Chapter 126

Amelia

The council chamber felt more like a battlefield than a hall of governance. Election sessions always drew the sharpest tempers, and today the atmosphere buzzed with expectation. The benches were filled to capacity, elders shoulder to shoulder in their heavy robes. The sharp smell of ink, the faint tang of damp parchment, and the heat from too many bodies pressed together made the air thick and sour. I could feel the stares long before anyone said my name. It was the same way I always felt walking into this room: like stepping under a magnifying glass.

The debate began as it always did, with talk of grain shipments, patrol rotations, and numbers scribbled into ledgers that had nothing to do with the people who bled to make them possible. But eventually, someone looked for easier prey. One of the elders down the line stood, his face flushed and his voice loud enough to echo against the vaulted ceiling.

“This girl chases myths while the kingdom bleeds. She scrapes at ruins, whispers about hidden councils, and hunts for shadows. Is this what we want our leadership distracted by?”

The insult didn’t sting as much as the way half the chamber laughed, quick, nervous chuckles that rippled like sparks through dry grass. Richard shifted beside me, his jaw clenched tight, the muscle at his temple ticking. He shoved his chair back, the scrape of it jarring against the floor, and stood. “If you mean to discredit her, then discredit me as well. Every discovery has—”

I rose too, words bursting out before I could stop them. “I don’t need anyone to fight my battles.” My voice carried sharper than I intended, slicing through the laughter.

The room stilled. “You call them myths because someone wanted them buried. We’ve uncovered a tunnel bricked over for centuries, sigils etched into stone still visible through fire damage. We found a scorched table and ledgers that prove secret councils once met there. We exposed sabotage in bricks that should have kept families safe. The Hollow isn’t a bedtime story. It’s a pattern of secrecy that thrives whenever people refuse to look closer.”

The silence after was heavy. A few elders glanced at each other, shifting in their seats, considering whether to agree or dismiss me. Others wouldn’t even meet my eyes, instead looking to Richard, as if to weigh whether my words counted if he didn’t echo them. I sat down first, heart hammering against my ribs. Richard only lowered himself after me, his silence deliberate, his presence looming.

The vote that followed moved on to supply routes and defensive budgets, but I noticed a handful of glances shifting my way when undecided voters placed their tokens. It wasn’t a victory, not yet, but it wasn’t nothing either.

When the session adjourned, the corridors outside filled with a storm of voices. Cloaks brushed against walls, aides hurried to catch up with their elders, and gossip tangled with real strategy until it was impossible to separate one from the other. I tried to keep my stride steady, though the weight of every gaze pressed into my back. Callen Rusk appeared at my side as if he had been waiting. His voice was low, practiced. “Withdraw for a few sessions,” he said. “Do it for optics. Let them miss you.”

The word made my stomach knot. Optics. The word that had been haunting my whole career. Hold for optics. It wasn’t just advice, it was code. I pulled away without responding, but his smile followed me down the hall.

That afternoon Nathan pressed Jax again in the guard barracks. Jax had been a junior sentry, caught months ago trying to tamper with the repair scaffolding after someone promised him extra rations and protection. He’d been under questioning before, but always deflected.

The room smelled of stale sweat and oil from weapons racks, an oppressive reminder of discipline and failure. Jax tried to stare down the wall, jaw tight, but Nathan’s calm questions wore him down. “It was the mason with the scarred knuckle,” Jax finally admitted, voice cracking. “Right hand. The scar cuts across the second joint. He told me where to place the charges, said to line them two bricks above the seam so if it went early it would look like bad mortar.”

I didn’t need Nathan to say it. I pictured Darius’s hand, scar running white across tanned skin, flashing every time he gestured over blueprints. My stomach turned cold.

Before evening, Monroe stormed into the strategy room with a thick folder clutched in his fist. He dropped it onto the table, paper scattering like loose feathers. “I traced Darius’s contracts,” he said, flipping through the documents.

“Every deal runs through shells, but each trail lands at the same place. David’s cousin. He signs as a consultant for a firm that doesn’t exist on paper. The same rounding errors from the salt shipment appear here. The same handwriting on invoice margins. He’s been feeding resources to the other side.”

The room felt smaller with every word. I traced a column of numbers with my fingertip, noting how they aligned, repeating mistakes hidden in plain sight. None of it was proof a court could accept, but it was more than coincidence. It was a net tightening around us.

By nightfall, Richard and I were alone in his study. The lamps smoked faintly, filling the air with the scent of cedar and char. He stood braced against the desk, shoulders rigid. “You humiliated me,” he said, voice low. “I stood to defend you, and you cut me down.”

“You humiliated me first,” I snapped back. “By acting like I needed defending at all.”

The words carved the air between us. His eyes locked on mine, storm-dark. At last he exhaled, the sound harsh. “Then we don’t do that again. Not in public.”

“Agreed,” I said. “We argue here, behind closed doors. We stand united outside.”

His jaw loosened, some of the fire ebbing away. “Fine.”

It was a truce, nothing more, but it held the edges of something steadier. A promise we both needed.

That night he walked with me on rounds. The Pack House at night carried a silence that felt almost alive, as if the walls themselves were listening. Our boots echoed softly, the rhythm falling into step without us meaning to. At first we argued in hushed tones. He said I didn’t understand the risks. I said he didn’t understand that independence mattered more than safety. Neither of us gave ground, but when words failed us, we walked on in silence, side by side, stretching into the dark.

The silence broke when a young guard stumbled toward us, face pale and breath ragged. “Archives,” he gasped. “Hooded figure. I lost them near the map room.”

We ran. The corridors blurred, shadows lunging past. The scent of smoke struck before the door swung open. Inside, the archive was filled with ash, drifting through the air like gray snow.

Three maps smoldered on the floor. I crushed one ember beneath my boot and lifted a curling page. The ink showed caches hidden along the borders, each date annotated later by a different hand. Another sheet displayed the Pack House foundations, thin lines inked beneath like veins threading through the stone. The third was a district map littered with small red dots marking safe rooms, a secret latticework across the kingdom.

“Whoever did this knew exactly what to target,” I said, voice hushed. “They tried to burn the keys, not the maps themselves.”

Richard crouched, brushing ash from a corner with careful fingers. “They were interrupted. Enough remains to read. We can still use this.”

Near the shelves two candle stubs lay discarded, wax pooled and hardened. The scent was faintly sweet, the same smell the maid described before she collapsed in the corridor. The realization made my skin prickle.

We searched every stack, every corner, but the intruder had vanished. What remained was proof, again, that someone inside knew where to strike, what to erase, and how close they could cut it. As we stepped back into the hall, the silence pressed heavier. Ash clung to my sleeve until I brushed it away. The vow we’d made earlier echoed in my mind. United in public, honest in private. I didn’t know which part of that promise would be harder to keep.