Soren woke to the sound of pages turning.
For a moment he didn't know where he was. The ceiling above him was too familiar to be the infirmary and too plain to be his bedchamber. The steady, blunt ache in his ribs reminded him he had fallen asleep on the study couch, not in a real bed.
There was a weight at his ankle.
He shifted, and the hand resting there slipped away.
"Sorry," Ecclesias said. "I forgot to move."
He sat at the other end of the couch, one knee drawn up, a stack of reports balanced on his leg. Someone had lit the candles while Soren slept. The room was a small pool of light in the palace's quiet.
"How long?" Soren asked.
"Long enough for Larem to approve," Ecclesias said. "Not long enough for him to stop complaining."
Soren pushed himself upright slowly, careful of his side. The blanket slid into his lap. The ring caught, then freed the edge of the wool.
He flexed his hand, feeling the faint stiffness in his fingers from sleeping with them curled.
"Did I miss anything important?" he asked.
"Lunch," Ecclesias said. "And Arven staring at me like I committed a crime because I didn't wake you up to look at numbers."
Soren's mouth twitched.
"Tragic," he said.
Ecclesias watched his face, his colour, the way he was breathing, without commenting aloud.
"You dreamed," he said.
Soren paused.
"How do you know?" he asked.
"You grabbed my foot in your sleep," Ecclesias said. "I assumed walls don't have boots."
A faint heat rose in Soren's cheeks.
"Sorry," he said. "Habit."
"A wall does not stay when you grab it," Ecclesias said.
He set the papers down beside him.
"There is news," he added. "From Merrow's house."
Soren straightened a little.
"What kind?" he asked.
"The kind we were hoping for," Ecclesias said. "And the kind I would rather not have to hope for."
He stood and held out his hand.
"Come," he said. "Arven wants to show you something before he implodes."
Soren took his hand and let himself be pulled to his feet. The room tilted slightly; Ecclesias tightened his grip until everything steadied.
"I'm fine," Soren said.
"I know," Ecclesias said.
He only let go at the door.
Arven's office looked as if a tidy room had been shaken and put back down in a hurry.
Maps littered the table. Notes were pinned to the wall with small iron nails. Strings connected names and districts. A pot of ink sat in the middle like something dangerous that had been given a seat.
Arven stood by the table, fingers tapping a short, impatient rhythm on the wood. Kael occupied a corner near the door, half in shadow.
"Good," Arven said as soon as he saw them. "You're conscious. I was about to send Kael to drag you."
"Kael would refuse," Soren said. "He is afraid of Larem."
"Anyone who isn't afraid of Larem hasn't met him," Arven said. "Sit. Not you." He pointed at Ecclesias. "You can lean somewhere and look ominous."
Soren took the chair Arven indicated. His ribs complained, but less than the day before. It was something.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Merrow tried to send a letter," Arven said. "Under watch. Under house arrest. Under the illusion that he still has initiative."
"Already?" Soren asked. "That was fast."
"Fear is efficient," Arven said dryly. "It makes people move where they should have thought first."
He picked up a folded, sealed piece of parchment from the table and held it out.
"Our men intercepted it as planned," he said. "We did not open it. You called him out at the banquet. You gave the order. You decide what to do with the answer."
Soren took the letter.
The seal was not Merrow's. A minor family mark from a small town that matched none of the major names on the map.
"How was it going to leave the house?" Soren asked.
"Through a kitchen boy," Kael said. "Paid to bring it to a messenger at the lower gate."
"Does the boy know anything?" Soren asked.
"He knows how much coin he was promised," Kael said. "Nothing more."
Soren nodded.
"Good," he said. "We can decide later what he needs to understand."
He set the letter on the table, between himself and Ecclesias.
"Open it," Ecclesias said.
"You're sure?" Soren asked.
"Yes," Ecclesias said. "If we start stealing their time, we might as well own it."
Soren broke the seal.
The handwriting inside was small, tight, without ornament.
You are to remain calm. Do not speak more than necessary. Destroy any lists you keep for yourself. We will take care of inconvenient pieces when the time is right. There will be compensation.
No names. No places. Just certainty, as if everyone was already sorted into boxes.
Soren read it twice, then laid the page flat so the others could see.
"'Inconvenient pieces'," Ecclesias said. "That would be us."
"Me first," Soren said. "You after, if that doesn't work."
"Optimistic hierarchy," Arven muttered.
Soren tapped the edge of the parchment.
"They already know Merrow has been questioned," he said. "Whoever wrote this thinks they still control the timing."
Kael set a small metal object on the table.
"The messenger at the gate wasn't carrying letters," he said. "Just this."
It was a brass disk, simple, with three lines cut inside in a closed shape.
Soren looked at it.
He'd seen that mark once already, scribbled in the margin of an old note Larem had kept from a suspicious healer.
"Vharian?" he asked.
"Maybe," Arven said. "Or someone who learned their habits."
"In politics," Arven added, almost to himself, "the first thing you steal from an enemy isn't gold, it's time. The more they react to our lies, the less they advance their own plans."
Soren thought of the extra line they could add.
"What do you want to do?" Arven asked Ecclesias. "We can hang Merrow publicly now. Call it justice. Applaud. Sweep."
Ecclesias' gaze shifted toward Soren instead.
"Merrow is not the problem," Arven said, before the king could speak. "Only the test. If we break him too fast, the real culprits will learn without paying."
Soren's fingers tightened on the arm of his chair.
"I know," he said. "If we cut him cleanly now, the people behind him will erase everything and call it bad luck."
