Sold to My Killer Husband: His Concubine's Dilemma
Chapter 87: The king suspects

Chapter 87: The king suspects

Chancellor Oran shifted uncomfortably. The chamber’s mood was tilting.

Alden’s voice cut through the murmurs. "Enough."

All turned.

The king’s tone was even but laced with warning. "We investigate threats, not chase ghosts. Unless evidence is placed before me with seal and witness, no accusation shall pass as truth."

Lucien bowed his head, neither smug nor thankful. Lilian’s lips tightened.

As the session dispersed, Lady Virell, a minor courtier from a northern duchy, stepped close to Oran.

"They say the Virellans are stirring near the border. Why draw the court’s eyes here when danger brews beyond?"

Oran met her eyes briefly. "Because if the prince gains the court’s trust, he gains its loyalty. That cannot happen. Not yet."

Meanwhile, Rowan and Samuel rode hard through the night, parchment secured under layers of oilskin. They had found it, at the base of the old tower where the bodies lay forgotten.

A list.

Names, payments, seals.

And at the bottom, a single symbol not of any known noble house.

A crescent bound in chains.

Rowan frowned. "This isn’t from Eleryn. Nor Syrell. It’s something else."

Samuel exhaled, almost in awe. "Then the real enemy hasn’t even entered the game."

Beatrice stared out her window at the rain falling over Lucien’s estate. For all her bitterness toward Liora, doubt had begun to fester in her chest.

Liora hadn’t begged or schemed. She had survived.

And the girl’s eyes, dark and silent, held the weight of secrets Beatrice could no longer ignore.

For the first time in weeks, Beatrice left her desk.

She would write to Lilian tonight. But not to betray Lucien.

To test her.

The early morning in the capital was gray with mist, but the courtyards buzzed like a hive. Quietly. Controlled. As if the very walls listened now.

Rowan entered through the lower gates of the palace disguised as a tradesman. Samuel trailed behind, their travel-worn cloaks damp with dew. Neither spoke until they reached the storage wing, abandoned since the fire last winter.

"I’ll get word to Lucien," Rowan said, setting the sealed packet on a cracked table. "But this..." he tapped the scroll, "...this has more than just names. It maps alliances. External ones."

Samuel rubbed his temple. "Why target Lucien? Why now?"

Rowan didn’t answer. But his silence spoke enough.

They weren’t just fighting a court of vipers they were standing on a pit of something deeper, darker, and possibly foreign.

In the Blackthorne estate, Liora sat alone beneath the veranda, tracing the rim of a goblet with idle fingers. The estate had quieted since Lucien’s last confrontation with the court. But quiet didn’t mean calm.

Beatrice passed behind her, halting. She had a letter in her hand, its seal freshly broken.

"Who taught you to stitch like that?" she asked suddenly, gesturing at the embroidery on the cloth beside Liora.

Liora blinked. "My mother."

Beatrice’s expression shifted. She said nothing for a moment, then sat beside her. Uninvited. Unsmiling.

"I once thought you were just another pawn." She looked ahead. "But even pawns can reach the other side."

Liora’s hands stilled.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked softly.

Beatrice exhaled, almost like a laugh. "Because Lilian doesn’t send words to question. She sends orders. And sometimes, she forgets I’m not her soldier."

Then she stood, dropping a piece of torn parchment into Liora’s lap.

"The man who signed this once served your uncle’s house. Ask Lucien about him."

She walked away.

Liora stared at the name scrawled at the bottom.

"Alaric Fen."

Her uncle’s a spymaster. Presumed dead five years ago.

Back at court, Alden sat in private with Lord Halsten, the senior minister overseeing border affairs.

"You’ll move the garrisons south," Alden instructed. "Not to engage. To observe."

Halsten’s brows lifted. "That will provoke the Virellans."

"It will warn them."

Halsten nodded, then hesitated. "Majesty... May I speak freely?"

Alden gave a silent nod.

"If Lucien proves clean and he might we may need him. The people remember the fire, but they also remember who saved the eastern grain lines."

Alden closed his eyes briefly. "I remember too. But the court runs on memory sharpened by convenience."

A beat of silence passed.

"Still," the king added, "we might need a blade like his."

Later that night, Rowan delivered the scroll directly into Lucien’s hand beneath torchlight in the private wing.

Lucien scanned it once, then again, slower.

