Amelia’s eyes narrow.
I follow her gaze and feel my stomach go cold. It is the same mark.
Not identical artistry, but the same core insignia, the same signature line-work that we found on the first assassin’s gear, the hired hand, the silent compulsion, the poison designed to destabilize magic.
A group. A network. Not one traitor acting alone.
Amelia’s voice is barely above a whisper. “This is connected.”
“Yes,” I say, and I feel the truth of it settle into my bones. “This is the same hand.”
Her fingers tighten against my chest, and when she looks up at me her expression has changed. The fear is still there, but it has sharpened into something more dangerous. Resolve.
“Then we stop reacting,” she says. “We hunt.”
I look at her, this furious, brilliant, exhausted heir with blood on her hands and defiance in her eyes, and the love in my chest turns into something even steadier.
“Yes,” I answer quietly. “We do.”
Amelia reaches up, careful now, and cups my jaw as if checking that I am truly still here. Her thumb brushes the corner of my mouth, almost absentminded, and my breath catches.
“You’re going to tell me next time you decide to patrol alone,” she says.
“I wasn’t alone,” I reply, and when she frowns, I add, “I had the forest.”
Her glare is immediate.
I try for something like a smile. It is not my best work.
Amelia’s eyes soften anyway, just slightly, because she knows what I am doing: trying to steady her with anything I can offer.
“We go back,” she says, already shifting into motion. “We show this to no one except those we trust. We don’t give Vira time to rewrite the narrative.”
I nod, then hiss as the movement pulls at my shoulder.
Her hand immediately returns to my arm, supportive but firm. “Lean on me.”
I hesitate. Amelia’s gaze dares me to argue.
I do not. I shift my weight slightly into her, and she adjusts without complaint, bracing us both as we start back toward the coven grounds with the arrow in my shoulder and a conspiracy in our hands.
Behind us, the yew trees whisper in the wind like they are carrying news through root and shadow.
26
AMELIA
The archives of Nytheria do not forgive impatience. Dust gathers in deliberate layers across carved stone shelves, and the air smells of dried vellum, old ink, and the faint metallic trace of warded preservation spells. Light filters down through high, narrow windows, catching motes that drift like suspended time. Most Purnas avoid this level unless required. History is heavy. It demands attention.
Today, I welcome the weight.
Zeidan stands near the entrance, arms crossed, watchful without intruding. He insisted on coming. I insisted he not hover. We compromised: he guards the perimeter while I dismantle the past.
The arrow rests on the central table, wrapped carefully in neutral cloth. We removed it without triggering the secondary ward, though it took both of us and more restraint than either of us enjoyed. The sigil near its base is faint, nearly decorative if you don’t know what to look for.
But I do..
I pull three separate codices toward me, one detailing pre-unification assassin guilds, one cataloguing forbidden sigilworkfrom the border wars, and one older still, its spine cracked with age, chronicling ritual curses tied to land corruption.
