Dore doesn’t collapse, but he’s breaking.

  The guards hold him like scaffolding around a building that knows it’s already falling. His breath comes in ragged bursts, eyes darting between the blood still glistening beneath Mirkell’s corpse and the glint of steel pressed to Varnet’s throat.

  He’s not posturing. Not resisting. Not calculating.

  He’s just trying not to drown in the weight of what he knows.

  “I—I didn’t know where to take it,” he blurts. The words spill over each other in a frantic rush, like they’ve been waiting too long to escape. “Once I realized the message routing wasn’t—wasn’t coming through proper channels, I flagged it. Internally. Just a footnote in the log. I didn’t even make a full report. Just—just a note. I just wanted to know if anyone else saw it—”

  “Dore,” Varnet hisses. Her voice is tight, urgent, her eyes wide with panic. “Stop. That’s enough.”

  Valcroft doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. But the tip of his blade pushes just a fraction deeper into the soft hollow of her throat.

  She stills instantly.

  Dore’s voice spikes, high and shaking. “The reply came back with Exchequer Mirkell’s seal. It just said—‘Do not interfere.’ No explanation. No context. Just that. Just—don’t interfere.”

  “What exactly did you flag?” I ask. My voice is quiet. Cold. Measured.

  Varnet pushes past her fear. Her voice lashes out like a whip.

  “Dore. Enough.”

  She tries to shout over him, to drown the truth before it’s spoken. But I move before she can finish.

  A flick of my hand.

  Just enough mana.

  The air tightens around her throat—not a choke, not a wall—just pressure, focused and unyielding. It locks around her windpipe like an invisible vice. Not enough to cut breath. Just enough to steal voice.

  She goes silent, midsyllable. Her eyes widen, panic bleeding into fear and frustration.

  Valcroft doesn’t blink. Doesn’t need to. His blade doesn’t waver. If she twitches, she dies.

  She understands. She doesn’t move again.

  “Wait—wait, please, Your Grace,” Dore stammers, voice trembling, nearly choking on the words. I let the silence stretch between us and turn only my eyes toward him.

  I don’t intend to execute Varnet. Everything Isla uncovered says she tried. Quietly, carefully—but she tried. Still, I need Dore’s confession. I need it here, in this hall, under summons, with nobles watching and proceedings recorded.

  My father will approve my decision, whatever shape it takes. But if I can do this without weakening the house—or giving the appearance of personal vendetta—why not?

  “She was trying to protect me,” Dore chokes out. His eyes are wet now, his voice barely holding shape. “Not just from you. From him. From Corvis. If we say too much, we’re dead either way. If you don’t hang us, he will. You think Corvis doesn’t have people? You think we’d survive a week if we took this public?”

  The words tumble over themselves, breathless and jagged, like he’s trying to outrun the noose tightening in his mind.

  He’s not begging for mercy. He’s begging to be understood. To not die without someone knowing why he broke.

  I turn more fully toward him and release the spell constricting Varnet’s throat.

  She draws in a ragged gasp and crumples to her knees, choking down air like it might be her first breath in hours. Valcroft’s sword never leaves her neck.

  “Again,” I say. “I will ask you.”

  Mana curls into my voice like a blade being drawn. I feel the heat of it slip past my restraint—too much. Too sharp.

  I pull it back.

  This body is too young for full control. Too eager to escalate. The show of force served me moments ago—but now it’s a liability.

  I breathe once. Level it.

  “What exactly did you flag?”

  “The seal chain,” he gasps. “The message logs. Every Treasury missive is supposed to go through civic couriers. There should be a full transaction record—receipt, relay, confirmation. But these… these bypassed the registry entirely. And they had Corvis’s seal.”

  He sways slightly on his feet.

  “Which shouldn’t even be possible,” he whispers. “He’s not part of the Treasury. He has no clerical standing. No codes. No right.”

  “We tried to go to oversight,” he continues, the words rushing again. “But there was no oversight. Mirkell was the oversight. And if we went higher, if we tried to scream it to anyone who mattered—”

  He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t have to.

