The palace library was not silent.
It breathed.
Floorboards groaned beneath velvet rugs. Candle flames flickered like whispers. High above, stained-glass moons cast violet light on rows of ancient books, their spines cracked like forgotten bones.
Clara moved between the shelves with careful steps, Elise trailing her.
"This place gives me the willies," Elise muttered, clutching a lantern. "You sure those sealed records even exist?"
"They were real enough for the Crown to hide them," Clara murmured. "And my mother mentioned them. That seal in her letter—it wasn't just metaphor."
Clara's fingers brushed a book labeled Taxation Records, Year 1052. Dust clung to her gloves.
It was nearly midnight. The guards rotated at this hour. If they were caught—
"I found it," Elise whispered sharply.
She stood beside a locked cabinet—ornate, gilded, and strangely untouched. Not a speck of dust. Clara stepped closer. The crest carved into the wood wasn't the royal seal.
It was the Whitmore crest.
Clara froze. "She hid it in plain sight."
With trembling fingers, she drew out a small iron key—one Evelyn had sewn into the lining of her daughter's old travel cloak, long ago. It clicked.
Inside were parchment scrolls sealed with red wax, a rusted ring of insignias, and a thin, leather-bound book titled Ministry of Oversight: Internal Edicts.
Clara opened the book.
Pages of codes. Names. Crossed-out orders. Underlined passages with Evelyn's handwriting beside them.
If you find this, you are ready to know what they did to us.
Elise gasped. "Wait—look here." She pointed to a name written in bold ink.
Lord Alaric Thorne.
Clara stared at the line beneath his name. It wasn't an accusation.
It was a warning.
Do not let them turn him into his father.
A cold chill prickled down Clara's spine. Her voice dropped. "She wasn't just trying to protect me. She was trying to protect him."
Elise leaned closer. "This whole system… the corruption didn't start with the Council. It started inside the Crown."
Another paper slipped from the book, brittle and torn. A record of a hidden tribunal. The signatures included Lord Elric, Lord Maynard… and one more.
Cassian Vale.
Her blood ran cold.
Clara didn't speak for a long moment. Then, quietly, she said, "This wasn't just about silencing rebels. It was about rewriting history."
Footsteps echoed at the far end of the library.
Clara slammed the cabinet shut. Elise snuffed the lantern.
They ducked behind a column, hearts hammering. A guard passed, oblivious.
As soon as he was gone, Clara exhaled.
"We take what we can. Copy the rest. Tomorrow, we confront Cassian."
"But he's not the only one watching anymore," Elise warned.
"I know," Clara said, eyes sharp. "The palace is listening now. But it's time it heard the truth."
She pressed the sealed book to her chest like armor.
Some truths don't stay buried.
They claw their way out.
[ To be continued... ]