“She should hope so,” Naborū warned, easing back barely enough to permit their passing.

With a single snap of her fingers, Luscia mutely led Aksel away from the Haidren to Pilar. Keeping an unassuming pace, she refused to look back. When the hulking double doors to her apartments finally came into view, Luscia sailed into her makeshift haven. Inside, she pitted her back against the wood and pressed her eyes shut.

“Lady Luscia, thank the High One!” a woman cried, disrupting Luscia’s solace. “They’ve been out searching all morning for you, your men have!”

“Tallulah.” Luscia sighed; another complication of her contract with the younger Kasim. “Meh’fyreon. I began the day walking unaccompanied. It becomes oppressive, constantly being around the others.” She despised the sour tang of the half-lie. “But more pressing is my aunt—do you know where I might find her?”

“Ana’Mere has left the city,” Tallulah answered, tears collecting along her sparse lashes. “They found an orphaned cross-caste dead in the bay, and…the Peerage denied her request to send the body to the nearest Boreali kin in Port Tadeas. The Haidren to Bastiion, him being M-Minister…he overruled the Peerage, b-but only under the condition that Ana’Mere escort the body herself.” The maid sniffled into a handkerchief. “They ordered her to r-remove the remains and depart before noon.”

Tallulah reached into the swollen pocket of her apron and retrieved a folded scrap of parchment. Offering it to her mistress, the maid’s oversized teeth bit back a freckled lip as Luscia read the hurried script.

Luscia,

I trust Tallulah relayed the urgency of my departure, as you were nowhere to be found. I do hope your absence was purposeful. While I am away, do not respond brashly to these events.

Submit emotion to reason. We must trust His Majesty to seek justice for Boreal.

Ethnicam eyes watch for any misstep.

rul’Aniell,

Alora

Luscia delicately refolded the parchment, her lips pursed. It was irrational to take offense from her aunt’s instruction, but she felt rebuked all the same. Discrediting the sting, Luscia gently thanked the maid and sought the canopied terrace outside her bedroom for air.

Not a moment later, a crash of oak and stone had Luscia whirling around as the captaen of her guard stampeded into the apartment. By the tremors across his forehead, he wasn’t pleased.

“LUSCIA!” Marek barked as he marched into her bedroom, trapping her on the balcony. “Not one, Luscia. Not one Najjan knew your whereabouts. You left your entire guard behind! Here, in this yancy shrine, of all places!”

“Am I a prisoner in my own apartments, Captaen?” Two alabaster fingers shushed his lecturing. She was not his inferior, and it was a gross overstep to speak to her as such. Her spine straightened as she leveled her gaze, “There are elements of my station which require attention outside of this room.”

“Your father holds me accountable for your safety! In the name of Aksel’s Keep, why did you conceal yourself from us?” Marek demanded.

“Perhaps I needed space from my warden. He’s insufferable.”

“An al’Haidren is to be protected at all times, Luscia.” Marek scratched the rust-colored stubble on his jaw in visible frustration. “You don’t get to have these juvenile disappearances anymore! And certainly not here.”

Luscia’s face felt aflame.

“I do not answer to you, Marek Bailefore,” she said, flattening her voice and staring into his strained, oceanic eyes. “Do not allow your speech to turn so informal with me. You may be my father’s choice, but you were not mine. If I must submit to rank, so must you.”

Marek’s gaze plummeted to his wrist. Trailing his line of sight, she saw her father’s beaded cuff tied snugly around it. Flooded with shame, her chest caved in.

She’d rejected his kurtfrierï, a token of courtship, when he’d offered it on the eve of her Ascension. Luscia stared at the beads in the lacing, rebuking herself. It was extremely unusual for a suitor to wear the kurtfrierï, for if accepted, it was worn by the suited. The cuff’s prominent display implied that Marek still waited to be acknowledged; for Luscia to change her mind. She’d not handled their conversation graciously that night, and she was cruel to so callously remind him of it now.

“Marek, I—” Luscia moved toward the cuff, but her hand fell, unwilling to take it from him.

“Tadöm, Ana’Sere, for reminding me where we stand,” he whispered vacantly. “Meh’fyreon, for forgetting. It won’t happen again.”

His nose twitched as the captaen quietly bowed his head, and left.

Luscia swallowed, watching him depart. Though he wouldn’t admit it, she’d been justified in rejecting him that night, for there simply wasn’t reason enough to accept his courtship. She had no need for a union, not until conditions require her to continue the line of Tiergan. Having just embarked into her new life, Luscia wasn’t ready to lay down her blades, or her independence. And were he to be honest, neither was Marek.

A midday breeze swept her reddening cheeks, guiding her to look out over the colorful floating stalls below. Luscia slumped against a limestone column, guilt and resentment coiling her thoughts. Children were being butchered, tossed like trash into those very waters, while she was forced to become an idle figure, watching by. Were Luscia to gather her weapons and seek answers herself, her own Najjan would remain an obstacle. The men were obligated to uphold Alora’s mandate for passivity, including the passivity of her niece.

Shaking her head, Luscia glared across the vast openness to the adjacent terrace, where the nearest byrnnzite cupola glimmered in the sun. Even the servants of Sayuri Naborū-Zuo come and go more freely than I, she brooded.

Gradually, a sly grin replaced her frown.

“Mila!” Luscia abruptly yelled through her bedroom, into the common room. “Mila, my Aksel is parched. Let him drink his fill.”

Balmy air lapped the side of her face, beckoning disobedient hairs to stick to the thin blanket of sweat coating her moonlit skin. One would’ve imagined nightfall might lessen Bastiion’s smothering humidity, but the crown city had proved more disappointing by the day in that respect.

Gripping the decorative cutouts on the palace walls, Luscia became one with the stone as she slid her body along the exterior. Despite confidence in her own nimbleness, Luscia was keenly aware of the steep drop awaiting a fall, should her footing falter. Mentally reciting Boreali poetry to keep her wits about her, she slithered to the edge of a narrow overhang. As she’d done the night prior, Luscia felt for a beam on the underside of the cupola, secured her grip, and on an exhale, hoisted her entire frame to the opposite flank.