Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The annex sat, perpetually hunched and apologetic, at the farthest, most forgotten edge of the Aveloria estate. It was a squat, weathered building that seemed to actively shrink under the oppressive shadows of the taller, manicured gardens and the gnarled, ancient oaks that stood as silent sentinels. Its walls, a dull, lifeless gray from decades of exposure to sun, storm, and neglect, were lined with deep scars like the wrinkles on a very old, very tired face. The mortar between the stones was crumbling, and the corners sagged wearily, as if the entire structure were on the verge of giving up and sinking into the damp earth. The roof, patched in a dozen places with mismatched slate, dipped in the middle, creating a perfect basin for collecting rainwater that would then drip, drip, drip with maddening consistency into a rusted bucket placed precisely beneath it on the uneven floorboards inside. That bucket, and the rhythm of its filling, was the metronome of March Aveloria’s existence.

Inside, the world was defined by lack and the relentless battle against it. A single narrow bed, its iron frame flecked with rust, was pushed against the far wall, as if trying to hide. Its mattress was a lumpy tapestry of stains and uncomfortable geography, and the sheets, though clean, were faded to a ghostly pallor from countless harsh washings. Opposite it sat a small, pot-bellied iron stove, its surface chipped and scorched, its door hanging slightly ajar on a hinge that had long since given up its fight for alignment. It was often cold, fuel being a commodity carefully rationed. Between these two monuments to subsistence lay a threadbare rug, its patterns worn away to mere suggestions, its sole purpose to provide a thin barrier between March’s feet and the insidious chill that seeped relentlessly through the warped floorboards from the foundation below. A single window, its glass cloudy and flawed, offered a distorted view of the overgrown garden and the world beyond. That was it. That was the sum total of March’s world: a space defined by its limits, a life measured in chores completed and winters endured.

On this particular morning, with a late autumn frost silvering the dead grass outside, March was crouched near that window, scrubbing with a stiff-bristled brush at a set of iron pots. The soot and burnt-on residue were stubborn, requiring pressure and patience. Her hands, small yet incongruously broad and strong, worked with a practiced, economic rhythm. They were not the hands of a nobleman’s daughter. They bore the quiet, uncomplaining testament to a life of labor: a lattice of fine white scars from kitchen knives and rose thorns, calluses on her palms and fingertips that had hardened into permanent leather, the nails kept short and practical, never polished. They were hands that knew the grain of wood, the weight of water, the texture of soil, and the bite of coarse linen. No one had ever complimented them; they were simply tools, the instruments of her survival.

A sigh, pluming white in the cold air of the annex, escaped her lips. She paused, setting the brush down, and leaned her forehead against the cool, flawed glass of the window. Outside, the first real snow of the season was beginning to fall, delicate flakes spiraling down to coat the last crimson and gold remnants of autumn leaves in a shroud of white. Her eyes, a clear and thoughtful blue, traced the skeletal branches of the oak trees, their twisted fingers seeming to claw desperately at the leaden sky. She often felt like those branches—reaching for something just beyond her grasp, tethered to a earth that was cold and unyielding. She was a ghost in her own home, a portrait turned to the wall, living in the margins of a story written for others.

A sharp, perfunctory knock at the door shattered the quiet. It was a sound so foreign to the annex’s usual soundtrack of dripping water and wind whistling through cracks that March started, her heart giving a sudden, painful lurch against her ribs. Servants rarely came here unless summoned by necessity—to deliver meager supplies, to relay a terse command, or, on the rarest and most dreaded of occasions, to fetch her for an audience. The door creaked open on protesting hinges, revealing not a senior housemaid, but a young girl, Elara, her hands pressed neatly together in a gesture of deference that seemed too formal for this place. Her eyes were wide, slightly apprehensive.

“Miss March…” the girl said, her voice barely a whisper, bowing her head so low her chin nearly touched her chest. “Father… he requests your presence. In the main house. Immediately.”

The words, though softly spoken, landed with the force of a physical blow. March’s blood seemed to freeze in her veins. Her father. Lord Aveloria. He never *requested* her presence. He summoned it, for reasons that were invariably unpleasant. Conversations were not exchanged in that study; directives were issued. Her chest tightened, a familiar band of anxiety constricting her breathing. “Yes,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady, a skill honed from years of masking her fear. “Thank you, Elara.”

She wiped her wet, reddened hands on the ragged apron tied over her worn woolen dress, a garment that had been let out and taken in more times than she could count. She rose, her joints protesting from the long crouch, and followed the maid out, pulling the door closed behind her with a muted, final-sounding thud. It sealed away the only world she had ever known, and she had a sudden, inexplicable feeling that she was leaving it for the last time.

The walk to the main house was a journey through a series of layered worlds, each one more refined and distant than the last. The path, a gravel track now dusted with frost, crunched under her thin-soled boots. The cold bit through the leather, a persistent ache. She passed by the large, elegant window of the morning room, and as she always did, she instinctively glanced inside. There, lounging on a divan heaped with silk cushions, was her stepsister, Camilla. Draped in velvet the color of wine, she was laughing, a light, airy sound that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was surrounded by a coterie of friends, all sipping tea from porcelain so fine it was nearly translucent. One of them, a young man with elaborately pomaded hair, was undoubtedly the source of the joke Camilla found so clever.

March’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Her fists curled at her sides, her short nails digging into the callused flesh of her palms. The contrast was a physical pain—the warmth and idleness within, the cold and purpose without. For a fleeting second, their eyes met through the glass. Camilla’s gaze, sharp and dismissive, flicked over March’s form, taking in the simple dress, the work-worn hands, the lack of any adornment. A smirk, tiny and cruel, touched the corner of her perfectly shaped lips before she deliberately turned back to her companions, dismissing March as one would a stray cat. The humiliation was a familiar sting, a low-grade fever of resentment that always simmered beneath March’s skin. But today, the summons from her father was a far greater, more terrifying storm on the horizon. Camilla was a petty squall; this was a hurricane. She did not pause. She kept walking, her back straight, her eyes fixed ahead.

The main house loomed before her, a monument to power and legacy. It was constructed of pale, quarried stone, each block perfectly fitted, polished to a soft sheen that reflected the weak morning light. The front steps were a broad, sweeping staircase, designed for grand entrances and theatrical descents, not for the quiet, utilitarian tread of a forgotten daughter. Servants hustled about with practiced efficiency, their movements a well-rehearsed ballet of service. One carried a silver tray laden with pastries, their scent of sugar and butter faintly perfuming the air. Another swept the steps with brisk strokes, clearing the first fall of snow. A third fussed over a roaring fire in the great hall, visible through the open doors. The house smelled richly of burning applewood, of cinnamon and clove from mulled wine, and underneath it all, the faint, clean, metallic scent of the cold—a smell that not even all the wealth and warmth of the Aveloria house could entirely keep at bay.

Every step March took across the polished marble floor of the entrance hall echoed, each footfall a proclamation of her intrusion. She felt microscopic, a smudge on perfection. The ceilings soared overhead, lost in shadow, supported by beams carved with scenes of heroic Aveloria ancestors. Tapestries depicting great hunts and historic battles lined the walls, their colors muted but still vibrant compared to the drab palette of her annex. The servants she passed did not quite meet her eyes, their glances sliding away with a practiced neutrality that was more insulting than outright scorn. She was a non-entity, a ghost in the machine of the household.

Her father waited in his study, the innermost sanctum of his power. The door was ajar. She paused for a moment, gathering the shattered pieces of her composure, then pushed it open. He stood with his back to her, framed by the massive window that looked out over the formal gardens, now being blanketed in white. He was a tall man, Lord Aveloria, and broad-shouldered, with a posture that seemed to deny the very concept of relaxation. His presence didn’t just fill the room; it commandeered it, silencing all other possibilities. The room itself was a testament to his nature: organized, severe, and cold. Books stood in rigid, perfect lines on the shelves. A massive oak desk dominated the space, its surface terrifyingly bare save for a single sheet of parchment, a quill, and an inkwell. There were no personal touches, no portraits of family, no mementos. It was a room for business, for strategy, for the cold calculus of power.

“March,” he said, without turning around. His voice was deep, each word precisely formed and chilled, like the stones of the house itself. “Come forward.”

She obeyed, her boots making no sound on the thick rug. She stopped a few feet from the desk, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. “Yes, Father?” Her voice, though she willed it to be strong, felt small and fragile in the expansive, silent room.

He turned then. His face was handsome in a stark, unforgiving way, all sharp angles and flinty eyes. His gaze swept over her, not with paternal warmth, but with the assessing look of a general surveying an unfamiliar and likely inferior piece of equipment. He let the silence stretch, a tactic he employed to unbalance people, to make them rush to fill the void with unwise words. March had learned long ago to outwait it. She simply stood, her expression neutral, waiting for the axe to fall.

Finally, he spoke, his tone flat, devoid of any emotion that might suggest he was discussing his daughter’s future. “An arrangement has been made. A matter of… diplomatic necessity.” He picked up the single piece of parchment, though he did not look at it. “You are to be married. Your betrothed is Caelus D’Varrow. The Crown Prince of the D’Varrow Empire.”

The words did not so much crash into her as they seeped into her bones like a paralyzing toxin. She blinked, certain she had misheard. The sound of the fire crackling in the hearth seemed to recede, replaced by a dull, roaring silence in her ears. Her mind fumbled, trying to grasp the meaning. Married. *Married*. To a prince. A name she had only heard in whispers, accompanied by words like “cursed,” “reclusive,” and “dangerous.” The D’Varrow Empire was a distant, formidable power to the north, a land of endless winter and whispered legends, a place entirely alien to her.

“I…” The word was a dry croak. She swallowed, forcing moisture into her mouth. “I am to… marry him?” The question was absurd, a child’s query in the face of an immutable decree.

Her father’s lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. His impatience was a palpable force. “The Empire requires this alliance. The Aveloria name requires compliance. You will serve your family’s interests in this. You leave in two days’ time. Everything has been prepared.” He placed the parchment back on the desk, the gesture final. He turned back to the window, dismissing her as completely as if he had waved a hand. The audience was over.

The weight of the announcement pressed down on her, a physical force that made her want to sink to the floor. Two days. Forty-eight hours to dismantle a life. To leave the only home she had ever known, however humble. To be sent as a pawn in a game she didn’t understand to a man shrouded in myth and fear. The questions erupted in her mind like a swarm of startled birds—*Why me? What is he like? What does ‘cursed’ mean? What will happen to me?*—but none found voice. There were no answers for her here. She was a commodity to be traded. Slowly, mechanically, she turned and walked out of the study, her legs moving of their own accord. The polished halls of the main house seemed to blur around her, a dizzying carousel of wealth and indifference.

---

Returning to the annex was like stepping into a faded photograph after the vivid, terrifying clarity of the main house. The familiar smells of old wood, cold ash, and damp stone greeted her, a perverse comfort. The draft whispered through the cracks it knew so well. The world had tilted on its axis, but this small, shabby room remained the same, a anchor in a suddenly chaotic sea.

She went to the small, battered chest at the foot of her bed, the one that held every possession she owned in the world. The act of packing felt both futile and profoundly significant. She opened the lid. Inside, folded with neat, obsessive care, were her life’s artifacts. Three dresses, each patched and mended in places only she would notice. A locket, its silver tarnished black, that had belonged to a mother she could scarcely remember; she never wore it, but its weight in her hand was a connection to a ghost. A wooden comb, its teeth smoothed by years of use. A few books, their spines cracked, their pages soft and dog-eared from countless re-readings by candlelight—stories of adventure and love that felt like messages from another universe.

Her hands, those practical, scarred tools, moved with a methodical precision born of a lifetime of making do. She folded a dress, her fingers tracing a neatly stitched repair on the sleeve where she had caught it on a nail hauling firewood. Each crease in the fabric was a meditation on a memory, a moment of quiet triumph over circumstance. Tucking the locket into a small pouch, she felt the familiar pang of loss and unanswered questions. Placing the books carefully at the bottom of the chest, she said a silent goodbye to the heroes and heroines who had been her companions in solitude. This was more than packing; it was a ritual of closure, a desperate attempt to contain her old life in a box before it was taken from her forever.

The sharp, crystalline sound of laughter shattered the quiet, followed by the door being pushed open without ceremony. Camilla stood there, backlit by the gray afternoon light, a vision of indolent cruelty. She held a small, ornate glass bottle filled with amber oil.

“I heard the news,” Camilla said, her voice a mockery of sweetness. She strode in, her silk skirts rustling against the rough floorboards, her nose wrinkling slightly at the Spartan surroundings. “Off to tame the beast of the north, are we? How… dramatic.” She thrust the bottle at March. “Here. A parting gift. Camilla oil. The finest in the province. I hear the D’Varrow court is terribly… dry. And well, one must make an effort, even if the audience is a cursed hermit. Don’t want to ruin his royal sheets with those sandpaper hands of yours, do you?”

