The Girl Who Knew Too Much

“How did you know?”

Aurelia had expected the question. That did not make answering it any easier.

Her father’s study had become unbearably quiet. Firelight moved across shelves crowded with military records, histories and generations of Veyne correspondence. Lucien stood near the door, Theron leaned against a bookcase, and Seraphine sat beside the fireplace.

Four people Aurelia had mourned.

Four people now staring at her as though she had become a question none of them knew how to ask.

On Duke Alaric’s desk lay the letter announcing Minister Vale’s death.

Tell His Majesty the treasury was never empty.

Aurelia wished she had kept her mouth shut. Unfortunately, restraint had abandoned her several times today. Alaric lowered the letter. “I’ll ask again. How did you know what Vale said?”

“I heard it before.”

“From whom?”

Aurelia said nothing.

“Aurelia.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Can’t?”

“Yes.”

“Or won’t?”

“Both.”

Lucien exhaled. “Well. That cleared things up beautifully.”

No one laughed.

Aurelia could lie. She had once convinced three rebel commanders that twelve thousand soldiers waited beyond a mountain pass when she’d possessed fewer than four thousand, half of them starving.

Lying wasn’t the problem.

Choosing the correct lie was.

She couldn’t blame Witness; her family understood its limits. Coincidence was worse. Nobody here was stupid enough to believe that.

Especially her mother.

Seraphine had remained silent throughout the interrogation. Finally, she set down her cup.

“Aurelia. Look at me.”

Aurelia did.

“Did someone hurt you?”

The question caught her completely unprepared.

“What?”

“Today. Before today. I don’t particularly care when.”

“No.”

“Are you being threatened?”

“No.”

“Blackmailed?”

“No.”

“Compelled?”

Aurelia stopped.

Her father’s fingers tightened around Vale’s letter. Barely. But she saw it. Why that word? Seraphine continued. “Has anyone made you swear anything you didn’t understand?” The room seemed to contract around her. An oath huh...

“No,” Aurelia said carefully.

Her father relaxed too quickly.

“What kind of oath?”

Silence.

“A general question,” Alaric said.

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Aurelia,” Lucien warned.

She ignored him. “What kind of oath?”

Her father placed the letter on his desk. “You’re tired.”

Aurelia almost smiled.

Deflection.

From him, of all people.

“So are you.”

“Go to bed.”

“Father--”

“Enough.”

Seventeen-year-old Aurelia would have stopped.

Twenty-six-year-old Aurelia had commanded generals older than her father. The habit of obedience had suffered somewhat.

“What frightened you?”

Alaric’s expression went blank.

“What?”

“When Mother asked whether I’d been compelled. You were afraid.”

Theron straightened. “Aurelia.”

“No,” her father said.

“You were.”

“You’re mistaken.”

“I rarely am about fear.”

The words escaped before she considered how they sounded.

Alaric studied her.

“How would you know?”

There it was.

Aurelia said nothing.

“How would my seventeen-year-old daughter know what fear looks like on a man who’s spent thirty years hiding it?”

That hurt because he was right. This Aurelia shouldn’t know. Lucien stepped between them before either could push further. “Perhaps interrogating her after someone tried to put a crossbow bolt through the Crown Prince isn’t particularly productive.”

“It wasn’t aimed at me,” Aurelia said.

Everyone looked at her.

She closed her eyes.

Wonderful.

Lucien slowly turned. “I said the Crown Prince.”

“Yes.”

“And you said--”

“Nothing.”

In that moment, Aurelia desperately missed battlefields. People were much easier when they were simply trying to kill her.

Her father picked up another paper. “Your involvement in today’s attack will attract attention. You rearranged merchants throughout Scholar’s Square, identified the assassin before he drew his weapon and apparently intercepted a crossbow bolt with a shop sign.”

Lucien stared at her.

“You did what?”

“It sounds more impressive than it was.”

“How does catching a crossbow bolt become less impressive with context?”

“The sign caught it.”

“You were holding the sign.”

“Yes.”

“That is generally how holding works.”

Theron’s gaze narrowed.

“With what stance?”

Aurelia looked at him. “What?”

“When you caught it.”

“This is hardly relevant.”

“It is to me.”

She hesitated and Theron noticed.

Of course he did.

“Your shoulder,” he said.

Aurelia went still.

“You’ve been protecting the right side since you entered.”

She hadn’t even realized. Theron approached. Aurelia instinctively shifted her weight, and his gaze dropped to her feet. Another mistake.

“Let me see.”

“No.”

“You’re injured.”

“Bruised.”

“Then let me see.”

“Theron.”

“Aurelia.”

Lucien sighed. “Wonderful. There are two of them now.”

“Theron,” Seraphine said.

He stopped.

Seraphine looked at her daughter. “Physician. Tomorrow morning.”

“Mother--”

“That wasn’t an invitation to negotiate.”

Aurelia closed her mouth.

“Good.”

Some things, apparently, remained impossible even after traveling nine years into the past.

