Chapter 138: The Dragonkin Hunter Demands Evidence

By morning, Rhyvara had brought more paper than patience.

The folded survivor report sat on top of a closed packet at her end of the dining table, its crease already softened from being opened too many times. Patrol sheets and route notes remained underneath. She hadn’t spread any of them out yet.

Severin took the short end nearest the front hall. Alicia took her place 1 step back, offset to his right.

Rhyvara had tied her deep garnet hair back for the road. Morning light caught the warm-gold undertone of her pale skin and traced the edges of the 2 compact horns rising from her crown. Her molten-gold eyes went straight to Severin.

"The body," she said.

No greeting. Better.

Marienne hadn’t reached the room yet, so the first answer belonged to Severin alone. "You won’t get one."

Rhyvara’s jaw shifted. "Because?"

"There isn’t a body I can produce."

"Buried? Burned? Lost?"

"I’m not explaining the method."

She let the silence stretch, then planted her palm on the packet. "Then you’ve left the largest hole in your own story."

"I know."

That bothered her more than an excuse would have. "I examined the patrol dead myself. I checked the weapons with them, and this packet stayed in my chain from that inspection to this table. If I’m expected to judge your missing body against anything, it starts there."

A precise claim.

Severin narrowed Deception Trace to exactly what she’d said. The Copy moved through the statement without changing the room around him. No flare, no whisper, no deliberate twist in the part she claimed as her own.

Rhyvara could still be wrong. Someone upstream could have fed her bad evidence. But she was telling the truth about what she’d personally examined and kept in her hands.

"Fine," Severin said. "Start with what you can test."

Her eyes narrowed. "Dates. Where each piece came from. Anyone who actually saw what you’re claiming happened."

Footsteps crossed the front hall before he had to call for Marienne.

She entered with a slim stack of numbered copies against her hip. The mild soreness left from the previous night hadn’t shortened her stride. She placed the pages near the center of the table and kept her fingertips on them.

"Original books stay with me," Marienne said. "These are the pages relevant to his answer. If you want another entry, ask for it."

Rhyvara glanced from the stack to Severin. "She sets the terms for your records?"

"Her books. Her call."

Marienne’s mouth almost curved.

Severin rested a hand on the chair beside him without sitting. "I’ll give you facts you can verify. My private methods stay private."

"Convenient boundary."

"Useful."

Rhyvara pulled the first numbered page toward herself. She didn’t read it aloud. Dates, seal references, witness marks. Her eyes moved quickly, looking for breaks rather than trying to memorize everything.

Marienne waited across from her until Rhyvara stopped on an entry. "This is the recovered case."

"The empty case is still under a hunt seal in Copperglass," Marienne said. "The contents were counted before witnesses. Coin and transferable bearer notes. Nothing else."

"And the original seal?"

"Its condition was recorded before I broke it."

Rhyvara looked up. "Recorded as what?"

"The same seal work found on the route case from that operation." Marienne paused before Rhyvara could build more from it. "That ties this case to what we recovered. It doesn’t tell you who first sealed it."

Rhyvara’s thumb stopped on the page. Her gaze shifted to Severin. "You let her correct you like that?"

"When she’s right."

"Most men with people under their roof prefer agreement."

"Most men waste good people."

Her attention stayed on him after the answer ended. Not long, but long enough.

Alicia shifted 1/2 step closer on Severin’s right. She didn’t interrupt or look at Rhyvara. She simply removed some of the empty space beside him.

Rhyvara noticed, then returned to the paper. "Similar seal work appears in my packet. That still isn’t enough to call it the same hand."

"It isn’t," Marienne said.

Rhyvara reached inside her field coat and took out a small wrapped piece. She unfolded the cloth on her side of the table. A damaged insignia lay inside, its face carrying a mark that had survived scraping and heat.

"Recovered with the patrol evidence," she said. "I sealed it after examination and carried it here myself. No clerk between me and this table."

Now Severin had a physical mark and a question the Skill could actually answer.

Unveiled Reality settled through his attention. The insignia didn’t glow, and no hidden name surfaced in the metal. Scraping crossed the original work. Heat had roughened an edge. Beneath both, the surviving mark carried alteration that wasn’t ordinary wear.

Forged.

No maker came with it. No motive. Nothing connected the altered mark to a larger network. Severin let the Skill end there.

Rhyvara was watching his face. "You found something."

"The mark was altered. That’s the limit of what I’m giving you."

"That’s your limit?"

"It’s what the evidence supports."

A little tension left her mouth. Not trust. Recognition.

She wrapped the insignia again and moved to the next page. "Your close guard. The Cat Beastkin. She was present for Vardren?"