March stared at the bottle, then at Camilla’s perfectly composed, malicious face. The humiliation was a hot flush that traveled from her chest to her cheeks. It was a calculated insult, designed to highlight every insecurity, every difference between them. She wanted to fling the bottle back, to shout, to finally give voice to the resentment that had festered for years. But she didn’t. She had learned that any reaction, any emotion, was merely fuel for Camilla’s fire.

Instead, she forced her expression into a mask of placid indifference. Her hands, which had instinctively tightened into fists, relaxed. She took the bottle, her rough fingertips scraping against Camilla’s soft, manicured ones. “I don’t need it,” she said, her voice quiet but devoid of the tremor Camilla was hoping for. She placed the bottle on the windowsill, next to the bucket, as if it were a completely ordinary object. The dismissal was clear.

Camilla’s smirk faltered for a fraction of a second, frustrated by the lack of engagement. She tossed her elaborately curled hair. “Suit yourself. Do try not to embarrass the family name too thoroughly. Though I suppose in that frozen wasteland, no one of consequence will see you.” With another dismissive laugh, she turned and swept out, leaving behind a cloud of cloying perfume that fought a losing battle with the scent of damp and old wood.

March stood perfectly still until the sound of Camilla’s footsteps had completely faded. Then, slowly, she picked up the bottle of Camilla oil. For a long moment, she considered simply throwing it out the window. But practicality, her oldest and most relentless companion, stayed her hand. It was oil. It had value. It could fuel a lamp, soothe a dry patch of skin, perhaps even help loosen a stubborn hinge. In her world, nothing useful was ever truly wasted, even when it was given in malice. She tucked it into a corner of her chest. A reminder not of Camilla’s cruelty, but of her own resilience.

---

The journey north was a slow, jarring descent into another world. They left before dawn on the second day, the sky a bruised palette of purple and gray. The carriage, though serviceable, was not built for comfort or for the deteriorating roads that led into the high northern passes. It was a stark, functional vehicle, its springs worn, its interior smelling of old leather and damp wool.

March sat huddled in the corner, wrapped in every layer she possessed. The cold was a living thing, a predatory force that found every gap in the carriage’s construction, every seam in her clothing. It seeped through the thin soles of her boots and gnawed at her toes. It stole the breath from her lips in plumes of white vapor. Each bump and lurch of the wheels over the frozen, rutted track traveled through the frame of the carriage and up her spine, a constant, teeth-rattling percussion.

As the miles crawled by, the landscape outside transformed. The relatively gentle, snow-dusted hills of Aveloria gave way to a harsher, more imposing geography. The trees became darker, predominantly towering pines and firs, their branches heavy with snow, their forms seeming to huddle together for protection against the elements. The snow fell more thickly here, a relentless, silent curtain that blurred the world into shades of white and gray. Rivers, glimpsed through the trees, were not water but plates of opaque ice, their surfaces scoured by wind. The sun, when it appeared at all, was a pale, diluted coin behind a veil of high cloud, offering light but no warmth.

The monotony of the travel left her mind too much room to wander. With nothing to do but watch the frozen world go by and cling to her meager warmth, her thoughts turned inward. She flexed her fingers inside her woolen mittens, feeling the familiar landscape of calluses and scars. These hands told a story. They remembered the sting of lye soap in cold water, the burn of rope, the ache of gripping a hoe from dawn until dusk. They had scrubbed floors until the knuckles were raw and bleeding, had mended tears in coarse fabric by the guttering light of a tallow candle, had hauled buckets of water from the well until her shoulders screamed in protest.

A strange pang, a mixture of pride and a profound, aching nostalgia, struck her. Her hands were a record of her existence, proof of her competence and endurance. They were honest. The world she was hurtling toward—a world of palaces, of silks, of courtly manners and whispered politics—was a world of surfaces. It was a language she did not speak. How would her rough, capable hands, so adept at creating order from chaos in a small, shabby annex, fare in a place where order was maintained by an invisible army of servants? Every polished surface, every piece of delicate embroidery, every priceless artifact would be a silent reproach to her utilitarian upbringing.

The carriage hit a particularly deep rut, lurching violently and throwing her against the hard wall. She righted herself with a grunt, her muscles sore and stiff. She thought of the stories she’d heard of the D’Varrow court—a place of legendary coldness, both in climate and in temperament. Was the prince, this Caelus, as cold as his kingdom? Was he prepared for a bride who arrived not in a cloud of perfume and silk, but in the sturdy, travel-stained wool of a servant, her only dowry a chest of mended clothes and a heart full of practical skills utterly useless in a ballroom?

They stopped at sparse, rough inns along the way, places where the air smelled of smoke, stew, and unwashed bodies. March observed the people in these northern towns with a keen, empathetic eye. She saw children, their faces red with cold, helping to chop wood or carry water. She saw women whose hands, she noted with a sense of kinship, were as work-roughened as her own, mending nets or shoveling snow from doorsteps. She saw men with weary eyes, their movements economical and purposeful, battling the elements to simply survive. This was a life she understood. It was a life of grit and mutual dependence, of finding warmth in shared hardship. It was a world away from the calculated cruelty of Camilla’s drawing room and the cold authority of her father’s study. In these faces, she saw reflections of her own struggle, and it made her feel less alone.

On the third day, the character of the land changed again, growing even more severe. The forests thinned, and the road began to climb in earnest, switchbacking up the sides of mountains whose peaks were lost in cloud. The wind howled with a new voice here—a deeper, more primal roar that shook the carriage on its axles. The snow was deeper, drifted high against the rocks that lined the pass. The air grew so cold that it hurt to breathe, feeling like shards of glass in her lungs.

And then, as the carriage rounded a final, treacherous bend, the palace of the D’Varrow Empire came into view.

It was not a palace as she had imagined from her storybooks. It did not speak of elegance or frivolity. It was a fortress, a phenomenon hewn from the very mountain itself. Towers, sharp and black as obsidian, clawed at the tumultuous gray sky like talons. Walls of impossibly thick, dark stone rose from the cliff faces, seamless and formidable, their surfaces glazed with a thick layer of wind-packed ice that glittered ominously. Banners, black emblazoned with a silver, stylized raptor, whipped and snapped in the gale with a sound like cracking whips. It was magnificent, awe-inspiring, and utterly terrifying. It spoke not of wealth, but of unassailable power and a relentless, enduring strength. It was a place built to withstand sieges, to defy gods, to last until the end of time.

The carriage slowed as it approached the massive gates, which were themselves masterworks of black iron, etched with intricate, forbidding runes. Guards, clad in furs and polished armor that seemed to absorb the weak light, stood motionless at attention. They were like statues carved from ice and iron, their faces hidden behind helms. One raised a gauntleted hand, and the carriage halted. There was a brief, low exchange between the driver and the guard, the words stolen by the wind. Then, with a deep, resonant groan that vibrated through the very ground, the immense gates began to swing inward.

March exhaled slowly, a long, shaky breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She pressed her hands flat against her knees, willing them to stop trembling. The palace was more than she could have ever conceived. Its sheer, brutal scale was meant to intimidate, to diminish those who approached. And it worked. She felt infinitesimally small, a speck of dust blown against a mountain. But beneath the fear, another instinct, honed by a lifetime of overcoming, stirred. She had survived her father’s neglect, Camilla’s malice, the relentless toil of her daily life. She had survived the bone-deep cold of the annex winters with only a sputtering stove for warmth. This was just a different kind of cold, a different kind of challenge. Her shoulders, almost of their own volition, squared slightly. She could survive this, too.

The carriage passed through the gates and into a vast, enclosed courtyard. The sound of the wind muted instantly, creating an eerie, pressurized silence. The door was opened from the outside.

Two figures were waiting for her. They stood with a stillness that mirrored the guards at the gate, but their presence was different—more alert, more analytical. The man was older, with a thoughtful, grave demeanor and sharp eyes that missed nothing behind a pair of spectacles. The woman was younger, her posture poised and watchful, her gaze direct and assessing. They were not dressed as lavishly as Aveloria courtiers, but their clothing was of exceptional quality and cut for movement and utility—fine wool, reinforced leather, fur trim that was both elegant and functional. These were not mere servants. These were players.

The woman stepped forward. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and calm, yet it carried undeniable authority. “Miss Aveloria,” she said, with a slight, formal inclination of her head. “Welcome to the Ice-Spire Palace. I am Himiko. This is Welt.” The man, Welt, offered a similar nod, his expression unreadable.

Before March could even form a response, another figure emerged from the main entrance of the keep itself. He was tall and moved with a lean, predatory grace that was both effortless and intimidating. His hair was dark, his features sharp and striking, and his eyes, the color of a winter sky, swept over her and the carriage in one swift, comprehensive glance that seemed to take inventory of everything, down to the last loose nail. This was Dan Heng, the Captain of the Guard, though March would not learn his name until later. His authority radiated from him like heat from a forge.

He approached, his boot heels ringing on the frozen cobblestones. “Miss Aveloria,” he said, his voice a low baritone that required no raised volume to command attention. It was calm, firm, and utterly devoid of welcoming warmth. “The Prince has been informed of your arrival. The palace has been expecting you.” His gaze was not unkind, but it was piercingly direct, the gaze of someone accustomed to assessing threats and weaknesses instantly. He had seen countless arrivals, countless faces filled with fear or ambition, and he had watched many of them falter under the relentless pressure of this place.

“Your quarters have been prepared,” he continued, his tone leaving no room for discussion or delay. He gestured with a gloved hand toward the colossal, rune-carved doors of the keep. “Shall we?”

March nodded, her throat too tight for words. She gathered her heavy skirts in one hand and took the hand he offered to help her down from the carriage. His grip was firm, impersonal. Her boots crunched on the gravel-strewn ice as she landed. The cold was even more intense here in the shadow of the walls, a dry, penetrating cold that her southern layers were hopelessly inadequate against. She tucked her chin into her scarf, her eyes watering from the wind.

She followed Dan Heng, with Welt and Himiko falling into step a respectful distance behind. It felt less like an escort and more like a procession, or perhaps the transfer of a prisoner. Every step took her deeper into the heart of the mountain fortress. The massive doors closed behind them with a definitive, thunderous boom that echoed through the stone hallways, sealing her inside.

---

The world within was both exactly and nothing like she had expected. The cold was kept at bay here, replaced by a steady, dry warmth emanating from cleverly concealed heating vents in the walls and floors. The air smelled of stone, of frost, of burning peat and something faintly aromatic—perhaps pine or a rare incense. But it was the scale that stole her breath and disoriented her completely.

Dan Heng guided her through a labyrinth of corridors. The floors were paved with immense slabs of polished black basalt that reflected the torchlight and the vague outline of her own overwhelmed form like a dark ghost. The walls soared upward, lined with tapestries so vast they depicted entire histories—wars against giants, the taming of great ice dragons, coronations of ancient kings under aurora-lit skies. The ceilings were vaulted stone, lost in shadow high above, from which hung enormous iron chandeliers holding hundreds of candles, their light flickering and dancing over the stone faces of monumental statues that stood in niches along the halls. The silence was profound, broken only by the echo of their footsteps and the distant, mournful sound of the wind outside, a constant reminder of the harsh world beyond these walls.

It was a place of immense, crushing power and history. It made the Aveloria manor seem like a dollhouse in comparison. And March, in her travel-worn clothes, with her wind-chapped cheeks and her chest of meager possessions being carried by a silent servant behind them, had never felt more out of place, more like an imposter about to be discovered.

Welt and Himiko watched her, their eyes missing nothing. They saw the way her head tilted back to take in the ceilings, the slight, unconscious shake of her head at the sheer impossibility of it all. They saw the way her hands, red and rough, clenched and unclenched at her sides, a telltale sign of anxiety. They had expected many things from the Aveloria daughter—entitlement, haughty criticism, perhaps even tears of spoiled frustration. They saw none of that.

Himiko finally paused before a door that was a work of art in itself. It was carved from a rich, dark wood, depicting a lifelike forest scene of twisting vines, winter berries, and delicate, frosted flowers that seemed to shimmer in the torchlight. “Miss Aveloria,” Himiko said, her voice softer now, almost… cautious. “This will be your room.”

March stared at the door, then at Himiko, her brow furrowed in genuine, uncomprehending confusion. “My… room?” The words were a whisper of disbelief. She had anticipated a cell-like chamber, perhaps in a distant wing. Something small, stone, and manageable. This door belonged to a queen.

Himiko gave a single, confirming nod. “Yes. This is yours. I will be stationed nearby if you require anything at all.” There was a subtle shift in her demeanor, a curiosity replacing pure formality.

