Chapter 30: conspiracy letter

The library was unusually quiet for this hour.

Not the usual scholarly quiet, where pages turned and quills scratched in a steady rhythm, but a stillness so deep it almost hummed. The air hung heavy, like even the dust motes suspended in the golden shafts of sunlight through the high windows had decided to pause mid-fall.

Most students were elsewhere—at class, in the training yards, or enjoying the crisp breeze outside. Which suited me fine. No eyes on me. No curious whispers. Just the oak tables, the smell of parchment and ink, and the slow weight of my own thoughts.

Sköll lay sprawled at my feet, his great head resting on his paws, chest rising and falling with slow, steady breaths. His ears twitched at noises I couldn’t hear—doors far away, boots on stone, maybe the rustle of wings outside.

I had a book open in front of me, but I couldn’t have said what it was about. My eyes skimmed the same paragraph twice, three times, before my mind wandered back to the same unanswered question:

Why had Kael come after us?

Not just how—I already knew the how. But the why.

He wasn’t the kind of man who acted on petty grudges. Kael was a blade… someone else had been holding the hilt. And that someone had unleashed the Cryall horde on my village the same night my father died.

The memory made my fingers tighten on the edge of the page.

A sharp thump broke the stillness.

I looked up just in time to see a hawk—sleek, dark-feathered, with a small leather harness—land neatly on the table. A courier bird. It stretched one leg toward me, the tiny metal tube on it catching the sunlight.

Urgent correspondence.

The bird tilted its head at me, almost impatient.

“Alright, alright, I’m moving,” I muttered, unclasping the strap. Inside were two rolled parchments, each sealed with wax. The first was dark green stamped with a sword and laurel—the crest of the Dival military. The second…

My chest tightened. Pale blue wax swirled in elegant patterns I knew too well. The Halia family seal. Count Leto’s.

I didn’t open his first. Couldn’t. My fingers went to the military letter.

The handwriting inside was crisp, measured, the kind of script belonging to someone who’d spent decades signing orders that shaped battlefields.

Marza,

My duties have kept me from visiting, but word still travels. Rumors reach even the highest ranks, and they are troubling.

There is talk—unconfirmed, but persistent—of a conspiracy to undermine the crown. Whispers of factions willing to remove not only the King, but the Crown Prince as well.

I write to you because I believe one of their first moves has already been made. There are names being spoken behind closed doors. One of them, disturbingly, is a young man’s—Arthur. I do not know why he is a target, but the pattern is too deliberate to be chance.

If this is true, then an attack on him may already have taken place. If you know this Arthur, watch him. Keep him aware. The conspirators will not make only one attempt.

— General Casmir Idrin

I read it twice before lowering the parchment. My hands had curled slightly, the wax seal flaking beneath my thumb.

So it wasn’t just my paranoia. Someone—multiple someones—had sent Kael after us. And a Dival general was now confirming whispers of treachery high enough to threaten the entire royal line.

The scrape of a chair pulled my eyes up. Marza stood at the far end of the table, drawn by the hawk’s arrival. She approached with that mix of confidence and caution she always carried, her sharp gaze going to the seal before I even spoke.

Without a word, I slid the letter toward her. She read quickly, her usual smirk absent.

“Well,” she said at last, voice quieter than usual, “looks like my father’s paranoia wasn’t misplaced.”

“You believe him?”

“I’ve seen him separate truth from rumor on the battlefield more times than I can count. If he says someone’s moving against the throne, then someone is.” Her eyes met mine. “And if you’re on their list, they won’t stop.”

The thought sat like lead in my gut. Whoever these people were, they had the money and reach to hire Kael Draven. Kael must’ve not come cheap. Especially with the skills he had shown.

My gaze drifted to the second parchment.

Breaking the pale blue seal felt heavier than it should have.

The ink inside was unmistakably Leto’s—elegant, controlled, but with a faint unevenness that betrayed the strain behind the hand that wrote it.

Arthur,

I wish I could give you good news. Elaris remains unconscious. It has been too long now—long enough that most physicians tell me the chances of her waking grow slimmer by the day. They speak as though she has already passed on, and I will not listen to such talk.

I do not believe them. Not yet. But I have exhausted every healer in the capital. If I cannot reach the elven clans, then I fear I may run out of time.

Should I fail… I ask you not to let her memory chain you. Live, Arthur. Live on her behalf. Do not waste the life you still have.

— Leto Halia

The words blurred. I blinked them back into focus, jaw tightening.

Sköll stirred at my feet, his head lifting, eyes flicking toward me as if he could sense my pulse quickening.

Unbidden, a memory rose.

The library had been warmer that day—sunlight pooling through the windows, glinting in Elaris’s hair. She’d been curled in a chair, a book balanced on her knees, completely lost in the pages. I’d teased her about reading herself to death, and she’d laughed—a soft, bright sound that made everything else fade.

“You read because you’re scared,” she’d said suddenly, not looking up.

“Scared?”

“That if you don’t keep learning, you’ll fall behind.” She’d finally closed the book, resting her chin on her hands. “But you don’t need to be scared, Arthur. You’re already more than enough.”

