17

Chapter 17: Internal Betrayal

The scattered papers across her study floor told the story before Xalara fully understood what she was seeing. Documents that should have remained in neat stacks lay strewn about with the deliberate carelessness of someone conducting a search while maintaining plausible deniability about the intrusion.

Someone has been in my rooms.

Xalara stood in the doorway, but instead of the familiar spike of Veil-bred panic, she felt something else entirely: cold analytical fury. Three months ago, such violation would have sent her scrambling for escape routes and defensive positions. Now, she found herself cataloging the intrusion with the systematic precision of someone who had learned to wield authority rather than merely survive its absence.

They think they can intimidate me with parlor tricks. How... quaint.

The new pendant Elaric had given her three days ago grew warm against her throat, its protective enchantments responding to residual magical signatures. She