"Lower your hunting bow, Kira, and put the arrow back in your quiver," Kael said, his voice cutting through the panic in the snowy yard. He stepped past the trembling gray monks, his boots crunching in the slush as the battering ram struck the gate again."Are you telling me to stand here and let them put iron around our necks, Kael?" Kira demanded, her eyes blazing with fierce anger. "We have twenty arrows and high stone walls; we can make them pay for every step they take across this yard!""If you shoot one arrow from that wall, fifty royal soldiers will set fire to these wooden roofs," Kael answered, his dark eyes calm and steady. "Every elderly monk standing in this yard will burn to death in the cold wind just to buy us ten minutes of fighting.""We can cut our way through the side gate with my axe, boy!" Ren shouted, his knuckles white on the heavy wooden handle. "I am not going to kneel in the snow like a whipped dog before palace soldiers!""You cannot carry eight sick monks

"Do not lie to me, Seraphina!" Kael growled, his voice trembling with raw, desperate confusion. "Orlo saw you walk a woman with dark braids out of the cellar and into your carriage!""I walked a decoy out of that cellar, you fool!" Seraphina snapped, her eyes flashing with intensity. "I used a servant girl dressed in a Lily wool cloak to draw Eleanor's hunting hounds away from the river!""Then where is the real Lily?" Kael asked, his heart slamming violently against his ribs. "Where did she go when the palace broke the lower market?""She fled into the northern crags weeks before my guards even reached her cottage," Seraphina answered, leaning back against the wooden bench. "She is running through the mountains on her own, hunting ancient herbs.""Then what was the point of leaving that decoy in the timber lodge?" Kael asked, his mind spinning with the web of court deceptions. "Why let the whole valley believe you held her?""Because as long as Eleanor thought I held the healer, the p

"Open the door, sentry, it is Kael and Kira!" Ren shouted through the howling mountain blizzard as their horses stumbled through the slush. The timber door swung inward just enough for the four exhausted riders to slip inside.Kael slid down from his saddle, his boots sinking into the wet snow outside the medical cave. He did not stop to brush the frost from his woolen coat, moving straight through the entrance curtain.Inside, the charcoal braziers cast a warm orange light over the stone walls, smelling of bitter dried roots and boiled birch bark. Maren looked up from her wooden stool, wiping her wet hands on a clean linen apron."You brought him back alive, Kira," Maren said, letting out a long breath of relief as she set down her clay bowl. "We heard the bells tolling all the way from the northern pass.""I brought back something far worse than royal soldiers, Maren," Kael said, pulling the folded vellum from his inner pocket. He placed the cold parchment flat on the wooden table, p

"Tell me who Master Malakor truly is, Kira," Kael said, setting the sheepskin formula onto the table in the command lodge. "His name was on the execution order, and his signature was stamped into the poison records.""Malakor is the oldest royal alchemist serving the high court," Kira answered, her voice low and tight as she stepped closer to the hearth. "He was working in the palace laboratories before Grand Regent Alden ever took the throne.""He is not a common apothecary who mixes herbs for headaches, Kael," Brand grunted, leaning his scarred elbows on the rough table. "During the northern border wars, soldiers came down with a strange magical sickness that turned their skin to black glass.""Every physician in the capital gave up on those men, but Malakor cured them in three days," Kira explained, her eyes dark with memory. "He understands the deep rot of dark magic better than anyone alive in this kingdom.""Then he is not just Eleanor's pet dog," Kael murmured, his mind putting

"What does the bloody cloth say, Kael?" Brand demanded, his heavy sword still clutched in his hand as the cold wind whipped across the open yard. "Do not stand in the slush hiding words from the men who took you in!"Kael closed his fist tight around the stained linen, hiding the red letters before the torches could catch the ink. "It was a message meant to break our courage, Brand; it was an alchemist's threat, nothing more.""A threat that cost Master Corin his life!" Ren shouted, kneeling in the snow beside the dead merchant with tears in his eyes. "Look at him! He died carrying your words, boy!""I know what he gave for us, Ren," Kael said softly, kneeling down in the freezing mud to gently close the dead merchant's eyes. "I will carry his sacrifice with me until the palace falls.""If you know who did this, tell us his name!" Brand insisted, stepping closer until his boots touched the bloody snow. "Did Alden send his personal inquisitors into our valley?""It was not Alden's army,