Lyria's Arc

Chapter 11 of 9

The dying man had named the enemy, but not the face. Someone among the judges wore a silver moon clasp. Lyria climbed the steps of the courthouse before dawn, her heart tight. She knew the clasp. She did not know the wrist that wore it. If she named the wrong judge, Veritas would never trust her word again. She found the judges' bench empty and the great hall silent. Sun through the stained glass threw color across the stone floor. Lyria moved along the row of high seats, hunting for anything left behind. Nothing. The judges guarded their robes and their clasps too well. "You look like a woman about to pick a very stupid lock." Raven leaned in a shadowed doorway, arms folded. The thief had helped Lyria win the bonded duel, watching the stands for cheats. Now she watched Lyria with dry amusement. "Whatever you want, count me in for a price." "Many judges," Lyria said. "One clasp. I can't tell them apart from below. I need to see their wrists up close." Raven tilted her head. "Robes hide wrists. Clasps hide under sleeves." She pushed off the wall. "But hands move. When a judge raises a gavel, the sleeve slips. You just need the right angle." "I can't sit on the bench." "No. But I can move where you can't." Raven grinned. "I owe you for the ban. Point me at them." When the trial opened, the judges filed in and took their seats. Lyria stood among the recruits below, watching. Raven slipped through the gallery like water, quiet, unseen, drifting behind the high seats. She dropped a folded scarf near the far end and bent to fetch it, eyes level with the judges' hands. One judge lifted a hand to still the crowd. The sleeve fell back. Silver caught the light. Raven's gaze locked on it, then found Lyria's across the hall. She touched two fingers to her own wrist. Then she nodded, once, toward the judge at the left end of the bench. Lyria studied that judge alone. She watched the shoulders, the tilt of the head, the way the hand rested too still. She had read a hundred fighters this way. The body told her what the mask hid. This one sat guarded, coiled, ready to move. The others sat loose. She was certain. After the session, Lyria found Veritas in a side chamber. "I know who wears the silver moon clasp," she said. "The judge at the left end of the bench." She named the robe, the seat, the guarded stillness. "That is your orchestrator." Veritas went very still behind the mask. "You are certain." "I am." "Then you have named one of my own," Veritas said slowly. "And that judge left the hall the moment the session closed. They are already gone."