With a trembling hand, March pushed the door open. And her mind, already reeling, simply stopped.

It was not a room. It was a hall. A private realm. The bed was a vast expanse of linens and furs, larger than her entire sleeping area in the annex, piled high with cushions and canopied with sheer silver fabric. The fireplace was an enormous hearth of veined marble, big enough to stand in, within which a fire already crackled merrily, casting a warm, dancing light. The windows were towering arches of flawless, clear glass, offering a breathtaking, terrifying view of the mountain range, a jagged sea of white peaks against a violet twilight sky. There were sitting areas, a writing desk of polished ebony, bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes, and a large, ornate screen in one corner. The floors were covered in thick, pelts of white fur. The air was warm and smelled faintly of lavender and beeswax.

She took a few stumbling steps inside, her mouth agape. She turned in a slow circle, her brain struggling to process the sheer volume of space, the staggering luxury. “This…” she finally breathed, her voice hushed with awe. “This is… really my room?” She looked back at Himiko, her blue eyes wide with utter incredulity. “I… I mean… it’s… it’s astonishing. I’ve never… I’ve never even dreamed of a place like this.”

But then, as the initial shock began to recede, a different, more practical and deeply ingrained part of her mind kicked into gear. Her eyes, now sharpened from a lifetime of spotting dust, drafts, and disrepair, began to scan the room not with wonder, but with a manager’s assessment. She saw the vast expanse of floor that would need sweeping and polishing. The towering windows that would require meticulous cleaning inside and out—a dangerous, dizzying task. The intricate carvings on the furniture that would collect dust in their countless crevices. The marble mantel that would need constant wiping. The sheer volume of linens on the bed that would need changing and washing.

The awe on her face slowly melted into a look of sheer, overwhelmed panic. This wasn't a room; it was a full-time occupation.

“I…” she stammered, pacing nervously now, running a hand over the impossibly soft fur of the bedspread. “I don’t… I couldn’t possibly… I mean, the upkeep… the cleaning alone…” She trailed off, gesturing helplessly at the towering windows. “The windows alone would take a day each! And the dust… it would settle everywhere…” She turned to Himiko, her expression genuinely pleading. “Are you… are you quite sure? Perhaps there’s… a mistake? A smaller room? An attic space, maybe? Just something… simpler. Easier to maintain. I’m… I’m used to being responsible for my own space. I know what it takes to keep a place livable, for real. This…” She waved a hand around the grand chamber, her voice dropping to a whisper. “…this is a monument. I wouldn’t even know where to start. The work it must require…”

Himiko watched her, and for the first time, a flicker of true understanding passed through her composed features. This was not the reaction of a spoiled noblewoman turning up her nose. This was the reaction of a practical, hardworking person facing a logistical nightmare. She was looking at the room not with disdain for its quality, but with respect for the immense labor required to sustain it. It was a perspective Himiko, in her role of oversight and discipline, had never encountered before.

“It is… acceptable,” Himiko said slowly, choosing her words with care, “to take time to adjust. Many find such spaces… overwhelming, at first.” She was reassessing March Aveloria in real time, discarding her preconceptions. “The staff here is… extensive. You will not be responsible for its maintenance.”

March shook her head, a small, disbelieving laugh escaping her. It was a sound devoid of humor, full of nervous energy. “No, no, of course not. I understand. It’s just… it’s a lot. For anyone who’s ever actually held a broom, I think this room is… well, it’s a lifetime’s work.” She sighed, the fight going out of her. The reality of her new position was settling in. She was a lady here, not a servant. The concept was alien. “It’s fine. Really. I’ll… manage. Thank you, Himiko.”

Himiko gave another nod, this one slightly more respectful. “I will leave you to rest. Your belongings will be brought up shortly. The evening meal will be sent to you.” She turned and left, closing the door with a soft, definitive click.

Alone, March stood in the center of the colossal room, the silence pressing in on her. Slowly, she walked to the bed and sank onto it, the furs swallowing her whole. She lay back, staring up at the silver canopy, her mind a whirlwind. The last forty-eight hours replayed in a chaotic montage: the cold annex, her father’s icy pronouncement, Camilla’s mocking face, the jarring carriage ride, the terrifying beauty of the mountains, the imposing figures of Dan Heng, Welt, and Himiko, and now this… this impossible room.

Somewhere, far below and far away, the life she had known—a life of tangible work and clear purpose—was gone. Here, her purpose was murky, her role undefined. She was a bride, a pawn, a stranger in a frozen fortress. Yet, as she lay there, the warmth of the fire finally beginning to seep into her bones, she felt it again—that stubborn flicker of curiosity, of anticipation. It was a small, fragile flame, but in the immense, cold darkness of her new world, it was everything.

---

Down the corridor, in a small antechamber used by the guards, Himiko poured a cup of tea for Welt. Their expressions were thoughtful, the silence between them comfortable.

“She is… not what I anticipated,” Himiko said finally, her voice low.

Welt stirred his tea, the spoon making a soft clink against the porcelain. “I confess, I expected a peacock. Preening, entitled, demanding to see the Prince immediately, complaining about the cold, the travel, the accommodations.” He took a sip. “I saw none of that.”

“Her hands,” Himiko said, her eyes sharp. “Did you see them? They are… a laborer’s hands. Scarred. Calloused. She was assessing that room not for its value in gold or its prestige, but for the effort required to keep it clean. She was thinking of the *work*.”

Welt nodded slowly, a look of dawning respect in his eyes. “Yes. That is a perspective one cannot fake. She has not lived a life of leisure. She has lived a life of… management. Of survival. It explains her composure in the carriage. She is not easily unnerved by discomfort.”

“She was nervous, yes,” Himiko agreed. “But not fragile. There is a resilience there. A practicality. She was not overwhelmed by fear of her new title or her new husband, but by the scale of the housekeeping.” A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. “It is… refreshing.”

“We underestimated her,” Welt concluded. “We thought we were receiving a delicate ornament to be placed on a shelf and ignored. Instead, we may have been sent a… a resourceful individual. Someone who understands endurance. That could be an asset to the Prince. To the Empire. It will certainly be a change for this court.”

Himiko’s expression turned more serious. “It will also be a tremendous challenge *for her*. This world, its politics, its rituals… it is as foreign to her as her practical mindset is to us. She will need guidance. Protection, even. There are those here who will see her not as an asset, but as a vulnerability. An outsider. A weak link.”

“Then we shall have to ensure she is not,” Welt said, his voice firm. “We observe. We assess. And we learn who March Aveloria truly is. This may be the most interesting thing to happen to the Ice-Spire in a long, long time.”

---

Back in her room, March had finally uncurled herself from the bed. She walked to one of the gigantic windows, pressing her hand against the freezing glass. The view was breathtakingly desolate—a world of white and blue and stone, of immense power and profound isolation. The sun was setting, setting the ice on the peaks ablaze with fiery orange and deep purple.

She thought of the cursed prince, Caelus D’Varrow, somewhere in this vast maze of stone. What was he like? Was he a monster from a story? A brooding, tragic figure? Or simply a man, as trapped by his circumstances as she had been in her annex? Her future was tied to his, a thread connecting two utterly disparate lives.

She looked down at her own hands, placing them flat against the cold windowpane. The rough, capable skin contrasted sharply with the flawless, polished glass. They were her history. They were her truth. This palace, for all its terrifying grandeur, was just another environment to navigate. It had drafts to find, routines to learn, secrets to uncover. It was a larger annex, with more dangerous corners and far higher stakes.

A strange calm settled over her. The initial panic receded, replaced by a familiar determination. She had survived the Aveloria estate by being observant, practical, and resilient. She would survive the D’Varrow court the same way.

Somewhere in the sprawling, frozen heart of the palace, the echoes of her arrival were being discussed in hushed tones. Alliances were being considered, strategies formed. The game was beginning. And March Aveloria, the girl from the margins with the rough hands and the steady gaze, was now a player on the board. She didn't know the rules yet, but she was a quick study. The future, vast and unknown and glittering with ice, was waiting.

Chapter Text

The deep, dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion was a mercy March had not expected to find in the colossal, opulent bed. She awoke not to the familiar, insistent drip of water into a bucket or the chill of a dying stove, but to a profound, silent warmth. For a long, disorienting moment, she lay still, her eyes tracing the intricate silver threads woven into the canopy above her. The events of the previous day—the terrifying journey, the awe-inspiring palace, the overwhelming room—came back to her not as a dream, but as a bizarre and immutable reality.

Sunlight, pale and wintery, streamed through the towering windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. The fire in the great hearth had been reduced to glowing embers, but the room remained comfortably warm. The sheer, impossible luxury of it all still pressed down on her, not with welcome, but with a heavy sense of unreality. She was an imposter in a silk-lined box.

A soft knock at the door startled her from her thoughts. “Miss March?” It was Himiko’s voice, calm and measured. “May I enter?”

“Y-yes,” March called out, sitting up and pulling the impossibly soft furs around her. She felt a sudden, ridiculous urge to straighten the bedsheets, to prove she hadn’t sullied them with her presence.

Himiko entered, carrying a tray. She was dressed as impeccably as the day before, her posture poised. Behind her, two figures followed: Welt, with his kind, spectacled eyes and grave demeanor, and the tall, imposing form of Dan Heng. Their presence in her bedroom felt both like an honor and an invasion.

“I trust you rested well,” Himiko said, setting the tray on a small table near the bed. It held a pot of tea, a single cup, and a small bowl of porridge drizzled with honey and sprinkled with nuts. It was simple fare, yet the porcelain was fine, the spoon was silver, and the honey looked like liquid gold. “We wished to discuss your schedule for the day.”

March’s eyes flickered between the three of them. They were a council, a tribunal of her new life. Her heart began a familiar, anxious rhythm. This was it. The directives would begin. The list of expectations and rules for the Prince’s fiancée would be laid out. She clutched the blanket tighter, her rough fingers catching on the fine linen.

“Of course,” she said, her voice still husky with sleep. She cleared her throat. “I am ready to receive my duties.”

A barely perceptible glance passed between Welt and Himiko. Dan Heng’s expression remained an unreadable mask.

It was Welt who spoke first, his voice a gentle rumble. “Duties, Miss March? For now, your only duty is to acclimatize. To rest from your journey.”

This was not what she had expected. Acclimatization sounded like a luxury, not a duty. Duties were concrete. Duties were scrubbing, mending, hauling. She nodded slowly, unsure how to process this. Then, the most pressing question, the one that had coiled in her stomach since her father’s study, rose to her lips.

“When…” she began, then hesitated, gathering her courage. “When will I be meeting… my husband-to-be?” The title felt foreign and heavy on her tongue.

The silence in the room deepened. Himiko’s hands, which had been adjusting the tray, stilled. Dan Heng’s sharp gaze intensified, though it did not quite meet hers. It was Welt who fielded the question, his tone carefully neutral.

“Prince Caelus’s… schedule is complex,” he said, choosing his words with the precision of a diplomat defusing a bomb. “He has a profound aversion to company and maintains a very rigid, solitary routine. Meetings are not undertaken lightly and require his explicit approval.”

It was a non-answer, polished and evasive. March heard the words they weren’t saying: *He does not wish to see you. You are an inconvenience.* The familiar sting of rejection, sharper for being delivered so politely, lanced through her. She was not wanted here, either. She was a political placeholder, to be stored in a lavish room until needed.

She absorbed this blow with the practiced stillness of a lifetime of disappointments. If she was not to meet the Prince, and she had no duties, then what was her purpose? Her practical mind, so accustomed to structure and chains of command, seized on the next logical question.

“Whose orders am I to follow, then?” she asked, her gaze moving from Welt to Dan Heng. Dan Heng, with his clear air of authority, seemed the most likely candidate. “Should I report to you, Sir?”

Dan Heng’s response was immediate and firm. “That will not be necessary.” His voice, though not unkind, brooked no argument. “You are a guest of the highest standing. You are not here to receive orders.”

The statement left her mentally adrift. Not receive orders? Every waking moment of her life had been governed by orders, either explicit or implied by necessity. Without them, she was a ship without a rudder. A frown creased her brow as she tried to puzzle it out.

“I see,” she said slowly, thinking aloud. “So… I am to work without receiving orders, then.”

This time, the reaction was more pronounced. Welt’s eyebrows rose slightly behind his spectacles. Himiko’s lips parted in faint surprise. Dan Heng’s head tilted a fraction of an inch, a predator-like gesture of pure curiosity.

“Work?” Welt asked, the word sounding strange in the opulent room. “What do you mean by work, Miss March?”

