"What look?"
"The one that says you’d rather be out there in the woods than in a place with a bed and roof."
Liora gave a small smile. "He didn’t even consider taking along."
Beatrice huffed. "Oh, don’t be foolish. Of course he considered it. But n like him? They don’t risk what they care about when they can help it."
Liora blinked. "He doesn’t care about ."
"No? Not even a little?" Beatrice tilted her head knowingly. "He listens when you speak. That’s more than most ever got from Lucien Blackthorne."
Liora wrapped her hands tighter around the cup. "It’s not about that. I want to be useful."
"You’ve already proven that. More than once. Let him et you in the middle, girl. Let him co to see that your strength isn’t just in your fists."
Liora didn’t answer, but Beatrice’s words followed her long after the woman left her side.
Lucien rode hard beneath the forest canopy, the sky growing darker by the second. They moved without torches, using the dim moonlight and mory of the terrain. When the flicker of the rcenaries’ fire ca into view, Lucien raised his hand to halt the line.
He dismounted, signaling two n to flank the left and another three to cover the right.
He moved silently, a shadow among shadows, until he stood just beyond the clearing. The n were there—two asleep, one pacing, and one crouched, scribbling sothing onto parchnt.
That was the ssenger.
Lucien’s eyes narrowed as he caught the seal stamped into the wax. Not Petra’s. Not Alden’s.
Sothing older.
He stepped forward deliberately, breaking the edge of the silence.
The man at the fire looked up and went pale.
Lucien’s voice was quiet, lethal.
"Deliver it to , instead."
The man bolted.
But he didn’t make it three steps.
Liora was in the garden when he returned. She’d sat too long in the quiet of her room and wandered outside, where moonlight spilled across the stone paths like silver threads.
She heard his footsteps before she saw him.
Lucien approached, his coat dusted with leaves and dried mud, his expression unreadable in the dark.
She stood, brushing her skirts as he stopped before her.
"It’s handled?" she asked.
He nodded. Then, after a beat, he held sothing out to her.
A letter. The seal is already broken.
She took it carefully.
"You should read it," he said.
"Why ?"
Lucien’s gaze held hers, unwavering. "Because it was addressed to you."
Liora stared at the letter, her fingers tightening slightly around the parchnt. The broken wax seal still held the faint imprint of sothing she couldn’t quite place—neither royal nor common, but old. Familiar in a way that made her stomach twist.
She looked up at Lucien. "Did you read it?"
"I skimd it," he said, his voice low. "Didn’t seem right to read it fully without you."
That caught her off guard. For a man so guarded, so cold when they’d first t, he’d begun offering her these quiet things: consideration, space, and a growing trust. She didn’t know what to do with them yet. But they were there. Like the way he stood just close enough that she felt his presence, not looming, not demanding.
She unfolded the letter slowly.
The handwriting was elegant and precise. And it was signed—by a na she hadn’t seen in years.
Her hand trembled slightly.
"Liora Miral,
The ti has co. You must understand that what happened to your parents was not chance nor misfortune but by design. Petra’s silence has lasted long enough. The woman who walks freely in your uncle’s ho wears your mother’s necklace. She was the hand that reached into your family’s throat and cut out its voice.
Co to where it began. Where the fire was first lit. You’ll find what you’re looking for beneath the old elm, in the ruins of Eldhollow.
We do not wait forever.
"...R"
Liora stared at the letter. Her lips parted, but no words ca at first.
Lucien watched her quietly. "Who’s R?"
"I... I’m not sure." Her voice sounded distant to her own ears. "But they know. They know what happened. They know about the necklace and Eldhollow. That was where we used to go in the sumrs, my parents and I... before the fire."
Lucien’s eyes darkened slightly. "Then it’s a trap."
"Maybe," she said. "But what if it’s not?"
He said nothing for a mont. The wind stirred the trees gently around them. Then he said, "If you go, I go with you."
She looked at him, truly looked—past the stern jaw, the tired lines of a man carrying more than he let on. There was sothing unspoken in his words, sothing that curled between them like smoke from a candle snuffed too soon.
"You don’t have to do that," she said.
"I know." A pause. "But I will."
Their eyes t. For a second too long.
Liora looked away first. "I won’t go rushing in. I need to think. Plan."
He gave a faint nod. "Good."
But neither of them moved. Neither of them turned away.
For the first ti, the silence between them didn’t feel like a wall, it felt like sothing waiting to bloom.
Slowly. Quietly.
Liora folded the letter and tucked it into her sleeve.
"We should get so rest," she said.
Lucien didn’t stop her as she turned to go. But after a few steps, she paused.
"Lucien?"
He looked up.
"Thank you. For coming back."
He gave a quiet nod. "You’re not soone I’d leave behind."
And then, just like that, she disappeared into the quiet halls, leaving behind only the echo of sothing unspoken and the letter that burned like a warning in her mind.
Lucien lingered in the hallway long after Liora disappeared into the shadows. The weight of her final words clung to him, heavier than any armor he had ever worn. "You’re not soone I’d leave behind," he murmured.
He wasn’t sure when she’d beco soone he wouldn’t. But she had.
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