Chapter 48
CHAPTER
Sabine
For three consecutive days, Sabine had risen before dawn, only to find that sleep, once lost, would not return. Each morning started the same: a hasty breakfast followed by hours in Azrian’s study, sifting through mountains of evidence.
The study itself had become a war room. Since their night at Braythar House, the room had transformed into a bunker filled with all the tools of insurrection.
Piles of Registry ledgers, coded transcripts, and lists of every marked individual the Empire had silenced were scattered around.
Behind Azrian’s desk, a large map of Ilvarenne displayed colored pins, each indicating a confirmed incident or suspected Registry correction.
The furniture was pushed to the room’s edges, leaving only the rug and desk.
Sabine sat cross-legged on the rug, stacking three piles of letters in chronological order.
Azrian knelt beside her, sleeves rolled to the elbows, a blue wax pencil poised above a fresh sheet of paper.
He looked less like an Emperor’s enforcer than a scholar gone to seed, his hair loose and his shirt wrinkled at the collar.
There was a sharpness to his movements that morning, a brittle energy that told Sabine he hadn’t slept at all.
She nudged one of the stacks toward him. “That’s everything from the Keshiran annexation, plus the clandestine reports on the marked children in the Sable Strand.”
He picked up the top letter, scanned it, then set it aside for annotation. “How many more of these do we have?”
“Eighty-three, if we count only the ones with corroborating witness statements.” She hesitated, then added, “That’s not even including the rumors Lady Delarine flagged in her personal notes.”
Azrian exhaled through his nose. “The rumors matter. Sometimes, a rumor is the only record left.”
She watched as he moved papers aside and traced lines with his pencil before adding them to a different pile. His fingers flexed as he wrote, causing the veins in his hands to stand out and the pulse at Sabine’s throat to quicken. She looked away.
If there ever was a worse time to indulge one’s fancies for their husband, the middle of planning an insurrection had to be it.
She stifled a yawn. “Do you think this will work?”
He didn’t look up, but he stilled over the paper. “We have enough to get the public’s attention. That’s all that matters. The rest is timing.”
Sabine plucked at the edge of the rug, twisting a loose thread into a knot. “And what if the Registry simply buries it? What if they kill us and say we fabricated everything?”
“We simply have to make it impossible to bury.” Azrian set down the pencil and turned to face her. “We send copies to every House in the Gilt. Every merchant consortium in Corven, every finishing school, every border town with a post office. We make the scandal so large it cannot be ignored.”
She found herself nodding, comforted despite herself by the strength of his conviction. It was sometimes easy to forget that he’d been raised to be the Empire’s most effective predator. If anyone were to dismantle the old order, it would be the man who’d mapped every sinew of its anatomy.
A loud, metallic crash echoed from the lower hall. A rush of voices immediately followed. Muffled yet urgent, they rose through the thick stone floors of the house.
Sabine’s head jerked up.
Azrian was already on his feet. He crossed to the door, listening with the stillness of a panther. Sabine strained her own ears, heart tripping over itself in her chest.
She recognized the butler, in a tone she’d never heard him use before—equal parts outrage and fear—and the housekeeper, too, sharp and staccato. There was a third voice, clipped and nasal, that she didn’t know.
She shot to her feet, nearly overturning a stack of ledgers. Azrian caught her by the wrist as she moved for the door.
“Let me go first,” he whispered.
She glared, but nodded.
He opened the door carefully, making no sound of hinge or latch, then led the way down the corridor. Sabine followed, each step feeling like a countdown to disaster.
At the landing, she peered over the banister and saw the source of the commotion.
Three figures, all in the dove-grey and carmine of Registry officials, stood in the entry foyer.
The butler was blocking their way to the parlor, arms stretched out as if to physically bar passage.
The housekeeper stood beside him, lips pressed into a thin line.
The Registry officer at the fore was a woman of middling height, with a helmet of iron-grey hair and a mouth that looked as though it had been carved with a chisel.
Her coat was buttoned to the chin, every brass fastener polished to the same ruthless gleam as her shoes.
The two officers behind her were younger, but no less intimidating, their hands folded behind their backs.