Now it was March’s turn to be confused. Was the concept so alien here? “The… the necessary tasks,” she explained, gesturing vaguely around the room. “The cleaning. The laundry. The sewing. I noticed a loose thread on the tapestry by the door; I could attend to it. I don’t know how to do fine embroidery,” she admitted, a hint of shame coloring her cheeks at the lack of a traditionally feminine accomplishment, “but I could try to learn. The windows will need a proper cleaning before the frost sets in too deeply, and the—”

“Miss March.” Dan Heng’s voice cut through her practical list, not harshly, but with a finality that silenced her. “That is all quite alright. You are the lady of the house. It is not necessary for you to do any chores.”

*The lady of the house.* The phrase was so absurd, so utterly disconnected from her reality, that she could only stare at him. She was no such thing. She was the girl from the annex, the one who knew the weight of a bucket of water and the exact pressure needed to scrub soot from iron.

Himiko stepped forward then, her movements graceful. She did something entirely unexpected: she reached out and took March’s hands in her own. March flinched at the contact, but Himiko’s grip was firm yet gentle. She turned March’s hands over, exposing the palms—the calluses, the fine white scars, the story of a life of labor written plainly on her skin.

“You can leave all the work to the staff,” Himiko said, her voice softer than March had yet heard it. Her eyes were not on March’s face, but on her hands, and there was a new, unreadable emotion in their depths. “Spending your days in peace would be a much better use of your time.”

She looked up, meeting March’s bewildered gaze. “Is there anything you would like to do today?”

The question was so simple, yet it was perhaps the most baffling thing March had been asked since her arrival. *Like* to do? Activities were not about *liking*; they were about *doing what was needed*.

“I… I’m sorry?” March stammered, truly lost. “Anything I’d… like to do?”

Himiko’s patience seemed infinite. “Yes. What are you interested in? What brings you enjoyment?”

March just stared at her. Enjoyment? Interests? These were concepts as foreign as the palace’s heating system. Her interests had been surviving the winter. Her enjoyment had been the rare moment of finishing her chores before dark and having time to read a few pages of a book by candlelight.

Dan Heng, perhaps sensing the utter stalemate, provided a list. “Music? The court has fine instruments. Poetry? The library is at your disposal. Perhaps… shopping? The city markets offer many diversions.” Each suggestion seemed to make March shrink further into herself. She had never touched an instrument. Poetry was a luxury for idle hours. Shopping implied having coin to spend on things one did not strictly need.

The silence stretched, thick with March’s incomprehension and the growing, dawning realization on the faces of her three companions. Himiko’s eyes softened further. She had her answer. The girl had no idea what she liked because no one had ever cared to ask, and she had never had the luxury to find out.

“A walk, then,” Himiko said decisively, releasing March’s hands. “The winter gardens are quite stark, but beautiful in their own way. The fresh air will do you good after your long journey.”

Relief flooded through March. A walk was a task. A destination. A purpose. “Yes,” she agreed quickly, too quickly. “A walk would be… I would like that.”

As they moved to leave, Himiko paused, her critical eye sweeping over March’s simple, travel-worn dress. “We shall need to find you something more suitable for the outdoors,” she murmured. “The winds from the mountains are biting.”

What followed was a whirlwind. Himiko led her not to a closet, but to a suite of rooms down another grand corridor. “These are Lady Stelle’s chambers,” she explained. “She is of a similar size. She will not mind.”

The room was elegant but lived-in, with books stacked on tables and a half-finished sketch by the window. Himiko went to a vast wardrobe and selected a heavy wool dress in a deep, forest green, trimmed with gray fur at the cuffs and collar. It was the most beautiful article of clothing March had ever touched.

She changed behind a screen, her fingers fumbling with the unfamiliar fastenings. When she emerged, the dress was, as predicted, slightly too broad in the shoulders and a little long in the sleeve, but the wool was thick and warm, the fur soft against her neck.

She looked at herself in a full-length mirror—a novelty in itself. The girl staring back was a stranger. The color of the dress brought out the blue in her eyes. She looked… almost noble.

“It’s…” she breathed, her voice full of wonder. “It’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever had.”

The statement, so genuine and awestruck, hung in the air. Welt, who had been waiting patiently outside the room, exchanged another long, silent look with Himiko. His expression was no longer merely curious; it was deeply concerned. This was not the behavior of a princess from a powerful, gifted family. This was the behavior of a… a…

They proceeded to the gardens, a vast, structured landscape of snow-covered hedges, frozen fountains, and paths lined with skeletal trees whose branches were coated in a glittering layer of ice. The air was indeed cold, sharp and clean, scented with pine and frost. March walked between Welt and Himiko, her head on a swivel, taking in the breathtaking, severe beauty of it all. For the first time, she felt a flicker of something akin to ease. This, at least, was nature. Harsh and untamable, even by a palace.

They walked in a comfortable silence for a time, the only sound the crunch of their boots on the gravel path. And then, a figure appeared at the opposite end of the path.

The world, March realized, did not so much go silent as it *stillened*. The very air seemed to hold its breath. The woman who approached was ethereally beautiful, with long, ash-gray hair and eyes the color of amber. She moved with a quiet grace that was both serene and profoundly sad. She was accompanied by a faint, almost imperceptible aura of… quiet. It was unsettling.

Himiko immediately bowed low. “My Lady Stelle.”

Welt offered a deep, respectful nod. “Lady Stelle.”

The woman’s luminous eyes, so like her brother’s yet so different, swept over the group and settled on March. There was a wariness in them, a caution that had been learned through hard experience.

“And who is this?” she asked, her voice as soft and cool as falling snow.

March, her nerves returning in a rush, curtsied clumsily, the unfamiliar dress feeling suddenly too large. “I-I am March Aveloria,” she stammered. “The… the Prince’s fiancée.”

Something flickered in Stelle’s eyes—surprise, quickly masked. She offered a smile that was polite but did not quite reach her eyes. “My brother’s fiancée. I see. Welcome, then. I am Stelle. I suppose that makes us sisters-in-law.” Her welcome was not rude, but it was guarded, a door left only slightly ajar.

She fell into step beside March as they continued their walk. “I hope you are finding your time in our palace… tolerable?” she asked, her tone light but probing. “It must be a change from Aveloria. We are so few here, and it can be dreadfully cold and quiet.”

March, eager to please and utterly sincere, shook her head vigorously. “Oh, no! It’s… it’s wonderful. I have a room so much bigger than my own at home. And the clothes are so warm and beautiful. The food is… I’ve never had food like that. And everyone has been so…” She searched for the right word, gesturing to Himiko and Welt. “…so kind. It’s all… amazing.”

She continued, her words tumbling out in an earnest, overwhelmed torrent, praising the size of the fireplaces, the softness of the bed, the sheer scale of everything. She was so engrossed in her catalog of wonders that she didn’t notice the effect her words were having.

Stelle had stopped walking. She was staring at March, her beautiful face a mask of astonishment. And then, a sound broke the crystalline stillness of the garden: laughter. Not a polite, courtly titter, but a genuine, surprised, and utterly delighted burst of laughter. It was a beautiful sound, like bells ringing.

March stopped, blinking in confusion. Had she said something wrong?

Stelle wiped a mirthful tear from her eye. “I am sorry,” she said, her voice warmer now, laced with real amusement. “It is just… no one has ever… * praised * the draughts in the hallways before.” She looked at March with open curiosity, the suspicion in her eyes melting into something far more interesting: fascination. This girl was not what she had expected. Not at all.

The walk concluded on a much lighter note. Afterward, Himiko led March back inside. “It is time you had your own attendants,” she said. They entered a smaller, sunlit parlor where two young women were waiting.

One was leaning against the mantelpiece with an air of lazy insolence. She had wild, white hair, sharp eyes, and a smirk that seemed permanently affixed to her face. She was dressed not in a traditional maid’s uniform, but in a stylish, practical outfit of black and white that hinted at mobility and perhaps concealed weaponry.

The other stood by the window, her posture shy and gentle. She had soft, pink-streaked hair and large, kind eyes that held a surprising depth of sadness. Her hands were clasped demurely in front of a simple, pale blue dress.

“Miss March,” Himiko said formally. “These will be your personal maids. This is Silverwolf.” The white-haired girl offered a casual, two-fingered salute, her smirk widening.

“And this is Firefly.” The gentler girl offered a deep, graceful curtsy, a shy smile touching her lips.

“Silverwolf refuses to use any other name,” Himiko added dryly, “and we have learned it is easier to oblige.”

March nodded, utterly bewildered by the concept of having *personal* maids, let alone two of them. She was supposed to *have* maids, not *be* one? It was all backwards.

What she didn’t know, and would not discover for some time, was that these were no ordinary maids. They were two of the most skilled combatants in the D’Varrow guard, assigned by Welt personally. Silverwolf, a master of infiltration and close-quarters combat, and Firefly, whose gentle demeanor belied a terrifying proficiency with energy-based weapons and tactical analysis. Their primary duty was protection. Their secondary duty, though Welt would never phrase it so crudely, was to watch her. To report back on the curious, seemingly guileless girl who had arrived from the enemy’s house.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of bewildering pampering. Silverwolf and Firefly led her to a bathing chamber where a deep, steaming tub awaited. They helped her out of Stelle’s borrowed dress—a process March tried to protest, insisting she could do it herself—and into the water scented with exotic oils. Firefly washed her hair with gentle hands, while Silverwolf lounged on a stool, offering wry commentary on the quality of palace soap versus what you could find on the black market.

After the bath, they rubbed a rich, lavender-scented lotion into her skin, paying particular attention to her work-roughened hands and feet. They dressed her in a soft, clean shift and then brought her a tray of food—a light broth, fresh bread, cheese, and fruit—and insisted on feeding her bites of it, as if she were a child or an invalid.

March was in a state of passive shock. She had never been tended to like this. Every touch, every act of service, felt like a violation of the natural order of her world. She was meant to serve, not be served.

The seamstress was summoned. She was a severe-looking woman with a tape measure around her neck and pins stuck in her cuff. Stelle arrived moments later, sweeping into the room with newfound purpose.

“Lin,” Stelle said to the seamstress, her tone brooking no argument. “Miss March will require a full wardrobe. At least five day dresses, suitable for winter. The same number of nightgowns. Three formal ball gowns, and…” She paused, looking March up and down with a critical eye. “…a corset.”

“A corset?” March finally found her voice, a squeak of protest. “But I… I don’t…”

Stelle waved a dismissive hand. “Nonsense. Every lady needs…” She stopped herself, her eyes truly focusing on March’s thin frame, the sharp lines of her collarbones visible above the shift. A shadow crossed her face. She let out a soft sigh. “Actually, forget the corset. She’s thin as a reed. She doesn’t need one.” She turned back to the seamstress. “Focus on warmth and comfort. Use the blue velvet for one of the day dresses, it will suit her eyes. And the silver brocade for a formal gown.”

Lin nodded, already taking measurements, her hands efficient and impersonal. March stood like a doll, being turned and measured, her protests drowned out by Stelle and Lin’s rapid-fire discussion of fabrics, cuts, and the latest trends from the capital. She was a project, a canvas to be dressed. The cost of just one of these dresses would have kept her fed and warm in the annex for a year. The sheer, wanton extravagance of it all was dizzying.

Later that evening, in Welt’s private study, the council reconvened. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting dancing shadows on the walls of books.

“She is… cute,” Himiko offered, sipping a cup of tea. “Like a lost kitten who does not know it is a kitten.”

Dan Heng stood by the window, looking out at the darkening gardens. “Her behavior is inconsistent with her background. The Aveloria family is known for its arrogance, its leveraging of their gifts for power and status. She displays none of that. It is either a masterful performance or…”

“Or she is not what we were led to believe,” Welt finished, his expression grim. “It makes me suspicious. Why send *her*? A girl with no apparent gifts, no courtly training, who speaks of scrubbing floors?”

“You *are* suspicious of everything, Welt,” Stelle said, entering the room quietly. She had changed into a simple evening dress. “You even assigned her two of your best spies as maids. If she so much as breathes with ill intent, Silverwolf will be the first to know. Probably before she even knows it herself.”

“The assignment was for her protection as much as our observation,” Welt countered, though it was a weak defense and they all knew it.

Himiko set her cup down. “Whether she is an imposter or not… I do not know. But she comes from a family of gifted bearers who believe their power puts them above consequence. Who could, some say, get away with murder.” Her gaze grew distant, clouded with memory. “And yet, this girl acts with a humility that feels… innate. Not performed. She praised the *food*, Stelle. She was concerned about the *dusting*.”

A heavy silence fell upon the room as Himiko’s words summoned a shared, painful memory.

