Sold to My Killer Husband: His Concubine's Dilemma
Chapter 126: Burn the envoy’s letters first

Chapter 126: Burn the envoy’s letters first

She didn’t understand?

She traced the circle with her finger. This wasn’t just about the estate, not about her healing or even her family’s past. It was much larger than that.

The sound of footsteps interrupted her thoughts.

She spun around, heart leaping in her chest, but it wasn’t Lucien. It was Rowan, standing in the doorway, his face unreadable.

"You shouldn’t be here," he said quietly, his voice soft but carrying an edge she hadn’t heard before.

"I needed answers," she replied, her gaze still on the map.

Rowan took a step inside. "Some answers are better left hidden. Trust me."

Liora’s eyes narrowed. "What are you hiding?"

Rowan’s lips twisted into a thin, tight smile. "Everything."

And in that moment, Liora realized just how deep the layers of deception ran within the walls of the estate.

The next morning dawned grey, with low clouds pressing down on the estate like a suffocating weight. A light drizzle veiled the world outside in a silver haze. Within the estate walls, the tension from the night lingered, thick, unsaid, and looming. Servants whispered of strange movements. Messages were carried not by foot but by guarded glances and sealed letters tucked inside sleeves.

Lucien stood by the window of his private chamber, unmoving. He had returned from Petra hours ago, but the silence he had met unnerved him more than open conflict. Something had shifted in his absence. Rowan hadn’t spoken much, only offered the usual report, tightly controlled, as if words themselves had become weapons.

There was unrest in the north again.

More disturbing still, Beatrice had delivered a message that morning: a foreign noble from the eastern province of Gyral had requested an audience and not with Alden, not with the council, but directly with Lucien. And Liora had not left the infirmary all morning.

He turned from the window, the sound of a knock slicing through the stillness.

"Enter."

It was Samuel, drenched from the rain, his cloak soaked through but expression unreadable.

"You should see this," he said. "Now."

The council chamber had not been used in days. Lucien arrived with his cloak still clinging to his shoulders, the ends muddy from his steps through the courtyard. Rowan was already inside, seated with a tense posture, and beside him unexpectedly stood the envoy from Gyral.

A man in his late twenties, lean, too clean for someone who claimed to have ridden through three nights of storm. His accent was polished, but his gaze was calculating.

"Prince Lucien," he bowed. "I come bearing concerns not only from Gyral but from others who wonder how stable your estate truly is."

Lucien didn’t blink. "My estate is not a discussion point for distant nobles."

"Is it not?" The envoy smiled faintly. "Rumors spread faster than couriers, my lord. A healer from the south. Fires in Petra. Strange movements near the old borders. And the king’s court is unusually quiet."

Rowan shifted beside him. Samuel leaned on the door, his hand never far from his weapon.

Lucien’s voice was calm but cold. "You are not here to inquire. You’re here to offer a warning."

"Or an opportunity." The envoy’s gaze flicked to Rowan, then Samuel. "There are those who believe Alden’s reign has grown brittle. That the next heir might require stronger allies."

Lucien stepped forward. The distance between them evaporated in two strides.

"I have no interest in the throne."

"But you might..." the envoy said, smile curling, "...if the lady healer beside you continues to stir interest in unexpected corners of the kingdom. She’s no ordinary girl, is she?"

Lucien’s hand twitched.

And that was enough for Samuel to step in, voice clipped. "You will speak of Lady Liora with respect."

"I only observe," the envoy said. "But know this: if you do not act, others will. Gyral has no patience for silent power shifts."

With that, he bowed once more and was escorted out by Rowan.

Silence fell once again. Lucien turned to Samuel. "Find out what he truly wants."

Samuel nodded, already moving.

Lucien remained still, staring at the fire pit in the center of the chamber. Liora. The map. The north. And now this envoy...

Everything was connected. And the girl who came here with nothing might just be holding the key to everything.

The estate was quieter than usual.

Rain pattered against the high windows of Lucien’s private study, and the crackle of fire in the hearth gave the room a warmth that didn’t reach his eyes. Rowan stood beside the desk, flipping through a set of sealed parchments.

"Three letters," he said, laying them out. "All anonymous. All carrying different seals. All saying the same thing, your name was deliberately used in the assassination reports three years ago."

Lucien didn’t flinch. His fingers tightened slightly around the carved lion-shaped paperweight. "Did they mention who replaced the original seal?"

Rowan shook his head. "But this one..." he tapped the third letter, "carries a watermark from the southern barracks." You remember who was assigned there during the time of the incident?"

