Small Victories
SERAPHAE
Istood at the doorway and forgot how to blink.
The room was large enough that calling it spacious felt like an insult.
Whoever designed this room had overestimated the amount of space a single person needed.
High ceilings, painted to resemble a starry night sky, featured dark beams. Gothic arched windows ran from floor to ceiling on the far wall, looking out at mountains that disappeared into the permanent twilight.
A balcony door on the other wall that actually looked like it opened to the outside.
The city glittered below. Burning on the left was a hearth, with two upholstered chairs and a small table angled toward it.
The bed was large enough that I could sleep diagonally and not find the edges.
Maelor had said my room would be adequate during our walk here. This was not adequate.
“This is my room.” I kept my face perfectly neutral.
If this was average in Primoria, then I was deeply concerned about what impressive would look like.
“Tell Caelan your complaints.” Maelor curled his lip. “I don't care.”
Upon entering, I took in the surroundings. The painting I had stopped in front of during the masquerade hung on a wall. There was a bottle of wine and two glasses on the nightstand.
The room smelled like candle wax cut with whatever florals drifted from the vines outside.
“Is pampering prisoners a fae thing? Or just a kink your prince has?” I asked.
His face was tight before he offered an insincere smile.
“Would you rather be hung from the ceiling in a dark room without windows?” he asked flatly. “Because that seems to be the Thalvarnan thing.”
I speared a glare into his back as he left the room and slammed the door shut.
Based on what I could see out the windows, we were on the third floor. Below was a courtyard covered in cobblestone with flowering hedges along the walls. There were guards on a slow rotation between the archways. They had the relaxed posture of people who hadn’t met me yet.
My hands touched the cool metal latch on the balcony door. Certainly, this wouldn’t open. There was no reason that he’d let me—
It opened.
I stepped outside for the first time in days. My mouth fell open as my lungs greedily inhaled the evening air. In the distance, I could make out the canals that bled into the fields. The view was beautiful. I hated that it was beautiful.
I went back inside before I felt anything else.
The bath was explored next.
Dark stone, carved arches, a basin set into marble with a mirror framed in gold filigree between them.
A soaking tub in the center, round and deep.
The far wall was not a wall. It was an open arch, and beyond it, the city lights spread like stars across the land.
A view that had no business being in a bathroom, but was because this was Primoria and Primoria did not do subtle.
I tried not to be impressed by it.
I failed.
Someone had arranged necessities on a shelf beside the basin. Small bottles, stoppered with glass. A pot of crushed flowers and warm oil. Lavender, from the smell of it. A bar of soap on top of folded cloth. And sitting at the end of the shelf, not realizing its significance, was a brush.
An actual brush.
I picked it up and nearly wept. Then I brushed my hair for a considerable amount of time. Long past the point of necessity.
Servants came in before nightfall. Two of them, carrying bundles wrapped in cloth, which they set on the table by the hearth before leaving without speaking.
I unwrapped the first one and found dresses, tunics, and trousers.
Primorian clothing made Thalvarn wear look like dresses stitched together in a barn.
Everything was silk or impossibly soft fabric that flowed and breathed. Midnight blue, black, deep purple, and burgundy filled the bundle in shades that represented the kingdom of night.
Although nothing was tailored, everything looked like it would fit.
I stripped and tried on the dress first. The length fit perfectly.
The waist cinched just right. Then I tried the tunics.
They were loose where they needed to be and structured where it mattered.
Last, I tried on a pair of pants. The waistband sat comfortably.
The stretchy fabric wrapped like a second skin.
Every item fit like it was made for me. Whoever arranged this had to have known exactly how my body was shaped. From the size of my waist to the—
I stopped thinking about it.
A navy dress sat at the bottom of the bundle. It had a structured corset with a skirt of light, fluid fabric that flowed.
I took it with me into the bath and set it aside on the counter.
My eyes caught on a brown, stoppered bottle and folded strips of fabric by the sink that I hadn’t noticed previously.
The cut along my ribs and forearm voiced its approval immediately.
I filled the bathtub quickly.
