Sold to My Killer Husband: His Concubine's Dilemma
Chapter 127: He went north

Chapter 127: He went north

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."

Rowan didn’t argue.

Because he knew she was already in it.

Lucien paced before the hearth, arms crossed tightly, his gaze burning holes into the flames. Rowan and Samuel stood nearby, maps and old correspondences spread across the table between them. The doors had been locked, and not even Beatrice had been allowed near.

"This wasn’t an accident," Lucien muttered. "Someone is feeding Petra intel, perhaps even arms."

Samuel looked up. "And you think it’s Alden’s inner court?"

Lucien’s jaw tightened. "Not just court. Someone with military access. Those seals... I trained under them. Only a few would remember how to replicate them."

Rowan’s brows furrowed. "So this is more than rebellion. It’s calculated sabotage."

Lucien stopped, turning toward the table. "We need to leak false routes. If Petra believes the next convoy is moving east, they’ll expose whoever’s relaying our movements."

Samuel hesitated. "That would endanger our own men."

"I’ll choose who to send," Lucien said sharply. "Men who can disappear when the time comes."

Rowan met his gaze. "You mean shadows."

Lucien nodded. "Yes."

A moment of silence hung heavy. Rowan gave a curt nod and stepped away to begin preparations.

Meanwhile, Liora stood outside the locked chamber, unseen in the dim corridor. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop; she truly hadn’t. But she had brought a scroll of wound salve, and the sharp tone of Lucien’s voice through the wood had rooted her feet before she could retreat.

She didn’t know what "shadows" meant.

But the cold in Lucien’s voice had sounded like someone ready to kill.

And more troubling than that... she wasn’t afraid.

She was curious.

Later that night, as Liora prepared the night’s poultices, a quiet knock came to her door.

She opened it to find Rowan standing there, a folded cloth in his hand.

"You dropped this," he said mildly, holding up one of her gloves. But his eyes held something else, an unspoken message.

"You heard," he said, when she didn’t respond.

Liora hesitated. "I wasn’t trying to."

"You’ll be safer if you keep it that way."

"I never asked for safety," she replied. "But it seems to follow me more than truth does."

Rowan smiled faintly, then turned.

Before he walked away, he added over his shoulder, "He doesn’t hate you. He just doesn’t know how not to prepare for war."

In his study, Lucien stared at an old dagger, its blade engraved with the sigil of the Blackthorne line.

His mind should have been on Petra, on Alden, on spies and betrayal.

To the way she met his eyes without fear, even when she should.

Trust wasn’t earned in war. It was built in silence, forged in the fires between battles.

And unknowingly, she was already building it.

The moon hung low over the estate as the horses were readied. No banners, no emblems, just a quiet detachment of five men under Samuel’s lead, headed east with crates that bore nothing of true value but appeared convincing to trained eyes.

Lucien watched them depart from the shadow of the upper balcony, Rowan beside him.

"If we’re wrong about the leak," Rowan murmured, "we risk turning loyal men into bait."

Lucien’s jaw flexed. "They know what they signed up for."

Rowan didn’t argue.

The estate settled into uneasy silence after the departure. But that quiet was broken the next morning when a rider, wounded and half-frozen, collapsed just beyond the gates. He carried no emblem, but he bore a message.

Lucien tore the parchment open.

"They knew. Ambushed at the third bend. Samuel is unaccounted for."

His fingers curled around the edge of the page, the paper creasing under the strain. "That was fast."

Rowan stood across from him, pale. "The leak is closer than we thought."

Lucien nodded slowly, the lines around his mouth deepening. "Closer than I wanted to believe."

Elsewhere in the estate, Liora sat in the herbarium with Beatrice, sorting through dried roots. The room smelled of lavender and rain-soaked wood, calming in contrast to the storm that brewed elsewhere.

"You’re too calm for someone who hears footsteps outside her window at odd hours," Beatrice muttered, her eyes never leaving the bundle she was tying.

Liora looked up. "I’m used to strange things."

"Strange is one thing. Assassins are another."

Liora froze. "Assassins?"

Beatrice arched a brow, then clicked her tongue. "Slipped, did I? Never mind. If Lucien hasn’t told you, he likely thinks you’ll trip over your own shadow if he does."

Liora looked away, her lips tightening.

