Elias reopens the chapel seal and finds four royal bloodline traces, including one too young to have crossed the d...
By morning, the royal chapel smelled of wet stone, old incense, and a secret trying to survive too many witnesses. Elias ordered the outer doors barred against everyone except Rowan, Malrec, Lady Selene, and two seal clerks who looked as if they would rather copy tax rolls during a plague. The king's sister arrived last in mourning silver, dry-eyed and sharper than the knife Cassian had tried to make into an answer.
"If this is theater," Selene said, "choose another stage."
"Your brother died on this one," Elias replied.
Malrec stood beside the Oracle altar. "The Codex named the killer. The seal will not improve on divine fact."
"Then the seal has nothing to fear."
Rowan gave Elias a look that meant stop enjoying the cliff. Elias ignored it. He set the Judgment Ledger on a side table, not open to Auren's page, and signaled the clerks. They placed copper bowls at four corners of the chapel door and poured saltwater over the carved bloodline runes. The grooves woke red, one after another, veins inside black stone.
"The royal blood seal records every royal line that lawfully crosses or commands the chapel threshold," Elias said for the clerks as much as the court. "Not faces. Not motives. Bloodline contact."
"We know how a door works," Selene said.
"Good. Then tell me how many people it remembers."
The first rune brightened: King Edric. It cast a crown-shaped flare on the wet floor. The second answered with Cassian's sharper mark, a red line broken at the middle. The prince had entered before the seal closed, as he admitted.
The third rune burned slowly.
Selene's expression changed before her name was spoken.
Elias looked at her. "You told the household you never entered the chapel that night."
"I did not."
"The seal disagrees."
"Then your seal lies as well as your book."
Malrec's voice cut in. "Lady Selene, false testimony during an Oracle murder inquiry is treason."
Selene turned toward him. "How fortunate for you that treason is still easier to understand than truth."
The fourth rune lit before Elias could press her. It was faint. Almost a child's thread of red. Too small, too young, not shaped like the queen's bloodline and not strong enough for Cassian or Selene.
One clerk dropped his stylus. "That cannot cross a threshold."
"Read it," Elias said.
The clerk swallowed. "Royal. Unregistered age. Living trace."
Malrec stepped forward. "Auren."
"No," Elias said.
"The unborn child carries royal blood."
"Inside the queen, who did not enter this chapel. The seal records contact with a threshold, not blood that exists somewhere in the palace."
Selene's gaze had fixed on the fourth rune. For a moment her scorn slipped, and something close to grief looked through. Elias saw it and changed course.
"You were here," he said. "What did you see?"
"Nothing."
"You risk treason for nothing?"
"I risked treason for my brother."
Malrec's guards shifted. Rowan moved subtly between them and Selene. The old military habit came without thought.
Elias lowered his voice. "The king left you something."
Selene looked at him for too long.
"Show me," Elias said.
"If I do, Malrec will call it sedition."
"He already brought guards."
Selene reached into the inner fold of her mourning sleeve and took out a scorched royal signet. The gold had warped under heat. Its face still bore Edric's lion, but the back had been carved with three rough words by a hand that had not had time for elegance.
Burn the book.
The clerks stopped breathing. Rowan stared at the signet as if it might explode.
Malrec moved first. "That object is temple evidence."
Selene closed her fist around it. "It is my brother's last command."
"The king would never order the destruction of the Oracle Codex."
"No? Then perhaps ask why he hid the order from you."
Elias stepped closer before Malrec could answer. "When did you receive it?"
"The night before he died. A page brought it with one sentence: If the chapel opens, do not trust the first name."
The fourth bloodline rune flickered. Its faint red thread bent toward the Oracle altar, toward the closed iron book, like a child reaching in sleep.
Elias looked from the rune to the signet. The chapel had not been sealed against intruders. It had been sealed around a message no one wanted delivered.
Behind him, the Oracle Codex creaked. Malrec put one hand on its cover as if calming an animal.
Selene saw the movement and smiled without warmth. "Tell me, High Seer. If your god never lies, why did my brother beg me to burn its mouth shut?"