Chapter 33: The Grand Duke Receives a Key (2)

"Not necessarily," I replied.

"That means yes in your father’s words," Abi said helpfully.

I looked at him.

He shrugged. "What? It really does."

"Uncle Abi," Spiro asked, "will you protect my Father?"

Abi’s expression changed. It was brief, but I saw it.

The careless laughter faded, leaving behind something evidently ancient and deep. His amethyst eyes softened in an unfamiliar way as he looked at the child.

"Of course," he said. "He is my brother, after all."

The fact that I am a swordmaster myself and not a fragile little noble seemed to have escaped these people.

I almost made a cutting remark.

But the words did not come.

How annoying.

Spiro nodded, reassured. "Then it will be fine."

This child was too trusting in some ways and too guarded in others. A strange combination, really. He was like a small blade sheathed in soft cloth.

I folded the letter and placed it on the table.

"William, arrange preparations for tomorrow evening. Make it quiet. I do not want the estate looking as though we expect an ambush."

"Are we expecting one?" Abi asked.

"We expect possibilities."

"That means yes," Spiro murmured.

I turned toward him.

He straightened. "Sorry, Father."

I sighed. "No, you are correct."

His eyes widened slightly, as if my acknowledgment surprised him.

How low were this child’s expectations for adults?

I disliked that question.

"Have additional Sonomi guards rotate discreetly around the estate," I continued.

"Not visibly enough to alarm guests, but enough to respond should someone take an interest in my absence tomorrow."

William bowed. "Understood."

"Also send a message to our people near the palace. I want observation on who enters and exits the archive wing until tomorrow evening."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"And have the report on Spiro’s caravan ready by morning."

Spiro went still.

I did not look at him.

Neither did William, bless his competence.

"Of course."

The maid left, and William followed shortly after. The sitting room returned to quiet, though it was no longer peaceful. The empress’s letter sat on the table like a silver spider.

Abi leaned back, pastry forgotten. "The empress moves quickly."

"Too quickly."

"It looks like she wants you there."

"That much is obvious."

"Why?"

"That is what we will find out."

"You are enjoying this."

"I am quite burdened, actually."

"You enjoy being burdened. Especially if it’s things you find fun."

"I will burden you with silence if you continue."

He laughed softly.

Spiro tugged lightly at my sleeve. I looked down.

"Father," he said, "what is in the lower vault?"

"Just some old things."

"Are they important things?"

"Most likely they are."

"Dangerous things too?"

"All important old things are dangerous if people are stupid enough."

He nodded very seriously, as if this was another principle to be written down.

Perhaps I should have him keep an actual notebook of my teachings.

No.

That would be dangerous evidence if my mother ever read it.

"Will you come back late tomorrow?" he asked.

"Most likely."

His expression dimmed.

I tapped the map lightly. "Then we shall finish this lesson now, and tomorrow morning, you may ask me three questions about Sonomi."

His eyes brightened. "Only three?"

"You are not allowed to negotiate."

"Can one question have smaller questions inside it?"

Abi burst out laughing.

I stared at Spiro.

The child looked back with an innocent expression that was not innocent at all.

Oh? He had learned loopholes already.

I felt a little proud and doomed at the same time.

"One question may not contain a litter of smaller questions," I said.

"What if they are related?"

"Still a no."

"What if I need clarification?"

"That is different."

"Then clarification questions do not count?"

I narrowed my eyes. He looked at me with wide amber eyes.

Abi was already wheezing.

This little fox.

Fine.

Konstantin blood indeed. I can’t question that. I was worse when I was a child.

"Clarifications do not count if I deem them reasonable."

Spiro smiled.

"Thank you, Father."

I had the uncomfortable suspicion that I had just lost a negotiation to a child.

No matter.

A strategic retreat was still strategy.

We resumed the map lesson. Spiro asked about Sonomi’s capital city, the major oasis settlements, the reason transfer portals malfunctioned near Lorillis, and whether griffins preferred meat cooked or raw. The last one was not related to geography, but it was a clarification, apparently.

I allowed it because I was magnanimous. Certainly not because his eyes lit up every time I answered.

Definitely not.

Later, when the hour grew late, William returned to escort Spiro to bed. The boy closed the geography primer with visible reluctance, but he did not protest.

At the doorway, he turned back.

"Father."

"Yes?"

"May the desert remain kind beneath your steps."

The room went silent.

The phrase was softly spoken, careful, and sincere.

This was prayer for blessing from the East.