*A flashback, vivid and brutal: The Emperor’s private chambers. A valuable vase lay shattered on the floor, shards of porcelain scattered like tears. A dark red stain of wine—or was it blood?—bloomed against the expensive rug. The Emperor, a man usually of imposing calm, was pacing like a caged beast, his face contorted with a rage so deep it was terrifying.*

*“I will not be intimidated by those so-called ‘gifted’ upstarts this time!” he roared, his voice shaking the very crystals in the chandelier. “Their arrogance ends at our borders! As long as the curse on my children remains unbroken, my anger will not subside! Do you understand?”*

*The man he was yelling at, standing stiff and unflinching before the monarch’s fury, was March’s father, Lord Aveloria. His face was a mask of cold compliance.*
*“I understand perfectly, Your Majesty,” he said, his voice a low, oily smooth contrast to the Emperor’s fury. “The Aveloria family shall dedicate all our strength, all our resources, to breaking your children’s curse. You have my solemn vow.”*

*It had not been a promise. It had been a threat. A transaction made under duress.*

Himiko blinked, pulling herself back to the present. The memory was a cold shard in her heart. “The Emperor made a deal with a viper to save his children,” she said softly. “And he sent us the viper’s daughter. But the girl who arrived… she does not have a viper’s eyes. She has the eyes of a scared child who has known nothing but neglect. And I believe… even if she is a pawn in her father’s game, she deserves kindness. For however long it lasts.”

The meeting broke up without resolution, a mixture of wariness, pity, and confusion hanging in the air.

Back in her room, March was alone again. A tray with the remnants of a delicious evening meal sat by the fire. Her skin smelled of lavender, her hair was clean and soft, and she was wearing a nightgown of such fine, delicate cotton it felt like wearing a cloud.

She sat on the edge of the vast bed, her mother’s locket—the only piece of her old life she had brought—clutched in her hand. She ran her thumb over its tarnished surface, as she had done a thousand times before. It had never opened for her. She had never known what, if anything, was inside.

A deep, profound unease settled over her. “I ended up accepting it all,” she whispered to the silent, luxurious room. “A warm meal. A bath. Beautiful clothes. Their kindness.” It felt like a betrayal of herself, of the girl who had survived on so little. This warmth, this comfort, felt like a trap. A gilded cage was still a cage. “It’s as if I’ve become a real princess.” The words were a lament.

She felt like a fraud who had wandered into a story that belonged to someone else. She was playing a part, and eventually, the audience would realize she didn’t know her lines. She clutched the locket tighter, wondering what her mother would think of her here, in this impossible place. What was she supposed to *do*?

Her thoughts were chaotic, a whirlwind of confusion and guilt. She belonged in the annex, with her chipped pots and her stubborn dirt. Not here. Not amidst this silent, watchful luxury.

Suddenly, a tremendous noise shattered the night’s silence. It wasn’t from the door. It was from outside—a loud, violent *slam* followed by a frantic, metallic *rattling*, like a massive chain being strained to its breaking point.

Her heart leaped into her throat. All thoughts of being an imposter vanished. Someone was in trouble. Something had happened. Instinct, honed from a life where she was the only one who could fix things, who could help, took over.

She didn’t hesitate. She flew to the window, pressing her face against the cold glass, peering down into the moonlit garden below. She could see nothing but the pristine, snow-blanketed landscape, glittering under the pale light.

The noise came again—a raw, scraping sound of struggle. Without a second thought, she turned and ran. She dashed out of her room, her bare feet slapping against the cold stone floors of the hallway. She flew down the grand staircase, ignoring the shocked look of a passing night guard, and flashed through the dimly lit halls toward the side door that led to the gardens.

She burst out into the freezing night air, the cold seizing her lungs. She was still in her thin nightgown, but she didn’t feel the cold, fueled by a surge of adrenaline. “Hello?” she called out, her voice small against the vastness of the night. “Is someone there?”

She followed the sound, her feet going numb in the deep snow, until she rounded a hedge and stumbled into a small, secluded clearing near the palace walls.

And there she stopped, her blood freezing in her veins.

In the center of the clearing, illuminated by the full, merciless moon, was a figure. It was massive, powerful, and wild. It was canine, but like no dog she had ever seen. It was a wolf, but perfected, a creature of myth and shadow. Its coat was a magnificent tapestry of silver and charcoal gray, thick and shimmering in the moonlight. Its muscles coiled and bunched under its skin with a terrifying, restrained power.

And its eyes… They were not the eyes of a beast. They were a piercing, intelligent, molten gold, and they were fixed directly on her. They held a universe of pain, of fury, of a desperate, trapped intelligence.

For a moment, the world truly did go silent. The wind stilled. The only sound was the ragged puff of her own breath and the low, dangerous growl that rumbled in the creature’s chest.

Time seemed to suspend. The silver wolf. The golden eyes. The girl in the white nightgown, standing frozen in the snow.

And then the spell broke. The wolf moved.

It wasn't an attack. It was a blur of motion almost too fast to follow. It lunged across the clearing with a power that seemed to warp the air around it. March had no time to scream, no time to move. It was upon her in a heartbeat, a force of nature.

Its weight slammed into her, driving the air from her lungs. She cried out, a short, sharp gasp, as she was thrown backward into the deep, cold snow. The world spun, a dizzying whirl of black sky, white snow, and silver fur.

She lay there, stunned, the cold seeping through her nightgown. Pinning her down was not a savage bite, not tearing claws. It was the overwhelming, warm, heavy weight of the wolf. It stood over her, its massive head hovering just above hers, its hot, panting breath fogging in the air between them. Those incredible, intelligent golden eyes bored into hers, so close she could see the flecks of amber in their depths.

There was no sound. No growl. No snarl. Just the silent, frantic beating of her own heart and the intense, searching gaze of the beast.

The world had narrowed to this: the cold beneath her, the warm weight on top of her, and the beautiful, terrifying, golden silence shared between them.

Chapter Text

The world narrowed to the space between heartbeats. The cold of the snow beneath her seeped through the thin cotton of her nightgown, a shocking, grounding counterpoint to the immense, warm weight pinning her down. The wolf’s breath, hot and moist, fogged in the air just inches from her face, each puff a small cloud in the crystalline night. His eyes, a molten, intelligent gold, held hers captive. They were not the mindless eyes of a ravenous beast; they were windows into a storm of emotion—fury, pain, a desperate, trapped intelligence, and a curiosity so sharp it felt like a physical touch.

March’s mind, usually a whirlwind of practical concerns, was utterly still. The thought surfaced, clear and calm amidst the panic: *What can I do? I can’t move. If I stay like this, I’ll freeze to death before I’m eaten alive.*

But the attack didn’t come. Instead, the pressure on her chest lessened. The wolf stepped off her with a fluid, powerful grace, his paws making deep impressions in the snow. He stood to the side, a statue of silver and shadow, watching her.

Surprised, the fear receded a fraction, replaced by pure, unadulterated wonder. *He’s not attacking?* She pushed herself up onto her elbows, her muscles trembling from adrenaline and cold. She looked at him properly then, her blue eyes wide. He was magnificent. His coat was a living tapestry of winter itself, shades of silver, charcoal, and white that shimmered under the moonlight. He was larger than any wolf had a right to be, his form radiating a primal, majestic power that stole the breath from her lungs.

A violent shiver wracked her body, and she sneezed loudly, the sound absurdly small in the vast, silent garden. “It’s very cold,” she said aloud, her voice a shaky whisper, stating the obvious as if to convince herself this was real.

The wolf’s ears twitched. He took a step forward, not threateningly, but deliberately. He lowered his massive head and gently, yet insistently, tugged at the sleeve of her nightgown with his teeth.

March stared, bewildered. “Are you… telling me to come with you?”

In response, the wolf made a soft, chuffing sound deep in his throat. It wasn't a growl. It was almost like… a click. He released her sleeve, turned, and began to walk back toward the palace, his paws crunching rhythmically in the snow. He paused after a few steps and looked back at her, those golden eyes compelling her to follow.

Awe-struck, March scrambled to her feet, her numb toes sinking into the snow. *Did that wolf just click his tongue at me?* The world had truly turned upside down. But the alternative—staying alone in the freezing dark—was far less appealing than following this mysterious, seemingly benevolent creature. She hugged herself, her teeth chattering, and followed the silver wolf back toward the looming silhouette of the Ice-Spire.

He led her not to the main entrance but to a smaller, side door she hadn’t noticed before. As they approached, the door swung open, spilling warm light onto the snow. Himeko stood there, her usually composed face etched with worry. Just behind her, Stelle hovered, her amber eyes wide with alarm.

“March!” Himeko’s voice was a mixture of relief and sharp reprimand. She rushed forward, grabbing a heavy woolen blanket from a bench inside and wrapping it tightly around March’s shivering shoulders. “By the gods, child! The night guard said you flew past him like a ghost! What were you thinking, running out into the snow like that? In your nightclothes! You could have frozen! You could have been lost! What happened?”

Before March could form a coherent answer, her attention was pulled away. The wolf had stopped at the threshold. He wasn’t looking at Himeko or March. His intense golden gaze was locked on Stelle. It was a silent, profound communication, a look that held a history March couldn’t possibly decipher. Stelle held his gaze for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she turned her head aside and murmured, so softly March almost missed it, “Understood.”

Stelle leaned in and whispered something into Himeko’s ear. Himeko’s anxious expression shifted, the lines around her eyes tightening with something else—resignation? Exasperation? She let out a long sigh and turned back to March, her voice considerably softer. “It’s fine. Just… never do that again. Please. You gave us quite a scare.”

Still bewildered, March could only nod mutely. Himeko put an arm around her and began to guide her inside, rubbing her back to generate warmth. “Let’s get you warmed up before you catch your death.”

The wolf followed them into the hallway. March glanced back, expecting Himeko to shoo him away, to call for guards. But Himeko simply glanced at the creature, her lips pressed into a thin line, and said nothing. They made a strange procession down the torch-lit corridors: the shivering, blanket-clad girl, the sternly concerned head attendant, the ethereal, silent lady, and the massive, padding wolf.

Himeko led March to a small, cozy sitting room with a roaring fire. She sat March down in a plush chair close to the hearth and began vigorously drying her hair and arms with a soft towel. The wolf followed them all the way there and sat on his haunches just inside the doorway, watching.

After a long moment of hesitation, Himeko finally spoke, her voice tight. “Oh, for pity’s sake. Come in then. But don’t you dare track snow on the rugs.”

March blinked, astonished. *They’re letting him into the room? Into the palace?* The wolf seemed to understand perfectly. He stepped fully into the room, gave a whole-body shake that sent a spray of melted snow droplets across the floor, and then padded over to the hearth, circling once before lying down with a contented sigh, his head on his paws.

A laugh bubbled up in March’s throat, born of relief and the sheer surrealism of the situation. She grabbed the towel from Himeko. “Here, let me. You’re still wet, too.” She knelt on the rug beside him and began to gently towel-dry his damp fur. “Yes, of course, you’re cold too. You can warm up here if you’d like.”

The wolf let out a short, sharp *woof*.

March gasped, delighted. *He barked—it’s so cute!* She laughed, the sound bright and clear in the quiet room. “Wow, you’re just like a dog.”

A low, rumbling growl vibrated through the floorboards. The wolf lifted his head, fixing her with a look of profound offense.

She immediately recoiled, her hands flying up. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! You’re not a dog. You’re a very majestic, very fearsome wolf. Please don’t be angry.”

The growl subsided. He seemed to accept her apology, resting his head back on his paws with a huff. After a while, when they were both reasonably dry, he stood up, stretched, and then leapt effortlessly onto the large, elaborate bed. He pawed at the mattress, packing them down, turned in three precise circles, and then lay down, taking up fully half of the bed.

March stared, then let out another soft laugh. She walked over and sat gingerly on the edge of the space he’d left. “Are you going to sleep on the bed?” She reached out, her fingers hesitating for a second before sinking into the thick, luxuriant fur at his shoulder. It was incredibly soft. “You’re adorable. This room is too big and quiet for me anyway. It’s less lonely with two.” She leaned back against the cushions, pulling the blanket around her. The warmth of the fire and the wolf’s radiating body heat was soporific. “Goodnight, pup,” she murmured, her eyes already closing. Exhaustion from the cold and the shock pulled her under within moments, her hand still resting on the silver wolf’s side.

The wolf, Caelus, watched the human girl fall asleep beside him. Her face, finally relaxed in slumber, was pale and delicate, her pink hair fanned out against the dark cushion. Her words echoed in his mind. *Less lonely.* He let out a quiet sigh, a cloud of steam in the warm room, and closed his own eyes.

---

The next morning, March was awakened by a loud, imperious bark directly in her ear.

She groaned, swimming up from the depths of a dreamless sleep. *Doggie, is that you?* she thought muzzily.

But then, cutting through the fog of sleep, she could have sworn she heard a man’s voice, crisp with irritation: "Wake up already. What’s with that inappropriate outfit? It shows too much shoulder. Why does it fit so badly?"

