THE PRINCE SHE POISONED: I returned as her brother-in-law

The Duke’s Desperation

Evelyn POV

Rain pelted the cracked cobblestones of the South Annex courtyard as Captain Vance’s guards splintered the heavy outer gate with the butt of an iron ram.

Evelyn stood beneath the dark silk canopy of a carriage umbrella, her arms crossed over her velvet cloak, watching the torchlight flicker against the decaying stone walls.

"Report!" she commanded as Vance stepped back out into the downpour, his heavy boots slick with mud.

"Clean, My Lady," Vance grunted, wiping rainwater from his scarred jaw. "The Third Prince was curled on his straw mattress, coughing dark blood into his blanket. The room smells of wet mold and rot. We tore up the floorboards and slashed the curtains. There’s no secret courier, no shadow broker, and no hidden coin. Prince Cale is barely holding onto life."

Evelyn looked past him, her sharp eyes fixing on the single, narrow window of the Annex. A faint, dying candle flickered behind the grime-coated glass.

She felt a cold prickle of annoyance. Cale was a broken ghost—a boy whose mana channels had been shattered into worthless glass years ago. Hoping to find a mastermind in these ruins had been a fool's errand.

"Pull your men out," she said icy, turning her back on the Annex. "We’re wasting time."

Three hours later, the mahogany table in the High Council chamber was scarred by the heavy signet ring Crown Prince Cassian kept slamming against the polished wood.

"I will not open the Imperial Treasury for a fool who got outsmarted by a wharf rat!" Cassian’s voice boomed off the vaulted stone ceiling, thick with golden, suffocating mana. "You guaranteed those river contracts, Julius. The army's winter rations were your family's responsibility."

Duke Julius didn't even try to stand. He sat hunched in his high-backed velvet chair, his silk collar unbuttoned, grease-cold sweat shining on his forehead. "Your Highness, please. The paper notes were sound until sunset yesterday. This... this Blind Broker didn't just buy the grain. He bought the shipping rights, the warehouse leases, and the barge fees in a single hour. He paid in advance, in solid gold ingots stamped by the Western Guilds!"

Julius reached out a trembling, liver-spotted hand toward the table. "If the northern garrisons don't get those thirty thousand tons of wheat before the river freezes next week, forty thousand soldiers will starve. The soldiers' families will riot. My house will be bankrupt by Monday, and your campaign against the border lords will end before it starts!"

"Then let them riot!" Cassian roared, rising from his chair. Golden light flared around his massive shoulders, cracking the marble floorboard beneath his boot. "I am the Crown Prince of this empire! I do not negotiate with shadow merchants hiding in the gutter! I'll deploy the Royal Guard, seize every warehouse along the canal, and hang any barge master who refuses to unload!"

Evelyn sat two chairs down from Cassian, her posture straight, her hands resting quietly in her lap over the folds of her icy-blue silk dress.

She didn't shout. She didn't flinch at the flare of Cassian’s mana.

She simply watched him.

And for the first time since she had agreed to wear his ring, a cold, bitter knot of disgust twisted in her stomach.

Cassian was a mountain of a man—a 4th-Circle warrior whose blade could split a warhorse in half. But staring at his flushed, furious face, Evelyn saw the brutal truth she had tried to ignore for months: her betrothed was an arrogant, shortsighted idiot.

If he deployed the Royal Guard to seize merchant grain, the Merchant Guilds would pull their lines of credit from the capital overnight. The city's food prices would quadruple, the foreign ambassadors would send word home that the crown was destitute, and the imperial court would collapse into civil war before spring.

He thinks power is just swinging a bigger sword, Evelyn thought, her jaw tightening silently. If I let him run this kingdom on temper tantrums, I’ll be the Empress of a graveyard.

"Sit down, Cassian," Evelyn said softly.

Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through Cassian's roaring mana like a sharp needle sliding between armor plates.

Cassian snapped his head toward her, his dark eyes flashing with warning. "Evelyn, this is state business. Do not interfere—"

"This is my business the moment your army runs out of bread," she interrupted, her voice dropping into a flat, icy register that forced both men to go still. "If Duke Julius’s house collapses, three of our primary northern supply lines go with it. Do you think my father’s northern lords will march southward to support your coronation if their men are eating shoe leather?"

Cassian glared at her, his broad chest heaving, but he didn't counter her argument. He couldn't.

Evelyn reached across the table, picked up the thick ledger of trade transactions Duke Julius had brought, and pulled it toward her. Her dark, sharp eyes scanned the dense columns of figures, ink marks, and harbor timestamps.

The raid on the South Annex had proven the leak wasn't a servant in rags taking orders from Cale's wing. The real enemy was out there, sitting in the dark of the city, pulling the imperial court's financial strings with surgical precision.

Evelyn’s fingers traced down a column of dates.

"Look at the timing," she murmured, more to herself than to the two men.

"What is there to look at?" Cassian grunted, slumping back into his seat and pouring himself a goblet of unwatered wine. "It’s a greedy opportunist squeezing us for a higher price."

"No," Evelyn said, her eyes narrowing as the pattern clicked into place. "A greedy opportunist buys grain when the harvest is poor and sells it back at a fifty percent mark-up during a famine. But this Broker bought the grain futures three days before the winter storm warnings were even issued by the Court Astrologers."

She flipped the page, her heart thumping a fraction faster against her ribs.

"He didn't just buy grain, Cassian. He bought the iron ore futures from the eastern smelters two weeks ago. He bought the timber leases along the southern riverways last month. He isn't trying to make a quick profit."

She slammed the ledger shut, the heavy thud echoing through the quiet chamber.

"He is systematically buying every single resource required to mobilize an army. He isn't a merchant. He’s taking away your ability to wage war."

Duke Julius swallowed hard, his face turning an even sickly shade of gray. "Lady Evelyn... what do we do?"

Cassian gripped his goblet so hard the silver bent under his fingers. "I will hunt him down. I'll put a ten-thousand-gold bounty on his head by noon!"

"And he will vanish into the Sinking District, sell the grain to the Western Republic, and leave your soldiers to starve while you search every alleyway," Evelyn snapped, standing up from the table. "You don't fight a shadow with a broadsword, Cassian. You offer it light."

She turned away from the Crown Prince, sweeping her long silk train behind her as she walked toward her private writing desk near the high arched window.

She pulled a sheet of heavy parchment from the drawer, dipped her quill into dark black ink, and began to write. She didn't use the Crown Prince’s golden wax seal. She pulled the silver signet ring from her own thumb—the crest of the Northern High House—and pressed it hard into the dark red wax at the bottom of the page.

Cassian stood up, stepping close to her shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"I am giving the Blind Broker what he actually wants," Evelyn whispered, her dark eyes reflecting the cold gray rain outside the window. "A seat at the table."

She folded the letter, sliding it into a leather sleeve.

"I am offering him exclusive, tax-free mining concessions in the Northern Territories," she said, her voice dropping into a deadly, whispered promise. "In exchange for a private, face-to-face meeting at the Midnight Auction House tomorrow night. No guards. No Crown Prince. Just him and me."

Cassian grabbed her wrist, his grip tight enough to bruise. "You're going alone into the underworld to meet a dangerous rogue?"

Evelyn didn't pull away. She looked down at his heavy hand on her skin, then raised her gaze to meet his eyes with absolute, unyielding coldness.

"I am going to look him in the eye," she said softly, "and find out if he wants to trade... or if I need to kill him myself."