Alicia’s ears tipped forward. Severin looked over his shoulder. "Ask her."

Rhyvara turned. "Tell me exactly what you saw."

Alicia didn’t glance at Severin for help. "I saw Master fight him."

"Start there."

"Vardren attacked. Master stopped him."

Rhyvara waited for more. Alicia didn’t supply it.

"That’s all?" the Dragonkin asked.

"That’s what you asked."

Marienne lowered her eyes to the copies, hiding something that might have been amusement.

Rhyvara tried a narrower question. "Did you see Vardren die?"

"I saw him lose the fight. I didn’t see what happened after Master took control of him."

"Did Morcant tell you he was dead?"

Alicia finally glanced at Severin. "Master told us what we needed to know."

"You dodged the question."

"Then no. I didn’t hear Master explain his death to me."

Rhyvara studied her. "Do you know where the body went?"

"I don’t know."

Simple. No guess offered just because a stranger wanted the gap filled.

Severin left the answer untouched. Rhyvara’s gaze returned to him briefly, then dropped to the copies.

She reached the next route note. "This doesn’t match the handoff described here."

"Because the person who gave us that route wasn’t present for the handoff," Nyra said from the doorway.

Rhyvara turned as Nyra stepped inside, smoke-black ears angled toward the table. Nyra stopped at the north side until Severin gave her a small nod.

Rhyvara tapped the line. "Then who was?"

"Not a name you’re getting."

"Convenient. Again."

Nyra’s mouth pulled slightly sideways. "You keep using that word when you mean irritating."

"I can use both."

"Good. Saves time."

Rhyvara’s eyes hardened, but Nyra was already looking at the copy rather than her. "The source saw the cart enter the lower route and watched it leave empty later. They weren’t under the tannery. Didn’t know who waited inside. Didn’t know Vardren."

"What did they know?"

"Where the cart disappeared from public sight. Which route signs stopped working after the lower operation broke. Which old handoffs went dead."

Rhyvara leaned over the page. "You checked any of that yourself?"

"Some. The route existed. The public sightline checks. The cart timing can be matched." Nyra tapped the copied line with a nail. "Who controlled the route? That’s the source’s conclusion, not mine."

"You won’t give me the source."

"Not happening."

"Even with Dragonkin dead?"

Nyra’s ears angled back. "Especially when people are dead."

They held each other’s gaze for a beat. Rhyvara pushed the copy aside first.

"Fine. I can work with a protected source. I can’t work with something you made up."

"Then don’t confuse them."

Severin almost smiled.

Rhyvara caught it. "You enjoy this."

"Useful friction? Yes."

"That explains your household."

"Part of it."

A light knock came from the open doorway. Saelith entered after Severin looked over. She carried no papers.

Rhyvara slid a route sheet across the table and indicated a bend west of a secondary road. "This report says the Beast movement bent south before reaching the crossing. Another account says it broke east. Which version survives the ground?"

Saelith bent over the sheet, storm-gray eyes following the marked line. "Neither, if those marks came from the same herd."

Rhyvara’s fingers stilled. "Why?"

"Water." Saelith tapped the lower side of the bend. "The south cut runs dry this late unless rain fills it. It hadn’t. A loose pack can still cross, but not in the pattern I found. The tracks tightened before the dry channel, then widened after the road. Something made them choose that road before the channel forced them to."

"Bait?"

"Could be. Pressure from behind could do it too. I found enough disturbance to make ordinary wandering unlikely. Not enough to tell you what pushed them."

Rhyvara pulled another sheet closer. "And this east break?"

"Better ground. Better water. If they were wandering, that’s the easier line. They didn’t take it."

"So someone shaped the choice."

Saelith looked up. "Something did. Someone is possible. I didn’t find a name in the mud."

Rhyvara’s mouth tightened. "You all enjoy stopping a sentence before certainty."

"Certainty doesn’t improve because you want it sooner."

That held the room for a moment.

Rhyvara looked back down. "Patrol deaths. Forged marks. Beast movement. Dead routes." Her voice had gone slower. "How much of this has already hurt people who weren’t part of the game?"

Severin looked toward the hall.

Tressa had been waiting only long enough to hear the question. She came in with her sleeves down and her hair tied back, no bandages or medicine in her hands.

"Enough," she said.

Rhyvara turned toward her. "You’re the healer?"

"When somebody needs healing."

"The tannery wounded were yours?"

"I treated 2 of them. They’re stable this morning. They don’t need me standing over them while they sleep."

Rhyvara nodded. "What did you actually treat?"