Her eyes fluttered open. She was still on the bed, curled on her side. The wolf was sitting upright next to her, staring down at her with an expression that could only be described as disapproving. Her nightgown had slipped down one shoulder, exposing her skin to the cool morning air.

Still half-asleep, she clutched at the warm, fluffy body beside her, nuzzling into his fur. *Wow, so soft… was my pillow always this fluffy?* “This is bliss,” she sighed aloud.

The wolf made a grumbling sound and then, with surprising delicacy, used his nose to nudge the fabric of her nightgown back up over her shoulder.

March smiled sleepily. “Good pup. Thank you. My clothes are too big for me, they slip off.” It was a constant battle in borrowed finery.

A sharp knock came at the door, and it opened before she could answer. Silver Wolf leaned against the doorframe, her usual smirk in place. “Forgive me for the intrusion, but are you awake, my lady? Himiko sent me to—whoa.”

The smirk vanished, replaced by pure, unadulterated shock. Her sharp eyes widened as they landed on the massive wolf currently sharing the mattress with her charge. “Huh? What are *you* doing here?”

March sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Good morning, Miss Silver Wolf! He was cold last night, so I let him warm up by the fire.”

Silver Wolf just stared, her mouth slightly agape. She looked from the wolf to March and back again. “Uh… it’s all right. He may… stay in the house.” The words sounded forced, as if she were reciting a line she didn’t believe.

March brightened. “Really? Do you live here, doggie?”

The wolf let out a short, affirmative bark.

Silver Wolf looked utterly perplexed. She tried to speak, to correct the monumental misunderstanding unfolding before her: “My lady, this isn’t a dog—”

“I know, I know,” March cut her off cheerfully, swinging her legs off the bed. “He’s a wolf. It’s weird to call him doggie, isn’t it? It’s disrespectful. I’m sorry,” she said, addressing the wolf directly.

Silver Wolf opened her mouth again, then closed it with a sigh, shaking her head in surrender. The wolf stared intently at her, then barked once, a clear command, and padded out of the room.

March watched him leave. “Where is he going?”

“The dining room, most likely,” Silver Wolf said, her composure returning along with her smirk. “He doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Let’s get you dressed and head down. Wouldn’t want to keep… *him*… waiting.”

---

The breakfast setting was less formal than March had expected. A small table was set near a window overlooking the mountains, bathed in the weak morning sun. And there, sitting regally in one of the high-backed chairs as if he owned it—which, March was beginning to suspect, he might—was the wolf.

Dan Heng was there too, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, a faintly amused expression on his usually stoic face.

March, now dressed in one of the simple, warm day dresses from Stelle’s wardrobe, took her seat. The wolf was staring at her, his golden eyes intense.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, feeling self-conscious.

Dan Heng’s voice was dry. “He’s just reacting to your dress.”

March looked down at the dress. It was a little loose, the neckline perhaps a fraction lower than what was strictly practical. She grabbed at the collar, embarrassed. “My dress? Is it improper? Should I eat in my room instead?”

Dan Heng actually chuckled, a low, soft sound. “There’s no need. He’s just… particular.”

The wolf let out a low *woof*, as if in agreement.

When a servant brought in a tray of food—a fluffy omelet, fresh bread, fruit—March’s eyes lit up. “It’s very delicious again today!” She ate with the unfeigned enthusiasm of someone who had known true hunger, savoring each bite.

She noticed the wolf beside her, watching her every move with rapt attention. “Are you eating too, doggie?” She giggled, the sound light and musical. On impulse, she speared a piece of her omelet with her fork. “Say ah!” she said, holding it out to him.

Without hesitation, the wolf leaned forward and delicately took the offering from the fork, his teeth clicking softly against the metal. He chewed and swallowed, his tail giving a single, satisfied thump against the leg of his chair.

From her post by the door, Silver Wolf muttered under her breath, “She’s one of a kind… what even happened last night?”

Dan Heng’s smirk widened. “No idea.”

March, encouraged, continued her one-sided conversation with the wolf. “You’re such a good boy. So well-behaved. And so handsome! I’ll bet your master is very proud of you.”

This was too much for Silver Wolf. A snort of laughter escaped her, which she quickly tried to disguise as a cough.

Dan Heng decided to put an end to the charade, if only for his own sanity. “Actually,” he said, his voice cutting through March’s praise, “his name isn’t doggie.”

March paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. “It’s not?”

“No.” Dan Heng’s gaze flicked to the wolf, who was watching him intently. “It’s Caelus.”

March repeated the name, testing it on her tongue. “Caelus.”

The wolf—Caelus—barked once, insistently, as if confirming it.

Silver Wolf nodded, her face a mask of strained neutrality. “That’s right.”

March’s brow furrowed. She tilted her head, looking from the wolf to Dan Heng and back. “Isn’t that the same as the prince’s name?”

The wolf suddenly went completely still and silent.

“I see,” March said, her confusion clearing as she arrived at a perfectly logical, and perfectly wrong, conclusion. She smiled cheerfully. “It’s wonderful you have the same name as your master. It must be an honor.”

The wolf made a sound deep in his throat—a clear, unmistakable click of his tongue against his teeth.

March gasped, pointing her fork at him. “I knew it! You really were clicking your tongue. You’re amazing. You’re the smartest wolf in the whole world.”

Dan Heng pinched the bridge of his nose. Silver Wolf looked like she was about to have an aneurysm from the effort of not laughing. Caelus just laid his head on the table with a resigned sigh.

---

Later that afternoon, the seamstress, Lin, returned. This time, she was not accompanied by bolts of fabric, but by her silent, red-eyed assistant carrying an armload of finished garments draped in protective cloth.

Stelle oversaw the proceedings, gliding into the room with an air of purpose. "The first pieces are ready for a fitting," she announced.

March's eyes went wide. "So soon?" The efficiency of the palace staff was staggering.

"Lin is a master of her craft," Stelle said simply, as if that explained everything.

One by one, the garments were presented. There were day dresses of thick, soft wool in deep emerald, sapphire, and a rich burgundy, each beautifully tailored and trimmed with subtle embroidery or delicate lace at the cuffs and collar. Then came the nightgowns, of a cotton so fine it felt like gossamer. Finally, Lin unveiled the first of the formal gowns. It was the blue velvet Stelle had requested, a color so deep it seemed to hold the night sky within its weave. The cut was simple but elegant, with long sleeves and a high neckline that swept up to frame the face.

"Let's see it on," Stelle instructed, her voice holding a note of genuine excitement.

March was ushered behind an ornate screen. With Firefly's gentle help, she was divested of her borrowed dress and carefully eased into the blue velvet. The fabric was heavy and luxuriously soft against her skin. She stepped out from behind the screen and stood before a full-length mirror, her breath catching.

The girl in the reflection was a stranger. The dress fit her perfectly, the rich color making her blue eyes seem brighter, her pale skin seem to glow. The high neckline was both modest and strikingly elegant, emphasizing the delicate line of her jaw. She looked... noble. Like she belonged in the portraits lining the halls.

"Well?" Stelle asked, a satisfied smile playing on her lips. "What do you think?"

"I..." March's voice failed her. She touched the velvet sleeve, half-expecting the illusion to dissolve. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever worn." The statement was uttered with such awestruck sincerity that it hung in the air, a testament to a life devoid of such beauties.

The wolf, observing from his spot on the bed, let out a soft chuff of approval, his golden eyes fixed on her reflection.

"Good," Stelle said, her smile widening. "Now, the silver brocade for the ball. Let's see if the fit is just as perfect."

The process repeated. The silver gown was heavier, more elaborate, its fabric woven with threads that caught the light and shimmered like ice. It had a fitted bodice and a skirt that flowed out like a frozen waterfall. When March emerged wearing it, even the usually stoic Lin gave a slight, approving nod.

Stelle clapped her hands together softly. "Exquisite. You will be the vision of the north, March. A winter queen."

March stared at her reflection, overwhelmed. The cost of this single dress could have fed a small village for a month. The sheer, wanton extravagance of it all was dizzying. She was a ghost from a dusty annex, wearing a fortune in thread and cloth.

After they left, Himiko brought in a tea service. Left alone with the wolf, March sipped her tea, her mind reeling. *Is it really okay to have so many clothes?* she fretted silently. *What will I even do with them all? What if I spill something on them?*

The door opened without a knock. It was Lin's assistant, the one with the red eyes. She stood there, her expression as cold as the mountain peaks outside.

"Have you noticed anything odd here?" the girl asked, her voice flat and devoid of warmth.

March blinked. "Odd? Like what?"

"Owls," the girl said, her red eyes seeming to gleam. "I’ve spotted them flying around the spires at night. They’re cunning creatures. Deceptive. Never let them into the villa." She delivered this bizarre warning with utter seriousness, then turned and left without another word, leaving March staring at the empty doorway.

*What a strange person,* March thought, shaking her head. She turned to the wolf, who was watching the door with a low growl in his throat. "It’s alright," she soothed him. She sighed, setting her tea down. "I know I complained about the cost, but…" She ran her hand over the soft blue velvet of her sleeve. "I’m actually a little excited to have dresses of my own," she admitted quietly, a faint blush on her cheeks. "Is that terribly vain?"

The wolf just sighed and laid his head down on his paws, as if exhausted by the complexities of human females.

The door opened again, and Himiko re-entered to collect the tray. "The final adjustments will be made by this evening, my lady," she said. "And the jeweler will come next week to discuss pieces for the ball."

"The jeweler?!" March yelped, nearly spilling her tea. "What?!"

---

Elsewhere, in a private study lined with maps and tactical reports, the silver wolf was no longer a wolf. Caelus D’Varrow stood by the window, his human form tall and lean, dressed in the dark, practical clothes of the palace guard. He ran a hand through his dark hair, a gesture of frustration.

“She’s… unlike anything I anticipated,” he said, his voice a low rumble.

Dan Heng, leaning against the desk, merely raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“She followed me into the snow without a second thought. No fear. Just… concern.” Caelus’s gaze was distant, seeing the memory. “Her hair was like a splash of color in the monochrome night. Her eyes… they were clear and direct. She looked like an ice fairy from the old tales.” He shook his head, a wry smile touching his lips. “She’s strange. Clueless. She thinks I’m a pet. But she’s… lovely. She’s the first woman I’ve ever met who draws my gaze and doesn’t make me want to… retreat.”

Stelle, who was quietly arranging books on a shelf, smiled softly. “She has a good heart. It shines through. It’s… refreshing.”

“The ball,” Caelus stated, turning to face them, his expression decided. “I will take her to the ball. It will be the first time.” He paused, his jaw tightening. “And the last time I will appear before her as a prince.”

Later, in a grand hall with a polished floor, March’s new reality took another dizzying turn. Welt stood to the side, his hands behind his back. “It is a necessary skill for the event,” he explained calmly.

“Event?” March asked, her panic beginning to rise.

“The ball,” Himiko clarified gently. “To celebrate the prince’s twentieth birthday. It is held on the night of the full moon. The most important social event of the season.”

*Ball. Prince’s birthday. Full moon.* The words slammed into March. *Maybe his highness loves the full moon… but is he avoiding me because of my presence? Because I’m here as an obligation, not a choice?*

Dan Heng stepped forward and offered her his hand. “May I have this dance?”

The lesson was a disaster. March, whose body knew only the rhythms of labor—scrubbing, hauling, chopping—was utterly lost in the steps of a waltz. She counted under her breath, stepped on Dan Heng’s feet, and stumbled repeatedly. On one particularly misjudged turn, she tripped over her own skirts and fell forward, and Dan Heng caught her neatly, her body pressed briefly against his as he steadied her.

A furious, deafening bark echoed through the hall. A silver blur shot across the floor. Caelus, in his wolf form, launched himself at Dan Heng, knocking the captain clean off his feet. The two landed in a heap on the polished wood, the wolf standing over a sprawled, exasperated Dan Heng, growling ferociously.

Welt adjusted his spectacles, completely unruffled. “Please don’t interfere, Caelus. She needs to learn.”

March froze. The name hung in the air. *Caelus?* Welt had called the wolf by the prince’s name. Not ‘the wolf.’ Not ‘the prince’s namesake.’ *Caelus.*

Dan Heng pushed himself up on his elbows, muttering under his breath, “The prince hasn’t even shown himself to her yet in his own form, and he’s already causing scenes…”

March’s heart sank like a stone in a frozen lake. The pieces, which she had so stubbornly refused to put together, finally clicked into a terrifying, humiliating picture. The familiar way everyone spoke to the wolf. The shared name. The intelligence in those golden eyes. The way he was allowed everywhere. *The curse.*

Tears pricked at her eyes. *Is it my fault? What if he doesn’t need me? What if I’m just a reminder of a deal his father made with a viper? A viper whose daughter is too stupid to recognize a cursed prince when he’s sitting in a chair eating her omelet?*

The wolf—*Caelus*—turned from a grumbling Dan Heng and padded over to her. He pressed his large, warm head into her hands, whining softly, his earlier anger gone, replaced by concern.

