Chapter 76: Chapter 77: The kerchief

Elara’s pov

The meeting had ended an hour ago and I was still replaying it in my head.

The intel on The Voice had been worse than expected, more organized, more embedded, reaching further into the districts than any of us had wanted to admit. Henrik’s report kept coming back to me. Hundreds of people. Maybe more. They’re angry about feeling powerless. The words echoed in my mind, making it hard to focus on anything else.

And my response, the grain distribution, the relief provisions, appearing in person among the people, had been met with exactly the resistance I’d anticipated. Too risky. Too exposed. Too much for a queen to do herself. Lord Petrov had been the loudest, but he wasn’t alone. Half the council had looked at me like I’d suggested handing them the crown myself.

I’d overruled them all.

I was still certain it was the right decision. Mostly certain. The kind of certain that required constant maintenance, that frayed slightly every time I replayed Corvus’s expression or the careful, diplomatic way Lord Petrov had said it is an unprecedented risk, Your Majesty, like the words themselves were a warning I was too young to understand.

I was still turning it over in my mind, still shoring up my own conviction, when I pushed open the door to my chambers.

The smell hit me first.

Iron. Sharp and dark and wrong. The kind of smell that made my stomach lurch before my brain could catch up. I knew that smell. Everyone knew that smell. Blood.

I stopped in the doorway.

The room looked ordinary at first, everything in its place, afternoon light falling across the familiar furniture, the bed neatly made. Nothing seemed disturbed. Nothing seemed touched. The curtains were where they should be. The chair by the window sat empty. My books were stacked neatly on the table.

But the smell. That smell.

My eyes moved slowly across the room, searching for the source.

The kerchief was in the center of the bed.

White linen, or it had been once. Now soaked through with something dark and rust-red, spread open like a wound against the pale covers. It caught the light in a way that made the stain seem wet, fresh, still bleeding onto the fabric beneath it.

And beside it, weighted down by nothing, just sitting there as though someone had left it casually, a folded piece of parchment.

I didn’t move. Couldn’t. My whole body had locked somewhere between the threshold and the room.

Someone had been in here.

Someone had been in my chambers.

Someone had walked through that door, past the guards, past everyone, and left that thing on my bed.

My eyes moved to the windows, closed, latched from the inside. To the adjoining door, shut, the way I’d left it. To every corner of the room, cataloguing, checking, making sure I was alone before my legs would carry me forward.

I was alone.

I crossed to the bed. Each step felt like walking through water, heavy and slow and unreal. The smell got stronger as I got closer. Iron. Blood. So much blood. My stomach turned, the nausea I’d been fighting all morning surging back.

I picked up the note with fingers that had gone very cold.

Unfolded it.

The handwriting was plain. Deliberate. Someone who had taken care not to be recognized, who had printed the words in block letters that gave nothing away.

The paper slipped from my fingers.

I heard myself scream before I felt it, the sound tearing out of me raw and involuntary, nothing like a queen, nothing like someone in control, and then the doors crashed open and there were guards everywhere, voices overlapping, someone had their hand on my arm and someone else was sweeping the room, checking corners, checking the windows, checking behind the curtains and under the furniture.

I was standing in the middle of it all shaking so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

“Your Majesty.” Corvus was in front of me, his hands on my shoulders, his voice very deliberate and even. He must have been summoned, must have come running. His face was pale but steady, eyes searching mine for injury. “Look at me. Elara. Look at me.”

I looked at him.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” My voice didn’t sound like mine. It came out thin and far away, like it belonged to someone else. “No, I’m not, I’m not hurt, I just–”

“Someone was in your chambers.” He wasn’t asking. He’d already seen the bed, the kerchief, the note where it had fallen to the floor. His expression had gone very still in the way that meant he was furious and containing it. “We’re moving you. Now. Another room, until this one has been searched properly.”

“I don’t want another room, I want–” I stopped.

Lena.

Where was Lena?

“Where is Lena?” I looked around the cluster of guards, the faces I knew, the faces I didn’t. “Someone find Lena. I want Lena here.”

No one moved immediately.

“Where is she?” My voice came out sharper, cutting through the chaos. “She was supposed to be here. She was in these chambers when I left. She was supposed to be here when I returned. She’s always here. She doesn’t leave without telling me.”

I looked at the bed, at the kerchief, at the note still lying on the floor. A cold dread settled in my stomach that had nothing to do with the threat. If someone had been in here, if they’d gotten past the guards, if they’d left that thing on my bed–

“Corvus.” I grabbed his arm, my fingers digging in. “If someone was in my chambers, if they got past the guards, if they left that–” I couldn’t say it. The words stuck in my throat. “Where is Lena? What if she walked in on them? What if she–”

“We’ll find her, Your Majesty.” Corvus was already steering me toward the door, one hand at my back, firm and immovable. “Come. Another chamber first. We need you somewhere secure before we do anything else.”

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