LOGIN"You're not riding out there," my father said, before I'd even fully voiced the request forming behind my teeth. "Elena, I understand the instinct. I won't allow it.""Then let me do something," I said, pacing the length of his study while Kellan and Corin stood near the door, equally helpless. "I can't simply sit here while Rhys and Doran ride into an ambush we practically handed to her.""You can wait," my father said, gentler now, though no less firm. "And trust the warriors we've trained for exactly this kind of danger to do their work."I hated how reasonable that sounded, and hated even more how little it actually helped the fear churning through my chest. Rhys had left with Doran's reinforcement party less than an hour ago, riding hard toward the pass with whatever speed their horses could manage, though Doran's own grim assessment still echoed through my mind. Not fast enough.I found the old, faded thread of the mind-link tucked in the back of my consciousness, the one I'd us
"That's impossible," I said, snatching the messenger's report from his trembling hands. "I never sent anything to the southern merchant house.""The seal matches yours precisely," the guard said. "Or close enough that the merchant house had no reason to doubt it."I scanned the forged letter's contents, my own supposed words accusing my father's council of tampering with the merchant's cargo for political gain, urging them to refuse the decoy arrangement entirely and ship their full valuable cargo along the original, unprotected route instead."She's unraveling our plan before we've even executed it," Rhys said, reading over my shoulder, fury tightening his voice."Worse," Doran said, arriving at a near run, his own copy of the merchant's response already in hand. "They've complied. The merchant house is refusing the decoy arrangement. They're sending the real cargo along the original route, tomorrow morning, exactly as Ashra apparently wants them to."My stomach dropped entirely. "Th
"Two days isn't enough time to properly fortify an escort," Doran said, pacing the length of the council chamber while my father listened with grim, focused attention. "Not for a convoy this size, carrying this much value.""Then we need to know exactly what we're defending against," my father said. "Elena, you've spent more time inside this conspiracy's evidence than anyone else in this room. What does the timeline shift tell you?"I stood at the head of the table, the salvaged correspondence spread before me, and forced myself to think through the pattern rather than simply react to the mounting dread. "She knows we're onto her," I said. "The safehouse raid, the failed frame against Corin, cornering me and Rhys in the palace itself. Every plan she's built has been unraveling faster than expected. Moving up the convoy's departure isn't strength. It's desperation.""Desperate people are considerably more dangerous," Rhys said from his position near the door, arms crossed. "Not less."
Nessa sat propped against a stack of pillows in the healer's recovery chamber, color finally returning to her face after a week of careful rest, the small wolf pup curled tight against her side exactly where it had refused to leave since the night we found her."You look better," I said, settling into the chair beside her bed."I feel considerably better than I did," she admitted. "Talia says the ribs will still ache for weeks. The rest is healing faster than expected."I studied her a moment, searching for the right way into a conversation I'd been circling since the night we brought her home. "Have you thought about what comes next? Whether you'll stay here, once you're strong enough to travel again."Something flickered across her face, grief and uncertainty tangled together. "There's nothing left for me at Blackthorn," she said quietly. "Not anymore." Her hand drifted absently to the pup's fur, a gesture that seemed to steady her. "My brother was the only family I had left there.
"Lock down every gate." Doran's voice cracked across the courtyard like a whip. "No one enters, no one leaves, until we've swept every corridor.""How did she get inside?" Rhys demanded, already moving toward the palace steps, his earlier exhaustion burned away by pure adrenaline."We don't know yet," the scout said, struggling to keep pace. "A servant spotted an unfamiliar woman near the eastern wing. Matched the description you gave after the safehouse.""The eastern wing." My stomach dropped. "That's near my chambers.""Elena, stay behind me," Rhys said, already drawing his blade."Absolutely not." I fell into step beside him instead, ignoring the sharp look he threw my way. "If she's here for me, hiding somewhere else doesn't make me safer. It just means I don't see her coming."We reached the eastern corridor at a dead run, guards already stationed at intervals, tension coiling thick in the torchlit air. My father emerged from a side passage, flanked by two of his personal guard,
I carried the letter back into the main office myself, unwilling to let anyone else deliver news this damning secondhand. Corin rose the moment he saw my face, whatever color remained in his own draining fast."What did you find?"I set the letter on the desk between us, watching him read it, watching his eyes move faster and faster down the page until his hands had gone visibly unsteady around the parchment's edges."This isn't mine," he said, voice cracking on the words. "Elena, I swear to you, I never authorized any shipment delay. I never received any payment.""Your name is on it," Rhys said, stepping closer, something hard and watchful in his stance now. "Your authority, specifically named.""My father knows this office," Corin said, desperation creeping into his voice. "He knows how the correspondence is structured, how authorizations are worded. If he wanted to forge something convincing enough to pass casual inspection, he'd know exactly how to do it.""That's a considerable







