I Copy the Authorities of the Four Calamities

The accusation came three days after the well.

Vane had started to wonder whether Meridine could survive a moment of peace without immediately finding a reason to distrust it.

The shared repair had been small. Almost insignificant compared to fifteen years of division. Two people from opposite sides had cleared a collapsed channel together, and for one afternoon, the town had watched water return without asking who deserved credit for it.

Three days later, that fragile progress cracked.

The letter was found among the belongings of one of Maren's own scouts.

It was addressed to an Imperial contact.

Worse, it contained patrol movements that only someone inside Maren's council should have known.

By the time the six heard about it, the story had already spread through both halves of the town.

Rurik's people called it proof.

They had spent years listening to Maren condemn Imperial informants, and now one had apparently been found among her own.

Maren's people called it a plant.

Someone, they said, had created the letter specifically to make Maren look like a hypocrite just as the town had begun to listen to her warnings with something less than absolute certainty.

The scout himself had been confined to his house.

His own neighbors guarded the door.

He was protesting his innocence, but according to what Vane heard, nobody currently had the patience to decide whether that innocence was real.

By the time the party reached Maren's granary, the atmosphere inside was already tense enough to snap.

"Show me the letter," Valerica said immediately.

Maren hesitated.

Vane noticed it because he had never seen her hesitate before.

Then she reached beneath the table, removed a folded sheet, and placed it between them.

The paper looked ordinary.

That was the first thing that bothered him.

Valerica picked it up.

She read it once.

Then again.

She turned it slightly toward the light before laying it flat.

For several seconds, she said nothing.

"This is wrong."

Ashe leaned over the table.

"Wrong how?"

"The hand."

Valerica pointed toward the first line.

"Look at the letter-forms."

Maren stepped closer.

Valerica continued, her finger hovering above the ink without touching it.

"Whoever wrote this was trying to imitate someone else's handwriting. They were careful. Very careful."

She moved to the next line.

"But not careful enough."

She indicated two characters.

"Here. And here."

Vane leaned closer.

"The pressure?"

"Yes."

Valerica tapped the air above the page.

"The pressure changes in the middle of the word, then changes again. Twice. A person's natural hand doesn't usually do that. When you write your own handwriting, the movement is automatic. You don't consciously reconstruct every angle and stroke."

She looked at Maren.

"This was copied."

Maren's expression tightened.

"You're certain?"

There was something beneath the question.

Hope, perhaps.

Small enough that Maren seemed determined not to let anyone see it.

Valerica considered her answer carefully.

"Certain enough to say this wasn't written the way a real letter gets written."

She set the page down.

"Whether that means it is a forgery intended to frame your scout, or whether someone is attempting something more complicated, I can't tell yet."

Maren absorbed that.

"Who found it?"

"One of Rurik's people," she said. "A supply runner. He found it in a drop near the checkpoint."

"Convenient," Isole said.

The word was quiet.

Maren glanced at her.

"I thought the same."

There was no defensiveness in the admission.

Only exhaustion.

"I noticed it," Maren continued, "and then I told myself that noticing something suspicious wasn't the same as being entitled to accuse someone of arranging it."

Her eyes dropped to the letter.

"Given how often I've been accused of seeing enemies everywhere, I thought I should be careful."

Vane looked at the paper again.

The timing bothered him too.

But he had learned enough about Meridine to know that timing was often where the danger hid.

Nyx had been silent since they entered.

She stood near the window, head tilted slightly, listening.

Valerica noticed.

"So?"

Nyx didn't answer immediately.

Then she said, "There's a texture to this I don't like."

Ashe looked toward her.

"The letter?"

"No."

Nyx's gaze remained distant.

"The timing."

She turned back toward them.

"Three days after the well."

Mara stopped writing.

Nyx continued.

"Right after both sides had one small reason to trust each other."

Her expression sharpened.

"I don't have proof. I have a feeling that something is paying close attention to moments like that."

"Something?" Ashe asked.

Nyx gave her a look.

"You know what I mean."

Ashe did.

"Someone doing this on purpose?"

"I think so."

Nyx folded her arms.

"Or something is using people who already want to do it."

Nobody spoke.

Nyx continued, slower now.

"History repeating itself doesn't usually have this good a sense of timing."

Her voice held none of its usual dry humor.

"I could be wrong."

She glanced around the table.

"I'd rather say that now and be wrong than watch it happen twice more before anyone takes the possibility seriously."

Maren remained still.

Then she sat down.

Her fingers rested against the edge of the table.

"If someone wanted this wall to remain standing forever," she said, "they wouldn't need to make either side trust the Empire."

Isole looked at her.

"They'd only need both sides to distrust their own evidence."

Maren nodded.

"To make every accusation impossible to dismiss and every denial impossible to accept."

Valerica looked toward the letter.

"Yes."

"That would make every peace temporary."

"And every mistake useful," Mara added.

She had been sketching the forged handwriting in her notes throughout the discussion.

Now she held the page up.

"Whoever did this had time."

Valerica looked over.

Mara pointed toward the copied forms.

"Several of these strokes are too consistent. They practiced them. A lot."

"How much time?" Vane asked.

"Weeks."

Mara's answer came immediately.

"Probably longer."

She returned to her notes.

"You don't learn someone else's handwriting this closely in an afternoon."

Valerica nodded.

"No. You don't."

The room fell quiet again.

Nobody said the word.

Imperial.

They didn't need to.

Vane could feel the thought settle over all six of them anyway.

Perhaps an Imperial agent had arranged it.

Perhaps someone in Meridine wanted the two halves fighting again.

Perhaps the Empire itself had noticed what was beginning to happen here.

Or perhaps all of them were simply looking for a larger enemy because the idea of this being an ordinary act of betrayal was harder to stomach after the well.

Maren finally reached for the letter.

Then stopped.

She looked at Valerica.

"Find out who wrote this."

Valerica raised an eyebrow.

"Properly?"

"Properly."

Maren's voice hardened.

"No assumptions. No convenient conclusion because it helps my side."

She looked around the room.

"I'll give you access to the council records. Supply manifests. Old correspondence. Anything you need."

That drew a brief silence.

Those records had been closely guarded for years.

"You trust us with that?" Vane asked.

Maren looked at him.

"No."

A beat passed.

"I'm trusting that we have reached the point where refusing to trust anyone is more dangerous."

That was different.

And somehow more honest.

Maren folded her hands.

"If this is a forgery, I need to know. If one of my people really betrayed us, I need to know that too."

Her expression remained controlled.

"But if I'm going to keep believing what I see with my own eyes…"

She looked down at the letter.

"I'd rather know now whether those eyes are actually mine to trust."

No one answered.

Outside, beyond the granary walls, Meridine continued dividing itself by old wounds.

For the first time since they arrived, Vane wondered whether someone had been counting on that.

And whether the letter had been written for Maren's scout at all.

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