Almost.
I’ve been writing to Astrid every few days, keeping her informed of what’s happening here. Her letters come back filled with updates from home as she helps tend to the cottage in my absence. She’s been reaching out through her contacts in the herb trade, asking careful questions about Mother’s whereabouts. So far, nothing concrete. But Astrid is persistent, and the network of herbalists and apothecaries stretches farther than most people realize.
For the past few weeks, afternoons have been spent in the council chamber alongside the Martian nobles, seated along the wall where I’m expected to observe and stay silent. These aren’t the private strategy sessions where Lord Zevran meets with his closest advisors. Those happen behind closed doors I’m not invited through. But even in these broader assemblies, I’ve started to understand the patterns and the people. The longer I watch them, the more that court begins to feel like an anatomy study – every lie has its muscle twitch, every ambition itspulse. Mother used to say that reading people was just another form of diagnosis.
And Lord Zevran notices that I notice.
Today, when the council session ends and the nobles file out, he catches my eye and gestures for me to stay. I wait until the room empties, my stomach tight.
“You were counting again,” he says. His voice is casual, but there is sharp interest behind it.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“During the discussion about the northern patrols. You were counting the guard rotations in your head.” He leans against the table, arms crossed. “You do that when you’re bored.”
I feel exposed. “I wasn’t?—”
“It’s fine. I do it too.” He picks up one of the maps still spread across the table. “The rotations don’t make sense. There’s a gap every third day between the second and third shift.”
“I know. I noticed that last week.”
“And you didn’t say anything.”
“I’m not supposed to speak during council meetings.”
He studies me. “What if I told you that rule doesn’t apply anymore?”
My heart skips. “Your Grace, I?—”
“Tomorrow morning. Strategy session in the war room. Dawn.” He straightens, rolling up the map. “You’ll attend. And you’ll have a voice at the table.”
No formal announcement. No change to my title. Just a quiet invitation to step into a space that will make people question why I am there at all.
But why? Why would he trust me – a no-name healer from the market district – to be in confidential strategy meetings? Is it because he thinks I might be able to advise him like my mother did? Or is it something else…
Before I can respond, he’s already heading for the door.
The evenings have changed most of all.
At first, our sessions in the atrium were silent. He would sit, I would heal, we would part without a word. But over the past few weeks, that silence has cracked open.
Tonight I find him already waiting for me, the stars just beginning to appear overhead in the night sky through the atrium glass. His swordlike weapon sits on the bench beside him, and he’s rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, the luminescent veins glowing faintly in the dim light.
“Long day?” I ask, settling beside him.
“The longest.” He exhales. “Lord Vance spent three hours explaining ‘fiscal prudence’. I counted seventeen repetitions of the phrase. I wanted to stab myself with the letter opener.”
The admission surprises a laugh out of me. “That bad?”
“Worse. Lady Maren then spentanotherhour countering every single point he made, also using ‘fiscal prudence’ as her reasoning.” He tilts his head back to look at the stars. “By the end I was seriously considering it. The letter opener wasright there.”
I place my hands on his forearm, and the magic flows cool and familiar as I catch his shoulders drop. I feel his gaze resting on me as I work.
“Tell me about home,” he says quietly.
I blink at him. “What?”
“Your village. Where you grew up. You never talk about it. Neither did Liora.”