A phrase rarely used outside Sonomi. An obscure phrase.

The same one the Crown Prince had written.

I looked at Spiro.

"Where did you learn that?"

His face stiffened. I could visibly see the crack widening.

"I..." He swallowed. "I saw it in the book. I heard it around."

The geography primer did not contain such phrases.

I knew because it had been printed for noble children in the Capital, and Capital publishers had the cultural depth of ornamental ponds.

The second reason seemed more believable if not for the fact that I know even our people here do not say it.

Abi slowly turned his head toward me as William went very still.

Spiro’s fingers tightened around the book, realizing his mistake.

I held his gaze for a long moment.

The room seemed too quiet again.

Then I smiled gently.

"Thank you, Spiro. That is a good blessing," I said.

His eyes widened.

I continued, "Use it carefully. Words from the desert are not decorations."

His lips parted slightly. Then he nodded.

"Yes, Father."

"Good. Go sleep."

William escorted him out.

The door closed.

The moment the child’s footsteps faded, Abi spoke.

"He was lying."

"I know even if you do not tell me."

"He knows more than he says."

"I am aware."

"He is not an ordinary child."

"That has been established since we found him."

Abi stared at me.

"You are being too calm about this."

"Trust me, I am not."

"Well, you look calm."

"My face is a masterpiece of deception."

"Should we question him?"

"No."

Abi tilted his head. "Why not?"

"Because frightened children hide deeper."

"And patient fathers wait?"

I looked at him.

His smile softened. "You are not denying it."

"I deny many things but I do so internally. It saves time."

He chuckled, but his amusement was quieter this time.

I picked up the empress’s letter again, though my mind remained on Spiro.

Boleoti. The northern routes. A hidden child with amber eyes from blood seal gone wrong. A forgotten Sonomian blessing. Too much poise and too many questions.

The boy was a box with a lock.

I could break it open forcefully.

But broken boxes did not protect what was inside.

How troublesome.

"William," I said when he returned.

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"Double the discretion on the caravan investigation. If the trail leads to Boleoti, inform no one outside our people."

His eyes sharpened. "Understood."

"And Spiro’s room?"

"A knight is stationed discreetly nearby."

"Add one more."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

Abi leaned forward. "Do you think someone may come for him?"

"I think someone discarded him. Sometimes people regret throwing away valuable things."

Especially when those things survive.

Especially when those things become Konstantin.

The thought filled me with a cold, quiet displeasure.

It was not anger. At least not yet.

Anger was loud and messy. It did not fit my style.

"If anyone comes for him," I said, "they had best arrive with a will prepared."

William bowed.

"Of course, Your Excellency."

Abi smiled.

This time, there was nothing teasing in it.

"How villainous."

"Yes," I said.

Finally.

A proper word for it.

The next morning arrived with mist clinging to the garden and a report waiting on my desk.

I had slept poorly.

Not because of fear. That would be absurd. The world lack many things for me to fear aside from my mother.

I slept poorly because my mind kept circling the same points like a vulture with scholarly tendencies.

Lorillis as a name. The lower vault. The empress’s invitation. The Crown Prince’s illness. Spiro’s lie. And that something beneath gold.

Even after washing, dressing, and drinking tea strong enough to revive a dead bureaucrat, my mood remained brittle.

Then I opened Bernard’s preliminary report. And my mood sank even more.

The slave trader who transported Spiro had operated under a false merchant license issued through a minor northern trade office.

The caravan’s declared cargo consisted of wool, preserved herbs, and decorative crystal ware. Yet among the wreckage, my knights had found high-grade Boleoti gems, several unregistered family-marked containers, and a hidden compartment large enough for a child.

The trader’s name was false. Even the guards’ names were false.

But the route permit was real.

It was signed under authority connected to a Boleoti household steward.

Oh?

Now that was interesting.

I turned the page.

The merchant company had been created only three weeks before departure. Their funds had passed through two intermediaries.

One in the North and one in the Capital.

The Capital intermediary had connections to a charity patronized by several noblewomen, including one associated with the temple.

I leaned back.

The threads were thin, but they were there. They existed.

The Northern Boleoti household. Slave traderd and Capital intermediary with temple-adjacent charity.

And a child who knew too much.

"How troublesome," I murmured.

William stood across from me, expression grave. "Shall we send inquiries to Boleoti?"

"No."

"Your Excellency?"

"If Spiro was meant to disappear, asking questions openly will alert the people responsible."

