After that meeting, Cendre returned to the mountain hall.
He found Ser Humphrey leaning heavily against a stone wall, helmet tucked beneath one arm, eyes half-lidded and unfocused. The man smelled of wine thick enough to rival the feast itself.
"Ser," Humphrey muttered upon recognizing him, attempting something that resembled composure.
Cendre said nothing. He stepped close, lent his shoulder without ceremony, and bore most of the knight's weight as they made their way through the corridors. Humphrey mumbled indistinct assurances that he was perfectly capable, though his boots dragged slightly across the stone.
They passed torchlit alcoves and silent guards until reaching the guest chambers reserved for visiting knights. He did know where the Sir's father was and couldn't bother to find him. Cendre deposited him upon a bed with minimal gentleness.
"Water," Humphrey muttered.
"You'll live," Cendre replied evenly, removing the man's helmet and setting it aside.
Once certain he would not choke on his own vomit, Cendre left him there and made his way toward the letter room, a silver bangle already in hand to present to the scribe, a customary courtesy for the service.
The scribe of House Blanc was seated at a slanted scriptorium desk when Cendre entered. Or rather, he was slumped there. His head leaned sideways upon parchment, one cheek pressed flat against an unfinished script. The room smelled strongly of paper and ink, thickened by the faint sweetness of candle wax burned too long.
There was another scent mingled within.
Wine.
Following it, Cendre's gaze dropped beneath the desk. A bottle lay tipped against one of the carved legs, its contents nearly drained.
He stepped closer and examined the scribe's condition. The man breathed steadily, though heavily, one hand still loosely gripping a quill that had bled ink into a widening blot upon the page.
Cendre straightened.
The silver bangle remained in his palm a moment longer before he slid it back into his pouch. Writing a letter tonight would achieve little with the scribe drunk.
He turned and left the room without disturbing the man.
The corridors were quieter now. Many torches had burned lower, casting longer shadows that bent along the natural curves of the mountain walls. He returned to the feasting hall where the celebration had dulled but not ceased.
Taking a cup of wine in his right hand and a roasted chicken leg in his left, he found a place along the edge of the hall and mulled over his encounter with the Duchess.
She had sounded sincere.
Her grief had not appeared fabricated. The tightness in her jaw when speaking of her father and brother had not been theatrical.
And yet.
The sincerity of her words did not fully align with what he knew of Lady Eira Blanc.
At the Academy, she had been famed not merely for martial strength but for political acumen. She argued with princes and left them wordless. She bested opponents in debate as cleanly as she felled them in the training yard. She had shamed heirs twice her size into silence and gathered followers beneath her banner without ever appearing to try.
"She does not want the throne my ass."
It was funny to him. Because if one scrutinized her conduct during her years as a student. All her calculated alliances, her presence at strategic gatherings, her relentless drive, it was difficult to reconcile that with reluctance.
Yes, the Snowy Lords might have once been barbarians. Yes, honor might have been a construct hammered into existence through blood and necessity here in the North. But that was generations past. One of the greatest flaws of these Northern lords now was not savagery. It was their rigidity. They would rather die than set aside the honor their ancestors had forged. They clung to it with the same stubbornness with which they clung to their frozen land.
And as far as Cendre knew, there were no competing branches of House Blanc hungry for the inheritance. The Duke's cousins and distant kin had estates of their own, and concerns of their own.
Not because they lacked ambition, but because ruling the North was hardly enviable.
To sit upon that frozen seat meant sacrificing personal wealth for infrastructure, patrols, tribute, and endless appeasement of proud lords. It meant being beholden to the Emperor while simultaneously resisting imperial overreach. It meant scrutiny, law, arbitration, famine management, and the constant threat of something stirring beyond the Argent mountains.
Most highborn preferred the illusion of influence without its burden.
The North was not a treasury to plunder.
It was a responsibility to endure.
And in truth, only she benefited cleanly from the Duke and heir's deaths.
Her father had been known as a lavish spender. Generous to a fault, careless with coin when it suited his pride. The heir, Cendre allowed himself a quiet exhale at the memory, and was not widely respected either. Even among polite circles, he had been considered… limited. A man who might have fallen from a horse too often in childhood.
It had been the Matriarch, Lady Eira's mother, who held the finances of the North together with patient calculation. It was whispered that she had recently begun easing Eira into more responsibility, as though seeing some inevitable horizon approaching.
Now both Duke and heir were gone.
And Eira stood alone at the summit.
If she had desired the throne, events had arranged themselves conveniently.
The thought lingered like a splinter.
He took another bite of chicken, chewing slowly.
You must understand, he told himself, why suspicion was inevitable.
It was almost too clean.
She speaks of conspiracy. She claims betrayal. She appoints an outsider. It is the perfect maneuver to remove herself from suspicion if suspicion ever arose.
It was like committing the crime and reporting it oneself, ensuring the gaze of inquiry turned outward rather than inward.
She benefited the most.
That was a fact.
And yet he could not dismiss the memory of her beneath the Frozen Tree. The quiet in her voice. The controlled anger when she spoke of her father's death.
If she were acting, she was exceptionally skilled.
The hall around him thinned gradually as more guests retired. The fires burned lower. The revelry softened into scattered conversation and slurred song.
Cendre remained where he stood, wine half-finished, thoughts circling.
He had agreed to investigate a murder that might well lead back to the woman who had commissioned him.
And in doing so, he had placed himself precisely where a careful conspirator might prefer him to be, close, but controlled.
