LOGIN*Nicoli*The study smelt wrong somehow. Nicoli noticed that before anything else .The smell of his father had always been here. That ever constant scent of soap and wood shavings, something that had been so foundational to this room, that Nicoli had never thought to catalogue it before. Just only breathed it in for eighteen years without registering what he was doing.But he registered it now.Because it was fading.Not gone completely. But it was thinning. Slowly fading into the background enough to make him understand it would not be there much longer.The curtains still held some of it. The leather of the chairs. The grain of the desk. But it was retreating from the things being moved, abandoning the objects as they were lifted and wrapped and placed into crates, as if even the scent understood that the objects no longer belonged here and was declining to follow them out. Like some important essential thing was fading too fast. Far too fast for him to see how helpless he was to s
*Anastasia* The carriage groans as it climbs. It is not a sharp complaint of something about to fail, but it’s low, thick, like wood protesting between iron asked to do too much more than what it was used to, in weather it was not built for. The sound matches the rhythm of the horses outside. Even through the walls, I can hear them.The poor things.They trot on in the brittle winds and snow. Heavy, rhythmic in their effort as they push hooves on packed snow and grit, the occasional snort of breath that sounds almost human in its exhaustion. They don’t stop, even as the whole vehicle sways slightly with each gust that comes off the mountain face, a long, lateral lean that makes the brass lantern overhead swing in small, pendulous arcs, sending its amber light traveling slowly across our faces and away again.I lift my hand to the small carriage window on my right.My gloved fingers smear a clear patch through the fog that has gathered on the glass to make a tiny view beyond the co
*Naska*The servants' passages ran narrow and low-ceilinged through the heart of the palace, threading between the grand rooms like veins beneath skin — the functional arteries of a body that preferred not to see how it sustained itself. The walls were plain stone, dark with age, smelling of smoke and polish and old linen and stale damp where the cold pressed through from outside. The torches here burned lower than in the main corridors, spaced wider apart, throwing uneven light that made the passages feel longer than they were.Naska had walked them her entire life.She knew every turn, every low beam, every place where the stone swelled with the bitter summer heats. She knew which doors stuck and which swung silent, which paths were used by which households, where to stand to hear conversations from the rooms undisturbed.She had always known this palace better from the inside of its walls than from within its rooms.Tonight, the passages were different.Not quieter — louder, if an
*Naska*Bruno’s gaze stayed on her arm. He didn't move toward her. He didn't reach. Only looked — and the looking itself was its own kind of weight, pressing against the sleeve where Mykhol's grip had been, as if his eyes could see through muslin and into the bruise already forming beneath.And Naska felt it. The questions in that gaze. The assessment. The anger held so carefully behind the surface that only someone who had spent years learning to show nothing could have managed it — and even then, only barely. Because without the curtain of hair to soften him, to give him somewhere to retreat, his face was exposed in a way it had never been before. Every small contraction of muscle visible. The deepening furrow between his brows. The way his jaw held too still, the way his lower lip pressed flat.He was reading her.In a way that was far beyond his years. Something she had never taught him — and the realization of that, of all the things he must have taught himself quietly and alone
For several breaths, Naska did not move. Neither of them did, actually.Both just stood in their places . With the study stinking of blood-wine and cold glass and old paper, more snow drifting past the windows in that soft, relentless way it had been doing all morning, as if the sky had simply decided and would not be argued with. Somewhere beneath the desk, the fallen ledger lay open on its spine, pages bent, accounts exposed to the cold air. And Mykhol stood in the middle of it all, still facing the door his parents had left through. His expression suspended into something unreadable. Something thick and metallic.Naska kept her head bowed. Arm ringing with pain wanting to be soothed. But she did not dare touch it.She just waited until the silence had stretched long enough to become its own kind of instruction. Then she lowered herself carefully to the carpet.Her knees protested when they touched down. The study floor was cold even through her skirts, and the glass had scattered
*Naska*Naska lifted her head once more, looking back to the closed door, as if expecting someone to burst through. Looking for her. Needing her.But then again, she also didn’t expect anyone either. Because she hadn’t been told to wait for her. Actually, she hadn’t been told to do much nowadays. A fact that made her feel even more the fool to stand here now. Waiting here in Lord Charles’s study with her hands folded so tightly her knuckles ached.But orders had become slippery things since that day—passed between servants in whispers, interrupted by bells, rewritten by panic, carried from the throne room to the back corridors in pieces. And now, Her Empress was leaving for Dawny by first light tomorrow. And Lord Mykhol… was to remain behind. Once, there was a time, Naska would have felt happy by the idea. She would have seen it as her chance – have him home. Even pride herself on the fact to have Mykhol all to herself. But that was back then. And this was now.Now snow was fal
*Mykhol* Mykhol took a deep breath as he looked over the new gown. It was exquisite. The gown had gold thread trim, and gems and jewels were everywhere. It sparkled in the light as the tailor moved to show off what could only be his masterpiece. It’s beautiful. Mykhol felt his heart quicken. It was
Chapter # Mykhol Continues to Find Suitors Everywhere*Ana*“So, I was thinking about Pave-” I begin but find Mykhol staring at something. I hear him growl.“Don’t tell me they dared to,” Mykhol whispers to himself again. He is staring hard. “What are you-” But as I turn my head to see more men inside
*Ana*“They are what?” I find myself having to repeat. But it’s not like I’ve misheard it. No, my ears are sharper now. I couldn’t mishear anything if I wanted to.It’s just that I don’t want to believe it. It’s like my mind is refusing to process the words. A wall has come up to block my logical sens
*Ana*“Hmmn?” I stir at the strange sound. It’s a sort of insect buzz that fills the room. “Wha-” I try to speak, but my tongue is dry and stupid. I need to snap my mouth a few times to get the saliva working before I try again.“Crickets? Why?” I slowly open my eyes as the sound drones on. I see the







