Prince Shelldon Maritime's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Shelldon left Frocklin's hill with the sealed jar burning in his palm. Proof, but no case. He needed the twin — the one who had brewed the cure for Lauren. Without her, the next strike would land before he could lift a hand. He climbed to the old dovecote and untied his birds. He wrote the same line on a dozen small scrolls. "I need to speak with you. I will trade what I have." He sent the flock out in every direction, hoping one pair of eyes would catch them. At the edge of the wood he found a sign of her enemy first — a gnarled broom propped against a wide trunk, left in plain sight. A warning. Frocklin had been here, and meant him to know it. Then one of his birds circled back and landed at his shoulder. A new scroll was tied to its leg. He followed it through twisted branches to a hollow inside an ancient oak. He stepped through the low arch. She stood in the dark, red-haired, calm. "You sent twelve," she said. "That's just the count. One was enough." She did not offer her hand. "You want my antidote. I want my sister kept breathing. Ghosts can move where princes can't. Speak." Shelldon set the jar on her table. She lifted it, tilted it, named the poison without pause. "I'll make the cure," she said. "But you carry it. And when Frocklin strikes, you'll owe me a debt I choose." He agreed. He walked out with a vial in his pocket and a promise he could not yet measure.