275 AC — Age 3
The first thing I learned after being born was that crying worked.
The second thing I learned was that it stopped working almost immediately.
By the time I was three, most of the keep had learned how to move around me without reacting. Servants stepped over toys without comment. Guards passed without slowing. Conversations continued even if I was sitting right there, close enough to hear every word.
It wasn't cruelty.
It was efficiency.
Bear Island didn't have the luxury of indulging in noise that didn't mean anything. The wind howled too often. The sea demanded attention whether you gave it or not. People learned early what to listen for—and what to let fade into the background.
Children, once they stopped screaming, faded quickly.
I took advantage of that.
I spent a lot of time on the floor.
Not because anyone told me to stay there, but because the floor was where things happened around you instead of at you. Boots passed by. Dresses brushed the stone. The hem of Maege's cloak crossed my vision often enough that I learned to recognize it before I could properly focus on faces.
The keep didn't change much from day to day. Stone stayed stone. The hearth smoked when the wind shifted wrong. The sea was always there—sometimes loud enough to rattle shutters, sometimes distant enough to forget for a few heartbeats.
I learned its moods by sound alone.
I also learned the keep by sound.
There was a stair that creaked when someone climbed it too quickly. A door near the armory that stuck in damp weather. The difference between guard boots and servant shoes. The way voices shifted when someone unfamiliar entered the hall.
I didn't understand it all yet.
But I remembered.
At three, memory still felt solid.
It didn't slip the way it would later. Faces stayed where I put them. Names stuck if I heard them often enough. Whole moments lined up cleanly, like stones stacked carefully before the weather had a chance to knock them over.
That made waiting harder.
Maege was everywhere and nowhere at once.
She was present—issuing instructions, listening to reports, deciding things—but she did more of it seated now. When she stood, it was deliberate. When she walked, someone always seemed to appear just behind her, ready to take over if needed.
No one said why.
No one needed to.
I sat on a thick rug near the solar table while Maege spoke with her officers. A wooden bear rested beside me, its paint chipped from years of handling by children who'd outgrown it. I pushed it back and forth across the rug, careful not to make it bump too loudly against the table leg.
Looking up invited attention.
Attention invited movement.
So I listened instead.
"…two boats late," someone said.
"Tide turned early," another replied.
Maege didn't raise her voice. She rarely did. "Check anyway."
That last part mattered.
I didn't know why yet, not fully—but the pattern lodged itself somewhere solid. Other people dismissed delays. Maege didn't. She treated minor problems as if they might grow teeth if left alone.
At three, I couldn't act on any of this. I couldn't even articulate it. My body still tripped over its own feet. My hands didn't always do what I wanted them to.
But my mind noticed.
That was the imbalance.
It made me quiet.
Quiet enough that people forgot I was there.
That suited me fine.
The day Dacey was born, the keep sounded different.
Not louder. Softer.
Voices dropped without being told. Doors closed more carefully. People moved with the same efficiency as always, but the sharp edges dulled like everyone had wrapped themselves in an extra layer they hadn't needed yesterday.
I noticed before anyone explained anything.
Maege wasn't in the solar that morning. She wasn't in the hall either. She wasn't anywhere I could see.
That was unusual.
I sat where I was placed—on a bench near the hearth—with a servant within arm's reach and no explanation beyond a gentle hand on my shoulder and a murmured, "Stay here."
I stayed.
Time passed in pieces.
A runner moved through the hall and was stopped quietly, redirected without argument. Someone carried fresh cloth toward the inner rooms. Another followed with a bucket of hot water, steam curling into the air.
I knew what those things meant.
Not because I'd seen them before, but because some part of me recognized the pattern from somewhere else. From a life that felt farther away than it should have.
Birth.
When the cry finally came, it cut through the keep with surprising force.
Sharp. Thin. Demanding.
Everything adjusted around it.
A servant beside me let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Someone laughed softly down the hall. A guard shifted his weight, then stilled again.
Life continued.
But differently.
"She's loud," someone said nearby.
"That's a good sign," another replied.
I stood without thinking.
That was a mistake.
Three-year-old legs were not built for sudden decisions. I wobbled immediately and would have gone down if the servant hadn't caught me under the arms and steadied me.
