Novel-novel oleh Ayishat

Serena’s POVThe knowledge that a second target sat active inside the palace changed the shape of every corridor.Alaric ordered the quiet watch on Kieran held at its present level so that nothing would signal a change in pressure. At the same time he opened a second, narrower line of inquiry. Full lists of household staff with extended access to the royal wing. Medical personnel who had treated either of us since the ashveil attack. Guards rotated through private door duty. Scribes who handled sealed correspondence. The work had to be done without raising the kind of noise that would tell Kieran we were looking for someone else.Paranoia settled in quietly. I caught myself measuring the pauses in conversations. I noticed which servants lingered near doors and which ones found reasons to pass the study more often than their duties required. Alaric felt the same shift through the bond. He said little about it, but the number of times he checked the locks on our private rooms increased.

Serena’s POVGale was still in the medical wing when we spread the torn ledger page under the full light of the study lamps. The physician had cleaned the cut on his temple and confirmed that the ribs underneath the bruising were cracked but not broken. He had ordered rest. Gale had given the kind of short agreement that meant he would rest only after the page had been fully read.Alaric placed the torn sheet in the center of the desk. I stood on one side. Gale sat on the other with his back straight despite the pain. The columns of dates and notations that had looked incomplete in the cellar lantern light became sharper under the steady lamps.“Begin with the Thornblood entries,” Alaric said.Gale traced the first relevant line with one finger. “Payment authorized for information on restricted herb routes. The amount matches what Belinda described. Date sits seven months ago. The notation after it reads partial success, secondary contact used.”“That matches the clerk with the gambli

Serena’s POVThe palace search began within minutes of the open window being logged.Alaric ordered every corridor in the west wing sealed. Guards moved in paired teams through storerooms, side stairs, service passages, and the lower levels that connected the residential floors to the kitchens and cellars. Lanterns flared in spaces that usually stayed dark after evening. Names were checked against postings. No one left the wing without direct leave from the king.I stayed with the central group as we worked downward. The bond between Alaric and me carried a steady, cold pressure that left no room for panic. Gale had entered the chambers. Gale had not left by the door. The open window gave a possible route to the roof, but the roof led to other windows and other drops, and every one of them was being searched.“Cellars next,” Alaric said when the upper service floors produced nothing. “Then the outer courts if we have to.”The main wine cellar sat two levels below the west wing kitchen

Serena’s POVBy the time Belinda’s formal statement had been recorded and the apothecary inventory completed, the pattern no longer left room for generous interpretation.The inventory confirmed three controlled vials missing from the restricted stores. The key log showed an after hours access under a secondary steward’s mark that the steward himself denied making. The bottle design matched palace stock exactly. Belinda’s gate search records remained clean. Her statement about Kieran’s approach seven months earlier matched the dates on the clerk’s confession from Thornblood territory. The same man who had offered gold for herb routes and sightings of Liliana had later moved ashveil into the king’s goblet and then used palace poison to frame the woman who brought us the proof.Alaric listened to the full summary in the private study after the last of the scribes had been dismissed. Gale stood near the desk with the compiled reports. I remained by the window, watching the late light fad

Serena’s POVBelinda Thornblood’s holding room in the lower east wing was clean, spare, and secure. A narrow bed. A table bolted to the floor. A single high window too small for escape. She rose from the edge of the bed when the guards opened the door for me, but she did not approach. The arrest had stripped away none of her composure. If anything she looked sharper for the confinement.I waited until the door closed behind me and the guards took their positions outside. Alaric knew I was here. He had not liked the visit, but he had not forbidden it. The quiet watch on Kieran was already in place. The inventory of the apothecary stores was underway. In the space between those efforts I needed answers that official questioning had not yet produced.“I did not expect you to come yourself,” Belinda said. Her voice was even. “Most people in your position would let the guards handle a woman accused of storing ashveil under her clothes chest.”“The vials were palace stock,” I answered. “You

Serena’s POVI waited until the physician’s assistant had carried the vials away and the corridor outside Belinda’s sealed chambers had emptied of all but the posted guards. Alaric remained where he was, staring at the closed door as if the wood itself might offer the next piece of the design. The bond between us carried a tight, controlled anger that had not eased since the bottle design became clear.“Walk with me,” I said quietly.He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. We took the shorter route back toward the private royal wing, avoiding the main galleries where courtiers still traded versions of the scandal around Liliana’s child. Neither of us spoke until the door of his study closed behind us and the outer guards took their positions.I set my hands on the back of the chair opposite his desk but did not sit. “The vials are palace stock. Belinda could not have brought them through the gates. The inventory of the apothecary stores will confirm how many bottles are missing and