MasukLUCIAN "Marda?" I called the head of maids as she walked past. "Yes, Your Highness?" She replied, entering the room.I honestly blanched. "Did Elias put you up to this?" I questioned, narrowing my eyes at her, I wouldn't put it past him even though he has been nothing but sweet these days."Luna..." Yvonne walked in, "or Lucian. Even before his memory loss, he didn't like being titled.""Oh.. I'm sorry your... Luna." Marda apologized."Thank you..." I mouthed at Yvonne. "What do you need, Luna? Or do you need me to do anything for you?""No— uh, yes, please," I stuttered, "The maid that served me tea. I like her, is she new here?""Yes, Luna. She started here a few days ago, along with some other maids.""Make her my personal maid and have her wait on Elias and I for dinner.""Really?" Maria's eyes lit up, "I'm so glad you found her to your taste, Luna. I'll be sure to tell her the good news."I nodded, a smile on my face, "Thank you."Marda bowed and left.Yvonne stared at m
SERAPHINA The tray was heavier than she imagined Seraphina had not carried anything with her own hands in years, not since she had learned that the most dangerous thing a woman could do was let others forget she had them. But today she carried the tray herself, dismissing the servant girl in her shadows with a look that required no words, and walked the long corridor to the east wing with the careful, unhurried steps of someone who owned every stone beneath her feet.She did.She reminded herself of that.The door to Lucian's chambers was already ajar. She pushed it open with her shoulder, arranging her face into something mild and solicitous, the expression of a maid performing a kindness rather than an inspection.He was seated by the window.For a moment, she simply looked at him, as she always did, the way time and suffering had arranged themselves on a person. Lucian was a bit thinner than she'd expected. His hair fell loose around his shoulders. He did not turn when she entere
***** Kingdom of Kuragari ****Cael turned.His expression went through several things quickly. Recognition. Edyrm looked at him for a moment.Then he looked at the delegation members. The younger one was still doing the thing with his face, that tight, practiced neutral expression of someone who has learned to wait out this type of encounter. Edyrm met his eyes for a second and gave him the small nod that communicated, as briefly as possible, that this was being handled.He looked back at Cael."Walk with me," he said.He did not walk far.Just to the side of the courtyard, out of the direct line of the archway, not private but not performing either. He stopped and turned and looked at Cael with the expression he had been developing over nine days of similar encounters, not anger, because anger gave people something to push against and he had found that removing the resistance changed the dynamic more effectively than providing it."Tell me," Edyrm said.Cael blinked. He had been, c
****Kingdom of Kuragari *****The delegation had been in Kuragari for four days.Four days was long enough for the initial strangeness of their presence to settle into something more workable, and not long enough for the deeper frictions to fully surface. Edyrm was aware that they were in a particular window a grace period of sorts, the diplomatic equivalent of a held breath and he was working it with everything he had.Which was, currently, quite a lot, because he had not slept sufficiently in four days either.He met with the delegation lead every morning.Her name was Saoirse, and she was, Edyrm had concluded by the second morning, exactly the kind of person you wanted across the table from you when the thing being negotiated was genuinely difficult. Not because she was easy, she was precise and patient and had a quality of returning to a point she hadn't finished making with the calm persistence of water finding its way through stone. But because she was honest. She said what she
SERAPHINA She prepared the tea in the small side kitchen adjacent to the main household kitchen.This was standard practice, the Luna's evening tea was prepared separately from the main kitchen activity, a small private ritual of the palace that had its own space and its own careful routine. Seraphina had walked past this kitchen twice in her days here and had noted its location with the particular attention she gave to things that might matter later.She worked carefully and methodically.The tea itself first, the right leaves, the right temperature, and the right steep time. She had watched how things were done here closely enough to replicate it without asking questions, and she did so now without deviation. She had never been sloppy.Then she was alone in the small kitchen for a window of time that was not long but was sufficient.She looked at the cup.She looked at what she had with her, had been carrying for several days now in the small concealed pocket she had sewn into the
SERAPHINA The problem with being nobody was that nobody had no time.Seraphina had understood this in theory before she started. She had thought about it, had factored it in, had told herself that the work was temporary and the discomfort was manageable, and that she had endured worse for longer in the pursuit of things that mattered. She had been correct about all of those things in the abstract.In practice, the reality of it was something else.She was woken at five in the morning.Not by a bell or a knock or any of the other polite fictions by which households pretend that waking someone before dawn is a civilized act. She was woken by Marda, the head of the cleaning staff, who had the physical presence of someone built specifically for the purpose of filling doorframes and the voice to match, and who stood in the entrance of the small room Seraphina had been assigned and said, with no particular emotion, "You're needed in the west corridor. The lord's visiting party arrived late
ELIASI heard the knock before Barrett even came to tell me someone wanted to see me.I already knew it would be Yvonne. She had that kind of knock … soft, patient, but steady enough to remind you she never left until she got what she wanted.Barrett appeared anyway and bowed slightly.“Elder Yvon
ELIASI had been patient. More patient than I wanted to admit. I had reminded myself of Yvonne’s advice, about trust, vulnerability, about giving and sacrifice. I had told myself Lucian wasn’t a soldier to command, and I couldn’t treat him like one.But patience, apparently,
ELIAS I watched the interesting sight of Lucian dragging his feet a few metres ahead of me. Placing his hands on the trees for support, he panted hard like he was in pain with every step he took. Gradually, my gaze on him softened as I briefly imagined being in his shoes for a second. The trainin
LUCIANThat night felt different before it even began.The air outside was cool, and the wind pushed softly through the trees. Elias and I had finished training not too long ago. My body was tired, but not in a painful way. It felt more like I had finally worked out some o







