The days passed slow in House Serinova
Zareena spent them walking silent corridors where portraits judged from above and servants whispered behind tapestries. Nothing here had changed—and yet everything had. She was no longer invisible, but that didn't make her welcome.
The estate was a palace of appearances: every gesture practiced, every word weighed like silver.
At the breakfast table, her father rarely spoke. When he did, it was about estate affairs or dull reports—never the border, never Vireloch, never her.
Her stepmother, Liora, played hostess with chilling grace, arranging luncheons with other noble families. Each gathering felt like a battlefield masked in lace: false compliments, sideways glances, girls asking just curious questions about how Zareena "managed to keep a garrison so far from real leadership."
She answered nothing. Let them wonder.
Her half-siblings had their roles, too. Mikhail acted like heir already—boasting of alliances, parading his popularity among the other sons of nobility. Alira watched more than she spoke, her quiet presence more unnerving than Mikhail's loud posturing.
But Zareena listened.
At night, when the halls hushed and only the old floorboards creaked under watchful footsteps, she met quietly with the guard captain who had escorted her, and the mage who now served under her command.
What they whispered was troubling.
Gold was shifting hands. Letters from Marcerov's allies had passed through the estate. A land trade had gone through under her father's seal—near Vireloch's southern borders.
"They're testing how far they can push you now that you're back here," the mage warned. "You've become a symbol. That makes you dangerous."
Zareena folded the message and looked through the window, past the quiet gardens and high walls.
"Let them try."
Because the same patience that kept her alive in Vireloch was the one that would help her here.
Let them sharpen their knives.
She was learning their halls, their habits, their weaknesses.
And she was not alone anymore