The candlelight danced against scroll-laden shelves and ledger-stuffed alcoves of the old observatory tower—once a stargazer's haven, now Mira's clandestine war room. Unlike the formal halls where nobles whispered behind fans and raised goblets in veiled challenge, this room answered only to silence. Few even knew it existed. Fewer still had ever crossed its threshold.
Mira stood alone, hands gliding across a sprawl of parchment, wax-sealed letters, and ink-blotted account books. While Charlotte's war played out in courts and councils, Mira's was the quieter battle—waged with secrets, threads, and names spoken only in confidence. She dealt not in alliances, but in shadows. Not in declarations, but in patterns.
She did not speak, but every motion spoke volumes.
The steward's betrayal had confirmed what she'd long suspected: House Vellador was no lone actor. One serpent does not stir all the grass.
A second lantern flared to life in her hand, casting flickering light over three sigils spread before her like pieces on a strategy board:
—House Vellador: a falcon clutching a dagger. Ruthless, archaic, obsessed with bloodlines and buried power.
—House Galveth: a bear twined in ivy. Merchant-lords wrapped in noble silk, opportunists who sold loyalty like a market stall vendor sells apples.
—House Iscaryl: twin spears on a midnight field. Elusive. Evasive. Their silence was not caution—it was calculation.
Mira picked up a worn, folded letter, its contents already engraved in memory. It had arrived via an apothecary's satchel, slipped between herbs and tinctures. One of her silent eyes on the road.
"The dagger-falcon makes overtures to the bear in courtship. A banquet is offered within two nights. They intend to test the Queen's extent."
She set the paper down and looked toward the narrow window. The moon hung heavy above the castle walls, casting a silver sheen across the slumbering kingdom. Somewhere below, courtiers laughed, spun, and schemed. Eladin lay sleeping behind three layers of guard—and two more of Mira's own making. She trusted no one fully.
From beneath a pile of reports, she pulled another ledger: The Unseen. It catalogued those without titles but with power nonetheless—stablehands, seamstresses, errand boys, cooks. The kingdom's nervous system.
She flipped to a marked page. The Black Stitch—a weaver's guild known for loyalty to House Galveth. Mira suspected they wove more than dresses. Secrets passed through color-coded threads, stitched into linings and hems like silent messages.
Her finger paused on a name. That shipment would need interception before it reached court.
Then, there was Lady Syra of the Dusk Choir—a fallen noble, cast into exile for opposing the former regime. Some said she had vanished. Mira believed otherwise. The right people had gone missing near Syra's last known haunts. Someone was watching the court, and Mira knew how to watch back.
It was time to make contact.
From beneath a false drawer, Mira withdrew a single sheet of black paper—one that shimmered only under moonlight. A gift from one of Charlotte's less… reputable alchemists. She uncapped her pen and wrote:
To the Lady of Dusk,The wind is changing. The falcon no longer circles alone. The girl you pitied now carries iron behind her eyes. If the kingdom matters to you still, send word by the fox-gloved courier. We meet on neutral ground.
She folded it thrice, sealed it in ash-gray wax, and slipped it into a hollowed-out volume titled On the Breeding of Northern Horses. By morning, the book would ride with hands who did not serve the crown—at least, not officially.
The final act of the evening was stillness.
Mira sat at the table, studying the map again—not of cities or garrisons, but of paths. Hidden ones. Ones drawn in nods, glances, unspoken cues. A network of influence and rumor.
She marked a new route—not for horses, but for whispers.
She knew who to avoid. Lady Anastasia's maids, too talkative by half. The southern scribe, overly curious about Charlotte's schedule. A particular knight whose smile was just a little too polished.
This war would not be fought in armor or on marble floors.
Mira's battleground was silence. Her allies, the forgotten. Her victories would be measured not in headlines or applause, but in the clean absence of suspicion.
And when the snare closed around House Vellador and its silent partners, no one would think to look toward the mute girl in the tower.
No one ever did.
.