13 #2
If my soldiers marched onto the Valen estate with the same blind brutality Thorne had brought to Joram’s loom, if someone used the guard’s presence to denounce Liora as an impostor, or if she tried to run through the snow again with a poisoned body, she wouldn’t survive the night.
“Captain Thorne,” I said, turning back to the officer with sharp authority.
“My lord.”
“I want to see the search itinerary for the next two days.”
Thorne hesitated for a fraction of a second before stepping up to the field table and untying a black leather notebook bound with a scarlet ribbon.
I turned the pages slowly, examining the routes mapped for the guard’s three companies.
In the notes for the northern quadrant, I found the holdings of minor bloodlines, water mills, and riverside granaries. But when I reached the section for the great estates across the eastern plateau, my eyes caught a series of marginal notes penned in blue ink:
“House Karr estate: search completed Day Forty-Four without incident.”
“Sarr manor house: inspection deferred under courtesy protocol.”
“Valen estate: search assigned to Third Company for Day Fifty-Eight under supervision of district steward.”
I looked up at Thorne.
“Why is the Valen estate scheduled for Day Fifty-Eight when it’s barely two miles from this camp?”
“It’s the natural geographic progression of the plateau, my lord,” Thorne replied without blinking.
“Third Company is finishing its sweep of the lower river hamlets. If we push toward the Valen estate before securing the river fords, we risk suspects slipping across into the neighboring district undetected.”
I took the notebook in both hands and held it toward the oil lamp.
Beneath Thorne’s official hand, along the bottom margin of the leaf, I caught a faint mark pressed with a dry stylus—a three-number cipher matching the private courier system Lord Odran used to communicate with members of the regency Council.
The search itinerary was no tactical sweep.
It was a leaked route.
Someone in Asteria’s chancery—or Thorne himself from this command post—had sent a copy of the inspection schedule to the influential families on the plateau, giving them a two-week window to clear out their cellars, hide unregistered servants, and balance their ledgers before royal patrols knocked on their doors.
At the Valen estate, whoever held evidence, unregistered servants, or falsified accounts had been given ample time to hide them before Crown clerks arrived to inspect the titles.
I snapped the notebook shut with a sharp crack that echoed through the tent like a gunshot.
“The schedule is void,” I announced.
Thorne’s brow furrowed, stepping forward with visible alarm in his eyes.
“My lord, altering the companies’ route without notifying sector commanders will plunge supply lines into logistical chaos. Asteria’s quartermasters have already arranged horse relays at the northern posts.”
“The quartermasters will adapt to my orders,” I cut in. “Tomorrow at dawn we break camp. We won’t head for the northern mills. We cross the stone bridge and push directly into the eastern quadrant.”
“Toward the Valen estate?” Thorne asked, his voice strung taut with dangerous tension.
“Toward every holding in the eastern district,” I corrected, holding his gaze until the officer had to look away.
“And there will be no advance notice to stewards, no courtesy protocols for families of high blood. Every house, barn, and attic will be searched under the direct supervision of Doctor Ardel and my personal guard.”
Iven nodded slowly from his corner, stowing the sample jar in his leather satchel with quiet approval.
“I will have the testing reagents prepared by dawn, my lord.”
“Captain Thorne,” I added, stepping directly before the officer.
“Relay the order to the sergeants. If I discover a single rider leaving this perimeter tonight to carry messages to the plateau estates, the courier will hang for insubordination from the river bridge—and the officer who signed his pass will take his place on the gallows. Is that understood?”
Thorne squared his shoulders, jaw locking tight.
“Completely understood, Lord of the Crown.”
The officer offered a stiff bow and hurried out of the tent, leaving behind a wake of freezing air that set the tallow candle flames dancing.
At midnight, I stepped out of the command tent to walk the perimeter of the camp.
The northern blizzard had finally died down, leaving a night clean and cold as a sheet of polished steel. Above the hills of the plateau, a crescent moon etched the black silhouettes of the birch woods against a sky studded with pale stars.
I walked to the edge of the embankment overlooking the highway.
In the distance, two leagues to the east, the faint lights of the farming estates flickered in the dark like dying embers in an abandoned hearth.
I unfastened the collar of my cloak, letting the cold night wind strike my bare throat.
I closed my eyes and breathed in slowly.
In the freezing air there was no trace of court smoke, no perfume of ballroom dances. Only the smell of frozen earth, pine sap, and snow.
And beneath it all, faint as the murmur of a creek under a sheet of ice, a dull pulse in the center of my chest—the same involuntary call I had felt in the citadel’s command room, the distant echo of a beast holding out in the dark without asking for quarter.
Far off, at the bridge watchpost, the sentry sounded three crisp notes on his brass horn, announcing the midnight watch change.
The ring was closing.
Only this time, the doors we would batter down were not those of a prison for a fugitive, but of the cage where an entire pack had tried to bury the truth.