Lucien’s eyes narrowed. "General Corven."

"And he now answers to Lord Allard, doesn’t he?"

Lucien rose, expression unreadable. "Summon Samuel." We ride before dawn. We don’t ask anymore; we demand an answer."

Just outside the study, unnoticed, Liora paused with a tray of untouched food. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. But she’d heard it: assassination, forged seal, Lord Allard. These were not just noble games.

Lucien’s gaze didn’t waver from the map pinned with tiny silver daggers along Petra’s borders.

The envoy’s reported route curved in too clean a pattern, almost rehearsed, almost as if it was meant to distract. His fingers brushed along the stretch near the southern valley, where sightings had been few but murmurs of unrest constant.

"Rowan," he said, voice low, "this envoy...what was the name of the commander leading the last dispatched escort?"

Rowan leaned forward. "Captain Elric Dorne."

Lucien’s brow twitched. "Elric was reassigned to trade patrols a year ago. He’s not on active border duty anymore."

Rowan stilled. "Then who signed off on the manifest?"

Lucien straightened, turning from the map. "Exactly the question. The route was drawn too perfectly, the danger too conveniently sidestepped. Either someone’s protecting this envoy—or they’re using him."

Rowan glanced toward the doorway, then lowered his voice. "You think it’s a decoy? A setup?"

"I think someone wants our eyes away from Petra," Lucien murmured, "and toward this theatrical envoy instead."

He stepped away from the table, letting his coat fall over his shoulders. "Have Samuel check the original documents." I want the wax seal matched, someone is meddling with Alden’s trust. And if the envoy has reached Blackgrove by morning, they’re ahead of schedule. That’s not a good sign."

Outside, the early storm clouds rumbled. The sound was distant, yet Liora could feel it, a kind of unrest clinging to the air.

She stood at the hallway’s edge with a cloth-wrapped vial in hand, medicine for one of the guards, but she didn’t call out to Lucien.

She watched him from the shadow of the hallway, watched the edge of his jaw tighten, and watched the rare flicker of worry slip across his face.

She wasn’t supposed to know the details. But even without them, she understood this: Lucien was preparing for something, something dangerous, something close.

And though she didn’t know what it meant yet, she felt it would eventually pull her into it too.

She turned away, careful not to let her steps echo.

Behind her, Lucien’s voice broke the silence again.

"Rowan," he said. "If anything happens at Petra... burn the envoy’s letters first."

The storm that had rumbled in the distance began to press against the estate’s roof in dull thuds of rain. Rowan left quickly, his boots silent on the stone as he disappeared down the hallway. Lucien remained at the map, one hand braced against the edge of the table.

Petra was no longer just a region of borderland and forgotten mines—it was a target, maybe even a trap.

He didn’t like the stillness. It reminded him too much of the calm that came before his exile.

Down the corridor, Liora moved quietly past the guards, her eyes flicking once toward the door Lucien had disappeared into. She paused only when she heard hushed voices.

"...an old seal was used, possibly Alden’s from his earlier campaigns," Samuel was saying, his tone uneasy. "The ink’s recent, but the paper is aged. Deliberately so."

"Someone forged it, then," Rowan said grimly. "That would make the envoy either a pawn or a traitor."

"And if Lucien’s right, it’s not the envoy we should be watching. It’s what’s being moved in his shadow."

Liora didn’t understand everything, but she understood enough. War.

And Lucien he was preparing like someone who had seen it before.

That evening, Lucien didn’t dine in the hall. The food was sent back untouched, the chair at the head of the table empty.

Liora ate in silence, picking at her stew, her thoughts no longer on the mild ache in her wrist from tending to the patients but on the glance Lucien had cast toward the southern valley, on the name "Petra."

Later, she found herself in the apothecary room, fingers moving mechanically as she ground herbs into powder. The scent of lavender mixed with bitterroot is calming, but not enough.

The estate felt too quiet tonight.

A knock at the open door drew her gaze up.

Rowan stood there, shadows under his eyes.

"He sent this," he said simply, placing a folded parchment beside the jar she’d been working on. "If you’re to be kept here, he wants you to know what we’re dealing with."

Liora opened the letter slowly.

Inside, brief lines in Lucien’s handwriting, cold but clear:

"Two ministers compromised. Envoy unverified. Do not leave the estate. Watch what the servants carry. Trust no sealed letters."

She swallowed hard.

It was just a warning.

She folded the note again and looked at Rowan.

"I was sent here to stay out of the palace games," she said softly. "And yet... they found me."

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