That night, after most of the estate had gone still, Seraphina made her way through the halls with care. The corridor lights were low. The guards had grown lazy. No one expected her to be moving through the western wing this late.
The ducal archives were hidden past a disused stairwell and behind an old carved door. Most people ignored it. Few remembered it was there. Fewer still knew how to bypass the old sigil wards that protected the room.
Seraphina did. She had studied them years ago, back when her curiosity still outweighed her caution.
She pressed her hand against the frame and whispered the activation phrase. The sigil glowed faintly beneath her palm, then dimmed. The door opened with a soft click.
The air inside was dry and still. Rows of old books lined the shelves, some bent with age, others still sharp with dust. It smelled of parchment, ink, and disuse.
She moved carefully, not hurrying. Rushing would lead to mistakes. She needed to find what she was looking for: something solid, something real. Proof.
Her fingers skimmed the titles. Estate records. Contracts. Correspondence. She searched one row, then another. It was slow, methodical work. She refused to let frustration cloud her focus.
Then, between two old land deeds, she found it.
A marriage contract. The paper had yellowed slightly at the edges, but the seal was intact.
Alaric Vessant. Evelyne Malenthra. Signed three years before Seraphina's own wedding.
She stared at the names. Her stomach turned. It wasn't just betrayal. It was premeditated. Planned.
She opened the contract. The witnesses were all there. Legal. Formal. There was nothing rushed about it. No sign of scandal. It had been hidden, not destroyed. That meant someone thought it might still be useful one day.
She flipped to the next page and found another document folded behind it: a council advisor's note.
"Recommend redirecting Vessant heir toward House D'Lorien. Assets strong. Bloodlines intact. House Malenthra's standing in decline."
They had traded Evelyne out. Picked Seraphina like a more valuable coin.
She stood there for a long moment, the papers in her hands. No tears. Just clarity. She hadn't been chosen. She had been calculated.
Beneath the contract and the note, she found a letter. Not addressed to her. Not signed. Just a few lines, scrawled in a neat but unfamiliar hand.
"Ensure D'Lorien remains compliant. If not, eliminate barriers to succession. Timing critical."
Her fingers tightened. Her father had died not long after that.
The documents folded easily into the inner pocket of her cloak. She didn't slam drawers. She didn't mutter curses. She simply moved to the next row.
If Alaric and Evelyne had gone this far, she couldn't bring them down with emotion. She needed to dismantle them, piece by piece.
She pulled ledgers, tax reports, private letters. She made quiet stacks. Donations to lesser houses that had suddenly changed loyalties. Land sold and funneled through middlemen. All of it pointed to the same pattern.
They had planned this for years.
By the time she stepped back from the shelves, her cloak was heavy with parchment.
On her way out, she reset the sigils and closed the door behind her. She didn't stop moving until she reached the far corridor.
Outside, she leaned against the cold stone wall. Her heart was steady. Her hands didn't shake.
She had the truth now. Not all of it, but enough.
She would bury them in their own paperwork.
When she struck, it would not be with fire or blade. Not at first.
It would be paper.
Signatures. Dates. Ledgers.
And no one would see it coming.
She returned to her chambers without being seen. Once inside, she locked the door and placed the documents on the desk. She sat down, pulled out a sheet of clean parchment, and began to make notes.
Each name. Each transaction. Each inconsistency.
A web was starting to form. The lines between houses. The favors owed. The debts collected. She could trace it now—how the court had shifted slowly, pulling resources and influence away from House D'Lorien even before her father's death.
She highlighted three families in particular. Each had accepted generous donations. Each had publicly backed Alaric within a year.
She didn't stop writing until her fingers cramped.
Then she looked up, leaned back in her chair, and stared at the ceiling.
This was what war looked like, in places like this. Not blades. Not battles. It started with signatures and sealed letters.
She got up, stored the files in a hidden drawer behind the bookshelf, and checked the lock twice.
Then she walked to the window and opened it.
The rain had stopped.
The estate was quiet.
But for the first time, she didn't feel powerless.
The paper crown they had placed on her head was cracking.
And now, she knew how to break it completely.
She didn't sleep that night. She stayed at her desk, sorting through every document again. She wanted to be sure. She needed to understand how deep this went.
At dawn, she opened another drawer and pulled out a long-unused ledger marked with her father's seal. The edges were worn. She remembered seeing it once as a child when she'd asked him where their family money came from. He hadn't answered.
The numbers inside told her why.
Quiet payments. Fund transfers with no listed sources. Private loans repaid too quickly.
Her father had discovered something. Or maybe he had stood in the way of something Alaric needed. Either way, the ledgers stopped abruptly two months before his death.
She added the ledger to the stack of files and rubbed her eyes. The sun had begun to rise. She lit a fresh candle and pushed on.
Later that morning, she would visit the steward and make excuses for her absence at court breakfast. She would draft a letter to an old ally of her father's. She would send a message through back channels to someone who might still be neutral.
She had work to do. And she was done being a piece on someone else's board.
From this point forward, every move would be hers.