chapter 11_Whispers in the Mist

Tarni

​The quiet inside my chambers wasn't the peaceful kind. It felt dense and heavy, like the stillness in the air right before a thunderstorm breaks across the valley.

​I paused with my hand resting flat against the thick oak door, the key still jammed sideways in the iron lock. My lungs burned with the thin, crisp air of the upper tower, but I held my breath, straining to hear over the steady thud of my own heart against my ribs.

​Nothing. No creak of floorboards. No rustle of heavy drapery. Just the distant, hollow whistle of the mountain wind snaking through the high stone battlements outside.

​Slowly, I eased the door inward. The iron hinges gave a faint, raspy groan that made the skin on the back of my neck prickle.

​On the surface, everything looked as I had left it when the morning bells rang for tactical drills. The narrow iron bed was tucked neatly into the far corner under the high arching window, its coarse wool blanket pulled taut. The washbasin sat silent on its pine stand, a thin skin of dust settling over the gray water inside. My slate board and chalk rested beside a stack of bound military treatises on the heavy reading desk.

​It was immaculate. It was precise.

​And it was wrong.

​A chill crept up my spine, cool and sharp, despite the heavy wool of my doublet. I stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind me with a soft, deliberate click, turning the key until the iron bolt shot back into place.

​I didn't move deeper into the room right away. Instead, I stood motionless against the door frame, letting my eyes sweep across every inch of the stone floor. Kael had taught me that when we were eleven back when he was still alive and we were playing at war in the garden shadows. When someone enters your space, Tarni, they never leave it the way they found it. Look for the small things. The tiny mistakes.

​My eyes landed on the brass latch of the large cedar trunk resting at the foot of my bed.

​I had left that latch turned horizontally at seven this morning, a habit so ingrained over the past four months that my fingers did it without my brain even registering the motion. It was my tiny, invisible seal.

​The brass loop now hung straight down, pointing at the floorboards like a silent, accusing finger.

​My stomach dropped into a cold, empty vault.

​Someone had been in here.

​I swallowed hard, the taste of copper rising in the back of my throat. I didn't rush forward. Panicking was how secrets spilled, and my secret was the only thing keeping my head attached to my shoulders. If anyone in this fortress discovered that Lord Kael Vane was buried six feet under the frozen dirt of the southern border, and that the "lordling" wearing his armor was just his sister in heavy linen bindings, I wouldn't just be expelled. I would be executed for high treason against the Crown.

​I glided across the flagstones, my hand instinctively dropping to the small bone-handled hunting dagger concealed inside the cuff of my sleeve. The leather of my boots made almost no sound against the cold stone.

​I knelt beside the cedar chest, the wood releasing its dry, resinous scent as I hovered over it. My fingers trembled slightly as I lifted the heavy lid.

​Inside lay the outer layers of my identity: three spare tunic sets, stiffened leather vambraces, wool hose, and the heavy winter cloak bearing the silver-and-blue crest of House Vane. Everything looked folded, square-edged, and undisturbed.

​I reached past the heavy wools, slipping my hands down along the smooth inner cedar wall to the very bottom left corner.

​My fingers brushed against soft, delicate fabric.

​My heart slammed against my rib cage with a force that made my breath catch in my throat. I pulled the bundle out into the dim twilight filtering through the high window.

​It was a silk chemise rose-colored, laced with tiny silver threads around the collar. A relic from my former life, tucked away in the false bottom of the trunk because I hadn't had the heart to burn the last physical proof that Tarni Vane had ever existed.

​The silk was crumpled. Not folded crumpled, as if someone had dragged it out from its hiding place, turned it over in their hands, and hurriedly stuffed it back down beneath the heavy guard doublets.

​Beside it, the strips of tight, unbleached linen I used every morning to bind my breasts flat were shifted out of order. One of the long bandages was unrolled, its frayed end trailing like a pale snake across the dark wood floor of the trunk.

​Whoever had been in here wasn't looking for coin. They weren't looking for stolen exam papers or illegal contraband from the lower cellar markets.

​They were looking for me. They were looking for the girl buried underneath the lie.

​A terrifying sense of vulnerability washed over me, so strong it made my knees feel weak. The thought of rough, unknown hands going through my most private, hidden possessions while I was out on the mud-slicked training yard made me feel exposed, dirty, and utterly alone. Someone had stood in this very spot, holding the evidence of my deception in their hands, deciding what to do with it.

​Did they know? Or were they just suspicious?

​I shoved the rose silk back into the dark recess of the chest, slamming the false bottom down and smoothing the heavy winter tunics over it with furious, shaking hands. I dropped the lid, the heavy cedar thudding loud in the silent room.

​I stood up too quickly, the walls of the small tower room suddenly feeling like they were collapsing inward on me. The shadows stretched longer as the sun dipped behind the jagged peaks outside, painting the room in bruised shades of purple and slate gray.

​Every sound made me flinch. The distant call of a patrol guard down in the courtyard sounded like an alarm. The scrape of a tree branch against the high glass felt like fingernails on stone.

​I couldn't stay in defense mode. I had to know who it was.

​I began inspecting the perimeter of the room with frantic, methodical focus. I checked the dust on the windowsill with no handprints, meaning they hadn't come through the outside glass. I checked the fireplace chimney and the soot was undisturbed.

​They had come through the front door. They had a key. Or they knew how to pick a lock without leaving a scratch on the brass escutcheon.

​As I moved toward the small washbasin to cool my burning face, my foot caught on the edge of the woven wool rug near the reading desk.

​The rug shifted an inch to the side.

​I froze, looking down.

​Sticking out from beneath the dark wool fringe was a tiny, rectangular slip of stiff parchment. It wasn't mine. I kept all my correspondence locked in the iron box beneath my bed.

​I crouched down, using the tip of my dagger to hook the corner of the paper and slide it out into the open, paranoid even now of leaving my own finger marks or triggering some subtle trap.

​The parchment was high quality thick, cream-colored, and scented faintly of dried lavender and old wax. On its surface, written in a sharp, hurried script that slanted aggressively to the right, were four words:

​I know your name.

​The room seemed to tilt beneath my boots.

​I know your name. Not Kael. Not Lord Vane.

​My pulse roared in my ears, a deafening white noise that drowned out the mountain wind outside. The walls were closing in. The net was tightening around my throat, and I didn't even know whose hand was pulling the string. Was it the headmaster? Was it one of the third-year noble boys who resented "Kael's" quick promotion? Or was it Banjo testing me again, digging into my life until he found the raw, bleeding truth?

​Suddenly, a faint, rhythmic sound echoed from the corridor outside my door.

​It was the slow, deliberate scrape of iron-heeled boots against the stone corridor floor, stopping directly outside my chamber door.

​I snapped my head toward the oak door, my knife slipping instantly into my palm. The parchment clutched in my left hand felt like fire against my skin.

​The footsteps stopped.

​For three agonized seconds, there was absolute silence.

​Then, the heavy brass door handle slowly, silently began to turn downward.