Regress
Chapter 3: The Duplicate Key and the Minister's Shadow
The manor corridor stretched ahead, dim and quiet. Kael walked a half-step behind Elena, his boots soundless on the runner. The garden reception had ended less than an hour ago, yet the silence between them already felt heavier than any public spectacle.
She stopped mid-stride.
“You felt it too.”
Not a question. Kael’s voice came low at her shoulder. “The hooded figure.”
Elena turned. “You saw.”
“I saw you go pale.” “I did not see the figure itself. Tell me.”
She should deflect. She knew she should.
“Someone I recognised.” “From the night of the poisoning. I did not.”
Kael’s jaw tightened. “You are certain.”
“I am.”
A beat of silence.
“I will post additional guards,” he said.
“That won’t—”
A scream tore through the manor.
Elena ran before thought caught up. Her heels struck marble, then wood, then the winding stair to Lian’s wing. Kael overtook her in three strides, fire already licking along his fingertips—a controlled glow, orange and white, that threw wild shadows against the walls.
Lian’s door hung half-open.
A masked figure stood over him, blade singing downward.
Kael’s fire struck like a fist.
The assassin flew sideways. His knife clattered across the floorboards. Before he could rise, Kael was on him—one hand pinning his shoulder, the other pressing a palmful of embers close enough to sear fabric but not skin.
“Move,” Kael said, “and it burns through.”
The man went still.
Elena crossed to Lian. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m—no. No, he didn’t—” Lian’s voice cracked, high and thin. His hands shook. “He came through the window. Elena, he came through the window—”
She pulled him into her arms. His heart hammered against her collarbone. For three seconds she let herself feel it—the warmth of him alive, the breath still in his lungs. Then she released him.
“Stay here. Marie will come.”
“I’m not staying—”
“Lian.”
He swallowed. Nodded.
Footsteps in the corridor. Guards, summoned by the commotion. And behind them, a quieter sound—a servant slipping away toward the back stair.
Elena moved.
She caught Hale at the landing.
“Going somewhere?”
The steward’s assistant froze. Pale. Sweating. His hand was halfway to his coat pocket.
“My lady, I was fetching help—”
“No.” She stepped closer. “You were letting him in. The assassin. Through the servants’ passage, the same way you’ve been passing information out.”
Hale’s mouth opened. Closed.
Kael appeared behind her, the captured assassin hauled upright in his grip. Their captain’s face was stone.
“I don’t know what she means,” Hale stammered. “I’ve served this house for six years, I would never—”
“Then explain the key.”
Hale blinked. “What key?”
“The one in your left pocket.” Elena’s voice stayed melodic, almost gentle. “The duplicate to the garden gate. You had it cut three days ago, in Lowtown. The locksmith keeps records.”
It was a gamble. But Hale’s hand twitched toward his pocket, and that was enough.
The guard captain stepped forward. “Empty your pockets, Hale.”
Hale broke.
He bolted for the stair, got three steps before the captain’s arm hooked his collar.
Not surprise. Recognition.
The main hall filled slowly. Marie arrived with Lian, her hand steady on his elbow, her eyes finding Elena’s with a question she did not voice aloud.
Elena stood at the centre, Kael at her right.
“Tonight,” she said, and the murmur died, “two men breached the safety of this house. One carried a blade to my brother’s throat. The other opened the door for him.”
The bound assassin—Varo, the guards had named him, though he offered nothing else—knelt near the hearth. Hale knelt beside him, trembling.
“This house is mine by blood and by right. From this hour, it is also under the protection of Duke Kael Ashford.”
Kael stepped forward.
“Any who threaten the Rhee family threaten Ashford.” “There will be no second attempt.”
Varo stirred.
“You think this ends with me.” His voice was hoarse, broken by Kael’s earlier blow. “The minister promised—”
Too late.
Kael’s gaze snapped to the captain. “You will explain that later.”
“Your Grace, he was—”
“Later.”
Not in this life.
She met Marie’s eyes across the hall.
Lian’s chambers smelled of liniment and candle-smoke. The wound was shallow—the blade had only grazed him when he threw himself sideways.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” Elena said, settling onto the edge of his bed.
“I am resting. I’m lying down and everything.” “I froze, Elena. When he came at me, I just—froze.”
“You dodged. That’s not freezing.”
“I dodged because I fell over my own chair.”
Marie snorted from the corner, where she was folding linens. “Still counts.”
Lian’s fingers found the charm bracelet, thumb rubbing the small silver stag. “I’m going to be more careful. I swear it. No more wandering the gardens alone.” “I won’t be the reason you have to make deals you don’t want.”
Elena’s chest ached. “You are not the reason. You are the reason I make them at all.”
Kael waited in the doorway.
She joined him in the corridor.
“The watch has taken them,” he said. “Varo and Hale. They will be held in the city cells until trial.”
“They won’t talk. Not now.”
“No. The minister will see to that.”
She looked at him.
“I could not have done this alone,” she said.
The words cost her.
“You did not have to.”
A nod.
It was not warmth. It was not trust.
She walked the other way, toward Lian’s chambers.
Lian’s eyes were closed, his breathing even.
Elena leaned against the doorframe, and Marie looked up. The question in her gaze was the same one she had worn in the main hall—Are you all right?—but she did not speak it. Instead, she gestured toward Lian. “He finally drifted off. The pain tincture helped.”
“Good.” Elena’s voice was a whisper. Some part of her still braced for the next scream, the next blade. But the manor remained silent.
Dawn crept through the window. Grey light touched the charm bracelet on Lian’s wrist, the silver stag glinting. A knock sounded somewhere below—heavy, official. Footsteps, then a servant’s voice outside the chamber.
“My lady. A royal courier. He would not wait.”
Elena turned. The servant held out a folded parchment sealed with gilt. She took it, broke the seal. The invitation shimmered at the edges, and beneath the formal script, a sharp, elegant hand had added a single line.
The Queen’s Inquisitor requests the honour of Lady Rhee’s attendance.