Chapter 5: The Ledgers Beneath the Hearth

Frosthold did not whisper. Boots struck stone without apology. Guards argued in the training yard where anyone could hear. The physician, Dr. Elian March, entered Nora's room each morning and announced her opinions like legal rulings. "You will eat the eggs," Dr. March said on the third morning. Nora looked at the tray. "I dislike eggs." "Your dislike is noted and irrelevant." From the doorway, Darius said, "She threatened my eye with a spoon. I would obey." Nora's fork paused halfway to the plate. "Do you stand in doorways professionally?" "Only when patients avoid breakfast." Dr. March pointed at him. "Do not flirt with my patient until she finishes protein." Nora nearly choked. Darius did not. "I was not flirting." "Then improve. It was poor work." The physician swept out. Silence settled like a slammed door. For the first time since Blackridge, Nora smiled. Darius saw it. He did not comment. That made the smile easier to keep. "You asked for the old Blackridge files," he said. Nora lowered the fork. "You found them?" "Some." He carried a leather case to the table by the window. Inside were ledger copies, shipping tallies, mining reports, correspondence bearing Frosthold's seal. The paper smelled of old coal dust and dry air. Nora's fingers traced the first column before he had fully set the case down. Numbers were cleaner than memories. She worked for two hours. Darius stood at the window, reading his own dispatches, saying nothing unless she asked. No hovering. No false sympathy. By the third ledger, her pulse changed. "This is wrong." Darius looked over. "Which part?" "The winter silver shipments." She turned a page--the corner stuck, then tore slightly. "Blackridge reported a twenty percent loss from storm damage, but the transport dates are clear. Those carts left before the pass froze." "Could be clerical error." Nora gave him a look. His mouth twitched. "I said could." "Here." She tapped another line, harder than needed. "The missing weight appears three weeks later as emergency reserve, but the reserve account number is not Blackridge's." "Whose is it?" "That is the problem. It does not belong to any pack account." Nora pulled a blank page toward her and began writing figures from memory. "Rowan hated account work. Elder Callum handled external transfers. Iris would not know a ledger from a dinner menu." "You sound certain." "I cleaned up her charity budget after she spent winter coat funds on imported perfume." Darius was quiet long enough that Nora looked up. His gaze was cool, assessing. "I am deciding whether to ask how much perfume." "Enough to clothe twelve children." His expression hardened. "I see." Nora returned to the ledger before anger could make her careless. The figures formed a shape she did not like. Missing silver. False storm loss. Emergency reserve. Unmarked account. Elder Callum's initials in the margin. And, beside three transfers, a mark she had seen before. R.V. Rowan Vale. The room narrowed. The paper felt too thin under her fingertips. She pressed a hand to her stomach--the child inside her was too small to move, too small to know the world already wanted a price. Darius moved but did not touch her. "Nora." "He knew." "Maybe." "Do not soften it for me." "I am not softening. I am requiring proof before execution." She looked up, and he held her gaze. Something flickered in his eyes--restraint, perhaps, or the cost of not reaching for her. Then she saw the last page. It had been folded into the back lining of the case. Thin paper. Older ink. Not a ledger. A private transfer order. Nora opened it. Her name sat at the bottom. Nora Vale. The signature looked like hers at first glance. Same slope. Same pressure. Same delicate turn on the N. But Nora had stopped signing Vale on financial documents two years ago, after Rowan accused her of overstepping in front of the elders. Someone had forged it. Darius came to stand beside her. His shoulder brushed hers--a brief, deliberate contact. She did not pull away. "That order moved sanctuary funds out of Blackridge," he said. Nora read the receiving account. Iris Bell's personal dowry trust. The air grew cold. She saw Iris in her mother's mantle. Iris burning the test. Iris saying there was no baby. "She did not just take my place," Nora said. Her voice came out flat, stripped of emotion. "She bought it with stolen winter funds and my forged name." Darius looked at the paper, then at her. His hand moved toward hers, then stopped an inch away. "Can you prove the signature is false?" "Yes." "How?" Nora's fingers trembled once before she stilled them. "Because Rowan made me sign a restriction order two years ago forbidding me from authorizing external transfers. He was drunk, angry, and very proud of it." Darius's eyes sharpened. "Where is the order?" "In the one place Rowan never checked." "Which is?" Nora smiled without warmth. She folded the forged paper and pressed it against her palm. "Under the hearth in the Luna's private sitting room." She stood. The chair scraped stone. Darius moved to block her path, but not to stop her--only to offer. "The sitting room is locked," he said. "I have a key." He held it out. Brass. Cold. Nora took it. Their fingers brushed. She did not let her hand linger, but she did not pull away too quickly either. "Thank you." The words felt strange, like a borrowed coat. Darius did not answer. He simply watched her as she turned toward the door, the key tight in her hand, the forged paper burning against her chest.