She looked down at him, her vision blurry. She forced a laugh, soft and broken. “It’s all right. I just tripped. You’re so sweet.” She buried her fingers in his fur, seeking comfort. “I wish I could stay with you forever.”

The wolf and Dan Heng exchanged a long, complicated look. Then the wolf nudged her toward the door before turning and padding out, Dan Heng following him with a sigh. They were going to have words.

March, needing air, needing to process the seismic shift in her understanding, followed them at a distance. She hovered just outside the half-open door to a smaller antechamber.

Inside, Dan Heng’s voice was low but clear. “You can’t keep hiding like this. Do you intend to never show yourself? You’ll meet her at the ball, sure—a grand reveal in front of everyone. But after that? You can’t pretend to be a pet forever. How much longer do you plan to act like a dog?”

“I’m not a dog!” The voice that replied was human, male, and thick with frustration. It was the same voice she’d heard in her sleep that morning. “I’m a wolf!”

“Doesn’t matter. If you keep barking at anyone who gets near her, we’ll start calling you the Puppy Prince.”

“Don’t you dare!” the voice—*Caelus’s* voice—growled.

A new voice joined in, light and teasing. Stelle’s. “Oh, I like it. It suits you, Puppy Prince. Does she scratch behind your ears? Do you fetch sticks?”

“Stelle, I swear to the gods—”

Their squabbling grew more heated, a familiar, sibling-like argument.

March could bear it no longer. Her heart was hammering against her ribs. She pushed the door open, her face pale, her blue eyes wide with dawning, horrifying comprehension.

The scene before her froze. Dan Heng, leaning against a wall, arms crossed, smirking. Stelle, trying and failing to hide a laugh behind her hand. And standing between them, glowering, was a young man. He had dark hair, striking features, and eyes the color of a winter sky. He was dressed in simple, dark clothes, but he carried himself with an innate, regal authority. And his eyes… they were the same intense, intelligent, molten gold as the wolf’s.

March’s gaze flickered from the man’s furious face to Dan Heng’s amused one. Her voice was a tiny, trembling thing. “Um… is the wolf… talking?”

Dan Heng’s smirk widened into a full, triumphant grin. He pushed off the wall and made a sweeping gesture toward the stunned young man. “I’m afraid, your highness, your act is over.” He turned to March, his voice formal. “Miss March Aveloria, allow me to properly introduce Prince Caelus, the Crown Prince of the D’Varrow Empire.”

The prince—Caelus—stared at her, his anger evaporating into sheer, unadulterated panic. March stared back, the world tilting on its axis once more.

The day ended not with a bang, but with a devastating, silent understanding.

Chapter Text

The world did not so much tilt as it shattered, the pieces falling around March in a dissonant, impossible cascade. The grand antechamber, once a space of intimidating opulence, now felt like a cage where reality itself had been rewritten. The young man with the sharp, handsome features was gone. In his place stood the familiar silver wolf, his head bowed, ears drooped in a posture of such profound shame that it stole the air from March’s lungs. But his eyes… his eyes were the same. The same piercing, intelligent, molten gold that had stared at her in the moonlit garden, now filled with a despair so deep it was a physical force.

*The dog is Prince Caelus. Prince Caelus is the doggy,* her mind stammered, the thought looping in a frantic, childish rhythm as it tried to bridge the unbridgeable gap between the playful companion she’d fed omelet to and the cursed sovereign of a frozen empire. *D'Varrow is a puppy empire? That sounds cute... Wait, that's not the point!*

Her initial shock was a cold splash of water. Then came the slow, dawning horror of her own obliviousness. Every shared moment flashed before her eyes—the way he’d clicked his tongue in the snow, the unmistakable *humanity* in that golden gaze, the way the entire staff had spoken to him with a deference that now made terrible, perfect sense. She had been scrubbing floors and worrying about dust while a prince, her *betrothed*, had been padding silently beside her, watching her with a patience born of lonely exile.

The silence that followed Dan Heng’s formal introduction was thick enough to choke on. It was broken by the casual, almost irreverent approach of Silver Wolf and Firefly, who rounded the corner and paused, taking in the frozen tableau with an air of unsurprised curiosity.

"Huh? Is something wrong?" Silver Wolf asked, her tone deceptively light, her sharp eyes missing nothing. She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, as if they were discussing the day’s menu.

Firefly, standing just behind her, offered a gentler, yet equally knowing, look. "What brings you all here?" she inquired, her gaze softening as it landed on March’s pale, stricken face.

Dan Heng let out a long, weary breath, the sound of a man who had long seen this moment coming. "I guess you could say the time has come..." he said, his voice flat. "The truth is out."

Silver Wolf and Firefly exchanged a glance that was heavy with unspoken history. "Oh. That makes sense," they said in near-unison, their acceptance a stark contrast to the earthquake happening in March’s soul.

Silver Wolf’s signature smirk returned, sharper and more cynical than ever. "Aww, the gig is up so soon? What a shame. Hearing the prince bark was fun while it lasted. It had a certain… rustic charm."

*Everyone in the villa knew about this?* March’s thoughts spiraled into a vortex of humiliation and confusion. *From the Captain of the Guard to the newest combat maid, they all knew. They watched me call him ‘doggie.’ They watched me scold him. They watched me treat the Crown Prince of the D’Varrow Empire like a stray I’d brought in from the cold. But why on earth...? Why let me make such a monumental fool of myself? Was it a test? A cruel joke?*

Interrupting her internal turmoil, which she was sure was painted plainly across her face, Dan Heng asked gently, "Is there anything you would like to ask, March?" His voice was a lifeline thrown into her churning sea of disbelief.

The dam broke. "I have so many questions, I don't know where to start!" she blurted out, her voice trembling, thin and reedy in the vast room. The words felt inadequate to contain the storm of ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ raging inside her.

"I can believe that," he replied, his usual stoicism softened by a hint of genuine pity. He had, after all, been the one to dance with her, to witness her clumsy attempts at nobility, all while knowing the man she was supposed to marry was watching from four paws away.

"ACHOO!"

The sudden, utterly human sneeze was so jarringly normal it was shocking. It came from Prince Caelus. He had been standing silently, his human form a statue of tense misery, but the force of the sneeze made him flinch. As he raised a hand to wipe his nose, a visible shudder passed through him. It was a ripple in the air around him, a distortion of reality that made March’s eyes water. Wolf ears, tufted and gray, popped up from his disheveled dark hair. His skin rippled, not like water, but like a pond surface when a stone is thrown, and from that disturbance burst forth the thick, silver-furred pelt she knew so well. His form contorted, shrinking and expanding in all the wrong ways, a process that looked neither magical nor graceful, but wrenching and involuntary. Before her brain could fully process the horrifying, fascinating transformation, where the prince had been standing was now the familiar wolf, looking smaller somehow, deflated. But through it all, one thing remained constant, unchanging: his eyes. The same brilliant, sorrow-filled gold stared out from the wolf’s face, a terrifying and poignant anchor in the shifting reality.

"Oh, doggy—!" she cried out instinctively, the old habit overriding the new, terrifying knowledge. Then, pure horror dawned. She clapped her hands over her mouth, as if she could physically push the word back in. "I’M SO SORRY! I MEANT PRINCE CAELUS! THAT WASN'T ON PURPOSE!" The heat of her embarrassment was a furnace in her cheeks. She had just addressed the Crown Prince, the man to whom she was promised, by the same silly, affectionate nickname she’d used when she thought he was a pet.

She looked at the wolf. His ears, which had perked up slightly at her familiar tone, now drooped even further, lying flat against his skull. Those unforgettable golden eyes were downcast, fixed on the intricate pattern of the rug as if he wished it would swallow him whole. Her conscience took a devastating blow. The reality of his curse, which had been an abstract, tragic story, was now a visceral, heartbreaking truth playing out before her. It wasn't a tale from a book; it was a violent, uncontrollable affliction that stripped him of his dignity at a moment's notice, leaving only the windows to his soul untouched.

"You really are Prince Caelus, aren't you?" she whispered, her voice thick with an emotion she couldn't name—a terrible, aching blend of pity, awe, and a dawning understanding of his profound isolation.

The wolf—Caelus—nodded his great head slowly. The movement was heavy with the weight of a thousand such confirmations. "That's right," he said, his voice the same low, quiet rumble she’d heard in her sleep, now tinged with a bone-deep weariness that spoke of a lifetime of explanations and apologies.

Urgently, needing to ground the surreal conversation, March leaned forward, using her hand to shield her words as if they were sharing a dangerous secret in a crowded market. "Is D'Varrow an empire of dogs?" The question was absurd, but it was the only one her reeling mind could latch onto, a desperate attempt to find a sliver of logic in the madness.

A sound escaped him—a soft, choked huff that was almost a laugh. "Of course not," he said, a faint, sad amusement in his tone. "Why would you think that?"

Before she could attempt to articulate her fractured logic, Stelle interjected, her voice cutting through the brief, fragile moment of levity like a shard of ice. "March." She stepped forward, and March was struck anew by the twins' shared heritage. Stelle’s eyes, in the light of the room, were the same luminous, haunting gold as her brother’s, a mirror of the same cursed bloodline. "Have you heard the story? The true story of how the twins of the D’Varrow empire came to be cursed?"

March pondered, her brow furrowing as she sifted through the sparse, biased information she’d been given. "Come to think of it..." Her thoughts flew back to Camilla’s venomous parting words, her mocking tone about "taming the beast of the north." The insults had been petty, but now they took on a new, sinister specificity. *Is this what she was talking about? Did she know? Did everyone know but me?*

Caelus continued, his voice flat and drained, as if reciting a painful history lesson he was tired of teaching. "...Right after we were born," he began, the words rote, "we were cursed by an Aveloria witch. A woman from your own family, wielding a power so bitter it could twist fate itself." He paused, the silence emphasizing the accusation in the statement. "That's why I turn into a wolf uncontrollably. My body is not my own; it is a prison that changes its walls without my consent. And Stelle..." He glanced at his sister, whose golden eyes, usually so serene, now held a deep, ancient pain. "...Stelle draws fear from the natural world. The silence around her isn't by choice. It is a void forced upon her. Birds fall silent, insects flee. Life itself rejects her. These eyes…" he said, and Stelle met his gaze, a shared, unspoken understanding passing between them, "...are the one thing the curse could not change, only brand."

Dan Heng added, his gaze steady and intent on March, ensuring she understood the full weight of the political reality. "You were sent from the Aveloria family as a reparational bride, a peace offering for the crime of one of your own. A life for a life, in a way. A daughter to atone for the sins of a witch. But it seems you were not informed of this." His words were not an accusation, but a simple, devastating statement of fact.

*I'm reparation for the curse...* The words landed like stones in the pit of her stomach, each one a heavy, cold truth. *So in short, the Aveloria family... that is my father, was unable to break the curse, so he offered me instead. The giftless daughter, a suitable sacrifice for a cursed prince.* She thought back to the hazy, happy memories with her mother, of whispered stories and lullabies by a dying fire. "I remember mother telling me that breaking a curse is difficult to do," she murmured, almost to herself. "She said you have to be stronger than the caster of the curse to be able to dispel it, that it requires a power that can rewrite a story already told..." She looked up, her gray eyes wide with a sudden, chilling realization. "Who could have possibly been the witch responsible? What could inspire such hatred for newborns?"

Dan Heng’s shoulders slumped a fraction, the most minute display of defeat March had ever seen from him. "I thought that maybe something could be done... that your presence here, as an Aveloria, might trigger some latent magic, some loophole. But I guess the curse can't be broken after all. The witch's power was too great."

March looked at him sympathetically, her own heartache momentarily overshadowed by the pain she saw in his usually impassive face. He cared for them, deeply. This was his failure, too.

Before she could offer a word of comfort, Stelle’s voice, sharp and final, cut through the room like a shard of glass. "Leave it, Dan Heng." Her face was set in a curt, sour mask, a brittle defense against a pain so deep it could not be shown. "Even if we found a way to lift the curse, it's hopeless. It’s a pointless discussion." She hung her head, her next words a whisper of absolute defeat that seemed to drain the very light from the room. "...Time is almost up."

"Huh?" March gasped, a cold, sharp dread seizing her heart, colder than any winter in the annex.

Caelus explained, his tone terrifyingly matter-of-fact, as if he were discussing the weather and not the end of his own humanity. "If the curse isn't broken by our twentieth birthday, it will become permanent. That is the final clause woven into the magic. That's what the Aveloria family head—your father—confirmed. After that day, I will never take human form again. This... *thing* I become will be all that I am, forever."

