Lily clenched her teeth. Not him again. If it wasn't for him, the others might have let her be. Ignore her, maybe give a look of disdain.

But Lioran... Lioran was vile in the way Dorin and his sister were, back in Ulm. Only then, she could fight back. Here, she had to hold down both her fists and her tongue.

The eastern wing of the Prince's palace was the place where most of the Councilmen's children received their education.

And she learned quickly that, in that wing, learning had two faces.

The first was high and cold, beneath the vaulted ceilings where lanterns burned bright and the winged children studied parchment under the eyes of the finest Astochian scholars.

The second was lower, warmer, behind an unadorned door, where Relah taught her and Evan how to write letters and Halden how to count numbers.

Even though human and Ilari spaces were physically separated, it was impossible to entirely avoid contact.

Evan was with her, most of the times. Not today, though, for he had woken up with a slight cold, and Mirna had insisted he should rest. When he was here, the Ilari children threw slurs at him, as well. However, with her, it was worse.

That cursed, traitorous sometimes-glow of her skin made everything worse.

"Be careful to not let the mud leave a mark on you," one girl said, shaking her glittering lliath dress.

"Keep your distance," another added, practiced. "These are our paths."

"And yours are by the wall," Lioran's lips stretched into a cold grin. "Where you cannot accidentally slip and fall."

Giggles burst like shattered glass.

The pebble jumped from his palm. It struck at her feet and bounced; another landed closer to her ankle. It didn't hurt; it was meant to be remembered. Lily pressed her lips together. Her hand, by reflex, found the wall.

"Mudborn," Lioran said. He didn't shout, but passed down like knowledge.

She did not answer. She dared not. Instead, she bit her tongue.

The shift of wind in wings announced an arrival. Lioran and his flock turned, still smiling.

Eirran landed on the far side of the terrace, quiet, composed. He didn't glance at the children or their stones, as if they weren't there at all. He walked to Lily like a man who knew exactly who he had come to see, even if he did use that odd Ilari glide.

"Relah is waiting," he said gently. "Don't be late."

He didn't seek her eyes at once; he gave her time to seek him out. She did, her eyes carrying a thin trace of wetness on her lash. He brushed it away with his sleeve as if wiping a stain, not a feeling.

"I hate that I can't I throw that pebble back." she whispered, not complaining. Just stating a bitter, cold truth.

Eirran sighed, and in his eyes sat the weight of a century.

"Eilleah." He spoke her full name with the faintest tri-harmonic accent on the middle syllable. A name that was hers, yet not hers, and from him it sounded like prayer. "It would be easy to throw the stone back. But a stone can too easily become a knife under the ribs." In his gaze was no rebuke. Only resolve.

He shifted sideways, lifting a wing just enough to shield her from the children's view, then gently touched and lifted her chin.

"True victory," he said, holding her gaze, "isn't forged in the heat of the moment. It begins in patience. In knowledge. In measure. In knowing exactly when and where to strike."

She raised her face, and there it was: a smile that showed not teeth, but courage.

"Go," he said. "Relah doesn't like it when you are late."

Only then did he turn to the children in the sun. He said nothing. His gaze swept over them like a cold wind: not to break, but to direct. They stepped back from the edge without knowing why. But the slight press of Lioran's lips promised it was not over.

Later, in Eirran's study, the game board waited on the table. Tennat stretched across the net of thin lines: dark and light stone figurines unplayed, the hollow circle waiting for the captured. Eirran pointed to a "weak" point, the kind that, if fed with patience, could surround too much strength and make it collapse on itself.

"If you put the queen here," he said, "it looks pointless. A lone piece, with no support. But wait three moves and do this...look." He set a dark piece for her, a light for himself, another dark. "Now that 'weakness' cuts off the whole side. Why? Because it waited."

"Like this morning," Lily said softly. "I didn't throw back."

"Precisely," he agreed.

She studied the board, then set her piece down and lifted her gaze, as though choosing between two paths.

"I know," she said quietly, "that you're my father."

The word fell on the table like a paperweight. Eirran breathed in; the air entered calm, not fleeing.

"You know," he said, "but don't speak it outside this room. You never know whose ears are dangerous. The rules are..." He searched. "Unjust. Wrong."

"And you can't change them. Even though you are...who you are." She blinked with the composure of someone far older than eight, almost nine years of age.

"I wish I could." He exhaled. "All I can do is steer this ship through waters full of sharks without giving them blood."

Her eyes dropped. "Are you... Are you ashamed of me?" Her voice was thin as a spider's thread.

A memory rose, unbidden. Noemi, emerging from the cold darkness. "You think your noble Ilari blood will ever be anything but a noose around this child's neck? You arrogant fool." - the chains pulled taut, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "It's a wingless half-breed I carry. Your great House would slit it's throat before ever letting you desecrate their name by calling it yours."