"They were building this before my wife died," he murmured.

Rowan nodded. "And Alaric Fen may still be alive."

Lucien looked out at the rain-darkened sky.

"Then we’re not too late," he said. "We just thought we were playing chess. Turns out it’s war."

The name Alaric Fen echoed in Liora’s thoughts like a bell struck in a hollow room.

By evening, she had locked herself in Lucien’s library, the flickering candlelight casting long shadows across the walls. She rummaged through scrolls and maps, hoping for something anything That linked the spymaster to her uncle’s downfall or the years that followed.

The parchment Beatrice had dropped bore a faded crest: the Miral family’s minor branch. Not a house known for political maneuvering unless one considered hidden knives and ghosted ledgers as currency.

Liora unrolled an old map of the inner provinces. Her finger traced the familiar roads until it stopped at a small manor near the border of Halebrook. It was marked as abandoned.

She pressed her lips together. "If he’s alive, that’s where he’d hide," she whispered.

Behind her, Rowan entered with a knockless step. "I thought I’d find you here," he said.

She turned, unsurprised. "Did you know of Alaric Fen?"

Rowan’s expression flickered—just for a moment.

"He was presumed dead after a skirmish on the Virellan border. But the body was never recovered. And that sort of thing doesn’t happen to men like him by accident."

"So he disappeared," she murmured.

Rowan tilted his head. "Or he was helped to disappear."

A beat passed between them, tense but charged.

"I want to see the place," Liora said. "Halebrook."

"You can’t just ride out. You’ll be followed. And Lucien won’t allow it."

"I’m not asking for permission."

Rowan’s smile was faint. "No. You wouldn’t."

He paused at the door, thoughtful. "We’ll ride before dawn. Just the two of us."

At the palace, Alden sat alone in his study when the door creaked open. Lord Halsten returned, this time pale.

"What is it?" Alden asked.

Halsten’s voice was taut. "Intercepted message, Majesty. From a border outpost. It was marked for... the Virellan envoy. Smuggled by a clerk in our own Ministry of Grain."

Alden’s hand stilled on the letter he had been drafting.

"And what was in it?"

"A list of noble households. Vulnerable ones. Those whose allegiance can be turned."

"And who signed it?"

Halsten swallowed.

"...Alaric Fen."

The name struck Alden harder than expected. He rose slowly.

"If that man’s alive, then every fire we’ve fought to put out..." He didn’t finish. His mind had already raced ahead.

"Find the clerk. Keep it quiet. And send word to the estate," he added, eyes narrowing. "Lucien needs to know before the shadows catch up to him."

Outside the capital walls, a hawk-shaped emblem glinted in the moonlight atop a foreign envoy’s carriage.

Inside, a man leaned back in the shadows. His face was mostly hidden but his voice was clear as crystal.

"So... the king suspects. And the bastard prince smells the rot."

He tapped his ring against the map of Valcour, where a red line ran through the Miral lands.

"Then we will force their hands. If they want ghosts, let them choke on the ones we buried."

The mist hung low over the valley as Liora and Rowan rode under the cover of night. The moon was a mere sliver in the sky, casting pale light across the rugged land, the air crisp with the scent of pine and earth.

Rowan’s sharp eyes scanned the horizon, and though the quiet night seemed to offer no danger, Liora could sense the unease beneath his calm demeanor. She had known him long enough to see the subtle tension in his posture, his hand hovering over the hilt of his blade.

"Do you think we’ll find him?" she asked, her voice low but steady.

Rowan glanced at her, his gaze unreadable. "Alaric Fen is a shadow. And shadows are hard to trap."

Liora’s grip tightened on the reins. "We’re not here to trap him. Just to find out if he’s truly still alive and if he is, why he disappeared."

Rowan’s silence spoke volumes, but he didn’t argue. He knew the stakes as well as she did. Lucien’s silence about the matter, the way he avoided discussing Alaric Fen’s role in his fall from grace, was troubling. And yet, Liora had learned early on that even the most tightly controlled men had their breaking points.

As they approached the outskirts of Halebrook, the night grew heavier. The manor loomed ahead, a silhouette against the sky, its windows dark and empty, as though abandoned for years. But Liora knew better. The place was too well-kept, too silent, too... watched.

"We need to find a way inside," Rowan muttered. "No one’s been in there for years, but that doesn’t mean it’s empty."