Free Web NovelChapter 22: Chapter 22: The King’s Decree
After leaving the place where Edrian was being kept, Celestia found herself no closer to the answers she wanted.
He had refused to tell her anything.
Not because he did not want to, but because he could not.
Magical restrictions.
She had seen it clearly enough — the way his jaw tightened whenever certain subjects came too close, the way his words seemed to die before they could fully form, as though something ancient and merciless was wrapped around his throat.
In the end, there had only been one thing he managed to tell her.
The witch who had saved him.
The Spirit Witch.
According to Edrian, she might be able to help her... if Celestia could find her.
But that was the problem with Spirit Witches.
They were not easily found.
They appeared only when they wished to be found.
The attendant came for her twelve minutes after Thaddeus left.
Celestia had spent those twelve minutes sitting in the waiting area with her legs crossed and her fan moving and her mind doing considerably more work than her expression suggested.
Thaddeus’s words had settled somewhere she was not ready to examine. She had laughed — the right response, the safe response, the response that gave nothing away — and she stood by that decision completely.
She was still standing by it.
I have known my brother his entire life. I have never once seen him look at anyone the way he looked at you in that court.
She fanned herself slightly faster.
Just thought you should know.
She fanned herself slightly slower. Deliberately, composure was a practice.
"My Lady." The attendant bowed.
"The King will see you now."
Celestia closed her fan, stood, and followed.
The throne room was exactly what a throne room should be and considerably more of it.
Celestia walked through the doors with her head level and her expression composed and her ruby eyes moving across the space with the quick efficiency of someone cataloguing everything before they needed to perform anything.
High ceilings. Stone columns. Light coming from sources she could not immediately identify, warm and gold and carefully placed.
The throne itself — large, dark, the kind of furniture that communicated power without needing to say the word — occupied the far end of the room with the comfortable authority of something that had always been there and expected to remain so.
The King sat in it.
And arranged in a precise arc around him — standing, watching, carrying the particular stillness of people who had learned that stillness was its own form of presence — the Inner Council.
Six of them. She counted quickly. Different ages, different builds, the same careful eyes.
Celestia walked the length of the room without hurrying. She reached the appropriate distance, stopped, and bowed — correctly, precisely, with the practiced grace of someone who had been taught the right way to present herself in front of royalty and had decided, on this occasion, to use that knowledge.
"Lady Celestia of House Alwyn," the King said.
His voice was — she processed this — not what she had expected. Not cold. Not commanding in the way that needed volume. Simply certain.
The voice of someone who had never needed to wonder whether they would be listened to.
She straightened and met his eyes.
The King was — she processed this also — striking. Not in the way Drazeil was striking, which was the kind of striking that made rooms rearrange themselves in self defense. More the way of someone who had been handsome once and had aged into something more interesting than handsome. Sharp eyes.
The particular quality of someone who missed very little and had spent decades practicing the appearance of missing more than he did.
He was looking at her with something that was not quite amusement and not quite assessment but lived in the productive territory between them.
"I have been looking forward to meeting you properly," he said. "Your speech this morning was — " he paused, apparently selecting his word with care — "unexpected." freewebnovel.cσ๓
"I hope unexpectedly good, Your Majesty," Celestia said pleasantly.
Something moved at the corner of his mouth. "I was intrigued," he said.
"A girl with no magic, from a noble house nobody has heard much of, walks into a royal execution and argues for justice with the composure of someone who has done it before."
He tilted his head slightly. "Where does that come from?"
"A sincere belief that justice matters, Your Majesty," she said. "And a moral code I have carried for as long as I can remember."
"And the fighting?" A councillor — grey haired, precise — spoke from the arc. "You engaged the Crown’s Monster with a fan."
"He engaged me first," Celestia said.
"I simply responded."
"With a fan."
"It is a very good fan."
A beat of silence.
Then the King laughed — short, genuine, the laugh of someone who had not expected to and had decided not to pretend otherwise.
Several councillors exchanged glances. One of them — younger, sharp eyed — looked at Celestia with the particular expression of someone rapidly revising an opinion.
"Sit," the King said, gesturing to the chair that had been placed — she noticed — at a respectful rather than supplicant distance from the throne.
"I will be direct," the King said, settling back. "There are things happening in this kingdom that require investigation. Mana anomalies. Unexplained deaths. Magical irregularities that my usual resources have been unable to adequately address." He paused.
"And a butler who came back from the dead because of the vampire blood in him"
"I am aware of the butler," Celestia said.
"I assumed you were." His eyes were steady on her. "Your speech yesterday demonstrated a capacity for observation and reasoning that I find useful. Your fight with Drazeil demonstrated something else entirely."
He let that sit for a moment.
"I am assigning you to investigate these matters."
Celestia held his gaze. "With respect, Your Majesty — why me specifically? I have no magic. No official standing. No experience in royal investigations."
"No," the King agreed. "But you have something considerably rarer." He looked at her for a moment. "You are not afraid. Of anything, apparently. Including things that have been making people afraid for centuries." A pause. "That has a particular value in this situation."
Celestia absorbed that.
"There is one other thing," the King said, and something in his tone shifted — careful, deliberate. "You will not be working alone."
She waited.
"Drazeil will be your partner in this investigation."
The room was very quiet.
Celestia did not allow a single thing to move across her face.
Inside, several things moved across her face simultaneously.
He accepted this, she thought. freёwebnovel.com
Drazeil accepted working with me, and he accepted this before even becoming bound to me by the Pact. He hates me specifically, which means he has something in mind.
Something this partnership gives him access to that he wants.
"A thought for later" she thought.
"I understand, Your Majesty," she said. "I accept."
The King studied her. "You are not surprised."
"I am," she said pleasantly. "I am simply not letting it show."
That almost-amusement moved across his expression again. He looked at her for a long moment with the eyes of someone who had been reading people for decades and was finding this particular person genuinely interesting.
"The decree will be formalized and delivered to House Alwyn," he said.
"You will begin as soon as arrangements are made." He paused. "Is there anything you wish to ask before you go?"
Celestia considered. "Just one thing, Your Majesty." She met his eyes steadily. "The investigation. Are there areas you would prefer I do not look into?"
The room went very still.
The King looked at her for exactly three seconds.
Then he said: "No."
Just that. Just no. Clean and final and carrying the particular weight of an answer that had been decided before she asked.
"Then I have no further questions," Celestia said.
She rose. Bowed — correctly, precisely, exactly as she had when she entered.
She straightened.
And was about to turn toward the door when it opened.
Not the main doors. The side door — the one attendants used, the one that meant something had bypassed the usual ceremony because it could not wait for the usual ceremony.
A young attendant stepped through. His face was — she noticed immediately — carefully arranged into the particular blankness of someone delivering news they did not want to deliver.
His eyes found her across the room.
And something in her chest went very quiet.
"My Lady," he said. His voice was steady. Professional. The voice of someone doing their job. "I have been sent to inform you—"
He stopped.
Started again.
"Lady Bailey of House Sylex," he said. "She was found this morning in her mansion."
The throne room was completely silent.
"She has passed, my Lady."
The fan in Celestia’s hand did not move. The ruby ring on her finger caught the light. And somewhere in the back of her mind, quiet and certain and impossible to unhear, a voice that was not hers said:
Some things are simply meant to find their rightful owner before it is too late.
