Chapter 9 — The Night the Palace Gates Closed

Lucien stepped over the body of a palace guard and shut the bedchamber door behind him.

We heard the bolt slide from inside the wall.

Julian, my father, and I stood in the old chapel passage with forty Blackthorn guards. Through a narrow priest’s grille, we could see Adrian’s room without being seen.

Lucien had brought six officers and twenty soldiers into the outer chamber. He wanted witnesses, not merely killers.

He intended to make murder look like succession.

Adrian lay propped against the bed pillows, grey with poison. Seraphina stood near the cold hearth, one wrist bruised where Lucien’s soldiers had dragged her away from the barred inner door.

"Brother," Adrian said.

Lucien removed his rain-darkened gloves.

"You look worse than the broadsheets claim."

"You paid for those broadsheets."

"I paid for a great many things." Lucien glanced at the officers behind him. "Flood gold purchased paper, printers, grain, steel, and loyalty. Your father taught us that a kingdom runs on coin. He merely failed to notice when the coin changed hands."

One colonel shifted uneasily.

Lucien saw it and smiled.

"Do not look so frightened, Colonel. By dawn, the King will name me Regent. Adrian will die of the poison Lady Evelyn placed in his rooms. Julian and the Ashbournes will be executed for treason. You will be remembered as the men who saved Valedoria."

"And if the King refuses?" the colonel asked.

Lucien glanced toward the tower where Rowan lay guarded.

"A man who cannot speak cannot refuse. A grieving queen will sign what is placed before her."

Seraphina’s face changed. Until then, some part of her had believed Lucien meant to punish only Adrian and the dynasty she blamed. Now she understood that he intended to consume everyone who had served his purpose.

Seraphina stared at him.

"You knew the poison would be blamed on Evelyn."

"Of course. Why else would I let you use it?"

"You told me Adrian’s father murdered my mother."

Lucien’s patience thinned. "Your mother was useful. Her death was more useful. Do not confuse usefulness with innocence."

"Her name was Celeste," Seraphina said.

Lucien shrugged. "To you."

Behind the wall, Julian raised his bow.

I caught his arm.

"Not yet."

Lucien still had not drawn the last line between himself and the stolen army.

Adrian coughed into a cloth. Blood stained it black.

"The First, Sixth, and Ninth Regiments," he said. "You bought their officers with flood money."

"I rescued them from your incompetence."

"You stole from drowning families."

"And turned useless charity into power. That is what kings do."

The uneasy colonel looked at the commander beside him.

Enough.

I nodded to my father.

He pulled the iron lever that opened the chapel passage.

Lucien heard the stone move.

He drew his sword and crossed the room in three strides, lifting the blade above Adrian’s heart.

Julian fired.

The arrow crossed the chamber and struck Lucien through the wrist.

His sword hit the floor.

The hidden door opened behind us.

Julian entered first in black armor, another arrow already against the string. I walked at his right hand, wearing the Ashbourne silver wolf across my breastplate.

The Blackthorn Guard poured into the bedchamber and outer hall.

Three rebel soldiers lunged before my father finished reading the commission. The first met a Blackthorn shield. The second dropped his weapon when Julian’s arrow buried itself in the floor between his boots. The third looked at Lucien, waiting for an order that never came, then slowly knelt.

Steel clattered through the outer room as the remaining men surrendered.

Lucien stared at us.

"You were outside the western wall."

"A rumor is a poor substitute for scouts," I said.

His officers reached for their weapons.

My father raised the King’s emergency commission.

"This order bears the royal lion and Queen Eleanor’s private counterseal. Prince Julian is lawful Protector of the Capital. Any soldier who lowers his weapon now will be detained and heard by tribunal. Any man who raises steel against this commission dies as a traitor."

The youngest captain dropped his sword.

Two others followed.

Lucien laughed. "A piece of parchment? That is your victory?"

"No," I said. "Your accounts are."

Lucien turned to Julian. "You think she chose you? She chose a weapon. When the throne is safe, she will put you down as easily as she put Adrian down."

Julian did not look at me.

"That is the difference between us," he said. "I knew she had a blade when I offered her my hand."

Chief Auditor Marlowe entered with clerks carrying six sealed document cases. Elias Wren and Master Hollis came behind them under guard.

Marlowe read the transactions from Ledger Seventeen-B: flood gold to Rosemere, Rosemere to false monastery funds, the funds to named regimental officers.

Julian’s agent laid out the deeds to the three properties Lucien had secretly sold. From their rooms had come the steel, pay lists, and warrants now before us.

Wren identified the order delivered to Seraphina’s mother.

Hollis held up the copied royal matrix with shaking hands.

"Prince Lucien’s secretary imprisoned me until I cut this seal. The payment came from Rosemere."

He pressed the matrix into warm wax.

The lion’s claw split into two points.

It matched the old fragment.

The colonel nearest Lucien tore the rebel insignia from his coat.

"You told us the Ashbournes forged the orders."

"They did," Lucien snapped. "All of this can be manufactured."

"Then explain it before the Royal Court," Julian said.

Blackthorn guards advanced.

Lucien seized Seraphina.

He dragged her against his chest and pressed a narrow dagger to her throat with his uninjured hand.

"One step and she dies."

Seraphina froze.

"Lucien," she whispered. "I helped you."

"You poisoned the Crown Prince. Do you imagine anyone will mourn you?"

Julian lowered his bow a fraction.

"Release her."

"Clear the eastern gate and give me horses."

"No," I said.

Lucien tightened his grip. A bead of blood formed beneath the dagger.

I took the certified evidence packet from inside my coat and stepped into the candlelight.

"Seraphina, look at the seal. Look at Hollis. Look at the man holding you."

Her eyes found the split-claw impression.

I held it where she could not turn away.

"The man holding you is the man who murdered your mother."