LOGIN*Julia*The door closed behind her with a soft, and careful click. But the sound seemed to hang in her ears. Suddenly absurdly loud for such a small ordinary thing. But it did. It rang and rang through her long after the latch had settled into its plate. The brass knob uncoiled to the right position. And the wood groaned back into its frame. Each sound, normally forgettable, overlooked even, now marked themselves through her with new value. Heavier and meaningful echoes through the corridor. Then the voices bubbled up once more.Julia could hear it slip from under the seams of the door and crawl up her back. Belinda's cadence. Bratha's heavy accent in answering the rumble. A conversation resumed. Picking up its rhythm low and shapeless, it was robbed of their words by the thickness of the oak, but unmistakable all the same. As though nothing had happened at all.Then the small, bright clink of porcelain being lifted from a saucer.Competently. With hands too young to shake. Too fi
*Belinda*"And what of the other matter," Bratha said slowly with more care as if each word could make a cut. "What about her?"Belinda did not need to ask who she meant.There was only one she who could be meant. Only one arrival in the whole of this snowbound week that required asking after a person's fortitude beforehand.Her. Empress Anastasia.Gods, merely thinking of her name made the images come. Each arriving whole and unwelcome, the way it always did. So much like the both of them could be. The damned silver hair. That particular scarlet in the eyes. And a face Belinda spent two decades trying not thinking about but could nonetheless reconstruct down to the shape of the mouth. With or without Alexander’s cursed painting. Something turned over low in her stomach."My scouts sent word this morning," Bratha continued, oblivious or else choosing to be. "The carriage crossed into Dawny two days past. They will be through the last of the passes by now." She turned her cup on its
*Belinda*Rethink the arrangement? Belinda was rendered dumb and useless. Her mouth stood slightly open. Her grey eyes had gone wide and blinking, fixed on Bratha as though looking hard enough at her oldest friend's face might somehow bridge the gap. Pull back the distance now drawn between what she had just heard and what could possibly be made from it. What Bratha had meant in saying such a thing. A thing Belinda would never, in a million moons, have imagined leaving that mouth.Rethink the arrangement! That was…it was–It was absurd. ABSURD! Yes, it was, quite plainly, absurd — and the absurdity of it was precisely what kept her, for several long seconds, without a single word to offer. She could not locate the correct response, not because none existed, but because too many arrived at once, colliding in her throat before any single one could take proper shape.How can she even suggest this? Now?! Here. After everything.As though nine years could be folded up and set aside lik
*Belinda*"Nicoli is not going anywhere."The words came out with such a force that it surprised even Belinda herself. The very sound of her own voice, usually so polished and gentle towards her dearest friend, now cut clean through whatever Bratha had been about to say next, leaving them both, in its wake, oddly listless. Stranded.But she did not retreat from it. Would not.Not with my Nicoli in question. Instead of retracting back into her old mask, Belinda found, to her own surprise, she did not entirely regret being seen. Rather, an old and fiercely maternal woman had risen up beneath the practiced grey calm of her, stripping away, in a single stroke, decades of careful, crafted, well-tended friendship. She was to bury her husband this week. She had spent the handful of days since quietly, privately rehearsing the shape of a future in which her son remained the last whole thing she still had to hold — the last piece of her family not yet claimed by death, or distance, or some si
*Belinda*Bratha lowered herself into the waiting chair with the slow, deliberate care of someone long accustomed to furniture fearing her. The reinforced frame held firm beneath her weight — not even the faintest groan escaping the hidden iron braces. Belinda allowed herself a small, private measure of satisfaction to that. Every measurement had been her own. Every joint checked twice.She wouldn’t have to replace the head of carpentry any time soon."Forgive me, my dear friend." Bratha settled back against the deep green velvet, the fabric absorbing her bulk without complaint. "I did not mean to keep you waiting."Belinda returned to her own seat, carefully sliding the bulk of her dress to one armrest in a fluid motion that matched her voice. "You hardly did." Bratha did not answer immediately after. Rather, she settled fully into the chair — the rest of her weight easing into the reinforced frame, as though testing that the promise held before trusting it entirely — and for a mom
*Belinda*Belinda had pulled out all the stops for their tea. The table gleamed beneath the tall windows, each piece placed meticulously, enough so, that even the servants seemed reluctant to dare even breathe near it. White porcelain edged in gold caught the fleeting afternoon light, thin and gold-shot where it fell through the glass. Three pots waited over their silver warmers — black tea, a softer pear blend, and the bitter mountain infusion Bratha had once declared the only thing in all of Dawny with any courage in it. Belinda had made a particular point of bringing out that one.She could already picture the smile it would draw — the widening of those blunt white teeth, the peridot eyes lighting with pleasant surprise that Belinda had bothered to remember so small a thing.But it was exactly why Belinda remembered. It was exactly how two women such as themselves had remained friends across so many years.Anything for my dearest friend, after all.The thought settled warm and eas
*Naska* The hallways blurred white around her like fever dreams.Heels struck hard against the marble, each sharp clap echoing off the vaulted arches like vulture caws as Naska flew through the corridor, grace abandoned to desperation. Cold air clawed at her throat with every ragged breath, her ch
*Ana* The rain has finally stopped. Not that I'd noticed right away—what with my ears still ringing from the hours in court, my head too thick with thoughts to recognize the earned silence. But here, in the stables, where it smells like damp hay and warm leather, everything feels hushed. The hors
Naska stared at the cup instead of taking it, more shocked than surprised at the motion. Someone poured her drink? It was indeed a first. No one had ever done anything for her. She was so used to doing everything for herself. And glancing up, the sight of who did, only made her more confused.It w
*Ana* Maddie was right. I feel dismal as the temperature drops the closer the maid guides us outside. She leads me down the patio steps toward the gardens. All the while, I try not to shiver obviously but it’s becoming more frequent. The Autumn chill is no joke. I have to pull the shawls closer.