He pushed the memory away.

"Lily." His fingertips lifted her chin. Their eyes met. His glistened with something she had no name for. "Never." The word struck like hammer on anvil. "If I were ashamed, I would never have come for you in Ulm. I would never have brought you here." He shook his head. "I would have come sooner, had I known."

Her lip trembled. "Then why..."

He swallowed, eyes clouded. "Because I am afraid," he confessed. "Afraid of losing you, of having you taken as you were at birth. And of exactly this: you looking at me and thinking I am ashamed."

"I saw you unafraid in the storm," she said. "But I know this is... different."

He nodded. "It is." Silence stretched. "And... I saw you with Jereh. How he holds you. So easily, like a cloud in the breeze. And I thought...I wished I too knew how to tie that knot. The one that holds, but lets go when it must."

"I'll teach you," she said at once, as if it were the simplest promise in the world. "If you promise you'll be my father. At least when we're alone."

He looked up as if searching the ceiling for words. There were none. Only what needed saying.

"I promise," he said. "When we are alone, I will be. And outside this room, when I can, I will walk beside you."

She leaned in, as children do when overwhelmed by a feeling. She hugged him, timidly, touching forehead to his shoulder. Her fingers brushed the edge of his wing.

Reflex, carved in by years of doctrine, flared faster than thought. His wing shuddered, pulling back as from flame. Not flight; an old drilled "no" from a body told a thousand times: wings are bridges to the divine, do not touch, forbidden.

Lily recoiled as if burned. Her hands withdrew, her face crumpled. "I'm sorry," she blurted. "I didn't mean... I know... I shouldn't..."

"No," he said at once, too late for the first wound. "You are not to blame. That was... on me." The air tasted of iron. Inside him two halves fought: the learned half: wings sacred, untouchable; and the one just now learning to breathe: that a child outweighed any law.

She pulled back, trembling. "I know the rule," she whispered. "Even in the village they said. For that..." She stopped.

For that, one loses a hand.

Eirran spread his hands, palms open, as one might approach a frightened creature. "Listen to me," he said slowly, so he could hear it too. "You did nothing wrong. Nothing happened that cannot be mended. If I flinched, that was on me. Not you. And I will never let anyone harm you for it, never. Alright?"

Her wide eyes caught the struggle under his skin: shame not meant for her, disgust not meant for her, and the will straining to master both.

"Forgive me," he said. "Please. Let me try again. Let me... hold you."

She nodded, very slightly. He stepped closer, awkward, arms folding too high at first, then lower, as he had seen men do. It lacked the ease she had with Jereh, but it carried intent and care. His wings strained back, away from touch, but his arms locked around her. They stayed a moment, crookedly joined. Not across the gulf, but with their fingers brushing its edges.

Something slipped from her pocket, light as a leaf. A bundle tied with old ribbon: three thin letters. It fell by the tennat board, beside a white figure.

Lily bent and picked it up. She held it as one holds something that burns and warms. "These are letters," she said, voice barely more than breath. "From... Mother." Her gaze flickered, but did not turn away. "I never learned to read them. I was ashamed to ask."

She placed the bundle in his hand, careful, as though giving him a small fish not to be crushed.

"Will you... will you read them to me?"

The bundle lay in his palm light as a feather, heavy as stone. He recognized the slanted, stubborn script at once. In his chest, something trembled, rattled, and tightened into a painful knot.

And with it, the cell door creaked open again. Torchlight on stone. Chains rattling as she rose. The feeling of betrayal.

"How could you do this to me? To us?"

Her eyes blazing with green fire, hand pressing against swollen stomach. "I don't expect you to understand. You and your bargains, your compromises. You wanted our child to rot in a gilded cage. I wanted them to dance free under the stars."

The weight of the paper in his palm was the weight of that night. He had walked away while her sob still echoed off the stone. And now the echo sat before him, alive, breathing, staring at him.

He hid the tempest inside him behind the practiced Ilari mask. He only lowered his fingers so she would not see them shake.

"I will read them," he said evenly, as though asked for a trifle, not the reopening of old wounds. "Tonight. When it is quiet and warm."

She nodded. He retied the ribbon, almost solemn, and gave it back for her to carry, then walked her down the hall back to Relah. At the crossroads he paused only long enough for a deeper breath. The stone held his step; his wings did not seek the air.

Only when the door closed behind her did he close his eyes and let out a long breath. Better bitter tonic than sweet lie, he told himself, and set everything else aside until nightfall.

On the table, the tennat board remained unfinished.

But the letters waited. Like knives digging into old wounds, yet it was a pain he craved, even if he was not ready. Because he knew, once he opened that door, he'd open something that can never be shut again.