جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 70

Caelan’s POVI remembered the broken glass. It was the first thing I saw when I entered the restricted room that night.A shattered ornament lay near the desk. Papers covered the floor, and Seraphine stood beside the cabinet with tears running down her face.Elowen was facing her. A document was caught between their hands. I stopped at the doorway.“What happened here?”Neither answered immediately. Seraphine looked at me first.“Caelan.”Her voice broke. I crossed the room.“Are you hurt?”She shook her head, but the tears kept falling. I looked at Elowen.“What did you do?”Her expression changed.“Caelan?”I glanced at the document she was holding. Then at the open case on the desk. My stomach tightened.“What is that?”Elowen looked down at the paper.“Ask her.”Seraphine made a small, distressed sound.“Elowen, please.”I turned toward her, “What does she mean?”“I didn’t want this to happen.”“That isn’t an answer.”She wiped her cheeks.“I came here because I needed to find som

Evander’s POVI spread the surviving records across my desk and started again.Not from the conviction. Not from the confession. From the beginning.If I wanted to understand what happened in the restricted room, I couldn’t keep treating the official judgment as the foundation. Every document had to stand on its own, regardless of what the authorities had concluded.I placed the first witness statement on my left. The second went beside it.Then I added the supplementary statement, Elowen’s confession, the court record, and the inventory of the restricted room.Six documents. One conviction. And too many unanswered questions. I picked up the first witness statement. The servant had seen Elowen in the corridor. He had not seen her enter the room.I wrote that down. The second witness, Mara, had heard shouting before seeing Elowen. She had also remembered another woman in the corridor, although she couldn’t identify her.I wrote that down too. The supplementary statement was more troubl

Evander’s POV I had stopped counting the documents. They covered my desk, arranged by date and source. Every time I thought I had found the answer, another record exposed a question nobody had bothered to ask. I began again. The first witness had seen Elowen in the corridor outside the restricted room. He had not seen her enter. Mara had heard shouting before discovering Elowen nearby. She had also remembered another woman in the corridor. A separate witness had heard two women speaking near the room, but that detail had never made it into the main investigation. Seraphine had admitted to being in the room that night, although her explanation for entering it remained incomplete. Caelan had arrived during the confrontation. And Elowen had eventually accepted responsibility. I wrote each fact in my notebook. Then I added the missing evidence review. The altered records. The sealed archival case that had disappeared from the restricted room. I sat back and read the list. “Th

Evander’s POV The witness had changed one detail. It was a small change, only a few words added to an old account. But after everything I had found in Elowen’s case, I no longer believed small changes were harmless. I requested another interview with the servant who had originally placed Elowen near the restricted room. His name was Garrick. He had worked at the Veyra estate for years before retiring, and his first statement had been straightforward. He saw Elowen in the corridor. He did not see her enter the room. He did not see her remove anything. That was all. At least, that was all he had told the investigators. When Garrick entered my office, he bowed stiffly. “Your Highness.” “Thank you for coming. Please sit.” He took the chair opposite me but kept his hands folded tightly in his lap. “Am I in trouble?” “Why would you be?” “I received your summons.” “I’m reviewing the old investigation. I need you to tell me what you remember.” He nodded. “I already gave a stateme

Elowen’s POVI was on my way back from the physician’s quarters when Evander approached me.“Elowen, do you have a moment?”I stopped.“If this is about the investigation, I would rather not.”He didn’t look offended. “Then I won’t keep you long.”“That sounds like what people say before keeping someone for an hour.”A faint smile crossed his face.“Fair enough. Five minutes?”I considered walking away anyway, but Evander had never spoken to me as though I owed him an explanation. Even when he asked difficult questions, he waited for my answers instead of filling the silence with his own assumptions.“Five minutes,” I agreed.He glanced toward the nearby sitting room.“Somewhere private?”I nodded, and we entered.Once we were seated, Evander didn’t immediately begin asking questions. He waited until I had settled into my chair before speaking.“I’ve been reviewing your original criminal case.”“I know.”“Have you heard something?”“No. But people have been talking about it. Apparentl