Chapter Thirteen — Web of Hands

The palace woke slow and sour the morning after the attempt. Servants moved with too-careful steps, eyes flicking to doorways as if someone might emerge from the shadows. Even the birds seemed to speak in halting notes, as though afraid to sing too loud for fear the night would answer.

Elara had not slept. She had paced the floor of her chamber until dawn, replaying the narrow miss: the flash of steel, the hot air of the assassin’s breath, the way the blade had sliced her cloak and not skin by the merest whisper of chance. The knowledge of how close she had come to death burned under her skin like a brand.

Darius had saved her, silent as a storm. But the question gnawed at her — who had sent the blade?

She had thought Kieran and Garrison. Those two were the obvious monsters in the tale, hands stained with ambition. But when she replayed the night, a smaller detail kept tugging: the way the assassin moved with an unfamiliar ease across the palace paths, the way he paused at the east wi