3 Days later
Commander Cassandra has reached Caldemount. It was her duty to be present there while K.P.P does the enquiry. She brought Colins with her too. It would be easy for him to go into the sneaky business Cassandra has told him to do.
Now she is kept in the K.P.P headquarters. Where other are too.
At the same time, after hearing the news that Commander has arrived, Solis paced the edges of the chamber before he was softly ushered in. The air tasted like iron. He had been questioned; his brow still carried a thin sheen of sweat. Ada walked beside him, jaw tight, expression streaked with the raw indignation of someone scandalized by injustice.
They entered the room.
"Commander," Solis said, voice low, "I want to help. I saw Raz. She looked—" He hesitated. "She did not look like a traitor."
Cassandra's gaze was steady. "Solis. Sit. You've seen a portion of this book. Do not overreach. We will want your testimony and testimony from others. We will compile the timeline."
"You'll have it," Solis promised.
But what he wanted — what he felt gnawing in his chest — was not only to prove Razille's innocence. He wanted to know why she had returned, why she would hand a parcel at the heart of the city. He sensed, like a bruise, that Razille's motives were complicated — somewhere between duty and something darker.
As the Postknight leadership moved into strategy, the K.P.P. moved more aggressively through the city. Checkpoints sprouted; loyal citizens lined up to voice concern; the rumor mill churned with the cruelty of suspicion. Orsic's influence mounted. He positioned himself in the right places for public view — assuring merchants, speaking to nobles, and reminding the palace that the K.P.P. had acted decisively.
Inside the Hall, Cassandra leaned close to Colins after the meeting had broken and murmured, "Take Bronn and be careful. If this is more than a curiosity — if it's a plan to turn us into the enemy — then the people behind it will have power and patience."
Colins smiled, but his eyes were serious. "I'll do the digging, sis. No problem. I'll start at Razille's last known movements and then move outward. Who could have arranged for a parcel to be given to the princess? Who had access to her pathways? Who benefited by turning public opinion?"
Cassandra's hand brushed his arm. "Be subtle, brother. People will watch where you poke."
Meanwhile, the Postknight center of morale flapped in the wind. Private conversations whispered of recruitment stalls going quiet, of shops canceling contracts, and of once-friendly lords instructing their men to avoid employing Postknight escorts. Old friends kept their distance. The unit's daily duties — deliveries, escort details, rescues — stalled under the weight of doubt.
Ada refused to be passive. She stormed from the meeting and began organizing small neighborhood patrols of volunteers to show their continued usefulness in simple ways—helping in the markets, assisting with blocked carts, tending to minor road emergencies. She gathered signatures from citizens who trusted them — grandmothers who had once received medicine from a Postknight, bakers whose carts they had defended. It was small — public relations by hand — but it was something.
Solis volunteered for the dirty work: he accompanied couriers on low-risk runs and made sure every delivery was flawless. He met every stare as he crossed the streets; he took the whispers and turned them into fuel. But in the quiet hours he replayed Razille's face: slender profile, eyes that had asked him, in a single instant that afternoon, something he could not answer.
Almond retreated into a silence that was uncharacteristic and unnerving. His swagger had been the kind of brittle thing that broke in blunt light. In the mess hall he sat alone, stirring a bowl of stew as if trying to keep his hands busy to keep his thoughts from escaping into complaint. He had always wanted prestige; now the prestige he craved sat ash-smeared and tarnished on the ground.
Seraphine, for her part, walked in a different cadence. She answered K.P.P. questions without flinching. She rallied teams to clean the hall's public image.
Cassandra, who had for years walked the line between commander and surrogate mother to many in that hall, watched her unit's faces and felt the familiar ache of responsibility tighten into fear. She would not let their legacy be smashed on the steps of a falsehood.
That evening, she called in a closed council: Colins, Devon, Seraphine, and the few she trusted most. "We will not be reactive," she said to them with a slow, fierce clarity. "We will be methodical. Coulins will lead the field investigation. Devon will coordinate safety and logistics. Seraphine will oversee internal conduct and transparency. I will speak to the palace only when necessary. Is that clear to everyone?"
Devon, who had always spoken with the blunt economy of a man who had bled and taught and survived, nodded. "We need access — Razille's K.P.P. report, her bindings, any surveillance. Find out who was in the merchant stalls that day. Find out who placed the chairs, who blocked any alleys."
Colins said nothing for a long moment. "I'll start at Razille. If she's being framed, there will be a trace — a hand that placed the parcel, a ledger, a witness who craves coin." He glanced at Bronn, who stood in the corner, eyes bright with that young soldier's hunger for action.
Cassandra nodded. "Do it quietly. The K.P.P. will not like us poking around their custody — but if we move with caution, we can turn the tide."
The next morning, Colins left with Bronn at his heels. He carried with him the weight of the Postknights' reputation and the lean certainty of a man who had cut through lies before. Cassandra watched them go, hands folded low.
Solis stayed on the sidelines and watched Colins mount his horse. The world had narrowed to a simple set of rules: find the truth, protect the innocent, clear their name. He felt the sword at his back like a promise and a threat at once.
At dusk, when the day had worn the anger thin and replaced it with a steady ache, Cassandra sat alone in her quarters and let the exhaustion come. She had loved this unit as much as any child. Now it was under siege. She tried to imagine Razille's bowed head at her arrest — no resistance, no scream, only the clack of manacles — and felt the edges of her confidence fray.
The public would clamor for a fall. The palace would accept Orsic's counsel and tighten the reins. The Postknights would be set on the defensive, their message pre-empted by fear.
Cassandra laid a small file on her desk and opened it. Razille's training logs, earlier mission reports, letters she'd left behind. A patch of notes was blank where someone had torn documentation away. Someone wanted a narrative without the holes being visible.
She pressed her fingers to her temples and whispered, almost to herself, "Find the thread. Follow it. We cannot let rumor be our enemy."