Her gaze drifted to the crest above the fireplace.

A silver eye surrounded by black thorns.

WE WITNESS WHAT OTHERS REFUSE TO SEE.

Her mind supplied words that weren’t there.

And when the world forgets us--

For one reckless moment, she considered saying them aloud just to see how her father reacted.

She didn’t.

Information first.

Alaric himself had taught her that.

“I’ll retire.”

She reached the door.

“Aurelia.”

She turned.

Her father’s expression was stern, but something lived beneath it now.

Fear.

“If you begin hearing things that don’t belong to you,” he said, “you come to me.”

Aurelia’s blood went cold.

“What does that mean?”

His expression closed again.

“You heard me.”

She had. That was the problem. Aurelia locked her bedroom door. Then tried to lock it again. Mira watched from beside the vanity.

“My lady.”

“Yes?”

“There is only one lock.”

Aurelia looked down at her hand. Right.

“Habit.”

Mira stared at her...Aurelia stared back. Neither mentioned that Lady Aurelia Veyne had no reason to possess such a habit.

“Bath?”

“Yes.”

Once Mira left, Aurelia stood before the mirror and examined herself properly.

Her seventeen-year-old body wasn’t weak. Years of riding and private sword instruction had already built a solid foundation through her legs, shoulders and arms. But it wasn’t the body Aurelia remembered commanding.

Her right shoulder was darkening with a bruise.

She raised the arm. Pain shot through the joint.

The movement she’d attempted against the crossbow had been correct. Her body simply hadn’t possessed the strength to complete it properly.

That was dangerous. Her mind remembered twenty-six. Her body was seventeen.Nine years of experience did not magically live inside muscle. If she forgot that, she would tear something.

Or die.

Again.

Aurelia’s gaze moved across skin that should have been scarred.

The arrow wound through her thigh was gone. So was the knife scar beneath her ribs and the thin line across her stomach from Kozar Bridge.

Her fingers stopped over the place where Caelan had once stitched a wound while the army surgeon treated three dying soldiers.

Stop bleeding.

I’m trying.

Try with greater enthusiasm.

Aurelia pulled her hand away.

Why did everything lead back to him?

She stepped into the bath and attempted to empty her mind.

It lasted approximately forty seconds.

Vale had died.

Different weapon. Different cause. Different time.

Same final words.

The assassin’s strongest intention had been PROTECT.

Someone had tried to kill Caelan.

There were eight columns beneath seven founders.

And her father had said:

If you begin hearing things that don’t belong to you, come to me.

Aurelia sank lower into the water.

“What do you know?”

Confronting Alaric again would accomplish nothing. Her father had once endured twelve hours of enemy interrogation and spent most of them criticizing the interrogator’s grammar.

She would have to investigate him like anyone else.

But first, Vale.

Who poisoned him? Who had access to his wine? What had he been protecting?

And what did his final words actually mean?

The treasury was never empty.

Everyone in the first timeline had assumed he meant hidden imperial reserves.

They had never found them.

Perhaps they had been looking for the wrong thing.

Aurelia’s eyes opened.

Interesting.

But before she investigated anything, she needed one more thing.

Her body back.

Not the body she’d had at twenty-six.

Something capable of obeying her.

At four thirty-seven the following morning, Aurelia discovered that her younger self hated waking early.

Her mind opened immediately.

Her body refused to participate.

She stared at the ceiling.

“Get up.”

Nothing happened.

She had marched for three days without sleep. Surely she could defeat a mattress.

Five minutes later, she remained exactly where she was.

“This is humiliating.”

Eventually, military discipline won.

Barely.

Aurelia dressed without waking Mira: dark trousers, loose white shirt, boots, hair tied high.

No silk.

No jewels.

No corset.

Much better.

House Veyne’s private training courtyard lay behind the western wing. Mist covered the stones when Aurelia entered, and dawn had yet to reach the gardens.

She approached the weapon rack.

Her hand went automatically toward a longsword.

Then stopped.

Too heavy.

Too early.

She chose a lighter practice sword and stepped into the courtyard. Breathe in. Breathe out.

First position. Turn. Strike. Her shoulder protested.

Again.

The sequence existed perfectly in her memory. Her body kept getting it wrong. Her reach was shorter, her balance different, her strength lower.

Again.

Her heel slipped. Aurelia swore.

Again.

Sweat gathered at her neck. Step. Turn. Strike. Recover. Better.

Again.

For several minutes, everything else disappeared.

Vale. The Crown. Caelan. The future. There was only movement. A sword didn’t lie. Failure had a cause. Find it, correct it, repeat. Aurelia transitioned into the next sequence.

“Your left foot is wrong.”

She froze.

No.

Slowly, she turned. Theron stood beneath the archway in training clothes, arms crossed.

“How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Aurelia narrowed her eyes.

Some relationships truly survived death unchanged.

Theron approached the weapon rack.

“What are you doing?”

“Training.”

“I can see that.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because you’re doing it wrong.”

