Kirsya's feather duster played a gentle, dry fluffing over leather and vellum, a dawn song as familiar as the first birds beyond the thick glass. She moved in silence, her back to the great canopied bed, each sweep of goose feathers conjuring tiny dust clouds that danced in the narrow blade of sunlight slicing through the room.
The prince, Kalos, was still asleep. She knew by the slow, even breath that whispered beneath the distant hammering of the forge from beyond the fortress walls. Her whole body was tuned to that sound, a string pulled taut.
She stretched to straighten the curtains that draped over the bookshelves, her fingers careful on the fabric.
A floorboard sighed near the bed. The breathing pattern shifted—a quick, sharp inhalation, then the rustle of linen. Kirsya did not pause or turn. Her gaze remained fixed on the shelf, on the familiar titles she couldn't read. Her duster continued its swings along the shelves, but her ears now caught wind of movements.
Pushing himself up, his bare arms prickling in the chill, Kalos let his gaze fall upon the practice sword leaning against the carved bedpost, its wood nicked and worn from yesterday's drubbing by his master-at-arms. The sight stirred a flicker of frustration and resignation within him, as evidence of his struggle persisted in the faint purple bruise blooming on his right forearm—a visible reminder of his perceived shortcomings, mirrored by the ache forming on his ribs.
A soft thud, his feet pad the Jeleuan rug, then faint creaks of planks as he walked to the window.
The quality of light in the room changed as he drew back the heavy drape, not before staring at Kirsya's studious silence. Tiny blades of sunlight widened into a bright glow that illuminated the swimming dust she had stirred.
Kirsya could feel him standing there, a silent, brooding shape at the edge of her perception, looking out at a world that demanded his attention. Below, the fortress was stirring like a kicked anthill. The clang of a hammer from the forge, the distant shout of a stable boy, and the sound of waves crashing by the cliff face. The world was already at its business, full of dirt, purpose, and noise.
Kalos placed his palm flat against the thick, greenish glass, feeling the morning's chill seep into his skin. For one moment, he envied dust with their frantic, meaningless freedom.
"Does it ever end, Kirsya?" he asked, his voice still rough with sleep.
He did not look at her, but watched a cart laden with turnaxes rumble across the courtyard. "The dust. It just comes back, doesn't it? No matter how often you beat it out. Anyway, good morning."
"Good morning, Your Esteemed," her voice was as calm and precise as her movements. She straightened, her emerald eyes catching the light from the window.
"Just like the sea, it returns because it must. The air moves. The world stirs. The dust settles. It is not futility; it is the slow routine of keeping things ready."
She walked towards a food cart near the study table, where a carefully yet highly polished silver pot, already prepared with coarse-ground coffee beans and water, awaited only a spark. A flick of her wrist and silent mutters of syllables–simple household magic–the small brazier beneath it flared to life, the silver vessel beginning to heat.
"I'll bring the arnica balm with the coffee," Kirsya glanced over her shoulder, her gaze lingering for a fraction of a second on the bruise. "It dulls the ache without dulling the edge."
The pot boiling, Kirsya filled the porcelain cup and handed it to him,
"Efficient as always," Kalos murmured, taking a careful first sip. The rich bitterness instantly sharpened the world's edges. "Though it seems your dedication to maintaining order extends beyond dust and leather bindings." His gaze was fixed on his bruise.
He set the cup down on the small table with deliberate care, the clink echoing softly within the high-ceilinged room.
"Tell Lyrra she's to take over the pointless polishing of the ceremonial breastplates in the lower armory this morning. That endless shine she craves can occupy her industrious hands instead."
Kirsya's fingers paused on the silver pot's handle. His order hung in the air; a small dismissal wrapped in the guise of routine. Lyrra. Of course, he would think of Lyrra, whose hands were never empty, whose laughter could fill the scullery but evaporated the moment he crossed. Kirsya remembered finding her once in the tapestry gallery, alone, running her fingers over the embroidered thread of an ancient queen's coronation, her blue eyes bright with something Kirsya had not named.
"She will be informed," she said.
Kalos nodded once, his attention had already slipped back to the window, to the grey-green sea churning against the cliffs. He thumbed his bruise's rim, probing the soreness, and welcomed the bite of pain.
Kirsya silently walked to the door, her hand on the iron handle. She pulled.
