The wind in the servants' courtyard had teeth that morning. It gnawed at the edges of Lyra's sleeves as she rinsed the last of the rice-water from the wooden pails, steam curling from the surface before disappearing into the brittle winter air. The sun was weak, more a pale coin than a source of warmth, and every sound felt sharper, the clatter of pots in the kitchen, the faint ring of training swords in the far yard, the wind combing through the bare plum branches overhead.
She tried to lose herself in the ordinary rhythm of chores, in the scrape and splash, in the comfort of repetition. But the truth was she could still feel it, that alien hum deep beneath her ribs. It was like standing too close to a wasp's nest, hearing the wing-beat inside her own skin.
Zara found her there, leaning against the low wall by the laundry lines, a wooden tray tucked under one arm. Zara's eyes were quick, too quick for Lyra's comfort, flicking over her as though measuring something that wasn't visible to anyone else.
"You've been scarce," Zara said, placing the tray down with a soft thud. "And you've been looking… distracted."
Lyra tried for a small smile, the kind you use to dismiss someone's concern without insulting it. "I've just been tired."
Zara didn't buy it. She never did. "Tired doesn't make your hands tremble like that."
Lyra glanced down. Her fingers had indeed been shaking, almost imperceptibly, but the moment she noticed, the tremor stilled. It wasn't fear, exactly. It was more like her muscles were tuning themselves to a frequency she didn't yet understand.
"I had a dream," Lyra said at last, because the dream had been easier to think about than the waking moments when her shadow seemed to move half a breath behind her. "It felt… real."
Zara raised a brow. "One of your strange ones again?"
She nodded, leaning against the wall so the cold stone could anchor her. "He was there. The man from the banquet. The one who,"
"The Shadow Sovereign," Zara whispered, glancing around as if the words themselves were dangerous.
"Yes." Lyra's voice was quieter still. "He told me to be careful. That what's in me now is more than I can carry."
The words were still hot in her memory, as if he'd spoken them only moments ago. She could almost see his eyes in the darkness, that deep, obsidian gleam, like looking into a well with no bottom.
Zara crouched down beside her. "Lyra, if you've gotten yourself involved with something… you need to tell me the truth. All of it. I can't help you if I don't understand."
For a moment, Lyra almost did. The weight pressing against her chest demanded release, some act of trust that might lighten it. But the image of Kieran's gaze flashed unbidden in her mind, the way his eyes had narrowed yesterday when she'd almost slipped, when the faint coil of shadow had threatened to slip from her palm before she crushed it back into herself.
If Zara knew, she'd try to protect her. And that protection would be noticed. And then…
"No one can know," Lyra said instead, the words heavier than she meant them to be.
Zara's lips thinned. "Then at least tell me this. Is it dangerous?"
"Yes." The honesty in that single word startled even her.
They worked in silence after that. The courtyard filled with the low hum of ordinary life, but to Lyra it all seemed unreal, like the background noise in a dream. Her senses kept sliding elsewhere, to the subtle pulse of that alien power, to the memory of the Shadow Sovereign's hand gripping hers as his life bled away into the night.
It was mid-afternoon when the incident happened. A junior disciple, barely older than Lyra, had been trying to carry a bundle of practice spears across the yard when one slipped. It should have been nothing more than a clatter, maybe a bruise if it hit someone's foot. But the spear was tipped with a dull iron head, and the arc it made was perfect for disaster, it was about to strike one of the young kitchen boys right at the temple.
Lyra didn't think. She moved.
Her hand shot out, faster than instinct alone should allow, and she felt that dangerous hum leap to the surface like a predator scenting blood. The shadow that spilled from her fingers was so quick and fine it might have been mistaken for a trick of the light, a thin, black filament wrapping the spear mid-fall and halting it inches from the boy's head.
The child never even saw it. But Kieran, who had been crossing the far end of the yard at that exact moment, did.
Their eyes met.
The filament snapped back into nothingness, and the spear clattered harmlessly to the ground. Lyra forced her breathing into something calm, but her pulse felt as though it had been stitched directly to the shadow in her chest, hammering wildly.
Kieran didn't approach. He didn't need to. That look, sharp, measuring, utterly silent, told her enough.
That night, she sat in her narrow cot with her knees pulled up, watching the moonlight pour through the slats of the shutters. She thought about the way Kieran's gaze had lingered just a fraction too long. About the Sovereign's warning. About Zara's face when she'd refused to explain.
The courtyard outside was quiet except for the occasional scrape of a guard's boots. And then, faintly, the sound of someone pausing just outside her door.
No knock. Just the weight of presence.
