The "lessons" with Kaelen Valerius became the central battlefield of Lia's new life. The grand Vance library, with its towering shelves and the scent of old paper, was their arena, and their weapons were words, history, and the subtle art of misdirection.
It was a delicate game. Lia had to be brilliant enough to keep Kaelen, and by extension the Emperor, intrigued. She had to feed him enough truth to make her lies believable. She allowed him to see flashes of the Shadow Hand's strategic mind, couching her insights as "unconventional interpretations" of historical military campaigns.
"It is a fascinating theory, Lia," Kaelen said one afternoon, looking up from a map of the famous Battle of the Whispering Plains. Lia had just outlined a strategy that would have allowed the losing side to win, a strategy that involved sacrificing a key fortress to lure the main army into a trap. It was the exact plan she had proposed to the Emperor a decade ago, a plan he had rejected as too risky.
"History is a puzzle," she replied, her voice soft and scholarly. "I just enjoy finding new ways to put the pieces together."
Kaelen looked at her, a deep, thoughtful frown on his face. "Your mind does not work like a historian's," he said slowly. "It works like a general's."
She had him. He was hooked by the mystery of her. Now, it was time to set the trap.
She began to focus their studies on the period surrounding his father's disgrace. She would ask seemingly innocent questions, probing the political climate of the time, her queries sharp and insightful. She was forcing him to re-examine a past he had been forced to accept as truth.
One evening, as they were packing up their books, she "accidentally" let a piece of parchment slip from her notes. It landed on the floor near his feet. It was a complex diagram, showing the flow of money and influence between several noble houses during the time of the alleged treason. At the center of the web was a name that had never been publicly connected to the scandal.
Kaelen picked it up, his eyes widening as he recognized the names and symbols. It was a masterful piece of intelligence analysis, something that would have taken a team of imperial agents months to compile.
"What is this?" he asked, his voice a tight whisper.
"Just… some theories," she said, feigning embarrassment as she quickly took the parchment from him. "Idle speculation."
But the seed was planted. She had given him a new path to follow, a new direction for his desperate hope.
Her final move was a direct assault. She waited until a session when the weight of his task seemed particularly heavy on him. He was distracted, his gaze distant.
"It must be difficult," she said quietly, closing the book in front of her.
"What must be?" he asked, startled from his reverie.
"Serving a master who holds your family's honor hostage," she said, her voice gentle but her words as sharp as a blade.
He flinched as if struck. The scholarly mask fell away, revealing the raw pain and anger beneath. "You know nothing about it."
"I know that your father was a good man," she said, her grey eyes holding his. "I know he was loyal to the empire. And I know he was innocent."
"How?" he breathed, his voice ragged. "How could you possibly know that?"
This was the moment. The point of no return.
"Because the man who framed him confessed it to me himself, in another lifetime," she said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper.
It was a wild, impossible statement. A madwoman's ravings. But the look in her eyes, the absolute, unshakable certainty, sent a chill down his spine. She was not mad. She was something else entirely.
Before he could process her words, the library doors swung open. Lady Seraphina Valerius stood there, her crimson gown a splash of blood against the dark wood. She had come unannounced. Her eyes, as cold and sharp as ever, took in the scene—her cousin and the mysterious scholar, alone in the lamplit library, an atmosphere of intense, private conversation hanging between them.
"Kaelen, darling," she said, her voice a sweet, poisonous melody. "I do hope we're not interrupting your… studies." Her gaze flickered to Lia, and her smile was the baring of teeth.