He swallowed the last of the wine.
If she was innocent, he would uncover the truth.
If she was not…
He glanced toward the far end of the hall where she had earlier presided.
Then this would become far more complicated.
* * *
He returned to the inn instead of remaining within the castle.
The warmth of the common room and the familiarity of rough timber walls felt preferable to stone corridors after all. He slept without dreams and woke late in the afternoon, the pale northern light already beginning its slow descent toward evening. After washing and taking a modest meal of bread, broth, and salted fish, he prepared to ride back to the castle.
He encountered Ser Humphrey on the street before he could mount.
The knight looked dreadful.
His eyes were rimmed red, his skin pale beneath a mottled flush, and his hair, usually coaxed into respectable order, stood in reluctant tufts. His armor hung upon him with less pride than the previous night, and his steps suggested that each movement required negotiation with a lingering headache.
"You look awful," Cendre observed.
Humphrey squinted at him as though the daylight itself were an adversary. "And you," he replied hoarsely, "look entirely fine. You should have feasted more. The North pours generously when it wishes to impress."
He rubbed his temple and exhaled.
"When do we return to the Central?" he asked, voice hopeful despite its rasp.
Cendre adjusted his gloves. "I will be staying," he said. "Business. I am to do some work on behalf of my in-debt family."
Humphrey's brows rose, then slowly settled. He nodded as if the explanation aligned with his expectations.
"The Blancs must have been rightfully displeased that your lord did not attend," he said. "Thank God my old man has enough sense to appear where he must."
He clapped Cendre lightly on the shoulder, then winced at the force of his own gesture.
"Despite it all," he added, "the Northfolk have honor. They won't chop your head off."
Cendre allowed the faintest breath of amusement. "Reassuring."
"I suppose you'll remain here, then," Humphrey said.
"I will. You will have to ride back on your own this time."
Humphrey shook his head slowly. "Not immediately. I must travel with my father to visit our cousins' lands. Urgent business."
Cendre considered the timing. This season often drove migrations from the western reaches. great, slow-witted beasts pressing toward more tolerable grazing. Such movements could devastate fields or threaten smaller settlements.
"Then your cousins likely require strong backs and steady spears," he said.
"Likely," Humphrey agreed.
"I wish you luck."
Humphrey gave a weary shrug. "The luck wished should be yours."
Cendre could not argue.
They parted ways there in the cold street, Humphrey turning back toward the inn, shoulders hunched against the wind, while Cendre mounted and rode toward the fortress rising from the mountain.
The castle admitted him without delay. He made his way first to the scribe's chamber to finish what he couldn't do last night.
This time the scribe was awake.
The man sat upright at his sloped desk, quill moving steadily across parchment. The scent of ink and warmed wax lingered in the room, though the air had been freshened by a narrow window cracked open against the cold.
Cendre withdrew the silver bangle and held it where the candlelight caught its engraved surface.
Seeing it, the scribe leaned forward, studying the script etched along its circumference, the old old characters denoting courtesy and compensation. He nodded once, then turned fully toward Cendre.
"How may I assist you, Ser?"
"I require a letter to be sent to House Dalens."
The scribe took up a clean sheet and dipped his quill. "Proceed."
Cendre spoke evenly.
"Write that I, Ser Cendre Dalens, have been tasked by the new Duchess with an urgent duty and must remain in the North until it is completed. Inform them that the Duchess has called for debts to be repaid. Our finances remain stable, but not sufficient to settle what is owed to House Blanc in coin. To remedy this, I have agreed to conditions known only to the Duchess and myself."
The quill moved without pause.
"And the postscript, Ser?" the scribe asked.
"Add that, should the task be completed swiftly, I may travel further west to inspect the frontiers."
The scribe finished with a final stroke and turned the parchment toward him.
Cendre read it carefully. The phrasing was formal, the tone respectful, the implications clear without being inflammatory. He nodded.
"It will be sent by bird at once," the scribe said.
Cendre placed a single silver coin upon the desk. The man inclined his head in gratitude.
Leaving the chamber, Cendre made his way through the corridors toward the Duchess's office. A maid-in-waiting stood outside the carved wooden doors, a red-haired woman wearing narrow spectacles perched low upon her nose. She regarded him briefly, then opened the door and ushered him inside.
The office was quieter than the hall, warmed by a contained hearth and lit by several candles arranged with deliberate precision. Maps and records were spread across a wide desk carved from pale stone.
The Duchess stood behind it, reviewing documents.
She wore no armor now.
Instead, she was dressed in a dark fitted bodice beneath a high-collared tunic of heavy fabric, sleeves tailored close to the arms, a belt resting low upon her hips. The cut of the clothing did little to obscure the natural lines of her figure. Her waist tapered cleanly before giving way to strong, rounded hips, posture emphasizing both strength and symmetry. The fabric followed the contours of her form without indulgence, suggesting power rather than softness. Even without steel, she conveyed the same formidable presence.
Her greatsword rested within arm's reach against the side of the desk.
Her silvery hair fell unbound over one shoulder as she examined the records. When she looked up, the candlelight caught in her crimson eyes, sharpening their intensity.
"Ser Dalens," she said.
Her voice carried the same measured calm as before, though absent the projection required for a hall full of lords.
"You are punctual."
There was the faintest hint of approval in her expression, not warmth, but acknowledgment granted to competence. Her gaze lingered a moment, assessing, before she set aside the document in her hand.
"Come," she continued, gesturing toward the desk. "We have matters to begin."