Chapter 4 - Descent into the Archives
Determined to uncover the truth, Rowan made a daring decision. Instead of fleeing deeper into the wilderness, he turned his descent downward, toward the heavily guarded perimeter of Blackthorn Hall itself. With the eagle safely hidden in an abandoned forestry shack halfway down the mountain, Rowan used his childhood knowledge of the estate's sprawling service tunnels to slip past the mounted perimeter guards.
The interior of Blackthorn Hall was a labyrinth of echoing stone corridors, draped in heavy velvet and lined with centuries of oil portraits. Rowan moved like a ghost through the shadows, avoiding the grand reception halls where historians and trustees were gathering for Lord Alaric's annual winter court. His target was the private family archive—a restricted vault containing centuries of land grants, birth registries, and sealed decrees.
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Picking the brass-reinforced lock of the archive door with a rusted wire, Rowan slipped inside. The air smelled of old parchment, wax, and dust. Rows of leather-bound ledgers stretched into the dim candlelight. His hands trembled as he began pulling volumes from the mahogany shelves, searching for any record bearing the crowned-circle emblem he had seen beneath the eagle's wing.
Hours bled together. Just as fatigue threatened to overwhelm him, his fingers brushed against a heavy, iron-clasped ledger labeled The Crowned Lineages: Restricted Estates. He cracked the spine open, holding his candle close. The pages detailed an ancient pact between the founding lords of Crownridge and the mystical avian guardians of the peaks—a pact that granted the true heirs of Blackthorn unprecedented authority, bound eternally to the Crown Eagles through blood and spirit. But a loose parchment slipped from the back pages, landing face-up on the desk. Rowan picked it up, and his breath caught in his throat. It was an adoption decree, dated nineteen years ago, bearing Lord Alaric’s own jagged signature, ordering the total erasure of a secondary branch—and the abandonment of a newborn child left out in the freezing valley to die.