  His knees start to give. One shoulder drops, his spine curling inward like the truth is too heavy to bear upright.

  “We thought... if we waited long enough, someone would come. Someone who could stop it.”

  I let the words hang in the stillness.

  “And now here I am,” I say, cold and clear. “And now you’re speaking.”

  “I... I don’t know what’s left to say,” Dore breathes.

  But I do.

  And now, I have what I need.

  It’s time to play the card none of them—noble or otherwise—are ready for.

  I turn without a word and return and ascend the dais. Each step deliberate. Not rushed. Not slow. Just certain. I stop before my father’s chair. The seat of the Archduke. The weight of a hundred years of judgment carved into its dark wood. I let my fingers trace one of the armrests, map the edge of an old crest, worn smooth by decades of command.

  This entire display, every step of it, was theater. Precision, orchestrated with Havish’s tact and Isla’s intelligence. I couldn’t script every detail, but the shape of it? I knew before I left my rooms this morning.

  The sensation of performance stirs, familiar and strange. I’ve lived lives before this one, one in particular, spent as something hunted, hidden, hated. In that life, I survived by pretending. Playing roles so convincingly they became masks I couldn’t remove.

  I push the memory away. This mask, at least, I chose. This one is mine.

  I turn.

  The hall before me is frozen, nobles unmoving, servants still as statues, the Treasury Heads stiff with fear. The body. The blood. Seeping now into the marble’s cracks. My tableau, set. Every actor in place.

  I plant my feet, shoulder-width. Hands clasped behind my back, elbows firm. Chin raised. Too high.

  Not that much, Alstair’s voice echoes in my mind.

  I lower it half a breath.

  “By right of name,” I begin, letting the words cut through the silence, “as Heir of the Archduchy of Larkin, I, Aurelius Larkin, summon the Head of the Founder’s Temple to present before this court the Founder’s Tome, and to take under oath the testimony of Rallen Dore, Senior Clerk of Falkensgrave’s Office of the Treasury.”

  My final words echo across marble and velvet.

  And the great doors at the rear of the ballroom swing open.

  Sienne steps through.

  The air leaves the room like it’s been punched from a chest.

  All whispers die. No one dares speak. Even the nobles, especially the nobles, hold their breath.

  Sienne walks with quiet authority. The stutter she once carried like a burden is gone. The hesitation, the deferential flinches she showed when Sven summoned her to explain and investigate temple records and title shifts, gone. She has grown into her role. Into this moment.

  She wears the full ceremonial robes of the Head of the Founder’s Temple, gleaming white with gold filigree woven in swirling ancestral patterns. The braided red-and-black rope at her waist marks the binding oath of her station. But more than that, the robes are her own now, custom tailored. The hood sits gently between her upright ears, no need for a cut slit, her tail swaying free with every measured step behind her, deliberate and unhurried.

  Everyone in the ballroom feels it.

  This is no longer just a noble court.

  This is now sacred ground.

  Summoning the Head of a Founder’s Temple is not done lightly. It is the kind of act that can fracture bloodlines. If the Temple judges a House to be abusing its power—even in pursuit of justice—it can sever that House from its ancestral rites. Strip its nobility. Erase its peerage.

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  To call the Temple into a matter of law is not a gesture of pride.

  It is a wager of blood.

  Sienne reaches the foot of the dais and pauses.

  Then, against all expectation, she kneels.

  One knee to stone. Head bowed.

  A gasp ripples through the gathered nobles. I hear it like the draw of a collective breath.

  Heads of the Founder’s Temple do not kneel. Not even to Archdukes. I guess I can’t plan for everything. This will be an issue later, I am sure, but now is not the time to deal with it.

  To kneel is to acknowledge not just judgment, but a reckoning beyond faith. To kneel is to stand witness to history in the making.

  She lifts her head, eyes steady beneath the low curve of her ceremonial hood. Then she reaches within her robes and draws forth the Founder’s Tome, a thick, iron-bound book wrapped in white cloth, its brass latches gleaming in the light. She holds it forward, arms extended.