I hadn’t known how to answer then. I still didn’t.

Marza’s eyes moved from my face to the letter. She didn’t ask. I slid it across the table.

Her expression softened, the sharp edges of her usual confidence dulling. “Arthur…”

“She’s not gone,” I said, too quickly. “Leto’s right—she’s not gone.”

“I didn’t say she was.” Marza’s tone was even, but steel underlined it. “But you heard the rest of what he said too.”

“I did.”

“Did you?” She leaned forward. “He’s telling you that no matter what happens, you have to keep moving. That’s not surrender. That’s survival.”

Her father’s letter still sat between us.

“Whoever these conspirators are, they’ve already made one move against you. If they try again, will you be ready?”

That pulled my gaze back to hers. “I will.”

“Then start acting like it.”

We sat in silence, the letters between us like two pieces of a puzzle we couldn’t yet see.

Outside the window, the courier hawk launched into the air, a dark speck vanishing into the pale sky.

Finally, Marza stood. “Make sure to reply to those letters. Also, are you coming to training later?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

She left without another word, her footsteps fading down the hall.

I gathered the letters, folding them with care before tucking them into my jacket.

Sköll rose, stretching, then padded over to nudge my arm.

“You heard all that, didn’t you?”

He stared up at me, unblinking. My hand found the thick fur at his neck. “I’m not giving up on her,” I murmured. “No matter what they think.”

He huffed, short and sharp, then pressed his forehead lightly against mine before turning toward the door.

“When you’re ready, we move,” his posture seemed to say.

I didn’t head straight for the yard.

Instead, I found an empty study carrel near the western windows and set the two letters side by side. Pale blue. Military green. The sun had shifted; the beams now cut diagonally across the grain of the table, setting the wax seals glowing like coals.

I pulled a fresh sheet of parchment toward me and uncapped my ink.

“Count Leto—”

The words jammed in my throat. I wasn’t writing to a noble. I was writing to Elaris’s father.

I started again.

“Leto,

I don’t accept the end they’re speaking over her. Neither should you. I’ll train. I’ll prepare. I’ll be ready for whatever comes next—and when she wakes, I want the first thing she hears to be that you never stopped believing. If the elven clans won’t open their doors, point me at the one who can. I’ll knock until my hands bleed.”

I paused, the scratch of the quill still tingling in my fingers. It wasn’t eloquent. But it was honest.

I signed, sealed, and set it aside to dry.

Next parchment.

“General Casmir Idrin—

Thank you for the warning. If you have names, even rumors of handlers or paymasters tied to Kael Draven’s movements before the attack on the floating islands, send them. I won’t move recklessly—but I won’t wait to be attacked again. If this is a blade aimed at the crown, then it’s already aimed at me.”

I hesitated, then added, “I’ll keep Marza out of crossfire when I can. When I can’t, I’ll make sure I’m standing between her and whatever comes.”

It felt strange promising a general anything. Stranger still to feel like I meant it.

I sealed that one too.

Sköll padded closer and set his chin on the edge of the table, eyes flicking from one letter to the other like he was approving final inspection. I ruffled the fur between his ears, and he closed his eyes for a beat—a brief moment of shared, quiet relief.

On impulse, I drew a bit of mana into my eyes.

The world dimmed… colors sinking beneath a wash of shadowed blues and faint, pulsing lines.

When I blinked, the library swam back into ordinary light. My temples throbbed faintly. Still clumsy, still learning—but I could already tell: this “seeing” would keep me alive.

“Don’t get used to it,” I told Sköll, mostly for myself. “Only when it matters.”

He huffed, unimpressed with lectures.

I slid the letters into the courier tube and tied it to the hawk’s harness. The bird clicked its beak, impatient, and launched—wings whispering through the shafts of sun before it vanished into the bright.

For a moment, I just sat there, palms flat on the warm wood, letting the quiet pool around me again.

I wasn’t the boy in the cellar anymore, frozen and afraid of monsters. I wasn’t the starving hunter in the snow, praying for a meal. I wasn’t the student who mistook power for control.

I was something in between. Still rough. Still learning. But moving.

A soft step sounded behind me.

“Prince Arthur?”

I turned. Mistress Avena—one of the librarians—stood with a stack of tomes balanced on one hip, a shawl draped over her shoulders like fog. Her face was lined the way old maps are—every crease pointing somewhere you haven’t been yet.

“Your wolf,” she said mildly, “doesn’t shed as much as the last one that tried to sneak into my halls.”

Sköll lifted his head, affronted.

“He’s very tidy,” I said. “He judges messes.”

“Mm. I can see that.” Her eyes flicked to the empty space where the hawk had been. “Courier hawks are usually for staff.”

“I know. Exception.” I offered a helpless little shrug. “Urgent family matters.”

Her expression softened by a fraction. “The library has a way of holding those who need holding. It keeps secrets very well.” She angled her head toward the doors. “It also prefers they don’t die inside it, so take care if you’re on your way to practice breaking yourself again.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, then closed it. “I’ll be careful.”

