MasukELIRAI went to the east wing alone that night, against every piece of careful advice Dr. Aris had given me, against Niar's protests when I'd told her my plan over a hurried, whispered conversation in the courtyard, against every instinct screaming that this was exactly the kind of reckless action that had made three candidates before me simply vanish.But Wilhelmina's terrified eyes stayed with me, and the strange symbol burned like a brand in my pocket, and I understood, with a certainty I couldn't quite explain, that whatever she'd seen, whatever had frightened her enough to risk everything just to warn a near-stranger, mattered more than my own careful caution.The east wing corridor sat as still and silent as I remembered it, the silver-reinforced doors guarding the restricted area beyond looming heavy in the darkness. I'd learned enough of the guard rotations over the past weeks to know this particular hour offered the thinnest coverage, a brief gap between shift changes when th
ELIRAI didn't know the candidate's name until the moment she grabbed my arm in the corridor, her fingers digging in hard enough to bruise, her eyes wide and darting toward the shadows behind me like she expected someone to appear at any second."You need to listen to me," she whispered, her voice shaking. "Please. Just for a moment."I recognized her face vaguely, one of the lower-tier candidates who'd never advanced past the early rounds of selection, someone I'd passed in hallways and shared brief, polite nods with but never actually spoken to. Her name surfaced slowly. Wilhelmina, from a minor pack somewhere in the northern territories, quiet and easily overlooked among the estate's louder, more ambitious candidates."What's wrong?" I asked, keeping my voice low, matching the urgency I could feel radiating off her in waves."I found something." Her eyes darted again, checking the empty corridor behind us. "In the east wing. I wasn't supposed to be there, I got lost trying to find
ELIRADr. Aris found me in the chapel yard two days after Rurik's warning reached me, his expression carrying a weight I hadn't seen from him before, something closer to genuine fear than the careful professional caution he usually wore."We need to speak," he said, glancing over his shoulder before settling onto the bench beside me. "Quickly, and quietly.""What's happened?""I have reason to believe Laron has assigned someone to watch your movements specifically. Constantly. Not the general surveillance every candidate faces, but something more targeted." He kept his voice low, barely above a whisper. "I saw one of his personal guards positioned near your corridor yesterday evening, and again this morning outside the courtyard where you and Niar usually meet. Not patrolling. Watching."My stomach tightened. "How long has this been happening?""I don't know exactly. Days, perhaps. Possibly since the gala." His jaw tightened. "I believe he's building something against you, Elira. Docu
RURIKThe conversation reached me in fragments, the way most things reached me now, filtered through walls and distance and the fog Laron's physician kept pumping into my veins twice a day, but I caught enough of it to understand the shape of what was coming.Laron's voice, low and urgent, speaking to someone I didn't recognize, their footsteps pausing just outside my chamber door, close enough that even through stone and silver warding, fragments of their conversation reached me."The compatibility results," Laron was saying, his tone carrying none of the practiced warmth he wore in public. "I want them falsified. Formally documented, submitted to the Council, showing the girl's connection to my nephew has begun to destabilize rather than improve his condition."A second voice, unfamiliar, hesitant. "Lady Aquine will demand to see the raw data herself. She's grown suspicious of every report that crosses her desk since the gala.""Then we ensure the raw data supports the conclusion,"
ELIRAI wrote the letter to Elder Kael three times before I was satisfied with it, sitting at the small desk in my room with the single candle burning low, my hand cramping from how tightly I gripped the pen.The first version came out too angry, full of accusations I wasn't ready to make out loud, even on paper, even to a man who had lied to me by omission for sixteen years. The second version came out too pleading, too small, the voice of the girl I used to be before this estate had taught me to stand my ground. The third version, the one I finally sealed and handed to a courier bound for Nightswirl the next morning, struck something closer to what I actually needed.*Elder Kael, I am writing to you from the Larkspur estate, where I have learned that you personally requested the sealing of an entry in my mother's bloodline, sixteen years ago. I do not write in anger, though I have questions I deserve answers to. I write because the danger you tried to protect me from may have alread
ELIRANiar found the second piece three days later, arriving at my door just after sunset with a look on her face that told me right away she'd found something."I need to show you something," she said, before I'd even fully opened the door. "But not here. Somewhere private."We went to the empty chapel yard, the same quiet corner of the estate that had become our unofficial meeting place for conversations too dangerous to have anywhere someone might overhear."What did you find?" I asked, once we'd settled on the familiar stone bench.Niar pulled a folded piece of paper from her sleeve, handling it carefully, the way one handles something fragile. "I have a cousin who works in the Nightswirl record keeper's office. Not close family, but enough of a connection that she was willing to do some quiet digging when I wrote asking about sealed records connected to the Montrose name."My heart began hammering. "And?""She found a matching entry in the Nightswirl archives. Not the sealed one







