The Silence

  The next few days brought no rest.

  Her quarters remained still—too still. Yet she was never truly alone. There were always footsteps in the corridor. Eyes watching as she crossed halls. Voices whispering just out of reach.

  "It was a poor showing."

  "She won't last the winter."

  "Perhaps the King will intervene."

  No one said it to her face. But the silence between every word was heavy with meaning.

  The Requests

  She sent new appeals for the ledgers, the maps, the regional tallies of grain and tax. She asked for clarity on border trade in the east, and clarity on laws she’d only recently begun to understand.

  Nothing came.

  The archives were "overloaded." The steward was "in deliberation." The mapmaker was ill. The snowstorm had delayed ink shipments. Three crates of grain records were apparently damaged by moisture. The steward’s clerk sent apologies.

  And still, she tried.

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  She revised the requests. Signed them again. Added notations. Had Silja deliver them personally.

  Still nothing.

  The Audiences

  Another public hearing. Another council.

  A dispute over tariffs. A pension appeal. A quarrel between river merchants over docking fees. A soldier’s claim on an abandoned house.

  She tried to rule. She tried to remember the laws, the precedence, the phrasing.

  "Your Grace," said Sir Rhyve, gently, when she faltered. "I believe the statute you refer to applies only to grain levies."

  "Naturally," Marelin added with a faint smile, "we can’t expect fluency in these matters just yet."

  Muted laughter. Not cruel. Not kind, either.

  She made the rulings anyway.

  When the chamber emptied, she stayed in her seat, hand resting on the seal of Foher, as if it might anchor her in place.

  The Letters

  Three more marriage proposals arrived in as many days.

  A minor royal cousin with debts and delusions of poetry.

  The heir of a powerful Velarith merchant house.

  And one unsigned note, suggesting she "secure a husband of firm hand and proven experience before the Duchy suffers further."

  She burned the last in the fireplace.

  Rudy, one of her cats, chased the ashes across the rug.

  The Breaking Point

  That night she returned from the council chamber late, still in her boots, her bodice laced too tightly, the seal of Foher clutched in her hand.

  She sat at her desk. The candlelight flickered over maps, letters, treatises she barely understood.

  The Duke's letter still lay unopened beside them.

  She stared at it.

  She almost opened it.

  Almost.

  But didn’t.

  If he tells me I’m failing, she thought, I don’t know if I can take it.

  She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry.

  The fire hissed in the hearth.

  Outside, Vartis watched, indifferent.

  She sat there until the candle burned low, her fingers pressed against her lips, and the letter untouched.