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Some anticipated, but were not satiated.
"Tomorrow," they said. Waiting.
—A person
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The library's double doors closed behind them as the small chaotic force of nature left the library, the morning sun now slowly being covered by passing clouds. Southern winds blow stronger this time than last month. Erenela's hand remained on the polished brass.
"The messenger left it on the reading table," she said.
Kirsya waited. Erenela's pauses always contained something.
"I moved it to the lord's desk before Darak arrived. The boy who delivered it… new. Southern accent, couldn't have been more than fifteen. He'd placed it among the naval histories. As though… any of us would have found it there before spring?"
Kirsya's eyes moved to the lord's desk, to the letter with its royal seal still intact. Three days unopened, then moved, then reported. The chain of custody mattered less than the fact of its presence.
"I'll take it to him," Kirsya said.
Erenela nodded once.
Kirsya slowly walked to the desk. Her fingers brushed the paper, it was heavy parchment and the red royal watermark visible even without holding it to light. She folded it once then tucked it into the deepest pocket of her apron. She felt the weight of it against her thigh as she walked toward the door.
"Kirsya."
She turned.
Erenela stood in the shaft of morning sun, now unclouded. Her gray-streaked hair tipped to gold at the edges. For a moment she looked older than thirty-eight, or younger—it was hard to tell with elves, the way time accumulated differently.
"The carpenter will be here within the hour. The inspector will not." A small pause. "The princess asked about you after you left. Whether you would be the one to find her if she got lost again."
Kirsya said nothing.
"I told her yes."
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Passing through the gate portcullis, Kirsya crossed the covered walkway and walked back into the main manor. The corridor where painted kings watched from their gilt frames. The gray-bearded one with his hand on the sword. His son with the scroll. The magistrate who died in childbirth.
Kirsya's footsteps were the only sound, the letter weighing on her apron as she walked.
The southern wing's storage room occupied a narrow space between the tapestry gallery and what had once been a chapel, back before the Vigilance Mandate redirected the family's attention from prayer to preparation. The door was unlocked and the smell of dried herbs and beeswax and something sharp she'd never identified washed over her as she pulled it open.
The shelves rose floor to ceiling, organized by a system only Vizna fully understood. Kirsya went to the third shelf from the window, counted four jars to the left, and lifted down the arnica balm. With the wax seal still intact. She turned it over and checked the label written in Vizna's handwritten elegance; "For bruising. Apply sparingly". She tucked it beside the letter and headed to another room.
Kalos's door was open when she reached it.
Not wide, but enough. Enough to see that the canopied bed was empty, the crimson and gold quilt undisturbed since she'd straightened it hours ago. And the state of his study table.
Kirsya stood in the door frame, with a sigh.
Books, yes. Three of them, stacked unevenly. A fourth lying open, face-down. The coffee cup from this morning, drained but not rinsed, pushed to the edge where it overhung the wood. Then a quill she didn't recognize. Potheine must have found it somewhere, its feather slightly bent and laid across an inkpot that had been tipped and righted, leaving a small dark stain shaped like a crescent moon.
Papers. Loose papers that had been in stacks and were now in drifts, some on the floor, one caught beneath the leg of his chair. Kirsya gently paced to the table.
She set the face-down book upright first. Saria Okeanu - Afuna. Maritime pictograms on the hardback, leather. She closed it gently and set it atop the stack of its fellows. The quill she examined, decided it could be salvaged, and placed it in the ceramic holder where Kalos kept his writing implements. The one that was always empty because he never used it.
The coffee cup she lifted and set aside for the kitchen. The papers she gathered one by one without reading them. A letter from someone in the capital, the seal already broken, the contents none of her concern. A very rough sketch of what might have been a ship's hull.
Potheine had been here and touched everything. She left her mark in displaced objects and bent feathers.
She worked in silence. The desk returned to order beneath her hands. The stain on the inkpot she couldn't fix. That would need proper cleaning, but she turned it so the dark crescent faced the wall where Kalos wouldn't see it unless he looked.
