Regress

Chapter 7: I Let It Happen

The knock came hard and fast—not a servant’s knock, not a request.

Marie’s hand stilled on the teapot. Elena folded the order and slid it into her sleeve. The brooch had stopped glowing. That was worse, somehow. Like it was waiting.

“Countess Rhee.” Voss’s voice carried through the door. “By writ of the Crown Mage Registry.”

Marie opened it. Voss swept past her with four mage guards in grey tabards, their silver insignia catching the candlelight. Lian had risen from the settee, the bracelet still looped around his wrist.

Voss didn’t sit. “The bracelet. Now.”

“You have the order,” Elena said. “I read it. Surrender by dawn.”

“Dawn is a deadline, not an appointment.” Voss’s gaze shifted to Lian. “I prefer not to wait.”

Lian’s thumb found the largest charm—a small silver book with pages that didn’t open. “It was our mother’s.”

“Your mother’s jewelry is not under investigation. The cipher note inside it is.”

Lian went pale. Elena stepped forward, but a guard blocked her path with an armored arm.

“How do you know about the note,” she said.

“The academy keeps records. Your brother’s charm bracelet was flagged during his preliminary examinations. Anomalous readings.” Voss extended his hand to Lian. “Remove it, or I will have it removed.”

Lian looked at Elena. She couldn’t nod. Couldn’t shake her head. Could only watch as his fingers fumbled with the clasp.

The bracelet fell into Voss’s palm.

He turned the silver book charm over, pressed the spine, and the tiny latch gave way. A slip of rolled paper no wider than a matchstick dropped into his fingers. He uncurled it with surgical precision.

“‘Rhee power slumbers,’” he read aloud. “And beneath it—coordinates. A date. The name of a known unregistered mage in the eastern provinces.” He looked up. “This is correspondence. Treasonous correspondence.”

“That’s not mine,” Lian said. His voice cracked. “I’ve never—I don’t even know what that means.”

“The cipher is written in your hand.”

“It’s a joke. A prank. Someone at the academy—”

“Guards.”

Two mage guards seized Lian’s arms. He didn’t struggle. He was staring at Elena with an expression she remembered from another life—the look of someone who had just realized the trap had already closed.

Kael moved.

He’d been standing near the study door, a shadow in black and charcoal, silent since Voss entered. Now he pushed past Elena’s shoulder, his left hand already stripping the glove from his right.

“Release him.”

Voss didn’t turn. “Duke Ashford. This is a Registry matter.”

“This is my betrothed’s brother.”

The glove hit the floor.

Kael’s bare hand closed around the guard’s wrist. For half a breath, nothing happened. Then the air split with a sound like tearing silk.

Flame roared up Kael’s arm.

It wasn’t controlled. It wasn’t the measured fire Elena had seen him summon at court demonstrations. It was wild—white-gold tongues licking from his knuckles, his palm, the fragile skin between his fingers. The guard screamed and released Lian. The cipher note in Voss’s hand blackened and curled.

Kael wrenched his hand back. The fire guttered, but his skin kept smoking, raw and red and already blistering.

Elena’s chest seized. Not at the flame. At the sound he made—a sharp, bitten-off breath that was more shock than pain.

He didn’t know it would do that.

Voss brushed ash from his glove. “The Ashford curse. Confirmed at last.” His voice had lost none of its procedural chill. “Remove the Duke from the premises if he cannot contain himself. The boy goes to the Registry Tower.”

“Wait.” Lian’s voice came out thin. “Elena, I didn’t—you have to believe—”

Kael turned to her.

His right hand hung at his side, still smoking. His eyes found hers, and what she saw in them made her stomach drop before he ever opened his mouth.

“Elena.”

Just her name. Not Lady Rhee. Not Countess.

“I knew.”

The room tilted.

“Before. In the original timeline. I knew about the conspiracy. I knew they would come for you. And I let it happen.”

Marie made a sound in her throat. Lian stared. Elena heard none of it. Only Kael’s words, falling like stones into still water.

“You—” Her voice caught. She forced it steady. “You let me die.”

“To protect the Rhee name. If I intervened, the crown would have declared your house forfeit. Your brother would have been executed. Your mother’s legacy erased.” Each word came slower than the last, dragged out of him like a confession under torture. “I chose the name over your life.”

The Ashford brand on his wrist pulsed silver, visible even through the smoke.

Elena stepped back.

She didn’t plan it. Her body simply moved, putting distance between them. The brooch at her throat stayed cold and dark, and she was grateful. She didn’t want it to react. She didn’t want anything of hers to react to him ever again.

“Voss.” Her voice came from somewhere outside herself. “Take him.”

“My lady?”

“Take my brother. He’s not resisting.”

“Elena!” Lian’s voice cracked high and desperate.

She made herself look at him. Made her face hold still. “You’ll be held at the Registry Tower. I’ll come for you.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I’m not promising. I’m telling you.”

The guards hauled him toward the door. His feet tangled on the carpet. He twisted back once, eyes bright with terror, before Voss’s cloak swallowed the doorway.

The study fell silent. Rain began to beat against the windows.

Kael reached for her.

His left hand. The unburned one. Like that made a difference.

“Don’t.” The word came out flat as a blade.

His hand stopped midair.

Marie stepped between them, her face pale but her jaw set. Elena didn’t need the intervention. She was already turning away, already walking toward the window where the dawn order still waited in her sleeve.

Something clinked under her shoe.

The charm bracelet. Or what was left of it. The silver book had snapped off during the struggle. She bent and picked it up. The tiny hinge was broken, the empty compartment gaping open like a mouth.

“Elena.” Kael’s voice from the doorway. Rougher now. The razor had rusted.

She didn’t turn.

“The storm is getting worse.” Marie’s voice, quiet and steady. “I’ll bring candles.”

Footsteps. The door closing. And then only the rain and the silver shard cutting into her palm and the man she had betrothed herself to, still standing somewhere behind her with his hand on fire and his confession hanging in the air between them like smoke that would never clear.