Chapter 10: The Name on the Burial Order

The banquet hall doors sealed with court iron. Guests cried out as locks slammed into place. Servants froze with trays in hand. Musicians stopped mid-note, leaving one violin string whining like a trapped insect. Aldric stood at the head table, wineglass raised, his bruised mouth curved in a smile meant for Maren alone. “No one leaves,” he said. Celeste looked from him to the doors, alarm cracking her bridal poise. “Aldric, what are you doing?” “Protecting your coronation.” Vespera had not come to the feast. That was the only reason Maren still breathed. If the duchess had been in the room, the order would already be ash and half the witnesses dead. Aldric was dangerous, but vanity made him slower. He wanted a scene he could win beautifully. Cael’s shadow brushed Maren’s arm. “We leave through the roof.” “Not yet.” “This is becoming a habit I dislike.” “He just locked forty nobles in a room because he saw a ghost. Let them wonder why.” Cael looked at her as if weighing whether to carry her out bodily. The oath-mark warmed in warning. Maren ignored it and stepped from behind the screen. Gasps traveled faster than fire. Someone dropped a plate. A noblewoman screamed Maren’s name. The old countess near the hearth rose so quickly her chair fell backward. Aldric went still. Maren pulled back her hood. She knew what they saw: a dead woman in a servant cloak, rain-tangled hair, bruises at her throat, burial pallor under stubborn eyes. Not a polished claimant. Not yet. But not a rumor either. “Forgive my late arrival,” Maren said. Her voice carried because the room had forgotten how to breathe. “I was not sent an invitation to my own memorial feast.” The countess crossed herself. Aldric recovered first. “Seize her.” No one moved. That was the gift of witnesses. Guards obeyed orders easily in corridors. In a room full of nobles who might testify later, they hesitated. A young lord near the door took a half-step forward, then stopped when his wife gripped his sleeve. Another guard looked at Aldric, then at Maren, and lowered his hand. Maren used the hesitation. She lifted the confession ribbon. “Duchess Vespera recorded my death as red lung fever.” A murmur rippled through the crowd. She lifted the folded order. “Lord Aldric signed instructions to conceal my breathing until after the root ceremony.” The murmur became a wave. Voices overlapped—shock, disbelief, the sharp edge of fear. Aldric laughed. It was almost convincing. “Forgeries. Grief has made this impostor bold.” “Then read it.” She threw the order onto the nearest table. It slid across polished wood and stopped before Lord Merrow, a thin old man whose family had audited court seals for three generations. His hands trembled as he opened it. The parchment crackled in the silence. Aldric’s face changed. Just a fraction. Enough. “Do not touch that,” he said. Lord Merrow looked up. “This bears your private hand seal.” “Stolen.” “And your pressure mark.” Silence. Maren had not known about the pressure mark. Cael had. She saw it in the slight shift of his shoulders, the satisfaction of a man watching a trap close. The pressure mark was a personal impression—pressed into wax with a signet ring only Aldric wore. No forger could replicate it. Celeste backed away from Aldric. “You told me she died before the rite.” “She was meant to,” Aldric snapped. The words landed in the hall like a body. Every face turned toward him. Aldric realized too late. His jaw tightened. His hand went to his sword hilt, but the damage was done. The confession hung in the air, undeniable. Maren’s heart beat once, hard and bright. There it was. Not the whole truth. Not enough for a trial alone. But a crack in the public story, made by his own mouth. “Meant to,” she repeated. His eyes filled with hatred. “You should have stayed weak.” “I did. You buried that version.” He drew his sword. Cael moved then. Not with a flourish. Not like a court duelist. Like a door closing. He stepped between Maren and Aldric as the blade came down, caught it on black glass, and drove Aldric back across the dais. The impact splintered the table behind him. The room exploded. Nobles shouted. Guards surged. Celeste screamed for someone to open the doors. Maren grabbed the confession ribbon and the burial order from Lord Merrow before chaos swallowed them. She folded both against her chest, the paper warm from the old man’s hands. A woman caught her wrist. The old countess. “Child,” she said, eyes sharp despite the tremor in her voice, “if you are truly Rowena’s daughter, do not die in a banquet hall. Get to the Glass Court with proof.” “Will you say what you saw?” The countess looked at Aldric, who was trying and failing to break through Cael’s guard. His blade sparked against black glass. “I will say I heard a man confess that you were meant to die.” Maren squeezed her hand once. A seed of a witness. Cael slammed Aldric into the table hard enough to split it. “Now,” he said. Maren ran. She pushed through the crowd, past servants pressed against walls, past a nobleman who tried to grab her cloak and missed. She reached the service stair and took the steps two at a time, the burial order crinkling against her ribs. Behind her, Aldric’s voice rose above the noise, no longer beautiful. “Kill her before dawn! Do you hear me? Kill Maren Elowen before she reaches the court!” The words followed her into the rain. Outside, Cael pulled her into an alley. Water ran down the stone walls, pooling at their feet. “You wanted proof. You got a confession and a death order in front of witnesses.” “Not enough.” “Maren.” “The court can still be bought. Vespera can still call it panic. I need Nessa. I need the ledger.” He stared at her, rain running down the scar at his brow. “You are shaking.” “I am alive.” “Those are not opposites.” For a moment, the alley seemed too small for everything she felt. Triumph. Terror. Grief. The mad urge to laugh because Aldric had finally shown the court one honest thing, and it was his desire to kill her. Her hands trembled against the paper. Her breath came too fast. Then the bells of the Glass Court began to ring. Not funeral bells. Coronation bells. Cael turned toward the sound. “Vespera moved the ceremony forward.” Maren’s blood went cold. Across the city, golden light rose from the court dome. The Thorn Crown was waking. Celeste would not wait until tomorrow. Vespera had heard enough to accelerate the lie before truth could gather its witnesses. Maren folded the blood-marked burial order against her heart. “Then we stop running,” she said. “We find Nessa, we take the ledger, and before that crown closes around Celeste’s head, we turn every secret, every betrayal, every attack, and every drop of blood into a door they cannot lock.”