Chapter 86: Proof of Life

Some warnings arrive loudly. This one waits until everyone is listening.

The pursuit collides with the chancellor who plans to trade the kingdom for a crown, forcing an alliance that neither Prince Lucan Grey nor Captain Mira Holt is ready to name.

The evidence survives, but reaching it requires a choice that exposes the group to a new enemy.

Prince Lucan Grey keeps the larger goal in view: turn farmers, smugglers, and defeated soldiers into a defense no empire expects. The immediate problem is smaller, sharper, and impossible to postpone.

They disagree without leaving. For both of them, that becomes a more intimate choice than agreement.

Their attraction grows through competence, danger, and the first honest confession.

The recurring signs of battle maps, iron, ravens return with a different meaning, linking this choice to what came before.

The evidence points toward someone they have both been protecting.