Chapter 26 — The First Rule
1443 Words
The chapel went dark.
For one second, Sera heard nothing.
Then everything happened at once.
A door slammed somewhere behind them.
Lucien caught her arm.
“Down.”
She dropped.
Something struck the wooden panel above her head.
Not a bullet.
A small metal object.
It bounced once and rolled across the floor.
Elias moved toward the side aisle.
“Don't follow me.”
Lucien ignored him.
“Who are they?”
Elias looked at him.
“People who don't want her remembering.”
Sera reached for the black device.
Elias stopped her.
“Don't touch it.”
She froze.
“Why?”
“Because it's transmitting.”
“To whom?”
“Everyone listening.”
Lucien understood first.
“It isn't a weapon.”
“No.”
“It's a signal.”
Elias nodded.
Sera looked toward the entrance.
“So they know we're here.”
“They already knew.”
“Then why activate it?”
Elias looked at her.
“To tell them something different.”
Sera understood.
A false signal.
Like the false transaction trail.
Like the wrong answer.
“You're teaching me again.”
Elias's expression barely changed.
“I'm reminding you.”
Another sound came from outside.
A car door.
Then another.
Elias moved toward the rear passage.
“We have less than two minutes.”
Lucien didn't move.
“Where are you taking her?”
“Somewhere they can't follow.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It is the only one you get.”
Lucien stepped in front of him.
“You disappear for nineteen years, appear when she's finally remembering, and expect me to let you take her?”
Elias studied him.
“No.”
“Then?”
“I expect you to make your own decision.”
The answer stopped Lucien for half a second.
Sera noticed.
It was almost exactly the kind of answer Lucien himself would give.
No order.
No persuasion.
Just a choice.
Elias looked at Sera.
“You decide.”
She looked at him.
Then at Lucien.
The old recording had told her not to trust Lucien yet.
But it had never told her to trust Elias.
That distinction mattered.
“I'm not going anywhere with you.”
Elias didn't react.
“Why?”
“Because you disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“You erased my memories.”
“Yes.”
“You knew my parents.”
“Yes.”
“You knew what happened.”
Elias's eyes hardened slightly.
“Not everything.”
“And you still expect me to follow you?”
“No.”
He stepped aside.
“I expected you to ask questions.”
Sera stared at him.
“Then answer one.”
“Ask.”
“Is my mother alive?”
Elias was silent.
Too long.
Sera watched his face.
There.
A tiny movement around the eyes.
Not grief.
Not uncertainty.
Recognition.
He knew something.
“Elias.”
He looked at her.
“I don't know where she is now.”
Sera's chest tightened.
“But?”
“I know she survived the fire.”
The world seemed to narrow.
Lucien's voice was quiet.
“How long?”
Elias looked at him.
“She was alive when I last saw her.”
“When?”
“Six days after the fire.”
Sera's breathing stopped.
“Where?”
Elias looked toward the entrance.
“We don't have time.”
“Where?”
“St. Orlan.”
She shook her head.
“We're here.”
“Not this chapel.”
His eyes moved toward the floor.
“The original one.”
Sera frowned.
“There are two?”
“There was.”
A loud impact came from the main door.
Wood cracked.
Lucien turned.
“Now we leave.”
This time, Sera agreed.
Elias led them through a narrow passage behind the altar.
The tunnel was barely wide enough for two people.
Sera followed behind him.
Lucien stayed behind her.
No one spoke.
After several turns, they emerged into an abandoned storage room behind the chapel.
A rear door opened onto a narrow alley.
Elias stopped.
“Your car.”
Lucien looked at him.
“What?”
“Where did you park?”
“North side.”
“Then don't use it.”
Lucien's eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Because someone has been waiting beside it for twenty minutes.”
Sera looked at Lucien.
He took out his phone.
A message from Adrian appeared.
**Sir. We have a problem.**
Lucien called.
Adrian answered immediately.
“Sir.”
“Report.”
“Two vehicles near the north entrance.”
“People?”
“Three.”
“Armed?”
“Possibly.”
Lucien looked at Elias.
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Elias didn't answer.
Sera watched him.
“You knew before we arrived.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He looked at her.
“Because I sent them there.”
Lucien's expression hardened.
“You used them as bait.”
“I needed to know who was following you.”
“You put her at risk.”
“I put myself at risk.”
“That isn't the same thing.”
“No.”
Elias's voice remained calm.
“That's why I never approached her directly.”
Sera interrupted.
“You were the one following me.”
Elias shook his head.
“Not always.”
“The black sedan?”
“Mine.”
“The second vehicle?”
“Not mine.”
Sera felt a chill.
“Then who?”
“I don't know.”
That was the first answer from Elias that sounded uncertain.
Lucien noticed too.
“You don't know?”
“No.”
“Then you aren't in control of this.”
Elias looked at him.
“No one is.”
That answer changed the atmosphere.
The man who had spent nineteen years disappearing and manipulating signals had just admitted he didn't know who the second group was.
Sera understood what that meant.
There were at least three sides now.
Her.
The Ardent investigation.
Elias.
And someone else.
Possibly the people who had been watching all of them.
She looked at Elias.
“Why did you train me?”
He was silent.
“Not how.”
“Why?”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“Because your parents asked me to.”
Sera's heart tightened.
“My mother?”
“Both of them.”
“What did they ask you to do?”
“Teach you how to survive if they weren't there.”
Lucien looked at him.
“Why would they expect that?”
“Because they knew they were being watched.”
Sera's voice was quiet.
“They knew they were going to die.”
Elias shook his head.
“They knew they might.”
“That's different.”
“Yes.”
He looked at her.
“They wanted you to have a chance even if they didn't.”
Sera looked away.
For years, she had thought her parents had simply disappeared.
Now she was beginning to understand something worse.
They had known danger was coming.
And they had prepared her.
Not to avenge them.
Not to find their killers.
To survive.
That difference mattered.
Elias reached into his coat and took out a small envelope.
He handed it to her.
“This was left for you.”
“By my mother?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Before the fire.”
Sera didn't open it.
“What does it say?”
“I never read it.”
“You're lying.”
Elias looked at her.
“I promised her.”
Sera studied him.
Then opened the envelope.
Inside was a single sheet.
Her mother's handwriting.
Only two lines.
**If Aurelia remembers, don't take her to the Ardent house.**
Below it:
**The house is already compromised.**
Sera's blood ran cold.
She looked at Lucien.
He had read it too.
Neither spoke.
Elias looked toward the alley.
“We need to move.”
Lucien folded the paper.
“No.”
Elias looked at him.
“We're not going to the Ardent house.”
Sera looked between them.
“Then where?”
Lucien answered.
“Somewhere neither of them expects us to go.”
Elias watched him for several seconds.
Then, unexpectedly, nodded.
“Good.”
Sera looked at Lucien.
“You trust him?”
“No.”
“Then why follow his advice?”
Lucien met her eyes.
“I'm not.”
He looked toward the dark alley.
“I'm following mine.”
For the first time, Elias smiled.
Barely.
“Now I understand why Cassian chose you.”
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