The old snake

He came in limping.

Old bones. Older guilt.

He still wore the silver pin of House Elbrandt — a serpent curled around a rose. Disgusting, really. Poison wrapped in perfume.

"Lady…?" he said cautiously, voice low.

I didn't tell him my name. I didn't remove the mask.

Let them keep guessing.

"You served House Elbrandt," I said, seated like I owned the dusk-lit parlor we met in. "For how many years?"

"Forty-six," he replied, hand resting on the back of the chair across from me. "I buried three lords. Raised the fourth."

"And betrayed how many?"

He flinched — barely. But I saw it.

> Guilt never leaves a man's spine. It just settles there like dust.

---

He sat down. His fingers trembled as he poured tea neither of us would drink.

"What do you want from me?"

I leaned forward, slowly. "Truth."

"I don't know who you are."

I smiled under the mask. "You will."

---

I laid a small letter on the table — faded, creased. The crest still burned faintly on the wax.

He stared.

> "Where did you get that?"

"It was sealed in my father's blood."

He looked up at me then. And I saw it — recognition. Not of my face, but of something deeper.

My voice.

The way I held the room.

> The ghost of a house he thought was erased.

---

"I was told your House died in the fire," he whispered. "All of them… even the girl."

I leaned in closer.

"That's the mistake, isn't it?" I said softly.

> "You never check if ghosts have lungs."

---

He sat back, pale. "If you came for revenge—"

I raised a hand. "I came for information. What you did… can wait."

A long silence passed.

Then he spoke.

"There's something you need to know," he rasped. "Something even the Crown doesn't understand."

I narrowed my eyes. "Go on."

And what he said next made me grip the edge of my chair.

Because it wasn't about my House.

> It was about the Crown Prince.

And a deal struck in secret… the day my family died