THE LONELY KING.

The Serpent's Warning

Chapter Nine: The Serpent's Warning

Adex stared at the sealed letter pinned to the tree, every instinct in him screaming not to touch it. A message left waiting on a path only Merrick claimed to know meant one of two things. Either Merrick had lied about knowing this route, or someone had tracked them regardless, close enough to plant a warning and vanish without being seen.

"Don't," Merrick said sharply, reading the same fear on Adex's face. "It could be poisoned. Or trapped."

"It could also tell us something we need to know." Adex dismounted anyway, crossing to the tree with careful steps, studying the ground around it for any sign of who had left it there. No fresh footprints. No broken branches. Whoever had pinned this letter had done it cleanly, without disturbing the surrounding brush at all.

That kind of precision was its own kind of warning.

He broke the wax seal carefully, twin serpents cracking apart under his thumb, and unfolded the parchment. The handwriting inside was nothing like Merrick's careful, practiced script. It was jagged, hurried, the letters pressed hard enough into the page to nearly tear it in places.

Your Grace,

I do not serve Cassian Vale, though I have worn his colors when it suited my survival. I write this knowing it may reach you too late, or not reach you at all. Duke Halveth is not your enemy tonight. He is your enemy's next target, the same as you.

Vale means to use my house's name and my house's grievance to hide his own ambition. He came to my father eight months ago promising restoration of our claim if we lent him men and silence. My father agreed, believing Vale meant to see a Halveth crowned. He did not understand, until far too late, that Vale intends to crown no one but himself, using the boy only long enough to remove you both.

My father is already dead. Vale had him killed three nights ago rather than risk his loyalty wavering once he understood the truth. I flee now with what proof I could carry. If you value your life and the boy's, do not trust the autumn assembly to protect you. Vale controls too much of the palace guard already.

Find me at the old chapel outside Ashford before the second sunset from tonight. I will bring what proof I have. After that, I cannot promise I'll still be alive to give it.

— Wren Halveth

The clearing went silent except for the wind moving through the trees.

"Halveth's daughter," Merrick said slowly, reading over Adex's shoulder. "I didn't know the Duke had one."

"Neither did I." Adex read the letter again, searching for any sign of deception in the words themselves, though he knew better than most tonight that handwriting and signatures could both be forged with enough skill and motive. "If this is true, then Halveth was never the true threat at all. He was bait, the same as Corin told me at the mill. Vale used him to draw every ounce of my attention toward the wrong enemy."

"And if it's false," Merrick said carefully, "then it's a trap dressed exactly the way a desperate ally's plea would look. Drawing you somewhere isolated, away from any remaining protection, under the promise of proof that would end this entire crisis."

Adex folded the letter slowly, turning the impossible choice over in his mind. Three days until the autumn assembly. A wounded Commander recovering from an ambush. A First Sword revealed as a traitor with unknown reach inside the palace guard. And now a possible ally, or a possible trap, waiting at a chapel two days' ride in the opposite direction from the capital.

"We don't have the luxury of ignoring it," Adex said finally. "If she's telling the truth, she's the only person alive who can prove what Vale is planning before he stands in front of the entire council with the boy as his weapon. If we go in prepared, and careful, the risk is worth taking."

Merrick didn't look convinced, but he didn't argue either. "Then we ride for Ashford. But Your Grace — we take a longer road there. If Vale expected us to find this letter, he may expect exactly where it will lead us next."

They traveled through the night and the following day, avoiding main roads, sleeping only in short shifts. The boy held up better than expected, though exhaustion carved shadows under his eyes, and he grew quieter the closer they drew to Ashford, finally asking Adex what would happen to him if the truth came out and Adex admitting he no longer knew.

They reached the chapel an hour before the agreed sunset. Inside, waiting among the broken pews, stood a young woman in travel-worn clothes — Wren Halveth, satchel clutched to her chest, relief and fear crossing her face at once.

"You came," she said. "I wasn't certain you would."

"We need the proof you promised," Adex said.

"You'll have it." She reached into the satchel — and froze, eyes going wide with horror, fixed on something behind Adex near the broken doorway. Her hand trembled as she pointed past him, voice dropping to a whisper.

"He followed me. He always said he would."

Adex turned, and in the deepening shadows of the doorway stood Cassian Vale himself, flanked by six armed men, a cold and satisfied smile spreading across his face at finding every single person he needed gathered together in one place at last.