Elias questions Queen Isolde and discovers that she never named Auren, while a black mark beneath her skin answers...
Queen Isolde was not taken to a cell. Velmora preferred prettier cages for women it might still need to crown. Her own chamber became a prison: velvet curtains drawn, two guards outside each door, the corridor lamps trimmed low enough that every servant passing by looked guilty. Elias reached the threshold before dawn with a copy of the Codex inscription folded inside his sleeve.
General Rowan blocked the door. "The queen is under guard."
"I am not here to free her."
"Then why are you here?"
"To learn why a book fears her child."
Rowan's scarred mouth tightened. "Careful, Elias."
"You said that ten years ago."
The name Julian did not need to be spoken. It had lived between them since Elias's brother was dragged from a verdict room and hanged before sunrise. Rowan had testified in that case. Elias had copied the name.
Rowan moved aside. "Five minutes."
"The law gave me seven days."
"The law also gave Malrec soldiers."
Inside, Isolde sat straight-backed in candlelight, one hand resting over her belly. She looked less like a prisoner than a queen deciding which part of fear deserved her attention. Her gown was deep royal blue under a white mantle, gold thread catching at the sleeves. She did not rise.
"Did you write it?" she asked.
"No."
Her shoulders lowered by the smallest measure. "Then I am still alive."
"For now."
"That is mercy?"
"That is delay."
"Then spend it well, scribe."
Elias unfolded the copied inscription and placed it on the little table between them. "Who is Auren?"
"My son."
"You named him?"
"No."
"The king named him?"
"No."
"Then why did the Oracle Codex know the name?"
Isolde looked past him toward the covered window. "Because the Codex knows how to take what is not given."
"That sounds like an accusation."
"It is."
Elias watched her hand. It did not relax. "Move your hand."
"No."
"Your unborn child was named in a murder verdict. I need to see what you are hiding."
"You need many things. You do not need that."
"Your Majesty."
She closed her eyes, then moved her hand a few inches. The gown remained modest, all cloth and shadow, but beneath the fabric's edge a thin black mark showed under her skin. It was not a bruise. It was too precise. One slanted stroke, like the beginning of a letter written by someone trapped underneath.
"How long?" Elias asked.
"Since the night before Edric died."
"The king did this?"
"He touched me here." She covered the mark again, as if the memory had weight. "He said, 'Whatever the Oracle writes, do not trust the priests.'"
Elias felt the room narrow. "Why would he say that?"
"Because he was afraid."
"Of Malrec?"
"Of the book."
The answer should have sounded like hysteria. It did not. Isolde's fear had edges; it had been handled before Elias entered the room. That made it evidence.
"Is Edric the father?" Elias asked.
Silence.
"Queen Isolde."
"Ask me again and I will lie."
"So you know how to lie."
"I know how to survive."
Outside, a guard shifted his boot against the floor. Elias lowered his voice. "If I cannot explain the name, Malrec will find another hand to write it."
Isolde's eyes sharpened. "Then cut off every hand in the kingdom."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only answer a mother has."
Elias took out the folded copy. The copied letters were ordinary ink, yet the page felt colder than paper should. "Auren."
Isolde flinched. Under her hand, the mark moved.
"Do not say it."
"Auren."
Somewhere far away, beyond stone and corridors, a heavy book slammed open. The sound reached the chamber like a verdict dropped down a well. Isolde gasped and bent forward. The child moved beneath her palm, not a flutter but a hard answer.
"The child hears the name," Elias said.
"No."
"Then what hears it?"
Her face had gone pale. "Something that was promised a body."
For the first time since the chapel, Elias forgot the exact position of his hands. "Promised by whom?"
"By a dying king."
"What did Edric do?"
"He tried to save the kingdom."
"From the murderer?"
Isolde laughed once, broken and quiet. "From the verdict."
The black mark pushed against her skin. One line became two. The shape completed itself with terrible care.
A.
Isolde looked at it as if she hated the letter and loved the life beneath it at the same time. "I never named my child."
In the royal chapel, the Codex page bearing Auren's name darkened. Fresh crimson welled between the letters.
Isolde whispered, "But something named him before he was mine."