  “I am come in witness,” she says, her voice clear and low. “By call of noble authority, to bind oath in the sight of the Founder.”

  I step forward and take the weight of her gaze.

  “Administer the oath,” I command. “Take the testimony of Rallen Dore, Senior Clerk of the Falkensgrave Treasury Bureau, and bind it.”

  She rises smoothly, no pomp, no delay, and walks to where Dore stands between two guards, trembling.

  “Place your hand upon the Tome,” she says.

  Dore hesitates.

  Then, slowly, he reaches out, fingers brushing the leather surface. His hand settles atop the old white cloth, and his shoulders stiffen.

  Sienne’s voice shifts, firm and unshaking.

  “By the name of the Founder, do you swear that what you speak here is truth?”

  “I do,” Dore whispers.

  “And do you swear to hold nothing in silence that bears upon this crime?”

  “I... I do.”

  This is repeated for Varnet, Dellor, and Thorne. After each is done, the guards near them relax and step back. Not away, they are still close, but some of the tension of impending violence has bled from the room, slowly replaced by anticipation.

  She nods once done and steps back, cradling the Tome to her chest. The ritual is simple. Ancient. But none in the room mistake it for symbolic. What’s spoken under oath becomes part of the Temple's record. Disputed testimony here could lead to excommunication—or trial by higher tribunal. There is no walking it back.

  I let the silence settle again before I speak.

  “Now, Rallen Dore,” I say, my tone clear, unflinching, “you’ve told us what was done. But not how it was allowed to happen.”

  I step back down the final riser until I stand level with him.

  “I want names,” I say. “I want actions. I want motive. Who gave Corvis access to Treasury communications, to your registry and seal protocols? Who issued blank letterhead to the Exchequer’s office?”

  Dore’s lips part. His voice is dry, threadbare.

  “I—I only know parts,” he says. “Courier access, then routing privileges. Mirkell approved the changes. He said it was temporary—”

  “Dore, you’re jumbling it up.” Varnet quietly interrupts. She looks to me like she has accepted to confess and now she just sounds tired.

  “Perhaps, Director, you would like to explain what you know?”

  “Yes, your Grace.” Varnet’s voice is quiet, resigned. Her eyes never leave the floor. “Years ago, civic courier service slowed down to a crawl.”

  “Lord Corvis offered Treasury a bypass, said he could expedite communication by letting us use the noble courier lanes. Faster. More secure. But—” she hesitates, “—noble lanes require noble seals. None of us had one.”

  “And so Lord Corvis became the seal,” I say flatly.

  Dore nods, picking up the thread. “At first, it seemed helpful. A workaround. Then came the blank letters. Treasury letterhead, pre-marked. Sent to the Exchequer’s office for approval. And then... things changed.”

  His voice shakes. “We’d submit a funding allocation approval—say, a repair grant for Riverbend. But by the time it reached the planners, the language had shifted. The numbers changed. The district name replaced. Still bore Treasury letterhead. Still looked official. But it wasn’t our language. Wasn’t our seal.”

  Varnet’s voice regains some of its earlier edge, low and bitter. “And when we questioned it, Mirkell threatened us with dereliction charges. Said we were misusing Treasury assets. Said if we pushed it further, he’d have us brought before the Council for fraud.”

  She swallows hard, and when she lifts her gaze, it’s defiant—not for herself, but for the institution she tried to serve.

  Dore nods again. “We were told to authorize, not review.”

  “And who issued the letterhead?”

  “The Exchequer’s office,” Varnet answers.

  “And who supplied the language?”

  “We assumed Mirkell... but it started showing Corvis’s phrasing,” Dore says. “He writes a certain way—formal, bloated. After a while, I could spot it even without the seal.”

  I study them both.

  “Who gave Corvis access to the Treasury seal registry?”

  Neither speaks.

  I let the question sit like a blade.

  Finally, Dore whispers, “We didn’t.”

  “Then who?”

  “The Exchequer,” Varnet says quietly. “Mirkell. He granted access. And we believe… he provided the blank templates.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because the message logs stopped syncing after that,” she replies. “And we stopped seeing draft revisions. We weren’t reviewing allocations. We were signing off on ghosts.”

