Chapter 17: Blood in the Snow
The storm broke before dawn.
Snow fell in fine, relentless sheets over the palace courtyards, muffling the world to a hush. The Winter Court's lanterns had burned themselves out hours ago, leaving the stone arches draped in shadow. Somewhere in the east wing, bells tolled—a low, steady note meant for summoning guards, not for celebration.
Elias woke to the sound and the sharp rap of knuckles on his door. Celina's voice followed, brisk and urgent.
"Up. Now."
He pulled on his boots and coat, stepping into the hall to find her already armed. Her sword hung at her hip, and a thin layer of frost clung to her hair.
"They found another body," she said without preamble. "This time, outside the east gate. No mask, no sigil—but the throat was cut clean through. And the Regent wants you there before the others."
The east gate was nearly deserted when they arrived. A handful of guards stood in a loose semicircle around the body, their breath misting in the cold. The snow around the corpse was crimson, the wound so sharp it looked almost surgical.
Elias crouched beside it. The victim was a man in his early thirties, dressed in merchant's wool. His hands were ink-stained, his boots scuffed from travel.
Celina knelt beside him, her eyes narrowing. "Not a noble. Not a servant. But look at this."
She tugged at the man's sleeve, revealing a thin leather band around his wrist. Burned into it was a symbol—three concentric circles, intersected by a jagged line.
Elias recognized it instantly. "The Conclave."
They didn't have long to study the body before the Regent arrived, her cloak billowing, boots crunching over snow. Two guards flanked her, their pikes gleaming in the pale morning light.
"Explain," she said.
Elias told her what they'd found. The Regent's eyes flicked to the leather band, and for a heartbeat, something passed across her face—unease, quickly smothered.
"This man," she said, "was seen speaking to you last night."
Elias straightened slowly. "I spoke to dozens of people last night."
"And yet," the Regent replied, "he's the one who turns up dead."
By midday, the whispers had begun. Elias could hear them in the corridors, feel them in the way servants avoided his gaze. Two deaths in two nights, and his name was tethered—if not to the blade, then to the moment before it fell.
It didn't help that Isabella was still under guard. Every hour she remained confined, her influence waned, and the court's suspicion sharpened.
When Elias visited her that evening, the fire in her chamber had burned low. She sat in a high-backed chair, a blanket draped over her shoulders, the shard of black crystal resting on the table beside her like a piece of captured night.
"They're going to come for you," she said without looking up.
"They're already trying," Elias replied. "But if I fall, you're next. That's the point."
Finally, she met his eyes. "Then we stop playing their game."
It was reckless, but the plan they shaped in that cold, dim room was simple: turn the hunt back on the Conclave. Use the Marquis's death and the merchant's murder not as traps, but as trails—to follow, not flee from.
The shard became their guide. That night, Isabella placed it in Elias's palm. The moment his skin touched it, he felt the cold seep through bone.
And then the visions came.
They weren't clear—more a string of fragments. A lantern swinging in a narrow alley. A hand passing a pouch across a table. A voice whispering his name. And always, somewhere in the background, the toll of a bell.
When the visions faded, Elias exhaled sharply, the air tasting of iron. "I know where to start," he said.
They went in plain cloaks, slipping through the palace's servant passages and into the streets beyond the eastern wall. Veyth at night was a maze of snow-choked lanes and shuttered shops, the air alive with the distant sound of drunken laughter and the clatter of hooves.
The place from Elias's vision was not far—a narrow street near the river docks. A lantern swayed from a rusted chain, casting its light over a small, nondescript tavern.
Inside, the air was thick with smoke and the smell of wet wool. Sailors hunched over mugs, dice clattered in corners, and a bard plucked at a harp with more determination than skill.
Elias and Isabella took a table near the back. They didn't have to wait long.
A man slid into the chair opposite them without asking. His face was shadowed by a hood, but Elias caught the glint of a leather band around his wrist.
"You've made the city restless," the man said, his voice low. "That's dangerous."
Elias leaned forward. "And you've made it bloody. That's more dangerous."
What followed was a dance of words, each sentence a feint or a probe. The man didn't give a name, but he gave something better—a location. The bell tower of Saint Halvor's, midnight.
When they left the tavern, Isabella's grip on Elias's arm was tight. "It's a trap," she said.
"Of course it's a trap," he replied. "But if the Conclave wants me there, it means they'll be there too. And I'd rather face them on my feet than wait for them to come for me in my sleep."
Midnight found them crouched in the shadow of Saint Halvor's, the snow crunching softly underfoot. The bell tower loomed above, its windows black voids.
They slipped inside. The air was colder within than without, thick with dust and the faint tang of oil. A rope hung from the ceiling, swaying gently, its fibers worn smooth by centuries of use.
And then they heard it—the scrape of boots on stone.
Figures emerged from the shadows, cloaked and hooded, their faces hidden. There were five of them, moving with the easy precision of those who had killed before.
One stepped forward. "Elias Veyth," he said, "you stand accused of treachery against the Conclave. The penalty is death."
The fight was fast and brutal. Steel rang against steel, sparks spitting in the dark. Isabella moved like a shadow, her blade finding gaps in their defenses, her robe flaring crimson in the moonlight that spilled through the high windows.
Elias parried a thrust, drove his opponent back, and caught a flash of movement at the edge of his vision. One of the cloaked figures was drawing a crossbow, not at him, but at Isabella.
He didn't think—he moved.
The bolt hissed past his ear, close enough that the wind of it burned his cheek. It struck the wall behind Isabella, splintering stone.
The distraction was enough. Elias drove his sword through his attacker's guard, sending him sprawling. The others hesitated just long enough for Isabella to raise the shard of black crystal.
Its light wasn't bright—it was deep, the color of old embers. But it made the Conclave falter. One by one, they stepped back, as if the shard's glow burned them.
"You've made your choice," the leader said, voice tight with something like fear. "And it will end you both."
Then they were gone, melting into the night as swiftly as they had come.
In the silence that followed, the bell above them began to toll.
Elias turned to Isabella, breathing hard. "What was that? They were afraid of it."
She closed her fingers around the shard. "Because it isn't just a piece of the Thorn. It's a key. And now they know we're willing to use it."
Outside, the snow kept falling, covering the blood as if it had never been spilled.