The Ninth Seal Novels & Stories

Antonio walked over and wrapped his arms around me, murmuring, "You've grown so grounded lately, Natalina. Now, you're becoming more and more like the Donna I've always envisioned." Satisfied with my compliance, he planted a kiss on my cheek and took out a necklace. "You liked this at the auction. It's a reward for being so well-behaved lately and a gift for our fifth wedding anniversary." With that, he fastened the necklace around my neck and looked down at me with traces of gentleness in his eyes. "There, there. We've been married for years now. Don't let something so minor ruin your mood. "Let me take you to watch the fireworks."

I unwrap it. Perhaps sixty pieces of parchment, small, the size of your hand, smelling of oilcloth. Every one is the same. A year. A weight of grain. A weight of oil. A count of hides. North road provision, received. And at the bottom of every one, pressed into a smear of green wax, a seal. I have carried the King's seal on a chain round my neck for five years and opened doors with it in eleven holdings. It is a wolf's head crowned, and I would know it at forty paces in the dark.

“I kept them. I figured if anyone ever found out, I wanted proof it wasn’t me.” I took the bundle, untied it, and unfolded the top slip. Standard payment authorization. Date, amount, purpose. And at the bottom, pressed into red wax, a seal. A crescent moon wrapped in a ring of thorns. My seal. The mark of the Corvus household, which only the Alpha’s hand could press. It had sat in a locked drawer in my study for nine years, and I’d used it maybe a dozen times. I had not authorized one of these.

Killian asked. The elder looked toward the mark on my chest. “The fifth seal becomes active.” “It becomes active through her.” My hope died almost as quickly as it had come. I looked toward Sophia. “A living seal.” She nodded. Killian immediately shook his head. “No.” The Council elder continued. “If the old records are accurate, the key closes the four external doors and carries the final lock.” “For how long?” My voice sounded distant. He looked at me. “For life.”

Wren asked, arriving in the corridor just in time to read the words over my shoulder. "I don't know," I admitted. "But it means whatever the Architect actually wants, sealing that grove again didn't stop it. It might have started something worse." Wren read the line again, her lips moving silently around the words as if repetition might loosen their meaning. "A key to what, though," she said. "The seal wasn't a door. It was a warning, meant to keep something buried. If it's a key instead, then whoever wrote this believes it opens something rather than closes it."

"You don't need to renegotiate a treaty we signed five years ago." ​"Good. Glad we're on the same page." She rolled her shoulders back, her rhinestone headband catching the harsh midday sun. "Look at those trees. They look… old. Like they have secrets. Brookhaven trees just look like they're waiting to be cut down for a strip mall." ​I smiled, but my chest tightened with a sudden, sharp knot of nerves that I wasn't used to carrying.

I had signed my name into a new life, yet I couldn't shake the feeling that I had just walked into another kind of uncertainty. Adrian's mansion stood behind towering black iron gates, hidden behind a long driveway lined with perfectly trimmed hedges and tall palm trees. The building was magnificent, its cream-colored walls rising beneath a dark slate roof, with enormous windows that reflected the late afternoon sun. Elegant stone pillars framed the entrance, while a beautiful fountain stood in the center of the courtyard, its gentle trickle the only sound breaking the silence.

IF THE ORIGINAL AGREEMENT IS DESTROYED, THE SECOND AGREEMENT ACTIVATES. Elena stared. “You planned this.” Alexander smiled. “I planned everything.” Then the book began glowing. A new symbol appeared on its cover. Not Blackwood. Not Vale. Not Rose. Something none of them had ever seen. Alexander's expression changed. For the first time, he looked afraid. “What is that?” Adrian asked. Alexander slowly whispered, “The seventh seal.” The chamber doors slammed shut. And somewhere above them, every light in Blackwood Tower turned red.

“It is not. There is you in there. That is the only thing in it, and I have had six years of a wall to work out what I would give for it, so do not stand at that window and try to out-argue me about arithmetic.” And then Rhys was in the doorway with no colour in him at all. “Wren. Alpha.” He had a paper in his hand. “The crate came back.” “What?” “The crate for the ninth. The one that went out at four. It has come back up the east road with both men alive and the seals unbroken, and there is a paper nailed to the lid of it in Ronan’s hand, and it is addressed to Alva of Thornhollow.”

At the DeLuca Family banquet announcing its new advisor, Matteo said he was going to end nine years of secrecy and finally acknowledge our relationship in public. I stood in the back row of the banquet hall, so nervous I'd crumpled my prepared speech into a ball. Over nine years, I'd cleaned up the port books for him three times, negotiated two cross-border shipping routes, and taken a bullet for him. Everyone knew the DeLuca Family had a female advisor who never showed her face, but no one knew I was that woman. I thought that after tonight, I would finally stop being his shadow. Until the screen at the front of the banquet hall lit up. There was no photo of us. Instead, there was only a si