  A long silence follows.

  The ballroom holds its breath.

  Then, from behind me, Isla steps forward and sets a single document on the floor in front of them. Folded once. Crested in wax.

  I don’t speak. I don’t need to.

  Dore bends, unfolds it. His eyes flick across the contents.

  He goes pale.

  “That’s... that’s not my writing,” he whispers. “But that’s my name. My seal code.”

  “Forgery?” Dellor asks from the Mint contingent, voice clipped.

  “Yes,” Dore confirms, and passes it to Dellor. Now the Mint will have to review all Treasury seals going back to the start of Corvis’s actions, I don’t envy them the task.

  “When did it start?” I ask. It’s detail that will matter, but I have what I need to issue judgment before the court.

  “Six years ago,” Varnet says at last. “Maybe a little more. That’s when we first noticed the courier delays. When Corvis began offering access to the noble lanes. It didn’t seem unusual then—just a baron lending his seal to help expedite recovery funding.”

  Six years.

  I feel the number slot into place like a missing piece. Clean. Too clean.

  I was one.

  The naming ceremony.

  I remember it, the way the light bent in the square between Blackwood Citadel and the Founder’s Temple. How the wind caught the banners overhead. My name carved into the air, wrapped in authority by the Temple’s seal. All of Falkensgrave watched a child crowned by magic that day.

  This wasn't just theft.

  It never was.

  But I don’t let it show. I’ve grown too practiced at keeping still, too many lifetimes of playing roles to slip now.

  Still... a cold knot forms in my chest.

  I’d been too focused, wrapped in strategy, bureaucracy, the city.

  I forgot what I am to them.

  All my lifetimes, all my memories, and still I forget.

  Maybe that’s not my flaw.

  Maybe that’s just the flaw of being alive.

  But this one? I can still correct.

  Maybe it’s coincidence.

  But I no longer believe in that word.

  I need more details on timeline. Isla can find more exact times, but I can at least see if this new suspicion has a shape.

  For now, I need to see if the pattern continues.

  “Things changed again,” I say, voice calm. Controlled. “More recently.”

  Varnet nods, her shoulders drawing back. Her hesitation has cooled into purpose now.

  “Yes. Two and a half years ago,” she says. “That’s when it stopped feeling like interference. That’s when it started to feel… coordinated. Strategic.”

  Her voice hardens, not defiant, but certain. She’s chosen her side, and it’s not silence anymore.

  “That’s when Corvis began working closely with the Bastien Trade Consortium. That’s when the real money started moving.”

  The name hits like a slap.

  I flinch. No time to stop it. The reaction hits before control can catch up. A flicker of something raw, shock, or fury, or the shape of both.

  The words leave her lips like a match struck in an oil room.

  Bastien.

  She meets it with stillness. No blink. No shift. Just a crisp, confirming nod.

  Two and a half years. That’s when the money started shifting. That’s when the orders stopped matching the needs. That’s when everything began to feel... wrong.

  Around the same time Lena and Clara were attacked.

  And the same name, Bastien Trade Consortium, was found in Isla’s investigation linking House Verdane to the attack.

  That is not coincidence.

  That is architecture.

  Corvis was never the architect.

  He’s a brick. A pillar. A distraction.

  And I’ve wasted weeks preparing to strike down the decoration while the foundation rotted beneath my feet.

  For all the planning Havish and I did, for all the precision, the timing, the political theater, it suddenly feels very small. Very local. I started this morning prepared to root out corruption in Falkensgrave.

  Now I see the edge of something much larger.

  Something moving.

  And I don’t have the time to linger.

  Let the civil system finish this chapter, because I no longer have time.

  But just as I prepare to dismiss the court, my eyes land on Dore. He’s still staring at me—not pleading, not begging. Just... hoping.

  He knows what will happen if I let the city take him.

  So do I.

  Corvis will reach them first. The system moves slowly. Corvis will not.

  I sweep my gaze across the room, tracking insignias and faces, weighing which houses still hold honor, or at least loyalty. And then, near the back, a flicker of color catches my eye.

