The Councillor's question would not leave her head. It spun there, in the depths of her thoughts, an insistent echo that transformed every sound of the night palace into a potential threat. The brush of a bat against the windowpane, the scrabbling of paws behind walls, the distant step of a guard—all sounded like the tracking of a patrol.
Elara did not sleep. She sat in the study chair, watching the moon cross the sky, and decided that the only defence was advance. To stop was to admit. She had to proceed, plant more seeds, make her design so intricate that not even discovery could rip it out by the root.
At dawn, her eyes burning with weariness, she chose her ground: the Royal Archive. The repository of all the kingdom's written memory, the womb of official laws and truths.
The pretext was impeccable. A study of the Vorian-era border treaties, to inform northern policy. No one would question a strategic sovereign's sudden interest.
The walk to the west wing was solitary. The archive corridor was cold, the stone never fully warmed. The air smelled of stalled time: mould, ancient paper, rusted leather, and the acidic sweetness of decaying ink.
The head archivist, a man as dusty as his scrolls, gave a trembling bow and led her to the genealogy section before withdrawing. She was alone in that cathedral of paper.
The Hall of Lineages was as vast and silent as a tomb. Shelves of black oak, high to the ceiling, swallowed the walls. Candlelight flickered, making the solar falcons carved into the beams seem to fly.
Her target was in the section for Eastern Vassal Houses: the Drakemors. A family of miners, currently loyal to the Montgraves. In the future, it would be they who secretly financed the last resistance of Kaelen's house.
The seed was simple and poisonous.
She found the Drakemor genealogy scroll and unrolled it on a table lined with faded velvet. With the tip of a silver stylus she had hidden, she did the work. Minuscule. Almost invisible.
On an entry from the previous century, which read "Maron Drakemor married Liana of House Grenwald, 3 sons," she added a tiny marginal note in a hand mimicking the period's style: (scribe's note: persistent rumours that the second son, Cédric, bears the Grenwald house mark, not the Drakemor. Discreet inquiry advised.)
The Grenwald house mark was a trifle, a leaf-shaped birthmark. But in eighty years, when an ambitious descendant tried to claim a greater title, a genealogist would find this note. It would be the spark. The lands would be confiscated, their stronghold dismantled, their capacity to aid anyone reduced to dust.
She blew softly on the ink, rubbed it lightly with a cloth to age the addition. When she rolled the parchment back, her heart hammered, but her hands were steady. An act of historical vandalism. The first of many.
It was then she heard the footsteps.
Not the archivist's shuffle. Firm, heavy steps, muffled by the thin carpet of dust. Steps she would know in any life.
She did not turn. Kept her hands on the scroll, feigning study, as the presence approached and stopped a few yards away.
"Your Highness."
Kaelen's voice was low, respectful, but it carried a resonance that made the still air vibrate.
Elara looked up slowly, as if interrupted from a meditation.
"Commander Montgrave. The archives are an unusual refuge for a man of action."
He remained at the edge of the candle's circle of light, half his face illuminated, the other in shadow. His day uniform was plain, the black wool without insignia.
"The archivist's refuge is the strategist's battlefield," he replied, his grey eyes examining her, then the scroll, then the shelves. "I came to discuss the northern supply route maps. The servitors said you were here."
She knew it was a lie. Or at least, a half-truth. He had followed her.
"Then let us discuss," she said, gesturing to the table. "The Vorian Expedition maps are on shelf ten."
He did not move toward the maps. He took a step into the light.
"The servitors speak of other things as well," he said, his voice still low, but with an edge now of curiosity or challenge. "They say your evening preferences have changed. That you now request chamomile tea before sleeping. With a drop of honey. Always at ten of the clock."
Elara felt her blood cool. The chamomile tea? Her nightly ritual in the East Tower. The one small kindness she allowed herself in that life. Anya Veridian despised weak teas.
She forced a small, distant smile.
"Palates change, Commander. Even an empress's. The years bring an appreciation for simplicity."
"Simplicity," he repeated, as if tasting the word. "Chamomile is simple. Humble. It is not a drink for empire-builders. It is a drink for those who wait. For daydreamers."
He took another step, narrowing the distance. The dust danced in the air between them.
"Or for those who need to settle their nerves after a heavy day."
She kept her gaze neutral, but inside, each word was an ice needle. He was building a case. Piece by piece.
"You seem very interested in my table habits, Lord Montgrave," she said, a deliberate edge of ice entering her voice.
He ignored the provocation. His eyes scanned her face.
"I knew a person, once," he said, his voice growing even softer, almost intimate in the cavernous quiet. "She also drank chamomile. Said the smell reminded her of her mother's garden, before everything grew complicated. She was a person who saw beauty in simple things. In strategies hidden in irrigation books. In shared silences."
Elara did not answer. Could not. Her throat was closed.
"This person," Kaelen continued, his eyes now locked on hers, "had a particular way of holding the cup. With both hands, as if absorbing the warmth, not just drinking it. As if warmth were a rare commodity."
She involuntarily looked down at her own hands, resting on the table. Remembered how she would cradle the cheap ceramic cup, feeling the heat seep into her cold skin.
When she looked up again, he was watching the reaction, and there was something in his gaze—not triumph, but a deep, pained confusion.
"Why are you really here, Commander?" she asked, deflecting, her voice a little rougher than she intended. "It is not the maps."
He hesitated, then drew a breath.
"No. It is the border. The rebellion. My men are dying for lack of reinforcements. And I need to know if the sovereign I serve sees only numbers on a map, or if she sees the faces."
It was a genuine question. A plea from a commander. And also, she knew, a trap.
She rose, moving away from the table.
"I see the faces, Kaelen," she said, using his name for the first time in this life, and saw him flinch almost imperceptibly. "But an empress cannot afford to see only the faces. She must see the pattern in the carpet. To save one man today may cost a thousand tomorrow. It is the cruel mathematics of the throne."
He watched her, and for the first time, she saw not suspicion, but a spark of understanding. He, as a commander, understood hard choices.
"So it is true," he murmured, more to himself. "The weight changes you. It hollows out."
The silence settled, filled only by the creaking of shelves and the candle's hiss.
Finally, Kaelen gave a formal salute.
"Forgive the intrusion, Your Highness. I will return to my maps."
He turned to go, and it was then that a small object, caught in the fold of his cloak, came loose. It fell to the stone floor with a soft metallic tink, almost muffled by the dust, but thunderous in the silence.
He did not seem to notice, continuing to walk away.
Elara looked down.
There, in the grey dust between the stones, a small brooch glinted in the weak candlelight.
It was of silver, worn with time. But its shape was unmistakable: a solar falcon, its wings half-spread, its details engraved with simple, almost rustic skill.
The world stopped.
It was identical. Every curve, every stylised feather. The brooch she had worn in the East Tower. The one her mother had given her on her sixteenth birthday. Made not by a royal jeweller, but by a craftsman in the old city. Simple. Humble. Hers.
How?
Kaelen had already vanished into the labyrinth of shelves.
Elara stood paralysed, staring at the small silver falcon lying in the dust like an accusation, an impossible proof, a material link bridging the chasm of centuries.
The archive, once silent, now seemed to whisper with the voices of a thousand scrolls, all repeating the single question echoing in her soul:
If he does not know about the future, then where, by all the gods, did this come from?
And somewhere deep in the palace, a young lady-in-waiting with ambitious eyes and a sharp memory, noted in a small, hidden diary: The Empress spends hours in the archives, alone. The Commander follows. He leaves disturbed. She remains behind, frozen. Something fell. Something shone. Investigate.