Chapter 79: Chapter 80: The Investigation

Elara’s POV

I knew Lena had a hundred and one questions to ask, but she gave me the time I needed before she began. A knock at the door came before either of us could move.

Not the soft, apologetic knock of a servant. Three sharp raps, official, the kind that didn’t wait for permission. The kind that meant something had happened or was about to happen, and the person on the other side of the door wasn’t asking if they could come in, they were announcing that they were coming.

I straightened instinctively, something in me shifting back into queen before I’d consciously decided to. Lena’s hand was still in mine. I felt her fingers tighten around mine, her grip suddenly hard, like she was holding on to something that was about to be taken away.

“Enter.”

Corvus came in first. Two palace soldiers behind him, in full uniform, hands at their sides. Not relaxed. The way soldiers stood when they had orders they expected to be unpleasant to deliver. Their faces were blank, professional, but I could see the tension in their shoulders, the way they held themselves ready.

Something cold moved through me.

“Your Majesty.” Corvus’s voice was carefully neutral. He didn’t look at Lena. He was looking at me, only at me, and that careful avoidance was louder than words. “Forgive the interruption. I know you’ve had a difficult afternoon.”

“What is this?” I didn’t move. Didn’t let go of Lena’s hand.

His eyes moved briefly to Lena. Just briefly. But I caught it. There was something in that glance, apology, maybe, or regret, or simply the acknowledgment of something unpleasant that had to be done.

“As part of the investigation into the threat left in your chambers,” he said, “we’ve been accounting for everyone’s whereabouts during the relevant hours. Every guard on rotation. Every servant with access to the corridor. Every person who could have been in that wing of the palace between the time you left for your meeting and the time you returned.” He paused. “Every member of your personal household.”

I stood up slowly. My legs felt strange, disconnected from the rest of me. “Corvus.”

“Your handmaiden was unaccounted for during the entire window in question.” His voice didn’t change. Steady, measured, the voice he used in council when he was saying something he knew would meet resistance, something he’d already thought through from every angle. “She has no witness to confirm her location. No one saw her in the kitchens or the storage rooms. And she is, by virtue of her position, one of very few people in this palace with unrestricted access to your private chambers. Access that she uses daily.”

The room had gone very quiet.

I heard Lena’s breathing change beside me. It became shallower, faster. Her hand in mine was still cold.

“She was getting apples,” I said. The words came out faster than I meant them to. “She told me. She slipped out–”

“No one saw her there, Your Majesty.” Corvus’s voice was gentle now, and that was worse somehow. Gentleness meant he thought I needed handling. “We checked. We questioned everyone who was on duty in that part of the palace during those hours. No one recalls seeing her. No one recalls her passing through.”

“No one saw her because she went alone, because she didn’t want the head maid to give her trouble, because she’s done it a hundred times before without anyone noticing–” I stopped. Took a breath. Forced my voice steady. “This is Lena. She has been with me for years. She is my closest–”

“I know who she is.” For the first time, something that wasn’t quite neutral moved across Corvus’s face. Not unkindness. Something more like regret. Like he wished he wasn’t the one standing here saying these words. “Which is precisely why this must be handled carefully and thoroughly. If we exempt her from investigation and it later emerges that she wasn’t properly cleared, it compromises everything. It compromises the investigation. It compromises the security of your chambers. It compromises you.”

I turned to look at Lena.

She was standing very still, but her stillness was the wrong kind, rigid, held together by effort, the way a person stood when they were fighting very hard not to fall apart. Her face had gone white. Her eyes were too bright, catching the candlelight in a way that made them look wet.

“Lena.” My voice came out softer than I intended. Softer than I’d meant it to be.

“I didn’t do anything.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. It cracked on the last word. “Your majesty, I swear to you, I didn’t, I would never, I’ve been with you for years. You know me. You know I would never–”

“I know.” I crossed to her immediately, took both her hands in mine. They were ice cold. Shaking slightly. “I know that. I know.”

“Your Majesty.” Corvus again, quiet but immovable. He hadn’t moved from where he stood. The soldiers behind him were still as statues. “She still needs to come with us. It’s protocol. It has to be done. For her sake as much as anyone else’s.”

“She is standing in front of me telling me she didn’t do it–”

“And I believe she may well be telling the truth.” He didn’t raise his voice. He never raised his voice, which was somehow worse. “But belief is not investigation. Assumption is not proof. And until we have established facts, not feelings, she cannot remain in your chambers. She cannot remain unquestioned. Anyone in her position would be questioned. You know this.”

He held my gaze steadily. His eyes didn’t waver.

“You know this,” he repeated, quieter. “If it were anyone else, you would have insisted on it yourself. You would have demanded it. You would have been the first person in this room to say we can’t afford to make exceptions, not now, not with everything that’s at stake.”

I hated that he was right.

I hated the careful, correct logic of it, the way it sat in my chest like a stone I couldn’t argue away. I hated that he was doing his job properly and that I couldn’t find fault with it and that Lena was standing beside me looking like the ground had just opened up beneath her feet.

“How long?” I asked.

“As long as it takes to do it properly. To follow every lead, ask every question, clear every doubt.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.” His face softened slightly. “I will make sure she is treated well. Comfortable quarters. No one will hurt her. This is a questioning, not a punishment.”

I turned back to Lena. Her eyes were glistening now, the brightness spilling over slightly at the corners, and she was pressing her lips together very hard like she could keep herself composed through sheer force of will. A tear slipped down her cheek. She didn’t move to wipe it away.

“Listen to me.” I kept my voice low, steady, the voice I used when I needed someone to hear me through fear. I squeezed her hands, trying to put everything I couldn’t say into that pressure. “You are going to go with them. You are going to answer their questions honestly, all of them, everything they ask. And it is going to be fine. Do you understand me?”

She nodded, a small tight movement. Another tear fell.

“I am going to look into this personally. Not Corvus, not Petrov, not anyone else. Me.” I held her gaze. “I will go through every detail of this investigation myself. Every statement, every timeline, every report. I will find out what actually happened, who actually did this. And you will be back here before–” I stopped. Didn’t make a promise I wasn’t certain I could keep. Didn’t want to lie to her. “You will be back. That is not a question.”

“Elara, Your majes–”

“You are innocent.” The words came out certain and flat, no room for doubt in them. I made sure she heard them, made sure she understood that I meant them. “I know you. I have known you for years. Whatever this looks like right now, whatever the gaps are in the record, I know what you are and I know what you’re not. And you are not this.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. Then another. She didn’t move to wipe them.

“I’m scared,” she said quietly. Her voice was small, smaller than I’d ever heard it. “I’m really scared, Elara.”

“I know.” I held her gaze, willed her to see that I meant what I was saying. “I know you are. But you’re going to be all right. I’m going to make sure of it.”

I released her hands slowly. One finger at a time. Like letting go of something precious.

Stepped back.

Let Corvus do what Corvus had to do.

The soldiers moved to flank her—not roughly, not with hands on her arms, just positioning, just presence. They didn’t touch her. They didn’t need to. The space they occupied was enough.

Lena walked between them toward the door. Her steps were slow, measured, like she was trying to hold herself together one step at a time.

At the threshold she stopped and looked back at me, and something in her expression was so open, so stripped of its usual careful composure, that it physically hurt to look at. Her face was wet with tears. Her hands were shaking at her sides.

“I’ll find out what happened,” I said again. Not loud. Just for her. A promise.

She nodded once, a small movement.

And then she was gone.

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