Chapter 440. They Realized Waiting Isn’t Enough, They Want to Control the Outcome

Chapter 440: 440. They Realized Waiting Isn’t Enough, They Want to Control the Outcome

The thunderous crash had barely stopped echoing when the silence was shattered by the panicked shouts of palace staff. Boots hammered against stone as guards, servants, and maintenance workers came sprinting toward the training yard, their faces pale masks of alarm.

They skidded to a halt at the edge of the debris field, staring at the pulverized beam and the crater of splintered wood with wide, horrified eyes.

Several of them immediately began an anxious, frantic inspection of the remaining scaffolding, their voices rising in heated, nervous murmurs as they checked for further signs of collapse.

William ignored them all. To him, their panic was background noise, white noise that couldn’t drown out the screaming realization in his mind.

He held Kaela for several long moments longer, refusing to release her until he was certain the shock hadn’t left her physically compromised.

His hand moved in slow, grounding circles over her back, feeling the frantic, rabbit-like flutter of her heartbeat gradually begin to slow beneath his palm.

He needed to make sure she wasn’t bleeding beneath her training leathers, that she wasn’t concussed, and that she was present.

"I’m alright," she said finally, though the words sounded fragile, like spun glass.

She pulled back just an inch, though she kept her hands pressed against his chest as if he were the only solid thing left in a crumbling world. "I’m alright, Instructor Wade."

"You... you caught me. You actually caught me."

"I did," William said.

His voice was quiet, almost conversational, but it carried the terrifying weight of a tombstone. There was no relief in his tone. No gratitude that they had escaped.

Only a cold, hollow satisfaction that his instincts had been right. "But I want you to understand something, Kaela... Something very clearly."

Kaela’s breathing was steadying, but her eyes remained fixed on his, searching. "What is it?"

"That beam did not fail on its own," William said.

His gaze shifted toward the wreckage, his pupils narrowing as he mentally dissected the splinter patterns, the way the wood had sheared away from its iron bolts. "Wood doesn’t just choose to shatter like that..."

"Iron doesn’t just decide to snap... This was calculated."

Kaela pulled back further, the last vestiges of her shock dissolving into a dawning, terrible comprehension. The color drained from her face as she looked at the twisted remains of the structure, then back to William.

"You think someone did this deliberately... You think this was..."

"An assassination attempt," William finished for her.

The words hung between them like a guillotine blade.

"But why?" she whispered, her voice cracking. "Why would they risk this now?"

"The wedding is weeks away... The treaty is almost sealed."

"Why escalate to this?"

William’s jaw tightened. His inner mind was already cataloguing the possibilities: ’Was it a test of her security? A warning to her father?’

’Or was it simply that they couldn’t afford to wait for the wedding that they needed her dead before she could become an obstacle?’

"Because they’re impatient," William said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper that seemed to vibrate in the very air between them. "Because they’ve realized that waiting for the ’asset’ to be secured isn’t enough anymore."

"They want to control the outcome, and sometimes, the easiest way to control an outcome is to remove the variable entirely."

He reached out, his gloved hand cupping her cheek. His touch was gentle, but his eyes were the eyes of a man who had just accepted a declaration of war.

"I want you to understand something, Kaela," he said, each word measured and absolute. "Given everything we have uncovered—the bribes, the grain, the Prince’s true nature—I am done believing in coincidences."

"From this moment forward, I am no longer willing to assume anything happens by accident around you."

"If something falls, it was thrown."

"If something breaks, it was struck... And if someone tries to touch you again..."

His grip on her shoulder tightened slightly, not enough to hurt, but enough to convey the lethal promise beneath his words.

"...they will find out exactly what happens when they try to break something that belongs to me."

The evening air was thick with a preternatural stillness, as if the palace itself were holding its breath, waiting for the next catastrophe to strike.

In William’s makeshift investigation room, a dimly lit chamber lined with stolen ledgers and hastily scribbled notes, the only sound was the guttering flame of a single candle.

When Olivia entered, the door didn’t swing open with her usual confident stride. Instead, it creaked open slowly, as if she were carrying something fragile and dangerous.

The playful spark that usually danced in her eyes had been extinguished, replaced by a hollow, grim focus that made her appear years older. Her face was pale, set in lines of hard, unyielding determination.

She didn’t offer a greeting. She didn’t offer comfort.

She simply walked to the table and dropped a stack of official documents with a series of sharp, final thuds.

"I stopped treating this as an academic exercise," Olivia said, her voice devoid of its usual melodic lilt.

It was flat, factual, and deadly. "I dug into the personnel rotations... I went past the surface level manifests."

William looked up, his own exhaustion warring with a hyper alertness that made his nerves feel like exposed wires. "And?"

Olivia slid the records toward him.

"The maintenance worker responsible for that specific section of the pavilion, the one who signed off on the last inspection before the collapse, was reassigned to palace duties only three days ago." She paused, her jaw tightening. "He wasn’t a local hire."

"He was transferred directly from Delmore’s own honor guard contingent."

William stared at the parchment. His eyes scanned the names, the dates, and the official seals.

The handwriting was elegant and precise—the kind of handwriting that belonged to people who killed without breaking a sweat.

"A routine rotation," he murmured, though the words tasted like poison. "Part of the ’protocol exchange’ between our kingdoms."

"That’s what the official report says," Olivia snapped, her composure cracking just enough to reveal the fury beneath. "But look at the timing, William..."

"Look at the pattern."

William felt something cold and absolute settle in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t just suspicion anymore. It was a physical weight, a certainty that felt like drowning in ice water.

"That’s not a coincidence."

"No," Olivia agreed, leaning over the table, her shadow stretching long and jagged across the walls. "It’s not..."

"I cross-referenced the maintenance logs for that entire wing going back six months."

"Every single inspection was perfect... Every bolt was tight, every beam was sound."

"Nothing, absolutely nothing, was noted as concerning..."

"Right up until this new worker took over responsibility less than seven days before the beam failed."

She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper that cut deeper than any scream. "This wasn’t wear and tear, William..."

"This wasn’t neglect. Someone was paid to ensure that beam would fail at the exact moment the princess stood beneath it."

William absorbed the revelation, feeling his earlier, patient resolve harden into something far more dangerous: a lethal, immediate intent.

The abstract games of politics, the maneuvering of treaties and dowries—all of that had been stripped away, revealing the raw, bloody truth beneath.

This wasn’t a game of chess.

This was a slaughterhouse.

"This isn’t abstract political maneuvering anymore, William," Olivia continued, her eyes meeting his with terrifying clarity. "This is a direct, physical attempt on Kaela’s life."

"They aren’t trying to win her over... They’re trying to remove her."

William didn’t blink. His fingers curled around the edge of the table, the wood creaking under the pressure.

Deep inside, something primal and ancient stirred the part of him that had survived battlefields and betrayal. The part that knew how to hunt.

"I know," William said, his voice so low it was barely audible, yet it carried the promise of a coming storm. "Believe me, Olivia."

"I know exactly what this means now."