Beyond the door in which Lyrra stood, one hand raised as if to knock, the other clutching a small bundle of lavender tied with rough twine. Her blonde hair, still damp from the washrooms, was braided tightly, and her blue eyes—startled, wide—darted past Kirsya's shoulder to the tall figure at the window before snapping back. The scent of crushed herbs rose between them, sharp and clean, neither maid spoke.
Lyrra's lips parted, but no sound emerged. Her usual easy greeting, the one she would have offered any other soul in this fortress, would refuse to be uttered.
Kirsya stared at her for a brief moment.
"His Esteemed has a task for you," she said, quietly and even. "The ceremonial breastplates in the lower armory require your particular attention."
After a breeze from the hallway puffed on her golden hair, she swallowed, nodded once, and stepped aside.
Kirsya passed through the narrowing gap, her own errand waiting.
Hollowed-out shafts through taller windows, gleaming on the marble floor tiles, slightly weathered by centuries of footsteps. Kirsya walked the center of the corridor, her shadow stretched and trailing her for each golden sunbeam she crossed. The walls on one side leers back—generations of kings and queens and princes painted in oil, acrylic, and gilt. All are well attended to. Their eyes were tracking her progress with the same distant indifference they had shown her since childhood. She knew their names, their reigns, the manner of their deaths. No one taught her; she simply absorbed them year after year, silent accumulation like dust upon their ornate frames.
She passed the first king, stern, grey-bearded, his hand resting on a sword she recognized from the great hall. Then his son, softer of jaw and clutching a scroll instead of steel. Then, a queen who had died in childbirth, her portrait finished posthumously, the painter's strokes uncertain around her cheeks.
Kirsya was walking, instead, in the wrong direction.
The door to the second prince's chambers was closed. From within came a muffled and constant scraping of steel against a whetstone. She did not slow. She knew the sound of a man preparing for a war that hadn't been declared.
Further, the corridor bent to a narrow. The lord's study occupied the northern tower, its old wood door reinforced with iron bars.
At the far end, where the western wing curved toward the family's private chambers, the quiet was shattered.
"—cannot simply run, lady Delyana, the morning is for lessons—"
The voice belonged to Sanea, sharp with a frustration that never quite tipped into insubordination.
Kirsya knew that tone. she heard it directed at maids who neglected cleaning the porcelain plates and junior servants who tracked mud across the manor halls. But here, it carried differently.
The silhouette that rounded the corner was all tangled black hair and trailing white cotton. Delyana appeared not to run so much as to fall forward at great speed; her nightgown, stitched with small embroidered sparrows, had pulled loose at one shoulder. Her feet were remarkably clean. Her hair—Kirsya registered this in the half-second before impact—contained no ribbon at all. The princess collided with her thighs, rebounded slightly, and tilted her face upward with the unblinking composure of a cat that had meant to be exactly here all along.
"Kirsya," Delyana said, as though they had arranged this meeting. Her brown eyes, very alike her brother's but missing his philosophic stare, swept over the maid. "You smell like coffee and old books. Did you just leave brother's room? Is he awake? Sitting? Reading? En-"
Sanea arrived, her long bleached hair escaping its net, her emerald eyes carrying the particular exhaustion of those charged with herding small, determined creatures. She had served royalty too long for apologies—but her gaze met Kirsya's in a brief, shared acknowledgment of an old, familiar labor.
"The young lady woke early." Sanea said.
Delyana's small hand swung to Kirsya's apron and was pleating the fabric between her thumb and pointer.
"The ones with the sea monsters. He said there was a new one, and he would show me the ink they used. He promised."
Her little fingers kept their grip on Kirsya's apron.
"Is he still sad today?"
Kirsya looked down at the young princess, at the unribboned hair and her earnest face. A delightful, chaotic force of nature, Kalos said once, usually in need of a hair ribbon. He smiled when he said it.
"His Esteemed is awake," Kirsya said, her voice carrying the same calm precision she had used on the dust, the coffee, the careful distance. "He has not yet begun his morning practice."
Delyana's face changed, the worry dissolved into something else. A brief uncontainable brightness that outshone the sunlight in the corridor. She released Kirsya's apron, spun on her bare heel, and was already a few steps toward the direction Kirsya had come from before Sanea could exhale.
"Your Highness—shoes—"
But Delyana was already gone, her path a straight line toward the room Kirsya left behind. Sanea followed, her long stride measured, resigned, almost fond. The echo of her footfalls faded. Kirsya stood alone among the painted kings. The silence resettled, she resumed her walk through the northern halls. The princess's question still drifts.