Chapter 148: The Investigation
Three investigations. Three institutions. One crossbow bolt.
The Crown’s investigation was led by the Royal Guard’s intelligence section — a small, competent unit that reported directly to King Aldren and that operated independently of the Ministry of Whispers. The Crown’s investigation focused on *security failure*: how had an attacker pre-positioned equipment on a rooftop overlooking the Festival ground without being detected? The answer revealed a systemic gap — the Merchant Guild building’s rooftop access was controlled by the Guild, not the Crown Guard, and the Festival’s security perimeter had been set at ground level. Nobody had checked the rooftops because nobody’s procedure included rooftop clearance.
"We sweep the ground," Colonel Jareth said, disgusted. "We check every alley, every basement, every sewer access. We do not check the sky. The attacker used the one vector we weren’t monitoring."
The Crown’s investigation produced a security reform — rooftop clearance protocols, building access coordination with civilian guilds during public events, elevated observation posts. The reform was implemented within a week. It would prevent the same attack from succeeding in the future. It would not catch the attacker who had already succeeded.
The Crucible’s investigation was led by the internal security division — the same unit that had been investigating the Mechanist pamphlets. Pope Elwyn authorized the investigation personally, despite Theron’s argument that Crucible security should handle it exclusively. The Crucible’s investigation focused on *motive*: why target a Cardinal? Why Cardinal Maren specifically?
Cardinal Maren was the Cardinal of Ashenveil — the administrative head of the capital’s religious operations. Not the most politically powerful Cardinal (that was Theron), not the most controversial (that was Tessyn, after the Bloomist compliance debacle), not the most vulnerable (that was Harken, the newest appointment). Maren was institutional — a functionary, a manager, the Cardinal who kept the capital’s temples operating and whose political profile was deliberately low.
"Targeting Maren is targeting the institution," said Crucible Investigator Brynn — a priest trained in analytical methodology, assigned to the case. "Not a specific person. Not a specific policy. The institution itself. The message: the Crucible is vulnerable. Its leaders are reachable. The protection that the Church assumes it possesses — divine favor, institutional authority — does not extend to protection from a crossbow bolt."
"The calculated miss supports this," Elwyn observed. "The bolt was not intended to kill. It was intended to demonstrate capability. The demonstration is the weapon."
***
The Ministry of Whispers’ investigation was separate from — and invisible to — the other two.
Vrenn worked alone. Not truly alone — Tess and his operational team supported the infrastructure — but alone in the sense that the Ministry’s investigation operated on different data, different assumptions, and different objectives than the Crown’s or the Crucible’s.
The crossbow’s serial number traced to the Western Ashenveil Garrison. Specifically: the garrison’s training armory, where recruits practiced with standardized equipment that was inventoried annually and maintained by the quartermaster’s staff.
The Western Ashenveil Garrison. Colonel Ervan Marshell’s garrison. The mole.
"The weapon came from Marshell’s garrison," Tess said. "Coincidence?"
"Nothing in this investigation is coincidence. The crossbow was chosen from that garrison because the crossbow’s trail leads to Marshell. The foreign network knows that we’ve identified Marshell — or they suspect it. They’re using the crossbow to frame the investigation."
"Frame it toward what?"
"Toward the conclusion that Marshell — the mole, the compromised officer — orchestrated the Festival attack. The foreign network sacrifices Marshell — a burned asset — and the investigation terminates with his arrest. The real orchestrator disappears behind Marshell’s exposure."
Vrenn’s claws tapped rapidly. The pattern was sophisticated — intelligence craft at a level that exceeded what he’d attributed to the foreign network. Pre-positioning a weapon from a compromised garrison, during a national festival, targeting a Cardinal with a calculated miss that generated maximum institutional panic with zero casualties, and designing the evidence trail to terminate at an asset that the network was willing to sacrifice.
"This isn’t the same level of operation as the dead drops," Vrenn said. "The dead drop network was Phase One — information gathering. The Festival attack is Phase Two — active operation. Someone upgraded."
"Upgraded from what to what?"
"From intelligence collection to coercive action. Collection maps the target. Coercion *shapes* the target. The Festival attack wasn’t just a message to the Crucible. It was a message to the *kingdom* — to every institution, every house, every citizen who attended the Festival and saw the shields go up. The message changes the kingdom’s emotional state from confident to anxious. And anxious kingdoms make different decisions than confident ones."
***
The three investigations converged on a shared problem: evidence.
The Crown had the security gap — documented, corrected, procedurally resolved. The Crucible had the motive analysis — institutional targeting, capability demonstration, psychological warfare. The Ministry had the intelligence assessment — a foreign network sacrificing a compromised asset to redirect the investigation.
None of them had the shooter.
Whoever had fired the bolt from the Merchant Guild’s rooftop had vanished. The building’s internal access points — two stairwells, one service ladder, a maintenance hatch — showed no unusual traffic in the Crown Guard’s rapid-response search. The rooftop’s surface yielded footprints (common boot, size nine, a size shared by approximately forty thousand men in Ashenveil), a scuff mark on the eastern parapet, and the sandbags — which were filled with construction sand available at every building site in the city.
"The shooter was competent," Vrenn summarized. "Military training — the firing position was textbook tactical. Intelligence training — the evidence was curated rather than accidentally left. And strategic understanding — the target selection, timing, and evidence design reflect an operator who understands institutional dynamics."
"One of ours? A kingdom-trained operative gone rogue?"
"Or one of theirs. A foreign operative trained to kingdom standards — or trained *beyond* kingdom standards by a service that has had time to study our methods."
The investigation continued. The Festival’s aftermath rippled through the kingdom — anxiety in the temple districts, tension in the military garrisons, debate in the Council about security budgets and institutional vulnerability. And somewhere in the space between three parallel investigations, the truth waited — not at the end of an evidence trail but behind it, in the gap between what was found and what was *left to be found*.