Page 38 of Blood Marked

The courier hadn’t known what she carried. Or maybe she had and knew better than to ask.

The outer document had been nothing more than a report—dry, routine, the kind of thing everyone ignored.

But the envelope hiddenbeneath?

Different.

Smaller.

Older.

The wax was black. The sigil—a looped fang coiled in silk—was almost too faint to make out. But Kael knew it instantly. He’d memorized it in blood.

Duskthorn.

It hadn’t been used openly since the last shadow war. Since the night Elara bled out in his arms while Varyn’s uncle vanished into the dark with half his men still breathing. Since Kael had almost torn out a noble’s throat in full view of the court.

That seal hadn’t graced a letter since Ruarc banished every trace of the traitor blood from the mountain’s high council.

And now it was here.

On Kael’s desk.

A ghost. A curse reborn.

He’d cracked it open with a blade, careful not to damage the parchment.

The script was thin and slanted, coded in phrasing not unfamiliar to court correspondence but laced with implications too precise to ignore:

The asset is bonded, not yet sealed by rite. Her bloodline remains viable. We must act before the ceremony. Coordination from within remains essential. Her proximity to the heir makes this sensitive. If we delay, her value may be lost or compromised by the Mark’s binding.

Ensure discretion. Passage arranged at Veilbreak. Human contact will confirm once terms are met.

Selene.

Her blood. Her ancestry. Herpower—whatever it was that pulsed inside her, tangled with prophecy and the Mark that burned on both their skin.

They meant to take her.

To extract her before the public rite bound her completely. Before she became fully one of them. While she was still something they couldclaim.

Kael gripped the letter tighter, and the parchment crackled under his fingers.

Varyn.

It all pointed to Varyn.

His rise through the ranks, his calculated charm, the way he watched Selene with that thin-lipped interest that looked more like assessment than desire. It all made sense now.

Varyn hadn’t come for diplomacy.

He’d come to finish what his uncle started.

To use Kael’s bond to get close.

To steal everything.

Kael’s jaw ached from how hard he clenched it.

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