Syleena walked along the edge of Lake Yunara, pressing snow together in her palm without thinking, shaping it into a loose ball.
She turned her gaze toward the water.
"Yunara..." she murmured. "I've always liked that name."
She rolled the snowball between her hands a few times before tossing it at a nearby tree, watching it miss horribly, and turned away before it had even landed somewhere embarrassingly far behind.
Taking a sharp turn she stepped out onto the lake itself.
The last few days had brought unusually strong winds for the season, stripping the surface clean of snow. What remained looked like a broken mirror, deep cracks threading across the ice in every direction as far as she could see.
She fiddled with her glove as her mind drifted.
She thought back to her first arrival in Velthoria. She had been excited then. The chance to go beneath another family, to study their ways, observe how they ruled. It was the first time she had been given any real privacy. The first time she had felt, in any genuine sense, like an adult.
But the more time passed the more suspicious she became, and through reliable informants she was finally told the truth. Eireindaile and Velthoria had made an agreement.
At first she had felt betrayed. Abandoned. Her mental state had deteriorated at a pace no one her age should have to experience.
For a time she felt lost. She kept up her studies, returned to the same cafes, the same libraries. But it all felt hollow. Like going through the motions of a life that no longer belonged to her.
Eventually something shifted.
Whatever sense of family she had carried quietly erased itself, replaced by something colder. Not just toward Eireindaile, but toward people in general. Toward the world itself. How real had any of it been, if they could plan her death so calmly, so cleanly, without a trace of hesitation? She didn't owe them anything. She never had.
So she chose to walk alone. Every study from that point forward would be for herself. Every life she took would be for herself. Every achievement would be hers, built from her own effort, claimed for no one else.
Her mind drifted back to last summer.
The noose had felt inevitable then. Alone, with two families secretly preparing her end and tying off every loose thread. That was until something entered the equation from outside. A variable no one had accounted for.
Kael.
When she first realised someone was tracking her she had been cautious. She had exhausted every resource available to learn who he was, and when she understood that Eireindaile had sent him to find her, she made a choice. A gamble. She told him everything, laid the situation bare, and trusted that he was intelligent enough to recognise that he was already standing inside the same trap. That once his task was complete they would silence him too.
It had paid off. From two people with nothing but their own survival and their own capabilities, something close to an escape had taken shape.
Syleena exhaled slowly, watching the cloud of her breath drift away on the wind.
But things were different now. When the death sentence was first placed on her she had been rank one. Her end had been close to inevitable. And yet through sleepless nights and relentless study she had advanced to rank three.
A soft smile played at her lips.
With that advancement, through the particular nature of her soul-bound motes, an escape had become not just possible but almost trivial. She was confident she could walk across the border of Velthoria without a single person noticing. With the two exceptions of Kael and Vael of course.
So why hadn't she left?
It wasn't that everything she and Kael had built would go to waste. She didn't particularly care about that. What kept her here was something older and simpler. She hated noble families. Not as a political position, or as a wound she was still nursing, but as a truth she had arrived at through years of watching them operate up close.
Everything they stood for. Every corrupt decision dressed in the language of duty. Every snake-like manoeuvre painted as righteousness. Every empty promise delivered from a stage like gospel, believed by people who had no reason to know better. Noble families did not act for the people beneath them. They acted to preserve the image of acting for the people beneath them. There was a difference, and she had understood it long before her own family proved it personally.
She had few opportunities this good to spill noble blood.
So she had chosen to stay. Not because she had to. Because she wanted to.
Syleena stepped back onto the shore and walked toward a lone figure leaning against a tree. She deactivated the Aether mote and sighed.
The moment her presence became known the figure turned, and before Syleena could react she had her arms wrapped around her.
"Gods, I'm glad to see you."
Syleena made a show of pushing her off without putting any real effort into it.
"Alright. Alright." A soft smile played at her lips despite herself.
This was Sophie, one of Syleena's maidens from her Eireindaile days. Their status had always been different on paper, but they were close enough in age that Sophie had always felt less like a servant and more like a sister. The only real one Syleena had ever had.
And now she was the only person left in Eireindaile that Syleena trusted without reservation.
They spent some time catching up, reminiscing perhaps a little more than the circumstances warranted. But eventually the news from Eireindaile found its way into the conversation.
"So Eireindaile is moving against Valthorne?" Syleena asked.
Sophie nodded. "It appears they want to engage before the wave of Pale Ones arrives. That's why they're rushing. The way things look now, it won't be more than a few weeks before they clash."
"And Valthorne intends to meet them on home ground?"
"So it seems." Sophie paused. "I'm not certain of their reasoning, but fighting on familiar terrain is undeniably advantageous. If Valthorne is willing to absorb the cost of the aftermath, it would without a doubt improve their chances."
Syleena stretched toward the sky with a yawn.
"I see. Seems I'll have to speed up my own plans then."
She paused briefly and ran her hand through Sophie's hair.
"What's with the blonde?"
Sophie wrapped a few strands around her fingers and met Syleena's eyes with her own ocean blue. "I don't know. I kind of like it." She let the strands fall. "Anyway. This is the last time I'll be able to come to Velthoria. Patrols have been increased to an almost unreasonable degree. I won't be able to leave either, so I'll have to stay."
Syleena nodded.
It was a miracle she was even standing here now. The Pale Ones alone were threat enough, but the coming clash between the families had stretched every resource thin, demanding more eyes on every road and border. Syleena had been worried about Sophie's next departure from Velthoria, so the decision to stay brought relief. But it brought something else too.
"How will you manage to stay undetected?"
Sophie looked at her with an expression somewhere between confused and hopeful.
"I was rather hoping you could help with that."
Syleena looked at the ground, thinking.
She had no objection to hiding Sophie within the illusion. If anything it would bring comfort, having someone nearby she genuinely trusted. But it would also mean putting her within reach of Kael.
The only reason Syleena had allowed Kael inside at all was because she was rank three herself. If it ever came to it she was confident she could at least escape. Given his current state she could probably kill him too.
But Sophie was different. She was too kind for her own good, which made her easy to manipulate, and she was only rank two. Even crippled and far from his peak, Syleena had no doubt Kael could kill Sophie without particular effort.
The thought sent a slight shiver through her.
The gap between ranks was something no Luminaire could afford to forget. Ever.
"You have nowhere else you can go?" Syleena asked, already knowing the answer.
Sophie shook her head softly.
"I don't, no."
Syleena gave a small nod and turned. Sophie followed.
"It's fine." Syleena said after a moment. "Just know I'm hiding someone else too. Someone you should never allow yourself to trust."
A small bird flapped its wings when the two started walking, flying between the falling snowflakes as it moved towards a distance only it knew.