Aurelia’s eye twitched.

He selected a wooden sword.

“You’re overcompensating on the turn.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

“Then stop doing it.”

He stepped opposite her.

“Again.”

Aurelia tightened her grip.

The sequence she’d been practicing was military.

Worse, it was an advanced variation Theron himself would teach her four years from now.

She would have to pretend.

Aurelia raised the sword and deliberately widened her second transition.

Theron frowned.

“Stop.”

She stopped.

“That was terrible.”

“I haven’t practiced.”

“That isn’t what you were doing before I arrived.”

Damn it.

“Again.”

Aurelia didn’t move.

“Do it properly.”

“You don’t know what properly looks like.”

Theron’s expression changed.

Aurelia immediately regretted the words.

He raised his sword.

“Show me.”

Something old and painfully familiar awakened inside her.

Theron had always been able to do this.

One look, one challenge, and suddenly Aurelia was fourteen again, furious because her brother had knocked a sword from her hands and told her she telegraphed every attack.

She raised her blade.

Theron smiled.

Aurelia attacked.

Wood cracked against wood.

He blocked the first strike. His eyebrows rose at the second. On the third, Theron stepped back and Aurelia followed.

Too quickly.

Her body protested.

She ignored it.

Theron’s sword shifted toward her shoulder.

Aurelia knew the attack.

Of course she did.

He had used that feint for years.

She ducked before he committed, stepped inside his guard and stopped her sword against his throat.

Silence.

Theron’s eyes dropped to the wooden blade.

Then Aurelia realized.

He hadn’t developed that feint yet.

Oh.

His gaze returned to her.

“How?”

“Luck.”

“No.”

“You underestimated me.”

“I did.”

That surprised her.

Theron lowered his sword.

“I won’t again.”

He wasn’t angry.

That was worse.

He was curious.

“You knew where I was going before I moved.”

“I guessed.”

“No.”

“Theron--”

“Who taught you that?”

Her throat tightened.

You did.

The answer nearly escaped.

Aurelia looked away.

After several seconds, Theron returned to the weapon rack instead of pressing her. He selected a lighter sword and tossed it over.

Aurelia caught it automatically.

Another mistake.

“This is better for your reach,” he said.

She tested the balance.

He was right.

Annoying.

“Your shoulder is injured.”

“Bruised.”

“Then stop forcing the fourth transition.”

“I need to rebuild it.”

“You need to avoid tearing the joint.”

Theron looked directly at her.

“Your body isn’t strong enough for whatever you’re trying to make it do.”

The words struck deeper than he could know.

Aurelia looked down at the sword.

“No.”

Theron waited.

“Not yet.”

Something softened in his expression. “Again.”

She looked up. “You just interrogated me.”

“I can interrogate you while correcting your footwork.”

“That sounds unbearable.”

“You survived breakfast.”

Aurelia almost smiled.

This time, when she took position, she didn’t deliberately make herself worse.

Theron corrected her as she moved.

“Left.”

She adjusted.

“Shoulder down.”

Again.

“Stop anticipating me.”

“I’m not.”

“You moved before I did.”

Aurelia stopped.

Theron sighed.

“We’ll deal with whatever the hell is wrong with you later.”

She laughed.

His expression flickered.

Everyone kept reacting when she laughed.

Aurelia hated that she noticed.

Theron looked away first.

“Again.”

She raised her sword.

Dawn slowly entered the courtyard.

For the first time in nine years, Aurelia trained beside her brother.

For a little while, that was enough.

From the second-floor western corridor, Duke Alaric Veyne watched his children through the window.

Seraphine joined him.

“She knows the Fifth Form,” he said.

Seraphine watched Aurelia strike Theron’s blade aside.

“Yes.”

“Theron hasn’t taught it to her.”

“No.”

“He doesn’t learn it himself until his officer examination next year.”

That made Seraphine look at him.

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

Below them, Aurelia laughed at something Theron said.

“She looks happy,” Seraphine murmured.

Alaric didn’t answer.

His daughter had known a dead man’s final words.

She had anticipated an assassination.

Now she fought with techniques she could not possibly have learned.

“Don’t ask her anything else,” he said.

Seraphine’s expression hardened. “Why?”

Alaric kept watching the courtyard.

“My grandfather used to tell me there were two things a Veyne should fear. The first was witnessing something that should have remained unseen.”

“And the second?”

His hand tightened against the windowsill.

“When the dead begin remembering through you.”

Below them, Aurelia suddenly stopped.

She turned toward the manor. Toward their window, Alaric stepped back, but too late. For one impossible second, father and daughter looked directly at each other through the glass. Aurelia’s expression changed. She had seen him. Seraphine followed his gaze. “What is it?”

Alaric watched his daughter standing motionless in the courtyard, wooden sword hanging at her side.

“She notices too much.”

Far beneath Veyne Manor, behind stone no living member of the family had opened in eighty-three years, something answered.

Once.

Like a heartbeat.