When the room was as it should be, she stood back and let her eyes travel over it once more.
Just like the dust, she thought. It returns because it must… something like that.
The bed, empty. The window, curtains pulled back, showing the courtyard where hammer and voices and waves continued their morning routine. The study table, orderly now, waiting for its owner to return and disorder it again.
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The lower armory occupied the older part of the fortress, where the walls were thicker and the windows smaller. The air carried the smell of iron, leather, and oil and years. She passed the racks where everyday weapons waited, she felt—nearing obsolescence. The swords for practice, spears for drilling, the crossbows that required two men and a crank to load. Past them, through the archway, into the space where the ceremonial armor lived.
Lyrra stood at the long table beneath the single narrow window, her back to the door. A breastplate rested before her on a felt cloth, and her hand moved in slow circles, round and round, the polishing cloth catching the sun with each pass. The same spot. The same motion, repeated past the point of usefulness.
Kirsya watched.
"Seems like… a little bit too much polish?" she said.
Lyrra's hand stopped, her shoulders tightened briefly, then relaxed as she turned.
"Oh. Kirsya." A smile. "I was just—" She looked at the breastplate, at the cloth in her hand, at the smear of polish that had indeed grown too thick in one spot. "Making sure it was done properly."
Kirsya entered the room.
"Properly," Kirsya repeated. It wasn't a question.
Lyrra's smile flickered. She was pretty as everyone said, the kitchen maids and the stable boys, and old Vizna who noticed such things. Her blonde hair and cerulean eyes bright and full of whatever they were failing to hide. Twenty years old, same as Kirsya.
"He assigned it to me himself," Lyrra said. "The ceremonial breastplates. I want them to be—" She gestured with the cloth, searching. "Perfect. For when they're needed."
"When?"
Lyrra's hand stilled again. "I don't know. But someday."
Kirsya reached the table, sat on a chair, ran her finger along the edge of another breastplate. This one already finished, the metal was cool and the polish was even. The work was good.
"This one," she said. "You did this one first."
Lyrra nodded.
"Then you started the second, and somewhere in the middle of it… your mind left the room?"
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable, but of someone deciding whether to speak, and someone else deciding whether to wait.
Lyrra's hand resumed but slower and thoughtful. "Does it ever stop?"
Kirsya looked at her.
"Thinking about them," Lyrra said. "The—" She pressed her lips together, then released them. "You've been here longer than me. You serve him directly. Kalos—I mean the prince. Does it ever stop feeling like…" Another gesture, this one encompassing everything and nothing.
Kirsya considered the question. Not for the first time, she'd been asked variations of it before. By other girls and servants. Lyrra asked it differently though. More honestly.
"It stops," Kirsya said, "when you stop watching for it to notice you."
Lyrra's hand paused.
"You polish the same spot because you're thinking about… someone." Kirsya continued. "You stand at this table because he walked past this door this morning, and you heard his footsteps, and you hoped he might look in."
Lyrra's face had gone still. "I don't—" she started.
"Yes," Kirsya said, "You do."
Lyrra's fingers tightened on the polishing cloth. Her eyes went somewhere
"I know it's foolish," Lyrra said quietly. "I know what I am. What he is. I know—" She stopped. Swallowed. "But when he looks at me, even for a second, even by accident, I forget. All of it. I just forget."
Kirsya said nothing. There was nothing to say.
"—ide the room, the only one for now—" Talking, two voices in the distance. Then footsteps. Closer. Then even closer. "Ah."
Lyrra's whole body went rigid.
Kirsya turned and found Asteria in the doorway, her long gray hair escaping its net, her green eyes carrying their usual exhaustion. And behind her, filling the frame with his height, Kalos. He held his musket rifle. Not propped or resting. Rather, held across his body like something he was deciding whether to use. His brown hair was damp and fresh from wherever he'd been. His black eyes moved past Asteria and the doorway until they found Kirsya.
