Chapter 95: Chapter 96: The Third Move

Elara’s POV

The arrests were moving fast.

Every day, more people were taken. From the lower districts, from the streets, from the markets where they had been buying bread and selling vegetables and living their ordinary lives. The council was unified on this in a way they were rarely unified on anything. The Rendered were responsible. The crackdown must continue. Any hesitation from the queen was weakness she could not afford right now.

I sat in those meetings and nodded and signed what needed to be signed.

And privately, persistently, I could not shake the feeling that we were punishing the wrong people.

“The evidence is clear, Your Majesty.” Petrov’s voice was smooth, reasonable. He had been saying the same thing for days now, in different words, with different emphases, but always the same conclusion. “The Rendered have proven themselves capable of accessing the palace. Their leader has been openly inciting violence against the crown. The connection is obvious.”

I looked at him across the table. “The connection is obvious,” I repeated.

“The girl was found in your dressing room. In your private chambers. Someone with knowledge of the palace’s layout, its guard rotations, its blind spots.” He spread his hands. “The Rendered have demonstrated that knowledge. We saw it with the warehouse. We saw it with the threats left in your rooms. The pattern is clear.”

“And if we’re holding the wrong people?”

Petrov was quiet for a moment. “Then we release them. After we’ve confirmed their innocence. But we cannot afford to do nothing while we investigate.”

That was the argument. That was always the argument. We could not afford to do nothing. The people were frightened. The crown had to be seen acting. The Rendered were the obvious suspects, and even if they were not the right suspects, they were the ones we had.

I sat at the head of the table and listened and said nothing.

Because I had no proof. Just the feeling. And the particular neatness of it that had been bothering me since the morning the chambermaid was found. How convenient. How precisely timed. How perfectly calibrated to destroy the movement and give the council a target all at once.

The council pre-emptions had not stopped.

Another session. Another measure I had been privately considering appearing in someone else’s name before I could raise it myself. This time it was something smaller. A staffing decision. A minor administrative matter. Nothing that would change the course of the kingdom.

But its smallness made it worse, not better.

Because whoever was feeding information outward was not cherry-picking significant things. They were feeding everything. Systematically. With a consistency that suggested routine rather than opportunism.

This was not a leak. This was someone who had made a decision and was executing it deliberately.

I sat at my desk that evening and forced myself to think about who had access. Real access. Not just to the palace but to me. My thoughts. My conversations. My private chambers. The specific texture of my daily routine.

The list was short.

I did not let myself reach the end of it. Not yet. Not tonight.

Lena came in with tea. She set the tray on the table, poured the cup, placed it on the desk beside me. Everything was as it should be.

“Thank you,” I said.

She nodded. She turned to leave.

“Lena.”

She stopped. Turned back. “Yes?”

I looked at her for a moment. At her face, her hands, the way she was standing. She looked tired. More tired than she should have been. There were shadows under her eyes that had not been there before.

“The council meetings,” I said. “Do you ever hear anyone talking about them? Beforehand? The servants, the guards, anyone?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Petrov raised a measure today that I had been considering for weeks. I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. Not in council, not in private. But he brought it forward like it was his own idea.” I paused. “It’s not the first time.”

Lena was quiet for a moment. “You think someone is listening to you?”

“I think someone is reporting on me. Someone with access to my chambers, my conversations, my thoughts.” I looked at her. “Someone close.”

“That’s…” She shook her head. “That’s a serious accusation, Elara.”

“I know.”

“Do you have any idea who?”

I looked at her for a long moment. The list was short. She was on it. Everyone on it was someone I trusted. Someone I had known for years. Someone who had been with me through everything.

“Not yet,” I said. “But I’m going to find out.”

Corvus came to me the next evening.

He looked tired. More tired than I had ever seen him. His coat was rumpled, his face drawn, his eyes shadowed. He had been working around the clock, following leads, questioning witnesses, trying to piece together what had happened to the chambermaid.

“Your Majesty,” he said. “May I speak with you privately?”

I dismissed the servants. Closed the door. Sat at my desk and waited.

He did not sit. He stood in the center of the room, his hands clasped behind his back, his face set in the particular stillness he wore when he was about to say something he knew I did not want to hear.

“The forensics on the chambermaid,” he said. “The timeline. The access required.”

I waited.

“The initial estimate was that she was killed sometime between the evening meal and the morning, when the ladies found her. That window was wide. Too wide to be useful.” He paused. “But we’ve refined it. Based on the body temperature, the state of the room, the position of the body.”

“And?”

“And the window is narrower than we thought. Much narrower.” He met my eyes. “She was killed in the early morning. After the guards changed shifts. After the corridor was cleared. Within a specific window of time that was very short.”

I felt something cold move through me. “How short?”

“Fifteen minutes. Maybe less.”

Fifteen minutes. In a palace that was supposed to be secure. In a corridor that was supposed to be watched. In a room that was supposed to be locked.

“The list of people who could have been in that corridor, with that access, at that specific time,” Corvus said. “It’s very small.”

He did not tell me who was on it. Not yet. He needed to verify. Needed to check the records, the logs, the statements from the guards. Needed to be certain before he brought me a name.

But something in his face when he left told me he already had a suspicion.

And something in my chest told me I did too.

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