She stripped away the gown herself and slipped into the fiery tub, letting the scalding water numb her until it cooled her thoughts. When she finally climbed out, shivering, the bruises on her skin felt like new marks of ownership. Naked, exhausted, she crawled into the massive bed and pulled the heavy covers around her chilled body. Sleep claimed her at last, a dreamless, ragged oblivion and the cold moon watched through the glass until dawn.
Chapter six
Quiet
-Maris-
Maris lost track of the days by the time the first week closed its iron fist around her. She had not caught sight of Kael since he found his way into her chambers.
Each morning, the twin wraiths appeared at dawn, silent as the grave, rousing her from restless, haunted sleep. They dressed her in fitted leather, the same pitch-black uniform as the castle’s trainees, tailored precisely so no movement would betray her. Then they guided her down to the courtyard, where Valea continued to direct the drills.
Valea’s voice was sharp and crisp, her copper hair braided like a war banner. No sympathy shone in those amber eyes, only a kind of brutal respect for Maris’s refusal to break.
Corin and Riven had been notably absent along side there king, but Maris was not permitted to train alone.
Every day, Astrielle , the copper-haired devil — who Maris swore wasn't born of this world but summoned, stepped into the ring. Astrielle wore red leather laced so tightly it showed every cruel curve, a dagger gleaming at her belt like a serpent’s fang. She circled Maris with a predator’s smile.
“Stand straight, mortal,” she hissed under her breath, low enough Valea would not scold her. “Or do you fear you’ll shatter that pretty porcelain skin?”
Maris lifted her chin, refusing to flinch.
Astrielle’s eyes glimmered coldly. “Maybe the King likes you pathetic. Easier to feed on that way, hmm?”
She feinted left, then drove a sharp blow to Maris's side, sending her staggering.
Valea barked from the edge of the ring, “Again!” before Maris could answer, forcing them back into combat drills.
Astrielle’s strikes were merciless, so quick and vicious they left Maris with breathless bruises and trembling limbs.
Yet even as she sparred, Maris caught a glimmer in the way Valea and Astrielle sometimes looked at each other — a silent understanding, a shared history.
On the fourth day, Astrielle landed a hit meant to humiliate, hard enough to send Maris flailing, grace undone. The strike would have killed her had it been a real blade that made contact.
Valea snapped at Astrielle with more bite than usual.
“Enough. You will not maim her.”
Astrielle spat on the ground, glaring. “You trained me better than to hold back, Mother.”
The word struck Maris like a thrown blade.
Mother?
Valea didn’t deny it. Her jaw flexed once, then her expression hardened, a wall slamming shut.
Valea is Astrielle’s mother.
It explained so much, their similar shades of copper hair, the way Valea’s authority weighed doubly on Astrielle, the fierce pride and bitterness dancing between them like twin knives.
It made Astrielle’s cruelty somehow sharper, Maris realized, born of trying to live up to a merciless legacy.
By midday, Valea would call them to a halt, and Maris would limp to the study hall.
There, the lore keeper, Master Aldwyn — waited in his austere gray robes, his eyes still covered by the strip of dark cloth. Maris thought if she saw his eyes they would hold knowledge so deep it would feel like drowning to meet them.
“Sit,” he commanded, a hint of kindness in his gravelly voice.
He assigned her towering piles of books — histories of Achyron, the tangled, blood-soaked pantheon of the five gods, the curses laid down with thunder and ash.
