Sylvie's POVSix months of secret sweat and silent pages turning, the day of the transaction—the day of the trade—had come and gone. Caden Silvermane, a quiet, watchful boy with his father’s eyes, had arrived with a small entourage. I had stood in the receiving line, a perfect, polite doll, and curtsied. My father had clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder, a gesture meant to look proud, but which felt like a brand. Soon, it said.But ‘soon’ had stretched. Alistair, ever the strategist, had cited ‘logistical delays’ and ‘seasonal instability in the passes’. A moon cycle became two, then three. The delay was a gift, wrapped in the cold calculus of politics. It gave me time.My plan was no longer a desperate child’s fantasy, I birthed a tactical operation. The library maps were committed to memory, but I began to draw my own on stolen parchment, refining them with observations from the highest window in the east tower. I noted the patrol patterns of the perimeter guards—their boredom, thei
Last Updated : 2026-01-16 Read more