"And if the Duke of Boleoti himself is unaware?"

"Then he is either incompetent, compromised, or prevented from knowing. Nothing surprising there though. That little lion is worse than an orange tabby."

William’s face hardened. My snide comments aside, he did not like any of those options.

Neither did I.

Despite my utter lack of confidence in its head, Boleoti was not a minor house. It was one of the empire’s great ducal families, old enough to deserve caution and proud enough to be inconvenient. If rot had entered that house, it mattered.

If a child from there ended up in a barrel headed for Lorillis, it mattered even more.

I did not yet know how.

But my instincts were rarely wrong.

"Continue with the investigation," I said. "Find the steward. Find the charity. Find the Capital intermediary. But do not touch them yet."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

The day passed uneventfully.

Spiro asked his three questions after breakfast, and somehow turned them into eight clarifications, two hypotheticals, and one philosophical inquiry about whether a desert could belong to people if people could never truly control it.

I answered.

Because it was an annoyingly good question.

Abi watched us the entire time with a faint smile, which I ignored. By noon, I sent Spiro to rest. By afternoon, I reviewed Sonomi’s copy of the founding oath.

It really was different.

Not drastically and not enough for a careless reader to notice. But the invocation lines were different.

The imperial copy said:

Before the witness that sleeps beneath gold.

The Sonomi copy said:

Before Lorillis, who keeps the sleeping gold.

The difference was small but the implications were not.

One framed the witness as something hidden beneath the desert while the other framed Lorillis as the keeper of whatever slept there.

It could be a person or a being. A title or some kind of force. Or maybe all of the above.

I disliked having too many possibilities.

By the time evening arrived, I had read the line enough times to feel it carved behind my eyes.

Abi entered my study without knocking typical of him.

"Why are you glaring at a paper?" he said.

"The paper deserves it."

"Does it?"

"It is being hatefully cryptic."

"Oh. How rude of it."

I looked up. He was already dressed in his violet robes again, though tonight the silver patterns seemed darker, less decorative and more like winding script. He looked less like expensive sin and more like a warning some ancient civilization had failed to heed.

"I see you’re prepared?" I asked.

"I see that you’re not."

"No."

He blinked.

I stood and adjusted my cuffs. "But I am going."

His grin returned. "There is the brother I know."

"Why do you sound so proud?"

"I am proud."

"How unfortunate."

We left the estate under a quiet sky.

This time, there was no ceremonial carriage procession. No herald or ballroom or glittering crowd pretending not to watch. There was only a sealed palace carriage sent by the empress, two imperial riders, and the faint sense of walking into a room where someone had already hidden the knives.

At the palace, we were led through a side entrance.

The corridors became colder the deeper we went. The walls shifted from polished white stone to older gray masonry veined with preservation runes. Lamps burned with blue-white flame, casting long shadows that did not move quite as they should.

The palace had layers. Maybe all palaces did. The visible one was a jeweled fortress. But beneath it was an older structure, one built before the empire had learned to soften its edges.

We reached a sealed door guarded by six knights and two mages.

The Crown Prince was already there and so was the empress.

Empress Lyrien was dressed in silver and deep blue, her golden hair pinned beneath a delicate circlet. In daylight, she had seemed serene. Here, beneath the archive lamps, she looked sharper and colder, less like a mother of the empire and more like a woman who had survived long enough to become dangerous quietly.

She looked like the type I respected.

Lord Keeper Marcellus stood beside her, the serpent key hanging from his neck.

"Your Excellency," the empress greeted.

I bowed. "Your Majesty."

Her gaze moved to Abi. "Lord Abinatha."

Abi smiled. "Your Majesty."

She studied him for one breath too long. Then her gaze returned to me.

"I hear you found several faults in our exhibition."

"Only several, Your Majesty. I was being merciful."

The Crown Prince looked down while Marcellus’s mouth tightened.

The empress smiled. It was beautiful but not warm.

"Then I hope tonight’s viewing proves more satisfactory."

"So do I."

Marcellus stepped forward and inserted the serpent key into the sealed door.

The runes awakened.

A low vibration rolled through the corridor.

It wasn’t a sound exactly, more like a signal of rcognition.

Abi’s expression changed.

I felt my ring grow cold against my finger.

Somewhere deep below, something old seemed to exhale.

The door opened with darkness waiting beyond it.

And for the first time since arriving in the Capital, I felt the faintest sensation that I was not the only one watching.

Hah. How very impolite.