A sharp, rhythmic rapping on the door broke Maja's fitful sleep just as the first grey light of dawn bled through the curtains. Morning comes quickly in the North. The same pinched-faced servant from the night before stood there, holding a dress of stiff, dove-grey wool. "The Lady Othella expects you at the morning meal," the woman said, her eyes lingering judgmentally on Maja's tangled hair. "You have twenty minutes. The Master does not tolerate tardiness, and the young Lords are already seated."
Maja's stomach tightened. The "Master" was Caspian now—his father's shadow. She bathed quickly, the hot water stinging her chapped skin, and dressed in the borrowed clothes. The wool was high-quality, but it felt like a uniform. A brand of ownership. She woke Gael, who was uncharacteristically quiet, sensing her mother's tension, and followed the servant through the echoing halls.
The dining hall was a cavern of dark oak and ancestral tapestries. A long table stretched across the room, groaning under the weight of smoked meats, fresh bread, and porridges—more food than Maja had seen in a year.
As she entered, the clatter of silverware stopped. Four pairs of eyes turned toward her.
Lady Othella sat at the head, but Caspian occupied the seat to her right, his posture as rigid as the high-backed chair. Kaelen was mid-bite, his hand still resting near his belt, while Lucian leaned back, a faint, amused smirk playing on his lips. Beside him sat Elara, who looked as though she had been forced to smell something foul.
Sit," Othella commanded softly, gesturing to a seat at the far end of the table—the furthest point from the family, yet directly in their line of sight. Maja sat, pulling Gael onto her lap. The silence was thick, heavy with the weight of the trade charter Othella had surrendered the night before.
"So," Elara began, her voice high and brittle, "it speaks. Tell me, Ssyelma, do you always pay for your meals with stolen silver, or was the Princess a special occasion?"
"Elara," Othella warned, but her voice lacked its usual bite. She was watching Maja, waiting to see how she would respond.
"I pay for my meals with whatever the world demands," Maja said, her voice steady despite the way her heart hammered. She didn't look at Elara; she looked at the bread, tearing a piece for Gael. "In the North, it seems the demand is simply for a target to spit on."
Kaelen let out a short, dry bark of a laugh. "She certainly has the Ssyelman tongue. Sharp, and usually attached to a lie."
"Enough," Caspian's voice cut through the bickering like a guillotine. He hadn't touched his food. He was staring at Maja, his blue eyes narrowed. "My mother has purchased your safety, but do not mistake this for a home. You are here to work off a debt that your grandchildren will likely still owe this House. You will stay out of the family wings, you will not speak unless spoken to, and you will keep that child silent."
He leaned forward, the candlelight catching the hard planes of his face. "In this house, we value two things: loyalty and utility. So far, you have shown us only that you are an expensive thief. Prove us wrong, or I will personally escort you back to the Princess's guards."
Lucian chuckled, reaching for a flagon of ale. "Don't mind Caspian. He's just sour because the grain merchants are already sending him angry ravens about the taxes. I, for one, think a bit of 'trouble' is exactly what this tomb of a house needed."
"The library," Lady Othella said, dabbing her mouth with a silk napkin. "Caspian is overwhelmed with the restructuring of the trade routes since... the recent changes. You will assist him in cataloging the archives and translating the old Ssyelman trade ledgers. Your people were masters of the Southern ports; we need that knowledge now."
The silence that followed was deafening. Caspian's fork clattered against his plate.
"Mother, you cannot be serious," he said, his voice dangerously low. "The archives contain family records. You're putting a thief in the one room where we keep our history?"
"I am putting a literate woman in a room that needs a sharp mind," Othella countered. "Unless, of course, you'd rather spend your nights doing the translations yourself instead of training the militia?"
Caspian's jaw worked in silence. He stood abruptly, his chair screeching against the stone floor. He didn't look at his mother. He looked at Maja.
"Two hours," he snapped. "If you are a minute late, you will spend the day in the laundry pits."
He swept out of the room, his heavy cloak billowing behind him.
Two hours later, Maja stood before the towering oak doors of the library. She had left Gael with a young, kind-eyed nursery maid—a risk that made Maja's skin crawl, but she had no choice. She pushed the doors open.
The room was vast, smelling of parchment, old leather, and the bitter scent of the ink Caspian was using. High ladders reached toward a ceiling painted with constellations, and thousands of books looked down like silent judges.
Caspian was seated at a massive desk cluttered with maps and scrolls. He didn't look up.
"There is a stack of ledgers on the far table," he said, his pen scratching aggressively against paper. "They are written in the old Ssyelman script—the cursive dialect used by the coastal traders. Translate them into the Northern tongue. Every shipment, every tax, every bribe. If you miss a single copper, I will know."
Maja walked to the table. She picked up the top ledger. The familiar swoops and dots of her mother-tongue felt like a punch to the gut. It was a piece of the home she had lost, held in the hands of the man who despised her.
"I don't need a lecture on how to read my own blood's history," Maja said quietly, taking a seat.
Caspian didn't looked up.For hours, the only sound was the scratching of pens. But the air between them was thick, charged with the memory of the morning's confrontation. Maja worked with a ferocity that surprised him, her fingers flying over the cursive dialect of her people.
She reached a page blotted with old wine and stood to approach his desk. As she got closer, she saw him staring at a hidden portrait—his father. He quickly covered it with a map, his face flushing with a mix of anger and caught-out vulnerability.
"What?" he barked, rising from his chair to loom over her.
"The ledger is damaged," Maja said, refusing to back down from his shadow. "I can't read the cargo list for the Year of the Tiger. But if I remember my father's stories, this route was used for—"
"I don't care about your father's stories," Caspian snapped. He stepped around the desk, invading her space until she could smell the mountain air and cedarwood on his skin. He snatched the ledger from her hand, his fingers brushing hers.
