Pell Ashvorn's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The rider in court colors turned his horse and rode back toward the capital. Aldric watched him go, then pulled Pell inside. "He'll report a stranger at my door. We have little time." He set the clouded staff against the wall. "I will testify. But my word alone won't be enough. The court cast me out. Half of them will call me a bitter fool. If you stand before them with nothing but my mouth and a blind ring, they'll name you a liar and throw you out. Then the throne will send men to make sure you never come back." Pell sat heavily on a stool. He turned the worn ring in his fingers. "Then I need more than your word. Something the court can't argue with." Aldric was quiet. On a shelf sat a wilted moonpetal in a jar, its layered bloom still holding a faint inner light. He stared past it, thinking. "When your house fell, servants scattered. Some carried away what they could. Keepsakes. Proofs." He looked at Pell. "Did you come to the capital with anything but that axe and that ring?" Pell went still. He pulled his pack from the floor and dug beneath his spare shirt. His hand closed on cloth-wrapped weight. He unwound the rag. A silver cup came free, small enough for a child's hands. Delicate leaves and beaded borders ran around its bowl in polished silver. "My mother gave me this," Pell said. "She said I drank from it as a baby. I never knew why she guarded it so." Aldric took the cup and his hands shook. He turned it to the light and traced a line of engraving near the base. "A christening cup," he breathed. "Made for one child only, marked with the birth-year of the true heir. The court keeps a record of every royal christening. This can be matched to the roll." He looked up. "The ring is blind, boy. But this is not. This they cannot rub away or call a beggar's find." Pell's chest tightened. "Then we take it to the court." "Tomorrow, at the open hearing," Aldric said. "I read your face. This cup names your birth. Together they make a case no clerk can dismiss." His grip firmed. "But hear me. The moment we show it, the throne learns you carry proof. There will be no going back to the woods after that." Pell wrapped the cup and held it against his chest. Through the window he saw the road where the rider had vanished. He had come to the capital hoping a worn ring would be enough. It never was. But his mother had pressed a second proof into his hands and sent him out with it, years before he understood. "No going back," Pell said. "I never wanted the woods." He had a witness and a proof now. Tomorrow the court would hear both. And tomorrow the man on the throne would know the true heir was still alive.