Petra Navar's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Petra knew the thread would fray if she waited. The scullery girl had named the letters, but names were not proof. Petra needed one letter in her hand. She could not guess at what the notes said. A wrong guess would send an innocent servant boy to the gallows. So she watched the east wing for three nights. On the fourth, she saw the boy slip toward the candlelit manor beyond the palace wall, a sealed note tucked in his fist. She followed him through the dark. At the manor gate, a woman in a rough wool cloak stepped from the shadow and blocked the boy's path. Dark circles ringed her eyes. A folded contract stuck out of her boot, a red wax seal swinging loose. Petra had seen her before, hovering near doorways, ignored by every noble who passed. The servants called her a runaway. Maren Coldwell. The woman who heard everything and was never seen. "You carry his letters," Maren said to the boy. Her voice was flat and tired. "I carried worse. Give it here before it costs you your neck." The boy froze. Petra stepped into the lamplight. He bolted, but Maren caught his wrist. The note fell in the mud between them. "Guard," Maren said, not looking up. "You want that paper. So do I. But I won't watch a boy hang for a lord's game." Petra picked up the note. The seal was Rowan Sable's. She could break it here, or trust a stranger's word. She chose the seal. Under the lamp she cracked the wax and read. The letter named a night. It named a hidden latch box in the manor cellar. It named a poison meant for the crown's cup at the betrothal feast. Rowan had signed it with the ring he always turned. Petra's hands did not shake. She had her proof at last. No guess. No innocent man doomed. The words were plain and damning. "You knew," Petra said to Maren. "I ran from a contract like his," Maren said. She touched the seal at her boot. "I know what these men write when they think no one reads it." Petra folded the letter into her breastplate. She had the crime in ink now. But she also had a problem the proof created. The letter named the feast, and the feast was three nights off. Rowan would notice a missing note. He would move his plan, or move it sooner. The boy stared at her, still gripped in Maren's hand. "He'll know," the boy whispered. "He counts them." Petra looked at the manor's warm windows. Somewhere inside, a lord turned his ring and waited for a note that would never come. When it failed to come, he would not wait quietly. She had proof. Now she had a clock, and it had already started.