She walked into a room full of the king's ladies.
They went silent.
She said good morning.
Only one of them said it back like she meant it.
She met the court on her third day.
Not planned. She had been walking to the palace library when she passed through an antechamber and found it occupied by six women who went entirely silent the moment she walked in.
They're assessing, she noted. All six of them, at the same time, with the practiced efficiency of people who have been doing this their whole lives.
"Good morning," she said.
A pause. Then the eldest — tall, dark hair in an elaborate arrangement — said: "You're the merchant girl."
"I'm Nora Atwood," Nora said. "You are?"
The woman seemed slightly surprised by the direction of the introduction. "Lady Cassian Veth. The king's senior lady-in-waiting."
"Good morning, all of you," she said. "I'm looking for the library."
"Continue left," said one of the younger women — Lady Mira, copper-red hair, an expression of frank curiosity that was considerably more appealing than the careful assessments the others were performing. "Past the map room, then the large door with the iron handle."
"Thank you," Nora said, and continued left.
I already know the shape of it, she thought. The newcomer. The merchant's daughter. The girl the king has taken an interest in.
The one I need to pay attention to is Lady Mira. She answered a question because it was useful to answer it, not because she was performing. That's different from the others.
The library was even better than she had estimated.
Twenty feet of ceiling. Shelves on all four sides to the top, accessible by rolling ladders on iron rails. Books organized by subject.
And a section she hadn't expected: dragons.
Of course, she thought, moving immediately toward it.
She had been reading perhaps two hours when footsteps crossed the floor.
"You found it," Malik's voice said.
"Lady Mira told me where it was," Nora said, turning a page.
He sat in the chair across from her. "You're reading about dragons."
"I'm in a dragon king's palace," she said. "It seemed relevant."
"What does it say?"
She set the book down. "Did you know that before Drakenval was established, the first Dragon King crossed the border deliberately? There was a war. The humans kept approaching it like a political conflict. But the dragons didn't want a treaty." She tilted her head. "What did they want?"
He looked at her. "They wanted to be understood," he said. "The crossing wasn't an invasion. It was an attempt at contact. The humans saw an army. The dragons saw an introduction."
"That seems like a catastrophic failure of communication," Nora said.
"Most wars are," he said.
Is this still about history? she wondered. Or is this about something else? About what it's like to be something that everyone around you misreads?
Lady Cassian's face appeared in the library doorway, registered the king sitting across from the merchant girl, and vanished again with extraordinary efficiency.
"They talk about me," Nora said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes," he said.
"What do they say?"
"That you are bold beyond your station. That your presence here is irregular. That I have lost my judgment." He paused. "That you must be either very clever or very foolish."
"Which do they think?" she asked.
"They haven't decided," he said.
And the corner of his mouth moved.
Good, she thought. Let them keep not deciding. Uncertainty keeps people honest