Chapter 34 · The Seal That Signed My Death

"Lucan, say it again. Who signed my death order?"

The dead king's mouth moved under Nora's hand, but the voice came from everywhere at once.

"Not me. I was forced to—"

The memory snapped sideways.

A black table slammed into view. Papers scattered across it. Bram Calder stood at the far end in his council coat, one hand pressed over a witness's bleeding palm. Three blood-bound witnesses knelt behind him, their wrists chained together by thin red lines.

The image shook. Nora's fingers burned against the corpse's cold jaw.

"Nora! Let go!" Evelyn shouted from somewhere outside the memory. "You're bleeding!"

Nora didn't move. She shoved harder into the dead king's skin.

"Finish the sentence, Lucan. What were you forced to do?"

In the memory, Lucan stood across from Bram. Younger. Thinner. His face looked carved from exhaustion, but his eyes were the same hard gray eyes that had pinned Nora against a wall and dared her to lie.

Bram lifted a document.

"Sign it," he said. "Your name is the only thing that can close the case."

"The case is false."

"The council doesn't care. It wants a dead traitor and a quiet city.