"Easy," she said, smiling. "You'll see her soon."
I didn't know how she knew that, but I nodded anyway.
When Maege finally returned, she wasn't carrying Dacey.
Someone else was.
Maege walked beside them, hand resting briefly on the swaddled bundle, as if reassuring herself it was real. She looked exhausted in a way I hadn't seen before—tired beyond muscle or bone.
She saw me immediately.
She always did, even when I thought I was invisible.
"Well," she said, stopping in front of me, "you're still standing."
I nodded solemnly.
The servant holding the bundle crouched and turned slightly, angling it so I could see.
Dacey's face was red and scrunched, eyes squeezed shut in protest at the world. One tiny hand had escaped the cloth and waved weakly in the air.
She was small.
Smaller than I'd expected.
Something in my chest tightened.
Maege observed me. "This is your sister," she said. "Dacey."
I stared.
"She's loud," I said.
Maege snorted, then caught herself and smiled despite the fatigue. "She is."
Dacey chose that moment to cry again, thin and sharp. The sound went straight through me, setting my nerves on edge in a way I didn't recognize.
Without thinking, I stepped closer.
That was another mistake.
The servant shifted immediately, putting her body between me and the baby—not roughly, just enough to block. Maege raised a hand.
"It's fine," she said.
The servant relaxed slightly but didn't move away.
Maege knelt in front of me, lowering herself carefully. She took my hands in hers—callused, warm, steady.
"She's fragile," Maege said. "You don't touch unless someone helps you."
I nodded quickly. "Okay."
Maege considered me for a moment, then gestured to the servant. "Let him see."
I walked toward the cradle and gazed inside.
Dacey's cry softened, then hitched. Her eyes opened briefly, unfocused and dark. She didn't see me. Not really.
That was fine.
I reached out without realizing I was doing it, fingers hovering uselessly in the air.
"She smells funny," I said.
Maege laughed, quiet and real. "She's new."
That explanation satisfied me completely.
Dacey was taken away soon after, carried deeper into the keep. The sounds followed—soft crying, murmured voices, the rhythm of rocking steps.
The keep reorganized itself around that sound.
Meals shifted. Routes changed. People stepped aside without thinking. Life adjusted to the new weight.
I watched all of it.
That night, I was allowed to sit closer than usual while Dacey slept.
Not touch.
Just sit.
Maege rested in a chair nearby, posture loose in a way I'd never seen before. Someone else held Dacey, rocking gently.
"She'll wake you," Maege said without looking at me.
"That's okay," I replied.
Maege glanced over, expression unreadable. "You don't know what you're agreeing to."
I shrugged.
Dacey woke three times before I was taken to bed.
Each time, the keep responded.
Each time, someone else handled it.
I lay awake for a long time afterward, listening to the new sound woven into the old ones. Dacey's cries rose and fell, slowly losing their sharp edge as exhaustion claimed her.
The world felt fuller.
Not louder.
Just… fuller.
In the days that followed, I learned something important.
Quiet things were harder to notice.
They were also easier to forget.
Everyone's attention centered on Dacey now. Servants moved around her. Guards lowered their voices near her rooms. Maege's time divided itself into smaller pieces.
I was put here, then there. Set down, picked up, relocated with gentle urgency.
Not because of me.
Because of her.
I didn't resent it.
If anything, it made my position clearer.
I watched more.
I listened more.
I learned the difference between cries—hunger, discomfort, and anger. The way Maege's shoulders eased when Dacey slept longer than expected. The way the keep relaxed, fraction by fraction, as routines rebuilt themselves around the new shape of things.
Sometimes Maege looked at me differently now.
Not less.
Just… adjusted.
Her hand lingered longer on my shoulder. Her instructions were shorter, clearer. She said my name more often than she had before.
That mattered too.
One evening, as Dacey slept and the keep settled into a rhythm that felt almost familiar again, Maege passed by where I sat and paused.
"You've been quiet," she said.
"I always am," I replied.
She smiled faintly. "Not like this."
She rested her hand on my head, thumb brushing my hair back with careful familiarity.
"Stay that way," she said. "It's useful."
I didn't know what she meant.
But I nodded anyway.