Free Web NovelChapter 13: Shadows Within
Sleep came slowly that night.
Not because Ethan lacked answers. Because he possessed too many.
The servant. The maintenance worker. The stolen guard schedules. The repeated appearances near the family residence wing. Each clue seemed insignificant when viewed alone. Together, however, they formed a pattern he could no longer ignore. By dawn, only one question remained.
Who?
His gaze drifted across the markings spread before him. At first glance, the answer seemed obvious — the family residence wing housed the most important individuals in Ravenhold. Yet the more he considered each possibility, the more flaws appeared. freewebnσvel.cøm
Adrian was already gone. Even before his departure, approaching the Sword of the North inside his own estate would have bordered on suicide. Elena was equally unlikely — beyond the officials and guards constantly surrounding her, she was a Sky Mage of the Sixth Circle. Assassinating her inside Ravenhold would require overwhelming force and would immediately expose the attackers. No infiltrator would choose such a target unless they arrived with an army behind them.
Ethan himself remained a possibility. As the heir of House Ravencrest, his death would carry consequences of its own. Yet his routines remained irregular and he rarely moved without training or supervision. An assassin seeking certainty would choose the easier target.
After completing his morning training, Ethan returned directly to his room. Several sheets of parchment soon covered his desk as he reconstructed everything he had observed over the past week — locations, timings, movements, routes, connections. The morning gradually slipped into afternoon as he reviewed the information from every angle, testing possibilities and eliminating flawed assumptions one by one.
For nearly an hour, he searched for something he had overlooked.
Then his eyes narrowed.
The family residence wing was not a single location. It housed multiple members of House Ravencrest — his own quarters, Amelia’s residence, guest chambers, private family rooms. At first the distinction seemed insignificant. Then he noticed something that made his focus sharpen considerably.
Many of the suspicious movements coincided with Amelia’s daily routine.
The gardens. The inner courtyards. The educational wing. Locations she visited so regularly that her schedule could be mapped without ever speaking to her directly. Slowly, Ethan’s expression hardened. The activity wasn’t centered around a room. It was centered around a person. And only one member of the family moved through every marked location with that kind of consistency.
Amelia.
The name struck him harder than expected.
For a brief moment, the parchment-covered desk before him seemed to disappear entirely, replaced by something he had spent years trying not to revisit. Snow. Blood. A small body growing colder in his arms. Amelia’s voice had been so weak that day — barely more than breath — yet she had still tried to smile. Still told him not to blame himself. Still insisted, even then, that none of it was his fault.
He remembered the warmth leaving her hands. Remembered the silence that followed. Remembered standing alone in the snow afterward, staring at a battlefield he had arrived too late to change.
A violent surge of fury rose within him.
For a single heartbeat the pressure was so intense that the parchment beneath his hand crumpled without him noticing. The air in the room seemed to drop several degrees.
Then Ethan closed his eyes. Slowly. Deliberately.
By the time he opened them again, the fury had disappeared beneath layers of cold control. It had not vanished — it had simply found a direction.
Silence settled throughout the room.
Why Amelia?
The question emerged immediately. His younger sister possessed no political authority, no military command, no influence over Ravencrest’s administration. At least not yet. Yet as he thought deeper, the answer gradually revealed itself.
Amelia’s death was not the objective. The consequences of her death were.
Adrian would never forgive himself. Elena would be devastated. The entire family would suffer a blow from which recovery might take years. And if the attack occurred while the Sword of the North was absent — while Ravenhold’s defenses were led by capable but lesser men — the damage would extend far beyond a single life. It would fracture the household at its foundation, at precisely the moment it could least afford to fracture. Someone had thought this through carefully. This wasn’t desperation. This was strategy.
A different memory surfaced then — quieter than the one before it, and somehow worse for that.
A small girl racing through snow-covered courtyards despite repeated warnings to slow down. Tiny boots slipping across frozen stone. A startled cry, then a face-first collision with a snowbank. Moments later, Ethan had found himself carrying her back toward the estate while she angrily insisted she hadn’t been hurt even slightly and could he please stop looking at her like that.
The memory lasted only seconds. Yet it struck far harder than he expected.
Amelia had always possessed an unusual ability to bring warmth wherever she went. Servants adored her. Knights tolerated endless questions they would have ignored from anyone else. Even Adrian’s stern expression softened around her in ways he probably believed no one noticed. She wasn’t merely a member of House Ravencrest — she was part of its heart. One of the brightest lights within the family.