"You're here," he said. The words were for her. His gaze swung on the armor before snapping back to her. "It's glinting. Also before I forget, I need you later in the afternoon."
Lyrra, standing frozen at the table with her polishing cloth. She might as well have been furniture.
Kirsya stood then reached into her apron. The arnica was still there, clay pot warm from her body. She walked to him three steps… four—and held it out.
"For the ache," she said. "From yesterday."
Kalos looked at the pot. Then at her briefly. As though remembering an obligation, at Lyrra who had not moved. Her heart written across her face like a child's first letters.
"Good work."
Lyrra's mouth opened, finally. "Thank you, Your Esteemed."
Kalos had already turned back to Kirsya. He took the arnica, "You found it. Even with the chaos this morning." His eyes flicked toward the door, to the direction of his room. "I should have you manage the entire household."
"There is already someone for that."
"There is," he agreed. "But she doesn't bring me things I need before I remember to ask for it."
Kirsya inclined her head. Acceptance, perhaps. She didn't know exactly.
Asteria turned slightly in the doorway. She had somewhere to be, the morning was not getting younger.
Kalos noticed. "You're needed elsewhere?"
"I have a letter to deliver," Kirsya said. "To your father."
His face, not surprised. He'd known about the letter probably before she did. His fingers adjusted in how he held his rifle.
"Then don't let me keep you." He stepped aside, clearing the doorway.
She passed him and into the corridor where the light was different and the air was cooler. Behind her, she heard Lyrra's polishing cloth resume its motion. Round and round. The same spot.
Some things, Kirsya thought, never stopped.
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Asteria led the way through the eastern corridor, her gray hair catching what little light filtered through the windows. She didn't speak. Kirsya didn't expect her to. They reached the middle of the corridor. Beyond, the rear courtyard. The green of grass reflected from the ceiling to the waxed tiled flooring, the sound of the small fountain carried into the hallway. The door in front of them, the lord's study. Asteria stopped.
"He's been in there since before dawn," she said quietly. "The minister arrived with the first light. They've been signing and stamping ever since." She stared at the other end of the hallway, "The coffee went in an hour ago. It hasn't come out."
Kirsya nodded.
She left. Asteria walked toward what other duty waited.
Kirsya stared at the door in front of her, ornate iron framed the wooden planks. Narbita hardwood. The knocker was designed with the head of a Faene. She noticed the brass bell hanging to the left of the door. Probably not needed. She looked forward and knocked.
Once. Twice. Two in quick succession. Not urgent.
"Enter." The voice was flat. Not angry or tired, simply occupied. Kirsya pushed the door open.
Lord Waryad sat behind his desk, piles of paper and parchment, arranged before him in stacks that meant something only to him. His black hair was unmarked by gray at forty-three, but his brown eyes carved lines at the corners that hadn't been there five years ago. He held a pen, signing away into the morning. The desk lamp was still turned on, too busy to pull even a switch. He didn't look up.
At the secondary desk against the wall, a man Kirsya recognized but could not name. The territory minister. The kind who came from the city when accounts needed balancing or disputes needed settling. He stamped seals and pushed sheets of paper away just to pull another one in. Stamp.
Kirsya stepped in no hurry to the desk, halted at the edge where the paper stacks ended.
Waryad finished the signature. Set the pen in its tray, blotted the ink. Then, only then, looked up.
"You're not Asteria."
"No, Your Esteemed."
His eyes lingered on her, waiting.
Kirsya reached into her pocket. The envelope was warm from her body, the royal wax, bright as a crimson rose, visible as she laid it on the desk before him.
"From the library," she said. "It was delivered there three days ago which I assume was intended for Your Esteemed's desk."
Waryad looked at the letter. Not at her. His hand reached for it and took it up. He broke the seal with his thumb, pulled a letter out and unfolded it.
