The Gilded Courier

The queen’s final words were still burning in your ears when the first guard died.

It happened in the stairwell of the east tower, the one that spiraled down past the old archives where the dust hung thick enough to choke on. You’d pulled the body into the shadows without thinking, the map crinkling against your ribs, the contract pressed flat under your belt. The man’s blood was still warm on your hands, seeping between your fingers, and his eyes had that startled look of a man who’d been paid to die for a secret he never knew.

You should have stayed invisible.

But invisible didn’t save you from the queen’s dying confession, or the weight of the parchment now sewn into your doublet. Below, the great oak doors of the Ivory Court boomed open. Voices echoed up the stone, sharp as broken glass.

“Find her! She has the queen’s seal!”

You pressed your back against the cold stone, breath shallow. The tower smelled of rain and old blood, and somewhere far below, the city of the desperate sprawled like a living wound. Three days. The queen’s daughter, Seraphine, was the only one who could read the contract’s final line. The only one who could claim the treasure that every house would kill for.

And you were the only one who knew the truth.

Your hand drifted to the dagger at your hip, the tremble barely contained. Footsteps clattered on the stairs below. Fast. Coming closer.