Serenya told herself not to look back.
Not even once. If she did, someone might notice. If someone noticed, they might wonder. And if they wondered–well, her first day in this game could very well become her last.
So she fixed her gaze on the back of the war captain.
Darian Valeric cut a path through the market without speaking a word, and yet people parted for him instinctively, as though his silence carried more authority than any guard's shout. Merchants lowered their voices. Children stopped their play. Even dogs slunk aside, ears flattened.
He moved with the certainty of a man who had survived too much to be slowed by a crowd.
Serenya trailed him, three bodies behind, keeping her steps uneven–sometimes pausing to study a fruit stall, sometimes shifting to let an old woman pass. She lifted the bread to her nose as if checking its crust, masking her stare.
This is madness, she thought. Following him like a thief. If he turns, if he so much as senses me–
Her chest tightened, but her feet carried her forward.
Darian's pace was steady, unhurried, yet no one dared impede him. He didn't browse, didn't greet, didn't haggle. He simply walked. As though the market were not a tangle of humanity but an empty road meant only for him.
When he reached the end of the street, he turned left, away from the press of stalls, toward quieter lanes where the air lost the spice-scent and grew faintly damp with stone and moss.
Serenya hesitated. This was no longer crowded ground where she could vanish in a sea of bodies. Following him here meant exposure.
But the parchment in her pocket burned against her hip—the address, the command. Bring us what he guards so fiercely.
She went on.
The houses here were narrow, tall, their windows shuttered. Laundry flapped between balconies. A woman poured water from a pitcher, the stream splashing into the gutter.
Darian passed beneath without looking up. His head turned once, only slightly, as though checking a shadow. Serenya pressed herself against a doorway, pretending to fuss with her cloak clasp. Her pulse thundered.
He moved on.
Minutes stretched. She followed every angle of his shoulders, every shift of his stride. He never faltered.
At last he stopped before a house that might have been mistaken for any other: stone walls, iron gate, ivy climbing the side. No banners, no crest. The kind of place you'd forget the moment you passed it. Strange, she thought, Someone of his rank should have been given a better, more secluded abode.
Darian unlocked the gate, pushed it open, and stepped inside. The door closed behind him with a thud that echoed in Serenya's bones.
She lingered in the street for a heartbeat too long. Then she turned, cloak swinging, and walked the other way, as though all this time she had merely been lost and not upto any ulterior motives.
It was only when she was safely five streets away that the let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.
******
Home was still a manor, though no one in Blackfen spoke of it that way anymore.
Serenya crossed the hall quietly, hood tucked away now, holding her basket like a shield. Sunlight slanted across marble tiles dulled by neglect, catching dust. In the sitting room she could hear the faint murmur of her siblings–Calen's voice sharp with some new argument and Elira's soft laughter spilling through in reply.
She paused at the threshold, guilt pulling at her ribs. They were so young. Too young to know how heavy a family's ruin could be. Calen's restlessness, Elira's fragile sweetness–they leaned on her without realizing it. They believed she was honest. Steady. That she would never vanish into the shadows as their father once had.
And she had lied to them. Again. Serenya turned away before they could see her face. She climbed the staircase to her chamber, the boards groaning beneath her steps.
Her room was small compared to what it might have been before the fall, but she had made it hers: a desk pressed against the window, a chest of books, a thin bed layered with blankets. She drew out her secret–the slim leather-bound notebook from beneath a loose panel near the wall
Not a diary. Not prayers. A record.
She opened to a blank page, dipped her quill, and began to write.
Darian Valeric, sighted in the morning market. He moves with little interest in goods or people. Purposeful, deliberate. Alone. Returned directly to residence on West Row, ivy along the side, iron gate, no guards.
She leaned back, exhaling. Her hand hesitated, then added a second line.
He must be watched more closely. A way inside must be found.
Her chest tightened as her mind's eye conjured Calen's curious stare, Elira's trusting hand curled into hers. They would never forgive her if they knew what she was doing.
