CHAPTER 206: STRIKE AT ME

The storm raged through the night, but by dawn the skies had softened into a pale, reluctant gray. The manor’s corridors smelled faintly of damp wood and oil lamps, a reminder of the chaos outside.

Lucien stood in the courtyard, his cloak dark and heavy with rain. Liora joined him, her hair pulled back hastily, the shadows beneath her eyes betraying that she hadn’t slept.

"Another messenger," Edgar announced, stepping forward with a sealed parchment. His voice carried an edge of unease. "From the capital. The king requests your presence at the next council session... in three days."

Lucien’s jaw tightened. The king never requested. He summoned.

"Of course," Lucien muttered, slipping the letter into his cloak. But when his gaze shifted, he caught Liora’s worried expression.

"What does it mean?" she asked quietly when Edgar had retreated.

"It means Alden has grown impatient," Lucien replied. His voice was steady, but his hand curled into a fist at his side. "And if the timing aligns with Darius’s return, then the pieces of this game are moving faster than I planned."

Liora hesitated before stepping closer. "Then we’ll go together."

Lucien gave her a sharp look, the kind he often used to cut people down before they could question him further. But this time, it softened, barely. "The capital is a viper’s nest. Every glance is a blade. Every smile, a lie."

"I know," she said simply, her chin lifted. "But if you think I’ll remain here, waiting, while they circle you like wolves, then you’ve underestimated me."

The silence stretched, taut as a bowstring. Then Lucien’s lips curved into something caught between pride and resignation.

"Very well," he murmured. "You’ll come."

But before the moment could settle, Rowan approached, his cloak dripping. His expression was grim. "My lord. There’s something you need to see."

He led them toward the stables, where a riderless horse stood trembling, its flanks streaked with mud and blood. A sigil was burned into its saddle, one belonging to House Miral.

Liora’s breath caught in her throat. "That’s... my family’s crest."

Rowan’s gaze darkened. "The rider never returned. We found the saddlebag on the outskirts. And inside..." He pulled out a torn parchment, smudged with rain but legible enough.

Lucien took it, scanning the hurried scrawl. His expression sharpened into cold fury. "It seems," he said, voice low and dangerous, "your uncle and aunt have been playing a game of their own. Aligning with the Valcour faction against me."

Liora felt her stomach twist. Evelyne. Hector. The very people who had thrown her to Lucien like discarded goods. Now conspiring with his enemies.

Lucien looked at her then, his eyes a storm. "Tell me, Liora...will you still defend them when I drag their treachery into the light?"

Her lips parted, her voice trembling but steady enough to answer.

"I don’t defend them," she whispered. "But I will face them."

Lucien studied her for a long, unreadable moment. Then he folded the parchment and slipped it into his cloak.

"Then you’ll have your chance," he said. "At the council."

The forest road twisted tighter, and the deeper they rode, the more the trees pressed in, their branches like skeletal arms clawing at the dimming sky. Darius rode a few paces ahead, the easy sway of his shoulders betraying nothing of the storm that churned beneath his surface.

Liora felt the weight of silence like a chokehold. Every snap of a twig and every hoot of an owl seemed to thrum louder in her ears. She cast a glance at Lucien. His jaw was rigid, his hands flexing against the reins, and though his expression was stone, she could sense it, the fury, the calculation.

At last, Lucien broke the silence, his voice low and dangerous.

"Tell me, Darius. Was it you who gave the order?"

The knight slowed his horse but did not turn. "Which order do you mean, my lord?"

"The one that set fire to my name," Lucien spat. "The one that made me bury a wife, a title, and nearly my own life."

Liora’s breath caught. She had heard fragments of this truth whispered, but here, facing the man tied to that night, it felt raw, alive, and unhealed.

Finally, Darius turned, his face unreadable in the fading light.

"You think me your enemy." His tone was maddeningly calm. "Perhaps I am. But if you want answers, we cannot trade them here on an open road. There are ears even in the bark of trees."

Lucien’s hand twitched near his sword. Liora laid a hand on his arm, barely brushing, but enough to tether him. His icy glare shifted to her for a fleeting heartbeat, then back to the knight.

"Where then?" Lucien demanded.

Darius’s lips curved in something not quite a smile. "There’s a ruin ahead. Abandoned since the last war. Stone walls don’t keep secrets, but they echo them back in ways worth hearing. If you truly want the truth... you’ll follow."