  A blue lily brooch.

  Highpost.

  Lady Aerwyn.

  She hasn’t moved. Not once. She’s stood like a sentinel, still and composed, a small satisfied smile never leaving her lips.

  Perfect.

  I step forward.

  “These four,” I say, letting my voice carry across the chamber, “are hereby relieved of their posts, pending a full investigation into the misuse of Treasury funds.”

  Gasps ripple faintly through the nobles. I turn a slow circle, meeting eyes, making the weight of the moment clear. They’re not truly surprised. The gasps are theater—like everything else in this room.

  “Each House of peerage is encouraged to appoint one representative to the investigative committee. Full accounting access shall be granted. Every transaction. Every name. No redactions.”

  There. That’s Havish’s signal. Transparency, offered first. Not demanded. Not imposed.

  From the corner of my eye, I see him incline his head, just slightly. Approval.

  The Treasury heads, though... their shoulders sag. The fight’s drained from them. Dore looks almost grateful. Varnet just looks hollow. Dellor and Thorne are unreadable, but neither protest.

  Good. But it’s not finished.

  “It would be improper,” I continue, “for House Larkin to retain custody. Given the nature of what’s been uncovered, and the connections involved, I cannot risk entanglement.”

  I sweep my eyes back to the edge of the ballroom.

  “I remand custody of all four to House Highpost. Lady Aerwyn,” I say, letting her name ring out across the marble, “by your oath—hold and guard them until Falkensgrave’s magistrates call for their testimony.”

  She stiffens.

  For a heartbeat, her expression falters. Just slightly.

  Then, in one smooth motion, Lady Aerwyn draws her sword.

  The sound is pure and deliberate, steel against air, then steel against stone, as she drives the tip into the marble and drops to one knee. The blade hums from impact. Her cloak pools behind her, silent and still.

  “By your word and my hand,” she says, voice calm, clear, absolute, “it will be done, my Lord.”

  For a moment, the room feels suspended. Nobles frozen in shock, staff holding their breath, even the torches seem to flicker more quietly.

  I turn to Sienne.

  “The oath is recorded?” I ask.

  She meets my gaze, solemn and unwavering.

  “It is.”

  I nod once, then speak—not just to the witnesses before me, but to the walls, the banners, the city beyond.

  “Then let it be known,” I say, my voice carrying cleanly across the vaulted chamber, “that the testimony of Rallen Dore, Elvra Varnet, Arvin Dellor, and Maeren Thorne, sworn under Temple authority and sealed to the Founder’s Tome, has established that Baron Lord Corvis of House Corvis gained unlawful access to Treasury communications, used noble seal privileges to bypass civic oversight, and directly manipulated the distribution of state funds for personal and political gain.”

  The words land like falling stone.

  A wave of reaction sweeps the room, not loud, but deep. Sharp intakes of breath. Murmurs traded behind gloved hands. A few nobles turn toward each other, expressions flickering between outrage and calculation. They know what this means.

  They know what it could become.

  I let the weight settle. Then I speak again.

  “By the delegated authority of my father, Archduke Sven Larkin, I hereby strip Baron Lord Corvis of all standing privileges associated with his title. His sigil is to be struck from all state record until further ruling. He shall retain his rank in name alone—but his access, his influence, his protections, are null.”

  The murmurs still.

  No protests.

  No applause.

  Just understanding.

  It is not the full fall. I cannot strip him of his peerage, only my father can do that. And I know some in this room would not tolerate such a move without his explicit word, or the placing of a Baron under arrest. But striking his sigil?

  That, I can do.

  And it is no small gesture.

  Without his sigil, Corvis loses access to noble-only channels—courier lanes, restricted accounts, inner councils. He will still wear his title, but it will be hollow. The gates that once opened for him will remain shut.

  I can’t take what he already holds.

  But I can make sure he never takes more.

  And I will.

  “The court is adjourned,” I say. “Let the record reflect all that has passed here.”

  I turn from the dais without another word. The nobles will find their way out.

  My attention is already elsewhere.