She pressed the quill harder, the letters darker.
He looked at me once. I don't think he saw me. But if he did-
Her breath caught. She snapped the notebook shut, sliding it back beneath the floorboard.
For a moment she sat in stillness, palms flat against her knees, listening to her siblings' faint voices drift through the manor walls.
They thought her steady. They thought her safe. She would do whatever it took to make that true.
Even if it meant becoming someone else entirely.
*******
Serenya pushed back the floorboard into its place after placing her journal underneath, smoothed the carpet over it and made sure nothing looked disturbed. Her shoulders hurt with the weight of silence, and she knew staying a second more in the room alone would smother her. So she hurried downstairs.
The manor's sitting room still carried whatever was left of its old grandeur. Tall windows opened for air, a sagging velvet curtain, a table carved with the Althar crest which was now used mainly for Calen's endless experimentation.
Just like she guessed, she found her siblings in the sitting room, both working on their own projects. Calen was only twelve but already half-convinced that he knew more than any scholar in the city. He was leaning over a clutter of gears, strings and lenses he swore would become a clock "better than any you'll ever see in your life." At the moment though, it looked more likely to explode but she would never tell him that.
Elira, now ten, sat cross-legged on the carpet, her hair a tangle of dark golden locks falling over her eyes as she worked diligently at a piece of embroidery. Don't tell mum but I'm making something special for her, she whispered once to Serenya, so that I can make her smile. That caused an ache in Serenya, a child so young and innocent must never know the harsh cruelties of this world. She then vowed that she would do everything in her power to keep them happy.
They both looked up the moment Serenya entered the room, their faces brightening. "There you are!", Elira exclaimed excitedly. "Calen said you went out to meet your lover!"
"I did not!", Calen shot back, looking betrayed. "I said she probably has one, because she spends all her time reading those romance novels and looking wistfully out the window."
Serenya arched a brow, dropping into the seat beside him and plucking one of his gears out of his hands. She rolled it between her fingers. "If I did have a lover, Calen, I wouldn't hide it from the both of you. And, I'd make sure he was much less noisy than you. And definitely better at clocks"
Elira brought her hand to her mouth and giggled. Calen huffed, snatching the gear back from Serenys. "It is not a clock yet. It's a prototype. A genius is always underestimated in the beginning"
"Mm, yes," Serenya said gravely. "History will one day speak of Calen Althar, the boy who burned down his family manor in pursuit of time itself." She ruffled his hair and he swat her hand away, poking his tongue out.
Elira collapsed into laughter, her head falling against Serenya's shoulder. Serenya leaned so her sister could lie comfortably and softly kissed the top of her head, letting a smile grace her face for the first time that day.
"Don't encourage her," Calen muttered, his hands fiddling with a spring. "She'll make everything into a jest, even when the whole world falls apart."
"Perhaps that is the best time for one", a voice, as quiet as a feather falling to the ground, cut in. The three turned around to find their mother had walked into the room, holding her praying beads loosely within the grasp of her fingers, her eyes softer than they had been the past few weeks. She lowered herself gently into the chair across from them, the faint lines of exhaustion evident on her face. She was a beautiful woman, but years of disgrace and worry had etched ages upon her features.
Serenya felt her humor falter for a breath, a sense of guilt prickling sharp. But she forced herself to let the smile linger, tilting her head. "See? Even mother agrees with me. Wit is the one fire that no one can put out."
Calen let out a groan and Elira giggled again. Their mother shook her head, her lips almost curving with the ghost of a smile.
In that moment, the manor almost felt whole again.
They were just a happy family again-unburdened by the weight of disgrace-siblings teasing, mother watching them, and sunlight spilling through old glass. Sermys held onto that moment like a precious jewel, hiding the rising ache in her chest because she knew she was heading into dangerous waters.
But in this moment, she let herself laugh. For now, she could make herself believe everything was ordinary because tomorrow, she was heading straight into the lion's den.