The baying grew louder, closer. Ignac pulled back, staring hard at the oak crossbars of the barricade. Sabina, still reeling, pushed herself back, snatching her discarded chemise from the floor. “The hounds,” Ignac said, dragging his tunic over his head. “The balcony trail gave them the line.” He pointed to the frost-rimed window. “They will reach the yard in minutes.” “Minutes aren’t enough,” Sabina said, tightening the linen binding across her chest until the weave bit bone. “Drifts are knee-deep. Running leaves a furrow. This timber box is a pen.” “Then we force them through the jamb,” Ignac said, kicking a heavy ironwood chest across the planks to seal the threshold. The thud reverberated through the small space. He gestured at the window. “Help me.” Together, they hauled down a cured bear hide and jammed it into the window casing. A pine trestle table, two benches, and split birch logs followed, wedged tight beneath the latches. Cedar timbers groaned against the snow squall. “They will bring torches,” Sabina said, voice level. “Or wait us out.” Ignac pulled the Black Ledger from inside his wool greatcoat. “We read the book first. Have you got the key sheet?” Sabina took the rolled parchment from her coat lining. She spread it out across the scarred wood, showing the numerical sequences and rune grid. “The key matches the masquerade letter. My past hand set down the translation.” Outside, dog claws scraped furiously against the lower sill. Ignac looked down at the parchment grid, then flipped open the ledger’s iron clasp, pointing to an embossed raven signet. “The uncle's seal. This is no standard registry.” He turned to a leaf stained with dark reddish residue. “Nor standard gall.” “Iron and hemmed blood,” Sabina said, dragging the sheet toward the hearth fire. “The script appears only when baked dry.” The hearth flames brought copper-red glyphs creeping through the parchment fibers. Ignac ran his dagger tip along the margins, matching characters against the translation sheet. “Northern garrison notations. And the numerical strings?” “Deployment orders,” Sabina said, tracking the row with a thumbnail. “‘7-3-Kravos’ marks the Seventh Legion, Third Cohort at the northern defile. Every line is a troop maneuver.” The pack outside quieted to low throat-snarls and persistent scratching. Between gusts of wind, Sabina copied coordinates and verified sigils against the roster. “My uncle routed grain and iron away from the border forts,” Sabina said, tracing a crimson row. “He concentrated three regiments near the Citadel perimeter. The Inheritance Ceremony tomorrow is not a trial.” Ignac looked closer. “What does the order dictate?” “The slaughter of the royal box,” Sabina answered. “The uncle intends to butcher the Crown Prince and seize the regency. The rival heirs are decoys to hold the guard's attention.” A crash shattered the woodshed wall. Pine laths splintered outward, snow swirling through the breach. Antonin Krest scrambled through the wreckage, soot across his cheek, gesturing toward a hooded travel coach idling in the whiteout behind him. “Move, both of you!” Antonin shouted over the storm. “The hounds have the front porch surrounded!” A sulfur flare sputtered against the pines, casting red light across a dozen coats bearing the Volkov crest. Ignac gripped Sabina's sleeve, shoving her toward the coach door. “Krest, how did you slip the perimeter?” “You owe me twenty gold sovereigns, Sabin,” Antonin barked, heaving a pouch of blasting powder toward the cabin door. From the dark treeline, an iron dart whistled through the flurry, angling for Sabina’s throat. Antonin lunged sideways, driving his shoulder into Sabina's chest to knock her across the coach floorboards. The dart struck the side of his throat with a wet thud. His breath broke on a dry gasp; his fingers clamped over the steel barb as his knees buckled over the threshold. “Antonin,” Sabina said, dropping her weight to pin his shoulder down. She tore linen from her shirt cuff and jammed it against the puncture. “Hold still.” “Saved your neck, you wretched bastard,” Antonin wheezed, skin turning ash-gray beneath the soot. “Drive!” he spat toward the driver's bench. The whip cracked; the team lunged forward into a hard gallop. Ignac tumbled inside, slamming the coach door behind him. “Viper venom. We excise the flesh now.” He drew a skinning knife. Sabina wedged Antonin’s jaw between her palms while Ignac slit the skin around the barb. Antonin choked out a scream, thrashing against her grip, but she held his skull flush against the bench as wheels rattled over frozen stone. Sabina rummaged through Ignac’s coat, searching for anything to staunch the blood, anything to pack the wound. Her fingers hit a scrap of heavy parchment folded inside a bandage roll. Sabina lifted it toward the lantern light to check the weave, but the stroke of the ink stopped her. The angular serifs, the precise slant of the numerals, the exact flourishes matched the hidden letters and the key sheet she had used since waking. But the hand was not hers. It was Ignac's drafting script. The partial sentence laid out a contingency: *Construct heir identity; direct subject toward Citadel archives.* The letters she thought she had left for herself were forged. Ignac had written every word, shaping her purpose, manufacturing her vengeful crusade to point an amnesiac weapon at his targets.

The Winter Siege