"Lyra," came Kieran's voice, low enough that no one else would hear. "Tomorrow. You and I will speak."
The footsteps moved away.
She sat frozen in the moonlight, knowing the thin line she'd been walking had just grown sharper. One wrong step now, and there would be no hiding what she was.
Sleep didn't come easily. It slinked just out of reach, teasing her with half-formed dreams that dissolved whenever she tried to sink into them. Each time she closed her eyes, she heard that same phrase again, Tomorrow. You and I will speak.
She hated how his voice lingered, how it wasn't just the threat she remembered, but the quiet certainty in it. Kieran wasn't guessing anymore. He'd seen something.
The candle on the little table beside her bed had burned almost to its base before she gave up trying to rest. She sat there, drawing her knees tighter to her chest, watching the melted wax form crooked ridges like a miniature mountain range. She thought about how mountains held the illusion of permanence, yet crumbled grain by grain if you watched long enough. Maybe people were the same.
By the time dawn pushed its thin fingers between the shutters, she had decided one thing, she couldn't let Zara be dragged into whatever tomorrow brought. That meant distance, no matter how unnatural it felt.
When she stepped into the courtyard, frost still clung stubbornly to the edges of the flagstones. The air bit her lungs in a way that made every breath sharp, purposeful. Across the yard, disciples were already drilling, their swords moving in arcs that caught the pale light.
She almost made it to the laundry well before Zara intercepted her, balancing a basket on her hip.
"You look like you wrestled your own thoughts all night," Zara said.
"Something like that." Lyra kept her voice light, though she felt the effort like walking on glass.
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong, or should I guess until I annoy you into confessing?"
The warmth in Zara's tone made the ache sharper. Lyra wanted to tell her. She wanted to say everything, spill it all out until the burden wasn't pressing so tightly against her ribs. But the thought of Kieran's eyes, of the Empress's machinations, of the Shadow Court whose name alone could choke the air from a room… no.
"Not today," she said, and stepped past before the words could soften.
She didn't see the frown Zara tried to hide, but she felt the absence of her footsteps following.
The day passed in small rituals. Hauling water. Scrubbing floors. The muted clink of dishes. And always, that invisible thread tugging at her attention, drawing her toward the inevitable conversation.
It came in the late afternoon.
She was carrying a bundle of folded linens toward the storage hall when two palace guards stepped into her path. They didn't speak, just nodded toward the inner courtyard.
Kieran was waiting there. No armor, no ceremonial robes, just plain black training clothes, the sleeves rolled back enough to reveal the sinew in his forearms. The casualness made him seem more dangerous somehow.
"Walk with me," he said.
The guards fell back, but she felt their eyes on her as she followed him down the covered walkway. The wooden boards creaked underfoot. Beyond the railing, the ornamental pond lay still, the surface broken only by the slow drift of koi beneath.
"You're quick," Kieran said at last, without looking at her.
She didn't answer.
"Quicker than most servants," he went on. "Quicker than some disciples."
The pond reflected him in fragments, the broken image of a man divided by ripples.
"I've trained," she said carefully.
"Training doesn't make shadows bend toward you."
Her steps faltered. The air between them thinned, every sound around them receding until all she could hear was the faint rush of her own heartbeat.
"I don't know what you think you saw,"
"I know what I saw." He turned to face her then, and his eyes weren't angry. That was worse. They were searching, precise, like he was fitting pieces into a puzzle he'd been working on for years. "And if I'm right, it puts you in far more danger than you seem to realize."
Something in his tone made her chest tighten. Not a threat, not quite concern, but an unsettling mix of both.
"I can take care of myself," she said, though the words felt like stones on her tongue.
"Not against what's coming."
The way he said it made the courtyard feel colder.
Before she could answer, movement caught her eye, a flicker just at the edge of the covered walkway. A figure, there and gone, but she knew in her bones they'd been watching. And whoever it was hadn't come from the palace guard.
Kieran saw it too. His gaze snapped toward the empty air, his jaw tightening. "Shadow Court," he muttered.
Her breath caught, not because of the words, but because she recognized the aura that still clung to the space where the figure had been. It was the same as the night she'd taken the Sovereign's hand.
Kieran stepped forward, scanning the courtyard. "Go back to your quarters," he said without looking at her.
And for once, she obeyed.
Back in her narrow room, she closed the shutters against the pale evening light. Her hands were still trembling. Not from fear exactly, from the gnawing awareness that whatever game she'd been trying to play, whatever balancing act she thought she could manage, the board had just shifted.
The Shadow Court had seen her.
And they would not be as patient as Kieran.