One of the first lights he had lost.
Ethan slowly exhaled.
Everything suddenly made sense. The guard schedules. The surveillance. The timing of Adrian’s departure. Someone had been waiting patiently for an opportunity, and the moment the Sword of the North left Ravenhold, that opportunity had finally appeared.
A cold sense of urgency settled within his chest. Not suspicion. Not concern. Urgency — because the enemy’s preparations were already complete. And there was no one left to tell. Adrian was a week’s ride north. Elena was surrounded by the kind of busy official activity that made a ten-year-old boy with a half-formed theory easy to dismiss. Gareth would listen, but acting on unconfirmed suspicion risked tipping off the conspirators before he knew how deep they ran.
He was, for the moment, entirely alone with what he knew.
The moment that realization fully settled, the System reacted.
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[Ding!]
[Emergency Mission Completed]
Investigate the Irregularities
Rewards:
• War Merit ×200
• Free Attribute Points ×2
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Before Ethan could react, a second notification appeared. freēwebnovel.com
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[Emergency Mission Generated]
Protect Amelia Ravencrest
Description:
A hidden threat has targeted a core member of House Ravencrest.
Ensure Amelia Ravencrest survives.
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The room fell silent.
The System had not revealed anything new. It had merely confirmed what Ethan had already discovered. Yet the confirmation carried its own meaning. Throughout the entire investigation, the System had remained silent — no warnings, no hints, no guidance. For it to generate a protection mission now meant one thing.
The threat was no longer theoretical.
Somewhere within Ravenhold, the conspirators had already begun moving.
For several moments Ethan remained motionless as the notification hovered before him, his eyes completely calm — the kind of calm that only appeared before a battle, when everything unnecessary had been set aside and only the task remained. He had felt it a hundred times across a previous life. It never got easier. He had simply learned to use it.
Slowly, he rose from his chair and moved toward the window. The sun had already begun its descent beyond the estate walls, bathing Ravenhold in the warm colors of late afternoon.
Evening. The moment when shadows grew longer, patrols shifted, and vigilance naturally weakened. Guard rotations. Changing patrols. Momentary gaps in coverage that a patient, well-prepared enemy would have spent weeks mapping — the exact circumstances someone would wait months for, if they were careful enough and willing enough to wait.
He didn’t have months. He had minutes.
Without wasting another, Ethan left his room.
The family residence wing remained quiet as he moved through its corridors. Servants performed their duties. Guards occupied their assigned positions. Everything appeared entirely normal — the way everything always appeared normal right up until it wasn’t. His instincts refused to relax. The closer he approached Amelia’s quarters, the stronger the feeling became.
Something was wrong.
Then he saw her.
Amelia stepped from one of the interior courtyards accompanied by a young attendant, completely unaware of the danger surrounding her. She laughed softly at something the attendant had said, sunlight catching her hair, entirely at ease in the way only people who feel genuinely safe can manage.
For a brief moment, Ethan felt relief.
He had arrived in time.
Or so he thought.
A sudden movement caught his attention — not ahead. Above.
His eyes snapped toward the rooftop. A shadow moved across it, there and gone in the space of a single breath. Yet the brief glimpse was enough. The figure’s movement was too controlled, too deliberate. No servant moved like that. No ordinary resident of Ravenhold moved like that.
Every instinct Ethan possessed screamed the same warning.
Danger.
Without hesitation, he moved.
"Amelia!"
His voice shattered the evening calm.
Amelia turned toward him, confusion giving way to delight. "Brother—"
At that exact moment, a dark figure dropped from the rooftop. Fast. Silent. Deadly. A narrow blade flashed beneath the fading sunlight as the assassin descended toward his target. The attack had been timed with precision — the blind angle, the patrol shift, the distance all calculated to leave no room for intervention. Everything had been calculated.
Everything except Ethan.
The assassin’s eyes widened slightly as he realized someone was already moving to intercept. His trajectory adjusted in midair — a trained reflex, the response of someone who had faced complications before — but the correction cost him a fraction of a second he could not afford.
Too late.
Ethan accelerated.
For a single heartbeat the courtyard seemed frozen — Amelia’s confusion, the attendant’s widening eyes, the assassin’s certainty giving way to something else entirely. Three different reactions compressed into a single instant.
Then the moment shattered.
Steel flashed.
And the first clash began.
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[Emergency Mission]
Protect Amelia Ravencrest
Status: In Progress
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