The fire burned for twelve hours.
From the balcony of the Keep, Elyana watched the black smoke curl into the grey sky, carrying with it the ashes of the winter supply. The heat was palpable even from this distance, a grim reminder of the disaster they had narrowly averted—and the hunger that now threatened to take its place.
Kyle stood beside her, his hands gripping the stone railing so hard his knuckles were white. He hadn't spoken in an hour.
"The men are restless," he said finally. His voice was gravel. "Burning food is a sin in the North. They think I've gone mad."
"They will thank you when their lungs don't fill with fluid," Elyana said. She turned to face him. The soot from the fire had settled on his coat, dulling the gold embroidery. "You need to address them. Tell them it was poison. Show them the shard."
"I intend to," Kyle said. He turned, his amber eyes hard. "But first, I want to know who let the poison in."
The war room was a stark contrast to the chaos outside. It was quiet, smelling of old paper and beeswax. Maps of the Northern territories covered the walls, marked with pins and wax seals.
Elyana sat at the heavy oak table, a ledger open before her. Opposite her stood Captain Lucas, the head of the guard. He was a bear of a man with a scar running through his beard, looking uncomfortable in the presence of the new Duchess.
"The keys to the Western Granary are kept in the Quartermaster's office," Lucas rumbled. "Only three people have copies: His Grace, myself, and Quartermaster Garrick."
"Where is Garrick?" Kyle asked. He was pacing, a predator in a cage.
"He... cannot be found, Your Grace. He was not at the morning muster. His room is empty."
Kyle stopped pacing. "Empty?"
"His bed was unslept in. His personal effects are gone."
"He ran," Elyana said, closing the ledger. "That confirms it. He was the one who planted the jar."
"Garrick served my father for twenty years," Kyle said, his voice low and dangerous. "He held me on his knee when I was a boy."
"Loyalty has a price," Elyana said gently. "Or perhaps fear does. If the people behind this threatened his family..."
"He has no family. The pox took them ten years ago." Kyle ran a hand through his hair. "Find him, Lucas. Send riders to the port and the mountain passes. He can't have gone far on foot."
"Yes, Your Grace." Lucas bowed and marched out, his armor clanking.
When the door closed, Elyana stood. "We need to check his office. If he left in a hurry, he might have left something behind."
"My guards already tossed the room."
"Your guards were looking for a man," Elyana said. "I'm looking for a motive."
The Quartermaster's office was a cramped room near the kitchens, cluttered with tally sticks, scrolls, and samples of cloth. It had indeed been tossed; papers were scattered across the floor, and the mattress of the small cot in the corner had been overturned.
Elyana stepped carefully over the debris. She wasn't looking for a letter signed 'I did it.' She was looking for anomalies.
She moved to the desk. The inkwell was dry. The quill was snapped.
"He was nervous," she murmured. She opened the drawers. Empty, save for dust.
She turned to the hearth. A pile of ash sat in the grate, cold.
"He burned papers before he left," Kyle said from the doorway. "Dead end."
Elyana knelt by the fireplace. She poked at the ashes with a fire iron. Most of it was dust, but in the corner, a piece of thick parchment had curled up, the edges charred but the center intact.
She pulled it out carefully. It was a fragment of a seal. Red wax.
"Do you recognize this?" She held it up.
Kyle took it. He squinted at the partial impression. It showed the claws of a bird—perhaps a hawk or an eagle.
"The Royal crest is a dragon," he said. "The merchant guilds use scales or ships. This..." He frowned. "This looks like the crest of House Vane."
Elyana's blood ran cold.
House Vane. In the novel, they were the secondary antagonists—a powerful southern family with ties to the magical underground. But they weren't supposed to move against the Morans until the third book.
"Why would a Southern Duke want to starve the North?" Elyana asked, feigning ignorance to gauge his reaction.
"Because Vane owns the largest grain surplus in the kingdom," Kyle realized, his eyes widening. "If our stores are destroyed, we have to buy from him. At ten times the price. He creates a crisis, then sells us the cure."
"Bankrupting you before the war even starts," Elyana finished.
Kyle crushed the wax in his hand. "It's not just business. It's a siege. They're weakening us."
He looked at Elyana. For the first time, the suspicion in his eyes was completely gone, replaced by a grudging respect.
"You have a sharp mind, Elyana. My father would have just beheaded the guards and been done with it."
"Your father sounds like a charming man," she noted dryly.
"He was a tyrant. But he kept the North safe. I intend to do the same, but..." He hesitated. "I need you to verify the other granaries. Can you do that? Without burning them down?"
"I can," Elyana said. "But I'll need equipment. Glass lenses, high-proof alcohol, and vinegar."
"Vinegar?"
"We need to clean everything. The spores are sticky. And the lenses... I need to build a magnifier. To see the rot before it blooms."
Kyle nodded. "You shall have whatever you need. I'm putting the castle staff at your disposal."
He stepped closer, invading her personal space again, but this time it didn't feel like intimidation. It felt like partnership.
"Why are you helping me, Elyana?" he asked quietly. "You could have let us eat the grain. You could have watched me fail. You could have been free of this 'abduction' within a month."
Elyana met his gaze. She thought of the novel, of the tragedy that befell this man. Of the way he died alone, cursed and betrayed.
"Because I don't like bad endings," she said simply. "And because I look terrible in widow's weeds."
A corner of Kyle's mouth twitched. A ghost of a smile.
"Come," he said. "Let's go see what else Garrick left behind."
They didn't find Garrick that day. Or the next.
But three days later, a patrol found a body washed up on the rocky banks of the river, five miles downstream.
Kyle summoned Elyana to the icy cellar where the body had been laid out. The air was thick with the smell of wet wool and death.
Garrick was blue-lipped and bloated. But it wasn't the drowning that caught Elyana's attention.
She pulled back the collar of his shirt.
"Look," she said, pointing to his neck.
There, stark against the pale skin, were purple veins. They webbed out from his throat, pulsing faintly even in death.
"The Rot?" Kyle asked, recoiling slightly.
"He didn't just plant it," Elyana whispered, horror dawning on her. "He was infected by it. Or..."
She leaned in closer. There was a puncture mark on his neck.
"He was injected," she said. "This wasn't an accident. They used him as a carrier. If he hadn't drowned, he would have become a walking contagion."
She looked up at Kyle. The implications were terrifying.
"The enemy isn't just using biological weapons, Kyle. They are experimenting on people."
Kyle stared at the body of his old servant. His face hardened into a mask of stone.
"Then we are no longer in a cold war," he said. "Burn the body. And double the guards."
He turned to Elyana, extending his hand.
"Ready your laboratory, my wife. It seems war has come to Moran Keep."
Elyana took his hand. It was warm, solid, and real.
"I'm ready," she said.
And she was. The medical student in her had taken over. The scared girl who woke up in a novel was gone.
There was a plague to stop. And she was the only doctor in the world.