Delia Prance's Arc

Chapter 58 of 59

At first light, Delia and Nick rode through the palace gate as queen and king. No noble stopped them. Guards bowed and stepped back. Delia kept the pendant against her chest, cold and quiet for now. She had told the steward the truth twisted just enough: the crown had ordered her to study the magic. The vaults held old records. She meant to read them. Nick led her down a stone stair past two guards. He waved them off with a flat word. "Leave us. Queen's study. No watchers." The men obeyed and climbed away. Delia watched the last one go. "That easy," she said. "We're the crown now," Nick said. "Doors open for us. Use it before they remember to be afraid." The vault door stood tall and iron-bound. Nick worked the crown's key. The lock turned. Inside, shelves of coin, sealed chests, and old banners stretched into the dark. Delia held the pendant loose in her palm and walked the rows. Nick took a lantern from the wall. At the third shelf, the pendant bit her skin. She hissed. It burned cold, so cold her fingers ached. "Here," she whispered. She followed the cold to a small locked box on the highest shelf. Nick reached it down. He forced the clasp with his knife. Inside, wrapped in old cloth, sat a seed shaped like a heart. It glowed with a soft inner light, pink and gold, veined like a leaf. "Elara was right," Delia said. Her breath caught. This was the heart of her line, the memory of every healer before her, stolen when Elira died. It had waited in the dark all these years, so close to the throne. She reached for it. "Delia," Nick said. "Wait." She did not wait. Her fingers closed on the seed. Warmth flooded up her arm. Then a voice, not in the room but in her skull, old and many at once. Choose, it said. Bend the magic to your will, or free it and let it heal by need. Elara's warning came back sharp: Elira chose to free it and lost her life for it. Delia stood frozen, the seed glowing in her fist. Nick set the lantern down. "What is it," he said. "It's asking me," she breathed. "Command it, or let it go. Elira died freeing it." His hand found her shoulder. "You don't have to choose in a stolen room," he said. "Not with guards a shout away." He was right. The cold pendant, the open vault, the seed in her hand, all of it could turn to ruin if a noble came down that stair. Delia wrapped the seed in its cloth and pressed it under her apron. The voice quieted, but the choice stayed. "We have it," she said. "Now we run before they know it's gone." She had come to find the seed. She had it. And now she carried a choice that could cost her life.