Caspian slammed the ledger shut, the sound echoing like a gunshot against the high stone ceiling. "It's useless. I am wasting my breath on a thief who can barely read through the wine stains of her own people's failures."
He turned his back to her, dismissively waving a hand toward the door. "Go. I'll tell my mother you're better suited for the laundry pits. At least there, the grime is honest."
Maja didn't move. A cold, sharp anger—the kind that had kept her alive in the frozen wastes of the Niihtne—settled in her chest. She didn't leave; instead, she stepped into his personal space, her shadow falling across his maps.
"You're looking for the missing gold in the numbers, My Lord," she said, her voice dropping to a calm, icy silk that made him go still. "But you're a Northman. You see the world in stone and steel. You don't see how a trader actually moves."
Caspian turned, his eyes narrowing. "And I suppose a thief does?"
"A survivor does," she corrected. She reached out and flipped the ledger open again, pointing to the column of dates. "Look at the shipping times. These carriages aren't late because of the snow. They're arriving exactly six hours early every Tuesday. Your own guards are skimming the crates before they even reach the warehouse, and they're using your 'Northern efficiency' to hide the gap."
Caspian leaned in, his curiosity momentarily overriding his arrogance. He was so close she could feel the heat of him, the scent of cedar and cold mountain air rolling off his skin. He looked at the times, his jaw tightening as the logic clicked into place. He hadn't seen it because he trusted his men; she saw it because she trusted no one.
"If you're lying to deflect blame..." he began, his voice dropping to a low, rough growl. The heavy door creaked open.
"Lord Caspian?" The young nursery maid stood there, looking terrified to interrupt. "The Lady Elara is in the nursery. She... she has locked the door from the inside and won't let us in to get the child. She says a Ssyelma's brat doesn't belong in the family wing."
Maja's blood turned to ice. "If she touches my daughter," Maja whispered, her eyes turning feral as she lunged for the door, "I don't care what debt I owe this house—I will burn Vaelenridge to the ground with all of you inside it." Maja didn't wait for Caspian's permission. She sprinted.
The velvet slippers she'd been given were silent against the cold stone, but her heart was a drum, thundering against her ribs. She took the stairs two at a time, the grey wool of her dress heavy around her legs. Behind her, she could hear the heavy, rhythmic thud of Caspian's boots—he wasn't trying to stop her; he was trying to keep up. Maja's heart felt like it was going to burst through her ribs as she reached the nursery landing. She didn't wait for the maids to move; she shouldered past them, her hand flying to the heavy brass handle.
The door wasn't locked. It swung open on silent hinges.
Inside, the nursery was bathed in the soft, golden glow of a midday fire. It was a room of unimaginable luxury—plush rugs, hand-carved rocking horses, and silk tapestries. But Maja only had eyes for the crib.
Gael wasn't crying. In fact, the room was strangely quiet.
Maja froze. Elara was sitting on the edge of the mahogany crib, her expensive silk skirts spilling over the side like a waterfall. She was holding a small, silver-backed mirror, tilting it so the sunlight caught the glass and threw dancing "fairies" of light across the ceiling. Gael was standing up in the crib, her tiny hands reaching for the light, let out a soft, bubbly giggle.
"See?" Elara whispered, her voice missing its sharp, brittle edge. "The light is faster than you are, little bird."
Caspian stepped into the room behind Maja, his hand resting on the doorframe. He went still, his eyes widening as he looked at his sister.
Elara looked up, her face flushing a deep, guilty crimson when she saw Maja. She quickly tucked the mirror into her pocket and stood, smoothing her skirts with trembling hands. "I... I told the maids to leave. They were hovering, and the child was fussing. I couldn't hear myself think in the next room."
Maja rushed forward, scooping Gael into her arms. The toddler let out a protest, her eyes still searching for the light-fairies. Maja checked her daughter's hands, her face, her breathing—looking for a hurt that wasn't there.
"You said she didn't belong here," Maja rasped, her voice thick with the remnants of her panic.
Elara lifted her chin, trying to reclaim her haughty mask, but it slipped. She looked at Maja—really looked at her—noticing for the first time that they were nearly the same height, and that the grey dress Maja wore was one Elara had outgrown two winters ago.
"I said she didn't belong in the family wing," Elara corrected, though her voice lacked its earlier sting. She stepped closer, her eyes scanning Maja's face with a sudden, intense curiosity. "But I've never seen a Ssyelma up close. My brothers say your women are all fire and daggers. I wanted to see if you really had claws."
"I do," Maja said, her grip on Gael tightening. "When I have to."
Elara's lips quirked into a tiny, almost invisible smile. "Good. You'll need them in this house. My brothers are insufferable, and my mother is a saint who forgets that saints usually end up martyred." She paused, her gaze flickering to Caspian, who was watching the exchange with a bewildered intensity. "She has your eyes, you know. The baby. But she has a Northern spirit. She didn't cry when I picked her up. She just stared at me like she was deciding whether or not I was worth the trouble."
Caspian cleared his throat, the sound rough in the quiet room. "Elara, you nearly caused a riot in the hallway."
"Oh, hush, Caspian," Elara snapped, though the bite was gone. She turned back to Maja, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "If you're going to be staying in the East Wing, you'll need better shoes. Those slippers make you look like a servant, and if you're going to be arguing with my brother in the library, you should at least look like his equal."
She reached into her pocket, pulled out the silver mirror, and pressed it into Maja's hand. "Keep it. For the bird. It'll keep her quiet while you're doing his boring ledgers."
Without waiting for a thank you, Elara s
wept past them, her silk skirts rustling like dry leaves.