Liora shivered. There was something in Darius’s words, neither threat nor comfort, that promised whatever lay ahead would change everything.

The torches flickered against stone walls, their flames clawing at the shadows like restless spirits. Liora traced her fingers along the shelf where ancient scrolls rested, dust clinging like a second skin. Each parchment seemed to breathe secrets too dangerous to remain in the open.

Lucien moved with measured calm, though the sharpness in his eyes betrayed his racing thoughts. He lifted a crest carved into the wall, an obsidian blackthorn entwined with a serpent.

"Do you see this?" His voice was low, almost reverent. "This is not the crest of the Blackthorne line I was raised under. This is older. Untouched."

Liora leaned closer. The serpent’s eye was set with a faintly glowing stone, blood-red, like an ember refusing to die.

"What does it mean?" she whispered.

Lucien hesitated. "It means my family’s roots run deeper than anyone at court dares admit. This was erased from history."

Before Liora could press him, the sound of footsteps echoed, measured, deliberate. Someone else was in the chamber.

Lucien’s hand went instinctively to his sword. Liora’s heart raced, and she found herself clutching his sleeve before she even realized it.

From the far side of the chamber, a figure emerged. Cloaked, his face hidden by a hood, though the light caught the curve of a familiar smile.

"Searching where you shouldn’t, little brother?"

The voice froze the air between them.

Lucien’s shoulders stiffened. His grip on the sword hilt faltered for just a moment, then tightened.

"Alden," he said through clenched teeth.

Liora’s breath caught. The king.

The hood dropped back, revealing light blue eyes glimmering like ice under moonlight. King Alden stood before them, not draped in the regalia of his throne, but in plain black, like a shadow made flesh.

"This place was sealed for a reason," Alden said smoothly, his gaze sliding to Liora, lingering too long. "You’ve dragged her into it, haven’t you? Just like you dragged Rowan into your schemes years ago."

Lucien stepped forward, blade raised. "Careful, brother."

But Alden only smirked. "Still so quick to bare your teeth, Lucien. You’ve always wanted the truth... but are you prepared to choke on it when it’s laid bare?"

The chamber seemed to tremble under his words, as if the very stones were holding their breath.

Liora could feel it, the air thick with something ancient, dangerous, and alive.

The days that followed their visit to Darius Vale’s estate were unusually quiet. Liora often caught Lucien pacing his study, papers strewn across the desk, his hand tightening around the quill until the feather bent.

"Another false lead?" she asked one evening, bringing in a tray of tea.

Lucien glanced up, his eyes shadowed with fatigue. "Not false. Incomplete. Someone scrubbed the records clean." He pushed aside a ledger. "Darius wasn’t lying; there are mentions of bribes, hushed testimonies, and one servant who swore he saw another figure fleeing the courtyard the night Selene died. But the name is gone. Erased."

"By Alden?" Liora asked carefully.

"Or someone working to protect him," Lucien muttered. He took the tea but didn’t drink it. Instead, his gaze drifted past her, as if he were staring at something long buried. "Do you know what angers me the most, Liora? It isn’t the exile. It isn’t even the whispers. It’s that Selene’s death became nothing more than a convenient excuse to discard me. As if her life was worth only the stain it left on my name."

Liora lowered her eyes. "You loved her."

He let out a hollow laugh. "Love? Perhaps once. But what we had was duty, carefully arranged smiles for the court. Selene knew it, and I knew it. But that didn’t mean she deserved death."

Silence fell between them, heavy and unsettling. Then, almost reluctantly, Lucien continued:

"I was not with her that night, Liora. I was with Rowan, discussing... other matters. I could have spoken up, but any alibi from Rowan would have condemned him as well. So I kept silent."

"Other matters?" Liora pressed, her curiosity outweighing caution.

Lucien’s jaw flexed. "A rebellion. Or the makings of one."

Her heart lurched. "You mean..."

"Yes," he cut in. "Long before my exile, I had begun gathering sympathizers. Men and women are disillusioned with Alden’s reign. Selene... she was never meant to be part of it. She stumbled upon something she shouldn’t have. That’s why she died."

Liora’s breath caught. "Then whoever killed her... they weren’t just silencing her for Alden’s sake."

Lucien finally drank his tea, though his eyes burned with something sharper than weariness...vengeance, tightly coiled and waiting.

"They were silencing her to strike at me."