The water was already warm as it came out of the faucet. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to understand the mechanism of it. In Thalvarn, water had to be fetched, then heated for a bath. Here, it just came out of a spout. Completely unappreciated and undeserved.
When I finally sank into the water, a sound slipped out of me that most men failed to manage. I didn’t step out of the bath until the room was thick with steam, my fingers wrinkled, and my skin flushed beyond reason.
I put on the navy blue dress and left my hair down in loose waves.
The destroyed gold dress was carried to the balcony and dropped off the edge. It fell in a long sweep and landed with more dignity than it deserved. A guard looked down at it and prodded it with the tip of his sword. When he looked up, I was already gone.
For someone whose life had turned upside down, I slept surprisingly well.
The sheets were softer than the ones at the inn, which I didn’t think was possible.
Three days was apparently all it took for my traitorous body to arrive at a decision and give up entirely.
Ten years of working nights meant waking well past the third bell on a good day. Today was apparently a good day.
Breakfast had come at some point while I was still horizontal. I hadn't looked to see who had brought it. The footsteps told me it wasn't Riven. That man walked like mist. Silent and already gone before you'd registered he was there. He'd make a fine assassin. I was not going to tell him that.
By the time I stepped out of bed, there were two trays on the table.
Breakfast was scrambled eggs with shaved salted meat, mixed berries, and toast with citrus oil. Lunch was thinly sliced beef roast, a side of chilled green soup I couldn't identify, garnished with small orange flowers that smelled like pepper.
It wasn’t anything special. Certainly nothing compared to a typical breakfast in Thalvarn, which consisted of boiled eggs, cheese, and questionable meat stew.
The door was not locked. A simple fact that I had failed to discover until now.
I stood in the doorway for a moment, unsure if it had been intentional or overlooked by Maelor.
There were two guards stationed at the end of the hall.
They looked at me when I emerged, then looked away with complete neutrality.
Intentional, then. I refused to be grateful about it.
I walked down the corridor and nobody stopped me, which was the closest thing to freedom I'd had since the masquerade.
The first place I found was a library. Books covered every wall from floor to ceiling. The ceiling itself was stained glass. Dark blues and golds, and what light came through it pooled on the polished marble in colors. There was a ladder attached to the tall shelves.
I stopped by a windowsill as I was leaving the library. A cluster of cat figurines stood in different sizes, postures, and wood colors. The roughness of them did not agree with anything else in the room. I wasn’t sure what to make of it and filed it for later.
The gallery was along the east corridor. Paintings of landscapes I didn't recognize and a couple of portraits. Each looking out of their frames with the expression of someone who had been told to sit still and had complied without enthusiasm.
A map encased in glass hung on a wall as if it were a treasure rather than a reference. It was not current, based on the border markings on it. This was old, probably from when Twilight was just borderlands. There was handwriting all over it, with annotations along the margins.
A painting caught my eye near the end.
A woman.
Dark-haired and blue-eyed, painted with great detail. She had Caelan's jaw. Or he had hers.
I didn’t linger.
I found the outside by following the smell of blooming florals that should not be blooming during winter. The same intoxicating scent that drifted into my room.
The courtyard that I’d seen from my balcony opened up to me.
Sitting on the low wall at the edge, with legs dangling, was a woman holding a bottle of wine during third bell. I decided that I liked her immediately.
She looked up the moment I came outside.
“Ah, the infamous human.” She pointed at me with the bottle. “Come have a drink with me.”
Her burgundy gown was too fine for staff, and she lounged with the ease of someone who lived here.
She smiled when I didn’t move.
“I'm Brie, Caelan’s sister.” She patted the wall beside her. “I don't bite.”
I took in her thick chocolate brown hair braided into a crown, the warm olive skin, the green eyes, and decided they looked nothing alike.
I gave her an assessment out of habit. No weapons, no posture of someone who was accustomed to fighting. If she was dangerous, she hid it exceptionally well. The bottle of wine was more threatening than she was.
I sat down because she had alcohol. That was the only reason.
The cold from the stone leeched through the thin fabric of my dress, making me shift before fully settling in.
She handed me the bottle without asking, which I respected.
“What's your name?” she asked.
