Chapter 16 - The Burning StablesThe royal stables burned faster than stone should allow.
Flames devoured straw, oil, and old wood, sending black smoke into the rain-heavy sky. Horses screamed. Stable boys ran with buckets. Soldiers shoved through panicked crowds trying to reach the blaze while archers on rooftops kept firing just enough to scatter order.
It was not a battle.
It was a distraction designed by a patient man.
Mara saw it now.
Corvin did not want chaos for its own sake. He wanted doors opened, guards split, families separated, and fear pointed in the wrong direction.
Princess Arabella grabbed the nearest officer.
“Secure the inner palace!”
The man hesitated. “The king ordered us to protect the square.”
“I am the king’s daughter, and I am telling you the square is bait!”
He ran.
Noah tugged Mara’s sleeve.
“The registry.”
Mara turned. “What?”
“Edwin Pike. Seraphina said find him before Corvin does. The registry is inside the palace.”
Arabella went still.
“The death certificate.”
Mara looked toward the smoke.
If Corvin destroyed the clerk, the original registry, or any remaining proof, he could still twist the story. Public confession mattered, but courts needed records. History needed records. Clara Finch needed records.
Mara hated that Noah understood this.
“Where is the registry?” she asked.
Arabella pointed toward the west administrative wing.
“Near the old treasury.”
“Can we reach it?”
Arabella’s mouth tightened.
“Through the servants’ hall.”
Of course.
Again, survival would move through the places nobles ignored.
Mara turned to Noah. “You stay with the queen.”
“No.”
“Noah.”
“No.” His voice shook, but he stood firm. “If this is about my birth, my name, and my mother, I go.”
Mara wanted to scream.
Then she remembered being young and pregnant while men decided everything around her.
She would not become another cage.
“You stay behind me,” she said.
“I always do.”
They entered the palace through a side kitchen door, joined by Arabella, the captain, and four guards. Servants rushed in every direction carrying water, bandages, hidden silver, children. Some bowed at Arabella, then stared at Mara with wide eyes.
The dead lady.
The waitress.
The mother.
The rumor walking.
Mara ignored them.
They reached the west wing and found the registry door smashed open.
Arabella cursed.
Inside, shelves had been overturned. Papers covered the floor. Ink spilled across ledgers. A clerk lay unconscious near the window, bleeding from the temple.
“Pike?” Mara asked.
Arabella knelt beside him. “No. Assistant.”
The captain checked the back office.
“Empty.”
Mara scanned the room.
Noah moved toward a cabinet.
She grabbed him. “Stay close.”
“He hid something.”
“How do you know?”
Noah pointed.
The cabinet lock was scratched, but not broken. The room had been ransacked quickly, angrily. But someone had taken time with that cabinet.
The captain forced it open.
Inside was nothing but old tax rolls.
Noah frowned.
“False back.”
Everyone looked at him.
He shrugged. “Hester liked puzzles.”
The captain found the hidden latch.
Behind the cabinet was a narrow crawlspace.
Inside, a man whimpered.
“Don’t kill me.”
Edwin Pike was dragged out covered in dust, ink on his sleeves, spectacles cracked. He was thin, balding, and shaking so badly he could barely stand.
Arabella seized him by the collar.
“You forged Evangeline Marrow’s death certificate.”
Pike sobbed. “I was told it was for the kingdom.”
Mara stepped forward.
Pike looked at her face and screamed.
He fell backward, scrambling away.
“No. No, you’re dead.”
Mara crouched.
“That has been said a lot lately.”
Pike wept openly.
“I didn’t know they would kill Clara.”
“But you knew Clara was in the coffin.”
He covered his face.
“Yes.”
Noah watched silently.
Mara wished he would look away.
Arabella’s voice was ice.
“You will testify.”
Pike laughed hysterically. “You think I’ll live long enough?”
The window shattered.
A black-feathered bolt struck the wall inches from Pike’s head.
The captain shouted.
Guards dragged everyone down.
Another bolt flew through the room.
Mara looked toward the broken window and saw a masked archer across the courtyard.
Corvin’s men had found them.
The captain pushed Pike toward the door.
“Move!”
They ran through the administrative corridor as glass broke behind them. Pike sobbed the entire time, clutching a leather folder to his chest.
“What is that?” Mara demanded.
“The original death register,” Pike gasped. “And the correction I never filed.”
Arabella nearly stopped.
“You had a correction?”
“I wrote it after I learned the maid’s name. I was afraid. I hid it.”
Mara wanted to strike him.
Instead, she said, “Run faster.”
They reached the servants’ hall just as smoke began curling beneath the far door.
The captain tried the handle.
Locked.
From the other side.
Arabella turned. “Back?”
Footsteps thundered behind them.
Vale soldiers entered the corridor.
Trapped.
Pike began praying.
Noah looked up at the ceiling.
“There.”
A laundry chute.
Mara stared. “Absolutely not.”
Noah was already climbing onto a bench.
“It goes to the lower washroom. I used one at the Greyshore inn.”
“This is a palace.”
“Then it has better laundry.”
Arabella laughed once, breathless and terrified.
The captain lifted Pike first and shoved him into the chute despite his protests. Then Noah. Then Arabella.
Mara looked back.
The soldiers were almost there.
The captain boosted her up.
“What about you?”
He drew his sword.
“I’ll take the stairs.”
She dropped into darkness.
The chute was narrow, fast, and smelled of soap, ash, and old linen. Mara crashed into a mountain of laundry at the bottom beside Noah, Arabella, and a wheezing Edwin Pike.
Above them, shouting echoed.
Then the lower washroom door opened.
Mara grabbed a laundry paddle as a weapon.
But it was not Corvin’s men.
It was Queen Lenora.
Bandaged, pale, leaning on a maid.
She looked at Pike.
Then at Mara.
“Good,” the queen said weakly. “You found him.”
Another explosion shook the palace.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
May you like
Queen Lenora closed her eyes.
“He’s going for the throne room.”
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