The Count was arrested before dawn.

The streets whispered about it before the sun touched the roofs.
Fraud. Extortion. Missing coin. And now-
the death of his heir.

The gossip would burn out in weeks.
The stain would not.

Kaeliath shut the study door behind him.
Commander Cael was already there, hands braced on the table, eyes fixed on the map spread before him.

Neither spoke at first.
The only sound was the hearth, crackling low in the corner.
Neither man looked at it.

Kaeliath crossed the room, poured himself some water.
He didn’t look up.

“She didn’t know,” Cael said at last.
Not a question. Not a defense.

Kaeliath's gaze stayed on the glass in his hand.
“She didn’t care to know.”

Cael's jaw tightened.
“She followed the order.”

“She followed it until the room bled,” Kaeliath replied.
His voice was level, but the weight in it was iron.

“I need a weapon that knows where it should aim. Not one that fires at anything in reach.”

Cael straightened.
“She’s been taught to survive. Not to see.”

Kaeliath set the glass down. The sound was soft, but it carried.

“Then teach her. Politics. History. The court. Make her understand the weight of what she carries.”

“You expect her to care?”

“I expect her to act in my favor.”

The silence after that was not comfortable.
It was agreement.

Outside, a bell rang somewhere in the city, faint but clear, stretching the pause between them.

Cael gave a single nod.
“I’ll begin at once.”

Kaeliath turned towards the window, watching the city still waking under the pale light.

---

Somewhere below, new servants were arriving at the estate.

They came just after sunrise.
Faces washed, hair bound back, eyes lowered.

Most stared at the floor.
One didn’t.

Her gaze moved over the courtyard stones like she was counting them, noting every line.
There was a steadiness in her eyes, but something guarded behind it-
like someone who had been broken once and put back together.

Mariel, they called her.

She had the look of someone who had lost much- yet still, somehow, smiled.
Not the bright kind that reached for joy.
The kind that refused to die.

It was the sort of smile that dared you to test it.

They shoved a broom into her hands and sent her to the training yard.
The stones there were sand-scuffed and worn flat by years of marching boots and clashing steel.

The air smelled of oil and iron. Somewhere beyond the wall, a gull cried-
wrong, in a place built for killing.

Anastia was already there.

No audience. No instructor.
Just her, the pale light, and the rhythm of a blade cutting air.

The strikes were sharp, precise- without hesitation.
Not the drills of a soldier.
The movements of someone who had learned to fight long before anyone told her to.

Her breathing matched the motion, each exhale keeping pace with the sweep of the blade.
Even the dust in the yard seemed to pause between her steps.

Mariel slowed in her sweeping.
Watched longer than she meant to.

“I want to be like you,” she said suddenly.

The words landed harder than expected.

Wants to be like me.

No one had ever said that to her.
No one had wanted to.
She’d never learned what to do with that kind of praise.

"What's your name?" Mariel asked,

After a brief silence, Anastia turned, eyes unreadable.

“…Anastia.”

It was all she gave in return.
Not a smile. Not a question. Just her name.

Mariel’s brow knit, but she let it go.
Some silences were walls, and this one wasn’t budging.

Footsteps crossed the yard.
A servant, quick and breathless.

“Commander Cael wants to see you.”

Anastia sheathed the blade.
The air still carried the echo of steel.

She followed without a word-
not knowing if what waited was instruction,
or something else entirely..