He looked at the letter again.
"We send it," he said.
Arven's eyebrows rose.
"As is?" he asked.
"No," Soren said. "Close. We copy it. We add one thing that forces them to move."
Kael left the wall and came closer.
"What kind of thing?" he asked.
"Something that touches what they care about," Soren said. "Their safety. Their money. Their timing. If we push one of those, they'll have to adjust. And when they adjust, they leave tracks."
Arven weighed that.
"If they suspect a forgery, they'll burn half the network overnight," he warned.
"Then we'll know we hit harder than we thought," Soren said. "And we'll still have learned something: how quickly they panic."
Arven sighed, took a blank sheet and a quill.
"Fine," he said. "One line. No more. We stay close to their tone."
He dipped the pen.
"What do you want it to say?" he asked.
"As long as they thought I was only a symbol, their maneuvers stayed comfortable," Soren said slowly. "Now, every order I give costs them a little more."
Arven gave him a look.
"Poetic," he said. "You're catching his disease." He jerked his chin toward Ecclesias.
Soren's mouth twitched.
"Tell them," he said, "that the queen is asking questions about the old medicine routes. That I have access to the ledgers. That they should move anything they want to keep within two days."
Arven began to write, his strokes neat and controlled.
"You are putting yourself right in the middle of the sentence on purpose," he said.
"Yes," Soren said. "If they're going to circle me, I want to choose where."
"That will make you a target," Kael said. "More than you already are."
"I have been a target since before I knew what a ledger was," Soren said. "At least now, when they aim, we can see when they fire."
Ecclesias hadn't looked away from Soren through the whole exchange.
"They thought the ring would stay on your hand and not in their business," he said. "As long as they thought you were only a symbol, their maneuvers stayed comfortable. Now, every order you give costs them a little more."
Soren's chest tightened.
"Then we might as well use it," he said.
Arven finished writing, then added the new line in the same tight hand as the original.
He sprinkled sand, shook off the excess, folded the letter, and pressed Merrow's seal into fresh wax.
"There," he said. "Their own words, plus yours, against them."
Soren watched the seal sink and harden.
"You'll use the same boy?" he asked Kael.
"Yes," Kael said. "With better pay. And two men keeping him in sight. He will think he is clever. That helps."
"Talk to him later," Soren said quietly. "When this part is done. Someone should tell him what he carried."
Arven gave him a sideways look.
"If we stay here long enough," he said, "you are going to end up adopting every kitchen child in the palace."
"I am not adopting him," Soren said. "I just don't want him to find out through a knife in an alley."
"That is exactly how you adopt people," Arven replied.
Ecclesias' mouth moved like he was hiding a smile.
"Enough," he said. "If we plan any more today, Kael will start arresting furniture out of habit."
Kael made a low, offended sound.
"I only arrest things that move in the wrong direction," he said.
Soren pushed back his chair. He rose more slowly this time. The room shifted once, then steadied.
On the way back to the study, they passed a window overlooking an inner courtyard. Workers were taking down the last of the banquet decorations. A length of blue cloth so close to Soren's robe in colour was being folded and carried away.
"Merrow will not enjoy sitting under watch while we send letters in his name," Soren said.
"He chose his company," Ecclesias said. "He can live with the consequences a little longer."
"Your council won't enjoy any of this either," Soren added. "You letting me near ledgers. Arven letting me add lines. Me standing in the middle of the sentence when we bait people."
"No," Ecclesias said. "They won't."
He studied Soren's profile.
"Do you?" he asked.
"Do I what?" Soren said.
"Regret stepping into it," Ecclesias said. "There is still time to pretend you only care about balcony speeches and not about who signs which orders."
Soren looked down at the courtyard, at the workers folding blue into something smaller.
He thought of poisoned wells, of the missing physician, of the phrase "inconvenient pieces." Of the boy who would walk to a gate with a letter and no idea of what it meant.
"No," he said. "I mostly regret not starting earlier."
Ecclesias' hand brushed his shoulder as they moved away from the window, light and brief.
"In politics," Arven had said earlier, "the first thing you steal from an enemy isn't gold, it's time." Soren turned the phrase over in his head as they walked. If that was true, then every breath they took to plan was a small theft.
He intended to steal as much as he could.
Back in the study, the couch was still warm from earlier. Soren sat, then slid down until his back met the cushions. The blanket found its place over his legs almost on its own. His hand settled on top of it, palm up, the ring visible.
Ecclesias took the chair nearby this time, angled enough that he could see the door and Soren at the same time.
"You can take it off if it feels too heavy," he said quietly.
Soren looked at the ring.
"It's not the metal that weighs," he said. "It's what other people decide to see when they look at it."
"And what do you see?" Ecclesias asked.
Soren hesitated.
"A way to make sure they can't ignore me," he said. "Even if they still hate what I am."
Ecclesias leaned back.
"Then we keep it," he said.
Soren's eyes were already heavier. The day had not been long, but it had been dense. Letters, plans, new lines drawn in ink.
"If I fall asleep again," he murmured, "please tell Arven I was busy stealing time from our enemies."
"I will," Ecclesias said. "And I will let him be jealous."
Soren smiled faintly, then let his eyes close.
His fingers curled, almost automatically, around the band of metal. Ecclesias watched his hand tighten, then relax.
Somewhere beyond the palace walls, a boy would soon carry a letter through a gate. Somewhere further, someone would break a seal and read words they thought they controlled.
Inside the study, Soren slept, the ring warm under his palm, while the second thread of the trap slid quietly into place.