The winter sun filtered through gray clouds, casting long, pale shadows across the Virelith courtyard. A biting wind snapped through the manor walls, howling like an omen through the towers.
Selene stood at the edge of the stables, her fingers wrapped around the edge of a letter Damien had placed on her desk that morning, unsigned, unsealed, and delivered by a courier with no known name.
"He didn't die. Not that day. The soldier saw him. Look for the broken sigil. Southern Quarter. Dusk."
Damien emerged from the armory behind her, dressed in dark riding leathers, a wool cloak billowing behind him. His expression was unreadable as ever, though a shadow of concern flickered behind his storm-gray eyes.
"I hope you're not planning to go alone," he said.
Selene tucked the letter away. "You're the one who said I wasn't a threat to you. Let me prove it."
"I said you were a weapon I could use. That doesn't mean I'll let you walk into a trap."
"You can't protect me from ghosts."
"No," he said quietly, "but I can protect you from the people they whisper to."
She turned to him fully. "Then come with me."
The Southern Quarter was the part of the capital no one spoke of in polite company. Cracked cobblestones, mold-covered stone, and shanties leaning on one another like drunks after a failed rebellion. Smoke from cooking fires mingled with the scent of old blood and salt from the river that ran nearby. The guards patrolling this area didn't wear the king's crest. They didn't wear crests at all.
Damien and Selene dismounted near a crumbling chapel. No one looked at them, but Selene felt the eyes all the same watchful, suspicious, unseen.
"Do you recognize this place?" she asked as they moved into the chapel.
Damien nodded once. "This is where Thorne funded a relief effort for veterans two years ago. Food, blankets. Most turned to the streets after the Iron Siege."
They passed through the archway, where shattered stained-glass windows painted half-colored ghosts across the stone floor. A woman in rags nodded toward the back room.
"He's waiting."
The back chamber of the chapel was small and dark, the air thick with damp and smoke. There, seated on a bench beside a dying brazier, was a man who looked more like a shadow than a soldier.
He wore a tattered uniform, one of the royal guard's former designs, the sigil on his breastplate cracked in half like broken wings. His hair was gray at the temples, his beard long and unkempt. But his eyes were sharp, too sharp for madness.
"Lady Virelith," he rasped, and then, turning to Damien, "Lord Virelith. You came."
Selene stepped forward. "Who are you?"
The man saluted with two fingers to his brow, a soldier's habit that lingered. "I was Captain Ronin Halek. I served under Thorne Armitage until the day he died, or rather, the day they said he did."
"You saw him after?" Selene asked, barely able to breathe.
Ronin nodded. "Three days after the ambush. He was alive. Wounded. Hiding in the eastern ruins near the Gray Hollow district. He sent me away with a message I never delivered."
"Why not?" Damien asked coldly.
"I was caught. Imprisoned without charge. When I was released months later, the city had already buried him. And by then… I was a nobody. Who would listen to a ghost?"
Selene stepped closer. "What did the message say?"
Ronin swallowed. "It was meant for you."
He handed her a folded paper, worn and stained with time. Selene opened it with shaking hands.
Selene, if you're reading this, I failed to finish what I began. The court is riddled with traitors. Vanya tried to help, but she's in danger too. Elias… be careful with him. He may not be the man we thought. But Damien—Damien might be the only one who can protect you now. Trust is a blade, Sel. Use it carefully. Tell Liora I love her. Thorne
The room swayed. Her brother's handwriting, unmistakable. The curls of his S, the slash of his T. Not faked. Not forged. Alive… and then not.
Damien took the letter gently from her hand and read it silently. He looked up at Ronin.
"Why now?" Damien asked. "Why come forward?"
"Because someone's hunting the rest of us. The ones who knew. In the last two months, I've seen four old veterans die quietly, cleanly. Accidents, they said. But I know death when I see it. And this was murder."
"Who's doing it?" Selene asked.
Ronin shook his head. "I don't know. But I saw one of them once. A woman in a cloak the color of wine. She wore gloves with crimson stones."
Selene's chest tightened. "Crimson Court."
"Yes. And if you're chasing them… be careful. They don't leave loose ends."
On the ride back to the manor, Selene was silent.
Damien rode beside her, and for once, the wall of formality between them felt… fragile. Like it could be broken if she chose to reach across it.
"Did you know he'd contacted Ronin?" she asked suddenly.
"No."
"But you knew he suspected Elias."
Damien nodded. "He never said why."
Selene glanced at him. "Did you love my brother?"
Damien didn't answer right away.
"He was honest," he said at last. "Too honest for the court. Too clean. He tried to fix things that can't be fixed."
"That doesn't answer the question."
Damien looked at her. "Yes. I loved him. Not the way you mean. But he was the kind of man I would have died for. And I might yet."
Selene looked away.
"So why didn't you tell me any of this before?"
"Because the closer you get to the truth, the more dangerous you become to everyone. Including me."
That evening, Selene stood in the gardens, her fingers tracing the edge of Thorne's letter again. Wind rustled through the barren hedges, scattering leaves at her feet.
Behind her, the manor glowed softly, windows like golden eyes against the falling night.
She wasn't alone for long.
Quinn emerged from the shadows of the hedge walk, a folded parchment in his hand.
"You asked for connections between Elias and the late treasury leaks. I found something."
Selene took the paper and scanned it.
It was a shipping manifest, one bearing Elias Wren's name as a witness for a cargo escort, just one day before Thorne's scheduled appearance at the cliffs.
The destination: the Gray Hollow ruins.
Selene's heart began to race.
"Elias was there."
Quinn nodded. "He may have known where Thorne was hiding. Maybe he tried to protect him. Maybe he didn't."
Selene turned the paper over.
On the back, scrawled in a rushed, almost panicked hand, was a note:
"I told you he was alive. I tried. But they got there first. I'm sorry."
There was no signature.
But she knew Elias's handwriting.
And now she knew something else.
He hadn't betrayed Thorne.
He had failed to save him.
And someone else, someone with access, power, and silence, had finished the job.
As the manor fell to sleep, Selene stood at her window overlooking the city lights beyond.
The Crimson Court had tried to frighten her.
They had failed.
She was closer than ever.
Her brother had survived the first attack.
He had been betrayed not by one person, but by a system, a hidden hand that moved behind kings and queens and noble crests.
And she had married a man who might be her best hope of burning that system to the ground.