"Review," Thalen says, "not immediate investigation."
"Review requires defining a scope," I say. "I'd like that scope to include all border territories with settlements under five hundred residents, compared against the last eight years of records." I look around the table. "If the pattern holds in those territories, we'll know within two months."
More silence. Then, by increments, nods.
Not agreement. Not commitment. But the absence of obstruction, which in this room amounts to the same thing.
Nobody raises the matter of my governance. Nobody suggests stepping down, surrendering the territory, or submitting to oversight. The investigation I've opened is too large now, the evidence too visible. Moving against me while I hold the documents that implicate their colleagues is a gamble none of them are willing to make today.
Thalen looks at the table when the session ends. He doesn't meet my eyes.
I take that as its own kind of progress.
Cyran is waitingoutside the chamber when I emerge.
He lets the other lords pass before he speaks. "I have something that couldn't wait for the ride back." He has the expression he uses when the news is bad and time-sensitive.
"Tell me."
"Malrec." He falls into step beside me, keeping his voice low. "Before the courthouse proceedings — before the sentencing — he arranged something. A contingency, in case the public accusation failed." He pauses. "We don't have full details yet. But the source is reliable, and the target is Edria, and he’s escaped custody."
I stop walking. “Escaped?”
"He had two riders waiting for him at a farm three miles south." Cyran keeps his voice even. "He's not gone from the region. He's circling." He meets my eyes. "And he still has men here. People who worked under him for years, who have their own reasons to want the investigation closed before it reaches their names."
I think about what Malrec said to Edria in her cell — the visit Finn reported, the admission that he'd manufactured the rebellion rumors for profit. A man who spent twelve years building a careful arrangement doesn't burn it without putting something in place first.
"Get two more men on the forge," I say. "Today, before dark. I want someone on the lane entrance and someone on the back yard path." I move toward the exit. "And put a rider on the south road. I want to know if anyone connected to Malrec's former staff moves toward Oxwood."
"Already sent one." He pauses. "My lord. If he's planning to use her as leverage to force you off the investigation?—"
"Then he underestimates how far I'll go to protect her." I push through the door into the cold corridor. "He's had every opportunity to learn that. If he hasn't by now, that's his problem."
Cyran says nothing, which means he agrees.
I ride hard for Oxwood, and the whole way I turn over the question of what a man with nothing left to lose and loyal men still in the field decides to do with one remaining piece of leverage.
I don't reach a comfortable answer.
37
EDRIA
The house sits half a mile past the mill creek, tucked behind a stand of birch trees that screen it from the road. It belongs to one of Nyrius's riders — a small stone building, two rooms, a hearth that draws well and a wood stack that someone replenished recently.
I stand in the door frame for a moment after we arrive and breathe.
No lane noise. No whispers cutting off when I walk past. No one watching from doorways with careful, assessing eyes. Just cold air and birch trees and the sound of the creek in the distance.
"Better?" Nyrius asks, behind me.
"Ask me after I've been inside for an hour."
He takes my coat.
He makes the fire while I relax on the low couch and watch him work. There's something consistently surprising about Nyrius doing ordinary things — building a fire, pouring water, pulling bread and salt meat from the pack one of his men brought ahead. He does it without self-consciousness, withoutthe performance of a lord managing beneath his station. He just does it, because it needs doing.
The fire catches. The room warms.