Kirsya waited. It was her job to watch as she did it without thinking now, the way she breathed, relaxed.
At first, nothing. He read. His expression did not change. The minister's pen continued its scratching in the background, the only sound in the room.
Then he held the paper lower. The corner of his mouth tightened, another observer might have missed it. His eyes moved faster over the remaining lines, then stopped and went back to the beginning, then he read it again.
Kirsya did not move.
Waryad looked up, though seemed to have forgotten she was there. Then he remembered and his face smoothed into its usual neutrality.
"The messenger," he said. "The one who delivered this. Did you see him?"
"No, Your Esteemed. Only Erenela."
He nodded and looked back at the letter, reading something else. A different section, lower down. This time his eyebrows slightly furrowed.
"There will be a visitor tomorrow," he said as his finger tapped the desk three times, then once more. He looked at the letter again then set it back into its envelope. "Show hospitality, I'll send Asteria with you. Given a room in Kedjate B'yni—that manor is shaded. Give the northern room."
Kirsya inclined her head. "I'll inform the household."
"Don't." Waryad's eyes stayed on the letter as though confirming it was real. "Just you, Asteria, Kalos. Keep the small one away from that manor, I mean it this time." He looked at the minister to the other table, the minister's attention was already to Waryad. "Oe krymeniye sti skiethe."
He turned his attention back to Kirsya. "Our guest's name is Skovati. He trades in—" A pause. "In textiles, I believe. Silks from the continent. He'll want to discuss business."
Kirsya said nothing. She breathes a slow pulse.
He nodded. Dismissal.
Kirsya turned to go. Her hand was on the door handle when his voice stopped her.
"Kirsya."
She turned.
He was staring at a contraption that sat on its own table near the north-facing window, it was something made of polished wood and steel. Wires disappeared through a hole in the wall toward wherever it led. The sun didn't reach it. It sat in the shadow, patient and waiting.
"You've seen this," he said. Not a question.
"Yes, Your Esteemed."
"Do you know what it does?"
Kirsya shook her head, she had seen it a dozen times by now when it was first installed a few weeks ago. Nobody told her what it was for.
"They call it Ilagraphios. It sends messages." He nodded slowly. Still staring at it. "The capital has one. The other great houses have them now. Alitmuntang installed theirs last year." A pause. "We were late."
Kirsya waited.
Waryad turned from the device and looked at her again. His face expressed something she couldn't name. Not fear or worry but something between them.
"When the merchant arrives tomorrow," he said, "Asteria attends to him personally, you will be with her. His meals, his comfort, anything he requires. I want to know—" He stopped. Started again. "I want you to notice things. What he looks at. What he asks about. Who he speaks to."
Kirsya understood. She had done this before, though never with the words spoken aloud. "Yes, Your Esteemed."
He picked up his pen. The audience was over.
Kirsya pulled the door open and stepped into the corridor. Behind her, the scratching of the minister's pen resumed, and behind that, the silence of the lord staring at a letter.
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The bell of the Ma'wynavat temple to the deity of the wind, Manal Pawarisirjalmiyu, began to toll as Kirsya stepped on the grass to the western triangle. Five double strokes, slow and deliberate, each one spreading across the town and fortress. She stopped walking and turned toward the sound. The temple itself was hidden beyond the walls, somewhere in the city below.
"Չզեթգ' (Sinamalatu)." She muttered.
Her hand rose in blessing. She bowed to her waist, her right hand displayed the Mindak-Kanur while she tucked her left hand behind her back. With her right close to her forehead, she kept a flat palm, fingers together. Her hand turned inward until the back of her hand faced the unseen temple.
"The world is suffused with spirit, the wind carries our prayers to the guardians of the world, the rain brings blessings. We ask you, protect the wind and sea."
She straightened and lowered her hand. The prayer was automatic by now. Twenty years of bells would do that. Though she always felt something, however small, in the pause. A moment when the world's pace stopped and something else older took their place.