Beatrice softened, just slightly. "You’re tougher than you look, girl. But don’t play with fire you don’t understand."

"I’m not," Liora said quietly. "But I won’t run from smoke either."

Just then, a commotion erupted from outside.

Beatrice and Liora rushed to the courtyard to find two of the eastbound riders returning bloodied, exhausted. One leaned heavily on the other, his face covered in ash and dirt.

Lucien was already there, kneeling beside the fallen man. "Where is Samuel?"

"He went north," the man gasped. "Drew them away said not to follow. Said if he didn’t return, it meant they knew our route before we left."

Lucien’s eyes darkened.

"That means someone here," Rowan said quietly, "sent that message before they even departed."

Liora’s heart stuttered. That couldn’t mean what it sounded like... could it?

Lucien stood. "Double the guard. No one enters or leaves. Not even a whisper."

His eyes caught Liora’s for a moment, unreadable.

Then he turned, disappearing into the shadows of the corridor, the weight of betrayal thick on his shoulders.

Later that night, the estate was under lockdown. Guards were posted at every exit, messengers were halted, and all correspondence was burned before it could leave the manor walls. Tension choked the air.

In the study, Lucien sat before the large table, the map spread again beneath his fingertips. His eyes traced over every turn of the route they’d taken, every possibility.

Across from him, Rowan leaned against the wall, arms folded, watching the flicker of candlelight dance over Lucien’s clenched jaw.

"There’s no trace of Samuel north?"

Lucien shook his head. "He would’ve sent a sign if he could."

"He still might."

Lucien didn’t respond. Instead, he reached for a small velvet pouch tucked in the drawer beneath the map. He tipped it, letting a few metal coins roll onto the table.

Except these weren’t just coins, they were message discs, each containing slivers of parchment inside. One of them... was empty.

Rowan stiffened.

"That’s the one I gave to the steward to hold," Lucien said. "A precaution."

Rowan stepped forward, low-voiced. "Then Edgar...."

"No," Lucien cut him off. "He’s not even in the estate anymore. I dismissed him months ago. I never replaced him."

Rowan’s eyes narrowed. "Then who has access to that drawer?"

Lucien’s silence was answer enough.

Meanwhile, Liora had not returned to her chamber.

Something gnawed at her: the urgency in Lucien’s gaze, the blood on the returned soldiers’ sleeves, and Beatrice’s warning. All of it haunted her. She wandered the halls under the guise of checking on the patients, but she was searching for something else. Anything.

As she passed the northern hallway, she noticed something odd: mud tracks. Faint, but fresh. The guards never used this corridor. It was nearly always shut off. Yet the door at the end stood slightly ajar.

She hesitated, heart fluttering. Then she stepped inside.

It was a storage room, old furniture, some covered bookshelves, and a long-forgotten writing desk.

She approached it, brushing off dust, and noticed a faint crease in the leather seat. Recently used.

And in the wastebasket beneath, a torn half of parchment.

She picked it up.

Just two words were legible: Valen’s Crossing.

A location Lucien had circled in red earlier that morning.

Her breath caught.

Before she could think more, a voice behind her, low and dry, made her jump.

"I wouldn’t go snooping like that if I were you."

She turned to find a man standing in the doorway. Not a guard. Not even someone she recognized.

Slim build, clean features, and eyes too sharp for a guest.

"Who... are you?"

He smiled faintly. "A patient," he said, showing a wound bound lazily under his coat. "Or maybe just a traveler. I’m told this estate takes in strays."

She stepped back instinctively.

"Easy," he said. "I only came to deliver something. But it seems I found something more curious."

He stepped aside as if to leave. "Don’t worry, my lady. Your secret’s safe with me."

She stared after him, blood cold, until his footsteps faded into silence.

Then she turned and ran toward the study.

She needed to tell Lucien before the traitor realized she had seen too much.

Liora didn’t bother with decorum as she reached the doors of the study; she pushed them open with a force that startled Rowan, who had just returned with an update from the lower hall.

Lucien’s head snapped up.

She was breathless, her cloak askew, fingers clenched tightly around the piece of parchment.

"There’s someone in the estate," she said, her voice lower than it should’ve been but firm. "He’s not a soldier. Not a servant. He said he was a patient, but he wasn’t. And he left this."

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