I took a sip straight from the bottle.
“Sera.”
It came out easier than I expected. She was the first person I had given my name to since I got here.
“I've been wanting to meet you.”
“Why?”
“You put down ten of my brother's guards, and he puts you in the main wing for it.” She cocked her head. “Which makes you the most interesting person I've ever met.”
“It was four guards,” I corrected.
She dismissed this entirely. Her eyes moved over me, the way someone looked at something they had expected and found the opposite of that. Then her lip curved slowly. “He likes you.”
I snorted. “He owns me.”
She tilted her head and waited.
“I'm his new personal guard,” I explained.
She threw her head back and laughed hard enough that I wasn’t sure if she was ever going to stop.
I drank while I waited.
“Oh,” she wiped imaginary tears. “He definitely likes you.” She smoothed her skirt as if that could restore her composure. “Now that explains most of his kindness.”
“Kindness,” I repeated, handing the bottle back to her.
The word felt wrong and wasn't one I would have used. Smug, manipulative, and arrogant were just a few I had come up with in this moment alone.
She looked thoughtful. “Caelan doesn't let his assassins live.
I don't know why he didn't kill you.” Her eyes moved to the tattoo on my arm.
“Perhaps he couldn't. But he could've done things differently. Yet here you are. Given a position and wandering the estate.” She took a drink and her eyes dropped to my dress. “He even picked your clothes.”
The clothes that fit like a tailored glove. From waistband to corset.
I focused on the vines growing along the estate wall and did not dwell on the thought.
Brie wasn't wrong. He could have kept me in the guest wing until the bond broke. I had been comfortable enough there that it wouldn't have affected him. As much as I resisted the conclusion, he had been considerate. Not kind. Considerate was a different thing and required less of me to admit.
She watched me and smiled into her glass as if she were satisfied about an outcome.
We sat in comfortable silence. The guards did a fantastic job of pretending not to exist.
I looked up at the sky and asked with mild hesitation, “What happened that night?”
She was quiet for long enough that I thought I had crossed a line.
“He was eight,” she said finally. “He was younger than that when we found out he was the untamed. His magic was supposed to be controlled. Then one day, it just came out of him.” She turned the bottle slowly. “Mother was there, holding his hands.”
A child was all he was. His mother was on the ground in front of him. I didn’t finish that thought and took a long drink instead.
A guard crossed the courtyard below and disappeared under an archway. I tracked him with my eyes because I didn’t know where else to look.
“He was eight,” I said.
“He was eight,” she echoed. “And they made sure he understood what he had done. Not unkindly, mostly. But thoroughly.” She took a breath.
“We had been in Crown when it happened. The surge took out the lights over the borderlands. He was sent here a couple of years after that. Quietly exiled for something that he had no control over.”
I imagined him growing up in a court that did not want him. Perhaps exile was a mercy.
“The assassins come because they're afraid of what would happen if his powers ever returned. Fear does what it does. I don't excuse it, but I understand it.” She looked at me sideways. “He does too. Which is the part that makes it harder.” She looked up at the sky. “It’s easier to become the monster they think you are than to keep trying to become someone they would never choose to see.” She offered a sad smile. “He didn’t choose the easy way. Kept trying to prove himself. And yet they still come.”
“I was one of them.”
“I know.” She took the bottle from me and drank. “And he hired you anyway.”
I had thoughts about what it told me.
I wasn't ready to have them.
“I don't see the resemblance,” I said. “Between you two.”
“I was adopted,” she said fondly. “He was kind to me even when he didn't have to be. He has always been kind to me.”
My attention was caught on the planters next to us. The same white and silver bell-shaped flowers all over the estate. Soft metallic sounds, similar to bells, came from them with each breeze.
Brie followed my gaze. “Silverbells,” she said. “Mother’s favorite. She used to plant them with Caelan and me when we were children. Caelan had taken a stem from Crown and planted it here in Twilight.”
I brushed a finger against a satin petal and thought of the queen as the flower sang.
“It’s beautiful.”
We sat there until the bottle was finished and the guards had completed a full rotation.
I shouldn’t have liked her as much as I did.
But she had me at wine.