CHAPTER 12 WHAT THE FIRE LEFT BEHIND

Cassian was already sprinting toward the east side of the keep, shouting orders as he went. I ran after him, my skirts bunched in my fists, guards scrambling past us toward the smoke.

"Get every water barrel to the grain stores!" Cassian bellowed. "Form a line from the well! Move!"

The eastern storehouse was a long stone building built against the outer wall, usually quiet, usually locked. Tonight, flames were already licking out through the wooden shutters, thick smoke pouring into the sky.

"How bad is it?" I asked, coughing as the smoke reached us.

"Bad enough," Cassian said grimly. "That grain feeds this whole keep through winter. If we lose it, we're rationing by midwinter and starving by spring."

Soldiers formed a line fast, passing buckets hand to hand from the well. I grabbed one without thinking and joined the chain, ignoring the way my arms burned within minutes. Nobody stopped me. Nobody had time to argue about what a princess should or shouldn't be doing.

It took almost an hour to get the fire under control. By the time the last flame sputtered out, half the storehouse roof had collapsed, and the air stank of smoke and burned wood.

Cassian stood in the wreckage, staring at the damage, his face streaked with soot.

"Someone set this on purpose," he said. "Look here."

He crouched near the base of the wall and pointed to a scorched patch of ground. Broken glass, half melted, sat in the ashes.

"Oil bottles," he said. "Whoever did this poured it along the wall before lighting it. This wasn't an accident, and it wasn't Julian standing at my gate causing it either."

"He was busy arguing with me the whole time," I said slowly. "Which means—"

"Which means he wasn't the one who started this fire," Cassian finished. "He was the distraction."

My stomach dropped. "Someone used him to pull everyone's attention to the front gate while they burned the grain stores at the back."

"Or worse," Cassian said, standing up. "While they did something else, and the fire is just what we noticed."

We both turned at the same time, the same fear crossing both our faces.

"The healer's wing," I said. "The survivor. He's the only witness who can prove Julian was at that caravan attack."

We ran.

The healer's wing was quiet when we burst through the door, too quiet. The two guards who were supposed to be stationed outside were gone. Inside, the cot where the wounded man had been resting was empty, the blanket thrown to the floor, a dark smear of blood across the stone.

"No," Cassian breathed.

I checked the small side room, the storage closet, anywhere a body could be hidden. Nothing. The man was simply gone, guards and all.

"They took him," I said. "During the fire. While everyone was busy putting it out."

Cassian's hands curled into fists at his sides. "Two of my best guards, gone without a sound. Whoever's doing this isn't some random enemy sneaking in from outside, Aurora. This is someone who knows this keep. Someone who knew exactly where he was resting and exactly when the guards would be distracted."

"Someone who was at the courtyard meeting today," I said. "Someone who heard everything Petra told us."

We looked at each other, the same name forming in both our minds.

"Petra," Cassian said. "Where is she?"

We found her room down the servants' corridor, the door slightly open, the small space empty. Her few belongings sat untouched on the narrow shelf, but there was no sign of her.

"Maybe she ran," I said. "Maybe she got scared and left on her own."

"Or maybe someone made sure she couldn't tell us anything else," Cassian said quietly.

Neither of us said what we were both thinking. That a frightened maid, a wounded witness, and two loyal guards had all disappeared in the span of one hour, during a fire meant to look like Julian's doing.

Someone inside these walls was cleaning up loose ends.

We spent the rest of the night searching every corner of the keep, checking every gate, questioning every guard who'd been on duty. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had heard anything. It was as if the missing people had simply dissolved into the smoke.

By the time the sun rose, exhausted and gray-eyed, Cassian called his generals together again, this time in his study instead of the courtyard. Only a handful of trusted men this time, the ones he said he'd known since childhood.

"We have a traitor inside this keep," Cassian said plainly, laying it out without softening it. "Someone helped Julian's men get close enough to leave threats at my wife's door. Someone unlocked a kitchen door in the middle of the night. Someone burned my grain stores and used the chaos to make three people disappear."

"Any suspects?" General Baron asked, his earlier hostility toward me now replaced with something closer to grim focus.

"Lady Freya knew about Lyra's death better than anyone," I said carefully. "She warned me the killer wasn't finished. She could have been warning me honestly, or she could have been telling me exactly what she wanted me to hear."

"My cousin has motive to dislike outsiders," Cassian admitted. "But motive to dislike isn't motive to murder."

"Then who else had access to everything?" I pressed. "Who knew about Petra's information before the fire even started?"

The room went quiet. Nobody had a good answer.

"I want the keep searched top to bottom," Cassian finally said. "Every room, every storage cellar, every hidden passage this castle has. If someone's hiding three missing people inside these walls, I want them found before nightfall."

The generals scattered to organize the search. Cassian stayed behind, rubbing his tired eyes.

"You should rest," he told me. "You've been awake as long as I have."

"I won't be able to sleep," I admitted. "Not until we know what happened to that man. He was the only proof we had that Julian was behind the caravan attack."

Cassian nodded slowly, and for a moment, exhaustion softened the hard lines of his face into something almost gentle.

"We'll find them," he said. "I promise you that."

I wanted to believe him.

We were interrupted by a soft knock at the door. One of the younger guards stepped in, looking pale and uneasy.

"Alpha," he said quietly. "We searched the old well behind the eastern wall, the one that dried up years ago."

"And?" Cassian asked.

The guard hesitated, glancing at me before answering.

"We found the two missing guards down there," he said. "Both dead. But the wounded man from the caravan and the maid, Petra, they weren't with them."

"Then where are they?" I demanded.

The guard's throat bobbed as he swallowed.

"We don't know, Princess. But we found this tied to the well's rope."

He held out a small folded note, the parchment damp and stained.

Cassian took it, unfolded it slowly, and I watched his face turn to stone as he read it.

He turned it toward me without a word.

Written in the same dark ink as before, the same handwriting from the note pinned to the stable boy's chest, were four lines that made my blood turn to ice.

Two are dead. Two are mine now.

If you want them back alive, Princess, come alone to the ruins at Hollow Ridge by midnight.

Tell no one. Bring no guards.

The last time someone disobeyed me, I killed them slowly.