“Good.” She shifted the books, then added, almost as an afterthought, “Poets come in here trying to build worlds with ink. Warriors come here trying to fix them. Neither is wrong. Both forget to breathe.” Her gaze warmed. “Remember to breathe, Prince.”

“I will.”

She drifted away like a leaf on the current, and Sköll gave me a look that translated, clearly: listen to your elders.

“Fine,” I muttered. “We breathe.”

We left the library. The hall opened to a broad balcony running the outer curve of the academy. The day had fully turned; crisp air carried the faint drums of sparring from far below, the ring of wood on wood, the distant thud of a boulder meeting ground and someone swearing about their toes.

I leaned on the railing and watched the clouds move beneath the island. The light played tricks, turning the edges of the floating land into a ship’s prow sailing a sea of fog.

“Live, Arthur,” Leto had written. “Live on her behalf.”

I pressed a palm flat over the pocket where his letter now rested. “I will,” I said quietly. “But I’d rather live with her.”

Sköll bumped my leg with his nose, impatient. Training yard. We’d promised.

We made our way down the spiral stairs, shadow and sun trading places across the stone. Students passed—some nodding, some whispering. A few looked at Sköll with a mix of awe and caution. He ignored them all.

By the time we crossed the colosseum’s threshold, the open bowl was quarter-full. A ring of volunteers moved through drills under a third-year’s barked cadence. No formal class—just those who wanted more. Chosen families, I thought, made in sweat and bruises.

Marza was already there, hair tied back, sleeves rolled, a strip of red cloth binding her wrist. She was different in a training yard—sharper, edges exposed, no smirk to hide behind. She nodded at me once, businesslike.

“You sent the letters?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Her jaw ticked. “I’ll keep an ear open on my side. Father’s network can be… thorough.”

I didn’t ask what “thorough” meant. I suspected I’d learn soon enough.

We ran fundamentals first. Stewart’s ghost hovered over every movement—weight in the toes, not the heels; breath before strike; intent before form. I forced myself to keep the mana low, steady, measured. No surges. No bravado. Just clean lines.

“Again,” Marza said, parrying, testing my guard. There was no malice in it—only pressure. Honest pressure. The kind that helped you learn where you broke.

Between sets, she nodded toward my eyes. “Try it.”

I knew what she meant. I drew mana up to my eyes to see the flow of mana. Her aura burned hot—red shot through with sparks, a disciplined flame held inside careful walls. The ground beneath us was inert stone until I skimmed a little power through it; then runnels lit like blue veins, the floor’s imperfections turning into landmarks on a map only I could read.

Marza feinted left. The flare of her forearm told the truth. I slid right instead, blade meeting hers with a clean clack.

She grinned—quick, fierce. “Better.”

I let the sight drop, blinking away the black. My head stopped throbbing faster this time. Progress, however small.

We worked until sweat darkened our collars and the sun tilted toward late afternoon. Others came and went; a few drifted over to ask for a round, and we obliged. Sköll watched from the shade, tail thumping when a strike landed smartly, sighing when someone overreached and paid for it.

When we finally called a halt, my arms trembled in that good way—the way that meant muscles and will had both been pushed just enough.

Marza folded onto the stone bench beside me and tipped her head back to drink, throat working. “You know,” she said between breaths, “i’ve heard your grandfather’s pushing you toward diplomacy with the Dragon Kin, this… conspiracy? It might be tied.”

I took the waterskin she offered. “You think someone wants a war.”

“I think someone always wants a war.” She shrugged. “Peace is bad business for certain people.”

I considered that, the taste of cool water grounding me. “If the Dragon Kin send their princess here next year, it’ll make things… interesting.”

Marza’s mouth tugged sideways. “Interesting is one word.”

“I’m not—” I stopped, frowning at the ground. “I’m not looking for anyone else.”

“Who said you were?” She bumped my shoulder with hers, lighter than expected. “You’re allowed to be a person and a prince. Just don’t forget which one you are when it matters.”

I looked at my hands. Callused. Steady now. “I won’t.”

We sat in companionable silence a while longer. The sky bruised at the edges; the first lanterns winked to life along the colosseum’s rim. Somewhere above, the floating island’s roots creaked softly—the living groan of a world holding itself together.

Finally, Marza stood and stretched. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” I agreed.

She left, boots whispering over stone, a silhouette cutting across the doorway and then gone.

I stayed.

Sköll joined me on the bench, massive head settling against my thigh. I threaded my fingers through his fur and watched the remnants of daylight pour itself thin across the arena. The emptiness didn’t feel empty. It felt… waiting.

I thought of Leto’s last line—Live on her behalf—and of Casmir’s warning—They won’t make only one attempt. The two together felt like a string pulled taut between my ribs.

I closed my eyes and took the breath Mistress Avena had ordered. In. Out. Once more.

“Alright,” I said at last, to no one and to everyone. “We move.”

Sköll’s tail thumped, slow and certain.

Above us, the twin moons were just beginning to climb, pale coins rising—silent witnesses to vows no one else could hear.