The servant's kitchen occupied the ground floor of the western annex, separate from the main kitchens where the family's meals were prepared. Smaller, warmer. The domain of Vizna and those who ate after the nobles had been served. At this hour, it should have been empty. Breakfast service ended two hours ago, the midday preparations not yet begun.
Kirsya pushed the door open and found it empty. Good.
She walked to the cold storage, pulled out the remains of last night's beef stew, and set it on the worktable. Rice in the bin beneath the counter. A pot from the rack. Water from the pump. The motions were familiar, practiced, requiring no thought.
The stove was warm but already cooling. She added Civn dust and set the pot over it.
Her finger pointed below the pot, "ղᵻꬺ'դ կթτ (Ngarusa hallat) " The stove came to life.
While the stew heated, she leaned against the counter and let her eyes close. Just long enough to feel the weight of the morning behind her eyelids, she let out a sigh.
The library. The letter. Lyrra's face. Kalos. Waryad staring at the new addition to the manor. The lord speaking in Telkaran, words she didn't understand. It was directed at someone else.
She opened her eyes. The stew was bubbling.
The door banged open. "You're cooking!"
Kirsya jolted, almost knocked over the pot. She turned. Potheine stood in the doorway, barefoot, her black hair escaping whatever braid Asteria attempted this morning. Her brown eyes were wide with astonishment, as though discovering Kirsya performing a miracle.
"You're cooking," she repeated, advancing into the kitchen. "I didn't know you could cook. I've never seen you cook. Do you always cook? What are you cooking? It smells like—" She stopped, sniffed dramatically. "Like meat. And something else. Is that rice? I like rice. Can I have some?"
Kirsya looked at her. Then at the pot. Then back at her.
"You're supposed to be with Asteria."
"She's talking to someone about linens. It was very boring."
Potheine reached the worktable and was attempting to climb onto a stool. It was too high for her legs. "I left."
"You left."
"Left. I can leave when I want." She got one knee up and wobbled. Kirsya's hand shot out to steady her. Potheine settled onto the stool, her face expressing someone who intended to be there.
"The food."
Kirsya returned to the stove. Stirred the stew. "It's my breakfast."
"Do you always eat this late?" Potheine's legs swung beneath her, too short to reach the floor. "You work all morning and then you have to wait to eat. I eat first thing. Asteria says I'm 'difficult' if I don't."
"Are you?"
"Difficult?" Potheine's face scrunched in thought.
"Mmm—Sometimes. When things are boring. Or when people won't answer questions." She looked at Kirsya with sudden intensity.
"Where is the fish book? The one with the teeth. I looked in the library but the shelf was gone and Erenela said I couldn't go near it until the carpenter fixed it and I said 'when will that be' and she said 'soon' and I said 'what does soon mean' and she said 'when it's done' and that's not an answer!"
"The book is being repaired."
"I know! Where?"
Kirsya ladled stew into a bowl. Added rice. "There's a binder in the town. Someone who fixes old books. It went to him."
Potheine's face fell. "The town? That's so far."
"Far? It's just outside the gate."
"It's far when you're waiting!" She watched Kirsya sit down with the bowl.
"Are you going to eat that now?" Potheine's voice turned playful.
"Yes."
"Can I watch?"
Kirsya lifted her spoon. Paused. "Why?"
Potheine shrugged, small shoulders rising and falling. "I like watching you. You're quiet. Most people aren't quiet. They're always saying things even when they don't need to. But you just—" She made a gesture, something that means something.
"Also I want to see if you make faces when you eat. Tallasa makes faces. She says it's because the food's too hot but I think she just likes making faces."
Kirsya ate a spoonful of stew.
Potheine watched. No faces were made.
"That's disappointing," Potheine said. "But the stew looks good. Can I have some?"
"You just had breakfast."
"That was hours ago. I'm growing!"
