Chapter 53. Promoted Into Exile: A Parade Invitation I Would Like to Decline

Chapter 53: 53. Promoted Into Exile: A Parade Invitation I Would Like to Decline

The knock came after midnight.

I’d been in bed for about an hour, which meant I’d been lying awake staring at the shuttered window and thinking about convoys.

It wasn’t the soft knock of a girlfriend sneaking in with tea. But... It was loud and flat and official, three heavy raps that went straight through the door and into the floor.

I sat up fast, and my ribs reminded me why that was a bad idea.

"Ravenshield," said a voice I knew. "Open up."

It was Sharon.

I swung my legs off the bed, pulled on a shirt, and crossed the room as quickly as I could, and when I opened the door, I found her standing in the hallway with her arms folded and her jaw clenched.

She looked like a woman who’d been holding something in for a very long time.

Behind her... stood Commander Hallis, leaning on his cane, with his gray mustache drooping and a sheet of paper folded in one hand.

His face was drawn and pale, and the lines around his eyes were deeper than they’d been two days ago.

The lamplight made him look about ten years older.

"S-sir...!" I said. "What happened...?"

"May we come in?" said Hallis.

I stepped aside.

They filed into the room, and Alicia and Laura came right behind them, both in nightclothes with cloaks thrown over, both looking like they’d been awake and waiting.

I hadn’t asked them to come... but I’d learned by now that they just knew.

Hallis lowered himself into the desk chair with a groan. He looked at the four of us, and then at Sir Floppington, who was sitting on the desk with his crooked smile, and he blinked.

"I’d rather not ask," he said.

"It’s a long story," I said while looking at Alicia and Laura, who didn’t even dare to look at my face.

"I’m sure..." He unfolded the paper, smoothed it flat on the desk, and sighed. "This arrived at the garrison two hours ago, by courier."

"It’s the Council’s reply to the authorization request."

"Already...?" said Laura. "We were told one or two days!"

"That’s what troubles me."

He slid the letter toward me, and I picked it up and read it, with Alicia leaning over my shoulder.

It was a formal document, written in the flat official language of people who don’t want to be argued with.

It had a heading with the Council’s crest, a date, and three numbered paragraphs, and at the bottom, there was a signature that belonged to a secretary of the Council’s administration office.

No names appeared anywhere except that one... Everything else was stamped.

---

Regarding the petition for authorization to investigate the facility designated Site Nine:

1. The petition is DENIED. Matters of royal logistics fall under the exclusive purview of the Crown’s administration and are not subject to interference by the Royal Knight Order.

2. Any ongoing surveillance of crown-sanctioned shipments is to be TERMINATED IMMEDIATELY. Personnel are to be recalled, and the observation reports are to be surrendered to the Council secretariat.

3. In recognition of their recent service, Royal Knights Roland Ravenshield and Alicia Ainzfield are hereby commissioned to serve as ceremonial escorts at the Founders’ Day procession in the capital. They will depart Elarion within three days.

---

I read it again. And a third time just to make sure.

"Founders’ Day..." I said.

"It’s a parade," said Sharon, who was pacing at the foot of the bed like a caged lion. "A fucking parade."

"They want you to wear white and blue and march down the capital’s main street waving at crowds."

"It’s an honor," said Hallis dryly. "On paper..."

"It’s a transfer."

"It’s a very well-dressed transfer."

"It’s the same thing they did to the others," Sharon snarled. "The ones I told you about!"

"Every knight who asked the wrong questions about those crystal routes got a nice shiny assignment somewhere far from Elarion!"

"A commendation, a promotion, and a ceremonial post... Then a few months later, they disappear off the records!"

"And now... it’s us," said Alicia, very quietly.

"Now it’s the two best things that have happened to this city in ten years," said Sharon, "and somebody wants them out of sight!"

"Sharon," said Hallis.

"No! I’m sorry, but... I’m not going to pretend I’m calm!" She stomped the floor. "I’ve served this kingdom for twenty-four years!"

"I’ve bled for it... I’ve buried friends for it... And some paper-pusher in a high office can’t be bothered to sign his own name to a letter that tells me to stop investigating a crime that nearly killed ten thousand people?!"

She slammed a fist into the wall, and a long crack ran up the plaster. "Excuse me... I’ll pay for that."

"I’ll add it to the list," said Hallis.

I looked at the letter again.

Something about the stamp at the bottom was bothering me, a round red seal of the Council’s secretariat, pressed into the paper in thick, glossy ink.

It wasn’t the symbol itself, but it was the way the border looked. It had a ring around the outside, and the ring wasn’t smooth.

It had tiny notches cut into it, evenly spaced... like the teeth of a gear.

I frowned and tilted the page toward the lamp.

A noise came from the doorway.

It was a soft sound, a kind of squeak, and I looked up to find Eveline standing at the threshold in a long cotton nightgown, with her golden hair loose around her shoulders and her rabbit ears at full alert.

She’d obviously heard the voices from down the hall and come to investigate, and she was clutching the door frame with both hands.

"Is everything—" she started and stopped.

She was staring at the letter in my hand. More precisely, she was staring at the red seal at the bottom of it, and the color was draining out of her face with astonishing speed.

"Eveline?" said Laura, sharply.

"That..." said Eveline, in a tiny, shaking voice. "T-that stamp!"

"What about it?"

"I know it, yes!" She took a step into the room, and then another, and she was trembling. "It was on the crates!"

"The convoy crates are at Greywater!"

"There was a red seal on the side of every box, just beneath the jagged circle... A round one, with little teeth around the edge!"

"I thought it was a shipping mark, and I didn’t think it was important, and I drew the circle, but I... didn’t draw the seal, and..."

Her ears sagged, and her knees began to give.

"It’s exactly the same," she whispered. "It’s the exact same seal!"

Nobody said a word.

Sharon had stopped moving. Hallis had stopped breathing, or so it seemed, and I watched the old man’s face go gray under the lamplight.

Laura’s hand had gone to her sword, even though she wasn’t wearing it. Alicia’s fingers closed around my wrist so tightly that I felt the bones grind.

The Council wasn’t just refusing us. It had stamped its refusal with the same seal that was on the crates.

A panel flashed up in front of my eyes, so bright that I flinched.

[URGENT QUEST UPDATE]

[Quest: Investigate Site Nine]

[New Information Detected.]

[Official Orders Conflict With Quest Objective.]

[Warning: Hostile attention may now be directed at you.]

[Choose wisely, Royal Knight. Or at least choose before the rabbit faints.]

I looked up from the glowing words.

Eveline had gone paper white, and she was swaying where she stood with her hand pressed against her mouth, her eyes rolling slightly toward the ceiling.

Laura lunged for her, and I’m fairly sure she caught her about half a second before her knees hit the floor.

I stood there holding the council’s letter, a stuffed rabbit’s crooked grin watching me from the desk, and three days left on a clock that somebody else had wound.

’Well,’ I thought, as Sharon swore in four different languages and Hallis slowly lowered his head into his hands.

’So much for getting some sleep tonight...’

’Fucking hell...’