“As I said, the Lord and Lady are not receiving guests at this hour. If you have business, you may leave a card,” the butler said.
The Registry woman smiled, a gesture so cold her face might as well have been a skull. “I am not here as a guest. I am here on Imperial business. If you do not step aside, I am empowered to enforce compliance under the Authority of the Crown.”
Sabine felt the blood drain from her face, pressed a hand to her chest, and counted her breaths. She’d hoped for more time, at least until the evidence could be smuggled out of the city. But the Registry always moved faster than its victims expected.
Azrian descended the stairs at a deliberate pace, every inch the lord of the house.
Sabine followed closely, her posture reflecting his.
At the foot of the stairs, Azrian nodded to the Registry woman, his tone sharp but not disrespectful.
“I do not recall granting you leave to enter my home, Inspector.”
The woman inclined her own head, the barest twitch of acknowledgement. “Lord Vaelros. Lady Vaelros. I apologize for the intrusion. However, the nature of my business is urgent, and the law permits me entry when the situation demands.”
Azrian’s lips barely moved. “And what situation is that?”
She produced a scroll of parchment from an inner pocket, the Imperial seal stamped in wax at its crest. “A summons for Lady Vaelros. Effective immediately.”
Sabine’s mouth went dry. “On what grounds?”
The woman’s eyes flicked to her, as if assessing the most efficient method of dissection. “The Registry does not owe explanations. Especially not to criminals.”
Sabine’s entire body went cold. Criminals ? The Registry had nothing on her for the murder. They’d been sure. What else could they have possibly fabricated?
Azrian’s hands fisted.
The woman extended the scroll, the imperial seal still exuding the faint scent of wax. “Lady Vaelros,” she intoned, “you are required to present yourself before the Registry for the purpose of formal inquiry into acts deemed injurious to the Crown.”
Azrian cut in. “The only evidence you have is a bracelet, which was stolen from my wife weeks prior to the incident. If you intend to charge her, produce the witness who saw her at the scene.”
“Yes, my lord, that is indeed the plan,” the Registry official said, a smug smile on her face.
Sabine accepted the scroll. The paper was crisp and smooth under her fingertips, the language rendered in careful, slanted script:
By order of the High Binder, Imperial Magistrate of Bonds:
Let it be known that Lady Sabine Vaelros is hereby summoned to answer on charges of murder. Witness testimony received under oath has been found to materially contradict statements previously provided by Lady Vaelros, and as such, sufficient grounds for detainment.
Failure to comply will result in forfeiture of all rights, titles, and assets of House Vaelros and the immediate detention of associated parties.
Sabine let the scroll roll closed with a soft snap. The room fell silent, every eye turning to her, as if they were waiting for her to confess right then and there.
She heard her own voice from a distance. “You have wasted your own time, Inspector.” She tapped the parchment. “This is hardly a case.”
The woman’s smile was sharklike now. “It is reason enough for the Registry to want you detained.”
Sabine glanced at Azrian, whose face was carved in stone, then back at the assembled officers. Someone wanted her to pay for a crime she had not committed—someone whose testimony about knowing a debutante she’d never once met in her life could actually be believed.
She eliminated Virelle. She had no motive, and if anything, she would have risked her own safety by exposing their enterprise to the Registry. Besides, she’d seen the terror and resolve in Virelle. She was in this no less than herself and Azrian.
She thought, for one wild heartbeat, of Lady Delarine.
The Duchess had always played her own game, and Sabine knew better than anyone how thin the line between protection and predation could be among the Gilt.
But Sabine could’ve sworn Lady Delarine had been genuine that night.
One did not simply dedicate so much of their life and resources to a cause just to abandon it at the eleventh hour.
Or was this her way to secure her own safety and continue to operate in the shadows for cycles to come?
Did she believe Sabine and Azrian to have become too large a liability?
“Lady Vaelros is not to be taken from this house without my express consent,” Lady Delarine said, striding into the parlor as though she’d been summoned.
She wore a gown of black silk crepe, her silver-streaked hair tamed into a severe chignon.
At her side walked her own legal attaché, a young man in a collarless blue suit.