Kirsya looked at her. Small face, earnest and hopeful. Bare feet. Hair that would need a ribbon or braids before Asteria finds them.
She reached for another bowl.
The door opened again.
"Oh, come on. There you are."
Tallasa stood in the doorway, twelve years old. Wearing the expression of someone who spent her entire morning chasing a small disaster from room to room. Her black hair was neatly braided, she did it herself now. Her brown eyes, so like her brother Kalos's, swept the kitchen until they landed on her younger sister.
"I've been looking everywhere," Tallasa said. "Asteria's going to—" She stopped. Looked at Kirsya. At the bowl in Kirsya's hand then at Potheine on the stool, legs swinging. "Is she bothering you?"
"Not yet," Kirsya said.
Potheine beamed.
Tallasa trudged to the table. She didn't climb onto a stool, just simply stood. One hand rested on the back of Potheine's. Containment.
"She does this," Tallasa said. "Disappears. Usually when someone's trying to talk to me about something important, or when she's supposed to be doing lessons." She looked at her sister with an expression that mixed exasperation and something softer. "You can't keep running off."
"Hey I wasn't running! I was going. To the kitchen… to watch Kirsya eat!"
Tallasa's eyebrows rose. She looked at Kirsya. "She watched you?"
"She's very still when she does it," Potheine offered. "No faces."
Tallasa's mouth twitched. She fought it though Kirsya saw the effort. A small smile escaped. "That's... good? I think?" She sighed, "I'm sorry. I was supposed to be watching her. But then Mother wanted me for something, and by the time I got back, she was gone."
Kirsya ate another spoonful.
"The fish book is in the city," Potheine announced. "Being fixed. Kirsya told me."
Tallasa looked at the book. "The one with the teeth?"
"Yes! You remember!"
"I remember you talking about it for three days straight."
"It has very memorable teeth."
Tallasa's smile broke through again, less fought this time. She looked at Kirsya. "She's been like this, a very opinionated baby."
"I'm still opinionated," Potheine said. "I have opinions about everything! I just told Kirsya my opinion about watching people eat. It's interesting."
"I'll put it on my list."
"Do you have a list? A real one? Can I see it?"
"No." Tallasa giggled.
"Why not?"
"Because it's private."
"Private from your sister?" Potheine's brow raised, her hands rested on her waist.
"Especially from my sister."
"That seems unfair."
"You've said that three times this morning already." Tallasa dismissed her.
"Because it keeps being true!"
Kirsya ate her stew. The two sisters bickered above her, their voices filling the kitchen. She was a rock in a stream. Tallasa caught her gaze.
"She's not bothering you?" Tallasa asked again. Quieter this time.
Kirsya shook her head. "Mnn."
"Good." Tallasa straightened, her hand on Potheine's shoulder. "Come on. Asteria's probably panicking by now. If we're lucky, we'll get back before she sends out a search party."
"A search party?" Potheine's eyes lit up. "With torches? And dogs?"
"No. Annoyed servants and your tutor who is already very tired of you."
"That's less exciting."
Potheine slid off the stool and landed on bare feet. She turned to Kirsya. "Thank you for the stew even though I didn't get any but Tallasa interrupted before you could give it to me." She looked at her sister pointedly.
Tallasa ignored her. "Thank you for... dealing with her."
Kirsya inclined her head.
Potheine smiled as they left the room, the door closed behind them. Their voices slowly trailed off. Silence returned to the kitchen.
Kirsya ate the rest of her stew alone. The stove ticked as it cooled. She finished the bowl, rinsed it in the basin, set it on the drying rack. Her hands moved without thought, the motions of a lifetime. Tomorrow, she thought. A merchant would arrive. A room in the shaded manor would be prepared. Asteria would attend to him personally, and Kirsya would watch.
"Tomorrow." She murmured.
Kirsya wiped the worktable clean, checked the stove one last time, and walked out into the morning. The sun had broken through the clouds. The courtyard was bright.
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