My eyes traced the opening lines:
“Confidential appendix to the partition ledger and guardianship of House Valen. In testimony to the blood and belonging of my daughter Liora…”
In the left margin, stamped into deep crimson wax, I made out the very seal I had seen on Soren’s vial: two parallel wavy lines crowned by an inverted crescent.
The Gray Tide.
The text ran further down the vellum, naming the ancient charters of the western cliff clans and the alliance sealed before my birth between my mother and the lineage of the tides.
I reached out to take the parchment.
“What a pity your thief’s eyes can’t read in the dark, darling.”
The voice came from behind me, cold and deliberate as a blade gliding across a whetstone.
I whipped around, my back slamming against the desk.