It becomes a condition.
It numbs thought as much as flesh. It dulls fear until it sinks inward, slow and heavy, like rot beneath the surface.
The letter arrives on such a day.
The sky hangs low and gray, rain misting the courtyard so finely it seeps through every pore. Ella sleeps fitfully, fever broken at last but leaving her weak. I sit beside her bed, sewing a hem that does not need mending, simply to keep my hands occupied.
A servant announces the messenger and hands me the letter.
The seal is my father’s.
For a moment, I do not open it. I turn it over in my hands, tracing the familiar mark, feeling a strange tightening in my chest. It has been some time since his last letter. Too long, perhaps. When I finally break the seal, the parchment crackles softly, the sound unnaturally loud in the stillness.
His tone is careful.
To my beloved daughter,
May God keep you and the children in strength and steadiness of spirit.
Word has reached me of your journey north, and I pray daily that the climate is kinder to you than it has been to others of more seasoned constitution. The lands beyond the forests have always demanded much of those who dwell there, and even the strongest must learn their moods anew.
I trust the children are well wrapped, well fed, and never far from your sight. A mother’s vigilance, after all, is the surest protection a household mayclaim.
I write not to burden you with matters of state, but you will forgive an old man his habit of attention. News travels even to quiet halls, and sometimes it arrives bearing questions rather than answers.
You may have heard, or perhaps not, that the men assigned to guard you on that ill-fated day when Tassilo was attacked, were later found dead—far from their post and far from one another. Such carelessness is uncommon among those sworn to their duties. It has caused some to wonder how loyalties may fray when stretched too thin.
A man has since been taken into custody. I am told he claims no grievance, no patron, no reason worth naming. It is a strange thing, to risk one’s life without purpose. Stranger still, perhaps, are the coins discovered upon him—newly struck, fine in make, of a kind not yet common beyond certain workshops, and so recent in issue that few could have come by them at all.
I mention this only because coincidence has ever made me uneasy.
There are those who say the Duke himself was the intended victim. Others are less certain. It is often difficult, from the outside, to know where danger is meant to fall—especially when more than one life shares a single path.
I will not insult your intelligence by offering counsel you do not require. You have always known when to speak and when to listen, when to hold fast and when to step back. Still, I would urge you, for a time, to favor caution over confidence, and quiet observation over explanation.
Trust, once shaken, is not easily restored. Nor is it always wise to demand certainty where shadows are thick.
Above all, keep the children close. Distance is a luxury not every season permits.
Should you wish to write, speak of small things. I will readbetween the lines, as fathers must.
May God watch over you, and grant you clarity where others offer only assurance.
Your loving father
The parchment trembles in my hands.
I read the letter again. And again. Each time, the words seem to rearrange themselves, revealing meanings I had tried not to see before. At last, I am forced to set it aside, lest I tear it in two.
Panic rises swiftly and sharply.
Has Charles discovered the spell?
The thought strikes like ice water.
My father had been careful—too careful. He had written as a man does when he knows his words may be read by eyes not meant for them. No accusations. No names. Only observations, laid out as one might lay stones across a river and trust the right person to find the path.
The coins.