Tressa’s expression flattened slightly. "People locked downstairs. A man who needed stitching. A woman who needed pressure, warmth, and a bed. They were hurt badly enough that I kept them close instead of sending them with the others."

"Deaths?"

"Not in my room."

"From the route fighting?"

"I don’t have enough to give you that number."

Rhyvara glanced at a patrol page. "Then the civilian losses are still incomplete."

Tressa looked at the paper, then back at her. "The man needed stitching. The woman couldn’t walk out on her own. Call that a loss if it helps you. I call it what happened to them."

The room quieted.

Tressa’s jaw moved once, as if she’d nearly said more and decided the facts were enough. "You wanted what I know. That’s what I know."

Rhyvara didn’t bristle. "Fair."

Tressa looked to Severin. "If you’re done with me, I’m going back."

"Go."

She left without waiting for anyone else. Nyra drifted back toward the doorway after her; Saelith moved away from the table. Marienne stayed because the copies were still hers.

Severin looked over what remained: Rhyvara’s packet, Marienne’s numbered pages, the wrapped insignia, route notes, patrol timing, what each witness actually knew, and a death he knew had happened but couldn’t prove in the way Rhyvara wanted.

He opened Thousand-Thread Mind.

His attention divided. 1,000 lines of thought spread through what was actually in front of him.

Some threads followed dates into routes. Others tracked who had handled each seal, laid Rhyvara’s patrol notes over Saelith’s terrain, or tested what Nyra’s source had actually seen against the survivor report. Tressa’s casualties pulled the tannery timing back into the same morning. Vardren’s known movement ended inside Severin’s chain, but the surrounding pattern didn’t end with him.

Several threads kept trying to force a clean answer with the same organizer behind every route and every motive. Severin killed those branches. The evidence didn’t give him that.

Across the table, Rhyvara pulled 3 sheets into a rough line, then separated the survivor report from them.

"I’ve been asking the wrong question."

Marienne reclaimed the page Rhyvara had finished with. "Which question?"

"Where Vardren went."

"He’s still dead," Severin said.

Rhyvara gave him a hard look. "And you still have no body."

"Correct."

"I hate that answer."

"You don’t need to like it."

She let out a slow breath. "No. I need to know whether it stops me moving. It doesn’t."

Severin let Thousand-Thread Mind close. The divided lines fell away, leaving a room, a table, and people with incomplete answers.

Rhyvara tapped the patrol report with her fingertip. "Vardren being dead explains a missing Rank A. It doesn’t explain forged marks. It doesn’t explain patrols being sent where they shouldn’t be. It doesn’t explain Beast packs choosing bad ground, or why dead criminal routes are suddenly worth information again."

Nyra paused at the doorway. "Now you’re asking something useful."

Rhyvara ignored the jab. Her words came faster now, stripped down to decisions. "If Beastkin believe Dragonkin patrols are pushing packs toward their roads, they’ll answer. If Dragonkin find their own people dead near Beastkin movement, they’ll answer harder. Roads empty. Claims lose guards. Cargo stops. Somebody buys access cheap while everyone else is busy bleeding."

Marienne’s eyes sharpened. "Or takes claims that can’t hold their crews."

"Exactly."

Rhyvara looked at Severin. "I don’t trust your missing body."

"Good."

She paused. "Good?"

"Trust what holds up."

A faint, humorless smile touched her mouth and vanished. "You really do run your house that way."

"When they’re right, I listen."

For a heartbeat, her attention became more personal than the papers between them. Then she looked down again.

"I’ll work with you until this is stopped," Rhyvara said. "As long as the next piece holds up as well as these did."

"That’s enough."

Marienne gathered the numbered copies into order and returned the full stack to her side of the table. Alicia stayed beside Severin.

Boots crossed the front hall at a quick pace.

An ordinary yard runner appeared at the east-front doorway with a sealed slip. He stopped at the threshold. "For Hunter Kordren. South gate passed it in from a field runner."

Rhyvara was already moving. "Give it here."

The runner crossed only far enough to place the slip in her hand, then backed out.

Rhyvara broke the seal with her thumb and scanned the message. Her eyes stopped. Her jaw hardened while the rest of her stayed controlled.

Severin waited. "What?"

She read the final line again. "Dragonkin patrol. Dead."

Saelith’s attention sharpened near the doorway.

Rhyvara laid the opened slip on top of her packet, broken seal beside it, then pulled a route note from underneath. Her fingertip found an assignment line she already knew.

"They weren’t assigned to that road."

Nobody spoke for a beat.

When Rhyvara looked up at Severin, the question about Vardren was gone from her face.

"Now we move."