"That can't be!" March exclaimed, the protest torn from her. It was too cruel, too monstrously unfair.

"The only time I can maintain my human form, the only time I can even briefly remember what it is to be *me*, is on the night of the full moon. It temporarily stabilizes the magic, gives me a few hours of control... of freedom." He looked away, out the window at the pale, indifferent sky. "There will be a full moon tomorrow night. And then one more before our birthday. After that... there is no 'after that.'"

The final, terrible piece clicked into place with the force of a hammer blow. *That’s why the ball is on the full moon. That’s why Himeko said it was so important to him. It’s not a preference; it’s his last, fleeting moments of humanity. His last chance to be a prince, a man, before he is lost forever.*

"I'm sorry," Caelus said, his voice so soft it was almost inaudible, a breath of sound filled with immeasurable regret. "This isn't fair to you, March. Your intended is to be a wolf for life. A beast. And since you are here by imperial decree, a political pawn in a game you never chose to play, I can't even grant you the freedom to walk away. You are as trapped here as I am." His golden eyes, those beautiful, cursed eyes, grew dark, not with the hostility she had first seen in the garden, but with a deep, profound, and utterly defeated sadness. "All I can offer you is a shared cage."

"Our father, the Emperor," Stelle’s voice broke through, brittle with a love that had been worn thin by years of hopeless hope, "having one of us marry one of the Aveloria family was the last, desperate gamble he could think of. He was quite set on it, clinging to the faint, foolish hope that our spouse, a living link to the source of the magic, might be able to do something about the curse. That proximity alone might unravel the threads."

Caelus joined in again, his gaze still fixed on some distant, painful point on the floor. "I think he hoped that, even if it didn't happen right away, even if it took years, someday his wish—to see his children free, to see us live the lives we were born to—would be granted." He sighed, a heavy, soul-weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of the entire mountain. "All that came out of this, though, was you being dragged into this mess... purely on the whims of others. On my father's desperation, on your father's cold political calculus, and on my own... weakness. I should have refused. I should have protected you from this."

*No, don't... don't say that,* March thought desperately, the words screaming in the silence of her mind. *You didn’t drag me here. You welcomed me. You, as the wolf, were my first friend in this cold, terrifying place. You, as the prince, are a kind man trapped in a nightmare. I'm happy here. I haven't been happy, truly happy, since my mother died. It was because you welcomed me, all of you, in your own strange ways, that I was able to remember what happiness felt like. The warmth of this palace is not a cage; it is the first real home I've ever known.*

Caelus continued, his words a deliberate, self-inflicted wound, a preemptive rejection to shield himself from a hope he could no longer afford. "I knew I should have objected to this marriage from the start. I'm sure you don't want to be the wife of a wolf. The bride of a monster. Let me know if it's ever too much to bear. I can't grant you a divorce—the alliance is too important, the treaty too binding—but if you'd like to live separately, if you find a man you could truly love, a man who is whole... I'll allow it. I will not stand in the way of your happiness." He padded closer to her, and March instinctively reached out a hand, wanting to offer comfort, to bridge the desolate space between them. Before her fingers could touch the soft fur between his ears, he finished, his voice cracking with the weight of his unshakable conviction, "I can't make you happy. It is the one thing I am truly incapable of."

The solemn air in the room solidified, forming a dark, heavy cloud that smothered March's previously hopeful mood. She looked at this kind, tortured man—this prince, this wolf—who was so entrenched in his own perceived monstrosity that he would never believe she could be happy, no matter how much she insisted. He would probably live the rest of his life, however long that might be in his lupine form, consumed by the regret of dooming her to a life of unhappiness.

The thought was too sad to bear. A sharp, sympathetic pain, so acute it was physical, lanced through her chest.

Without thinking, driven by an impulse that came from a place deeper than reason or protocol, she threw her arms around his wolfish neck, burying her face in the thick, silver fur she had come to find so much comfort in. It was the same fur she had dried by the fire, the same warmth she had slept beside. *Why must I be so useless?* she thought, the words a silent, despairing scream in her mind. *Why can't I be the one to save him? Why can't my mere presence be enough to prove him wrong?*

She held him tight, as if her embrace alone could shield them both from the cruel, unyielding fate that was rushing toward them, and the chapter ended not with words, but with the sound of her quiet, despairing tears soaking into the fur of the cursed prince, a silent plea against the inevitable.

Chapter Text

The words were a brand, seared into her soul with a cold, final precision that left no room for argument. *"I can't make you happy."*

Prince Caelus had not said it to be cruel. That was the worst of it. The statement had been delivered with the grim, factual tone of a man announcing his own terminal diagnosis. It was a truth he had carved into his own heart long before offering it to her, a foundational belief upon which he had built the walls of his isolation. And now, those words haunted March, echoing in the hollow, vaulted silence of the grand hallway as she retreated from the devastating revelation. Her feet carried her automatically over the polished basalt floors, their familiar chill a distant sensation against the numbness spreading through her.

Her mind was a storm of sorrow and desperate, scrabbling resolve. *He believes it. He truly believes that his curse, his very existence, is a sentence of misery for me. How can I make him understand? How can I show him that the warmth of this palace, the kindness of its people, the simple, profound comfort of his presence—even as a wolf—has been a greater happiness than I ever dared dream of in that damp, lonely annex? There has to be something I can do. Not to break the curse—I am powerless, giftless March—but to break *this*. This conviction that he is a burden.*

She was so lost in the labyrinth of her own thoughts, the opulent tapestries and stern-faced statues blurring into a meaningless procession of stone and thread, that she nearly walked straight into a bizarre apparition. It was a monumental, ribbed orb of vibrant orange, a pumpkin of such impossible girth that it seemed less a vegetable and more a small, misplaced carriage. It was balanced precariously on a human body, obscuring its bearer entirely.

"Oh, good evening, my lady!" a cheerful, familiar voice rang out from behind the colossal vegetable, slightly muffled but unmistakably robust.

March stopped dead, blinking in shock as if she’d encountered a talking piece of fruit. "Luka? Is that you? That's... quite a large pumpkin you have there." It was a masterpiece of understatement.

The head cook peeked out from behind his prize, his face beaming with the uncomplicated joy of a man who had just won a grand prize. His one good eye crinkled at the corner. "Right! I went into town to do some shopping for the winter preserves, and one of my usual stops—old man Hemlock, you know, the one with the glasshouse—said they had this fellow who grew a bit too ambitious for any of his usual recipes. Couldn't sell it, he said. Asked if I wanted to take it home as a curiosity. Of course, I gladly took them up on their offer! A challenge from the earth itself!" He chuckled, a warm, rolling sound. "But now I can't decide how to cook it. A pie would feed the entire garrison for a week. A soup would require a cauldron usually reserved for laundry." He brushed a bead of sweat from his brow with his human hand, the other—a marvel of articulated D'Varrow steel and cunning clockwork that had replaced the arm he lost a decade ago defending the empire’s northern borders—rested possessively on the pumpkin's curve. "Maybe I'll just display it in the hall for the time being. Let it inspire awe before it inspires gluttony."

He paused then, his cheerful expression softening into one of genuine concern as he truly looked at her, his single eye missing very little. "More importantly, are you well, my lady? Forgive my forwardness, but you were wearing a most troubled expression. The kind that sits heavy on the shoulders."

"Oh!" March exclaimed, startled by his perceptiveness. The mask of composure she had struggled to maintain since leaving the antechamber cracked. Then, looking at Luka’s open, honest face, a spark of hope ignited. If anyone in this fortress of solemn secrets, whispered curses, and layered protocols knew how to inject simple, unadulterated joy, it was the ever-optimistic, fiercely loyal head cook. "Actually..." she began, her voice barely a whisper. And then, the dam broke. The whole story tumbled out in a rushed, emotional torrent—the shocking revelation in the antechamber, the prince’s profound despair, the cruel deadline of the curse, and her own helpless, burning desire to show him that her happiness was intrinsically tied to *him*, not in spite of his condition, but woven into the very fabric of their strange, budding connection.

"Aha! I see!" Luka boomed, his voice echoing off the stone arches, a sound so full of life it seemed to push back the palace’s inherent shadows. "So you want to do something for the prince! What a sweet and noble idea. To fight sorrow with kindness! It’s the truest form of battle." His expression then darkened comically, his bushy eyebrows drawing together. "GAH! For some reason, I'm really mad at His Highness now! To make such a wonderful lady worry so, to speak of himself with such disdain! I oughta give him a talking-to! A stern one! Maybe with a ladle!"

"Please, please don't do that!" March pleaded, horrified at the thought of the already-mortified prince being scolded by his own cook. The image was both absurd and terrifying.

Drawn by the escalating racket, a trio of familiar figures filed into the hall from a side corridor, their footsteps a study in contrasting rhythms: Welt’s measured and precise, Himeko’s brisk and efficient, Dan Heng’s silent and fluid. They stopped as one, taking in the scene with varying degrees of bewilderment.

"What are you two doing here? And what, pray tell, is the strategic purpose of that... agricultural behemoth?" Welt asked, adjusting his spectacles as if the optical instruments themselves were offended by the pumpkin’s blatant lack of practicality.

Luka, entirely undeterred by the arrival of the palace’s highest authorities, was lost in his own epiphany. He stroked his chin, his gaze fixed on the pumpkin as if it were a crystal ball. "The pumpkin..." he mused, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. Then, it soared again to a triumphant shout. "MY LADY, I'VE GOT IT! LET'S HAVE A PUMPKIN PARTY!"

His suggestion landed not with a bang, but with a profound, resonating thud of confusion. It was as if he had declared his intention to fly to the moon on a feather. Bewilderment spread across the faces of Welt, Himeko, and Dan Heng. Welt looked profoundly skeptical, Himeko bemused, and Dan Heng’s usual stoicism cracked into an expression of pure, unadulterated ‘what?’.

Seeing their blank stares, Luka expanded, his enthusiasm undimmed. "You want to convey your feelings to that blockhead prince, right?!" he declared, turning back to March and slapping her on the back with enough friendly force to make her stumble a step. "A party is just the way to do it! Food, music, festivity! It melts the iciest of hearts! It’s a direct assault on gloom!"

Himeko was at March’s side in an instant, steadying her by the shoulders with a practiced hand. "Luka," she said, her voice a blend of deep fondness and profound exasperation. "While the sentiment is... appreciated, you must explain this in a way that makes logical sense. For the rest of us."

"Huhhh? Welt!" Luka pivoted, pointing a finger at the butler. "We haven't had a proper welcome party for Lady March, right? A real one, with streamers and a cake that isn't just ‘architecturally sound’?"

Welt crossed his arms, his posture the very picture of bureaucratic resistance. "No, we have not. The circumstances of her arrival were... delicate. A formal reception was deemed inadvisable."

"And," Luka pressed, his finger now wagging, "since she came to marry into the family, there *ought* to be a wedding celebration, too, right? A proper fête? It’s tradition! It’s human decency!"

Welt mused, a flicker of something that might have been guilt crossing his stern features. "Well, I suppose so... given a standard courtship and matrimonial timeline, yes, such an event would be customary."

Luka's intensity increased, his volume rising as if he were addressing a rally. "BUT THE PRINCE COULDN'T BE BOTHERED WITH IT, RIGHT?? He’s been hiding in his fur, and she’s been hiding her light! No parties! No celebrations! Just curses and grim pronouncements!"

"I suppose you could say that," Dan Heng interjected dryly from his post by the wall, his arms similarly crossed, though his stance was more one of a guard observing an unpredictable but non-threatening phenomenon.

"I AM SAYING IT!" Luka roared, his passion filling the hall like a physical force. "Even though Lady March cares so deeply for the prince, even though she stands here, her heart aching for *his* pain, he pushes her away with this ‘I’m a monster’ nonsense! I will not allow this! Not in my kitchen's domain! And the kitchen’s domain is happiness, and happiness is served with food and festivity!"

March, who had been shuffled to the side to stand next to Dan Heng and Himeko, watched the one-sided debate with wide eyes. "Welt is losing ground," she whispered, amazed at the cook’s sheer force of personality.

Dan Heng gave a slight, almost imperceptible resigned nod. "There's no stopping Luka once he gets like this. It’s easier to redirect a glacier. Best to just let him run his course and see what beach he washes up on."

Emboldened, Luka placed his human hand on his chest and thrust his powerful metal arm outward in a dramatic, sweeping gesture that nearly toppled a nearby vase. "You wanna get all lovey-dovey with the prince! You want to show him what real happiness looks like! How can we, the loyal staff of the D’Varrow household, not do everything in our power to help such a pure and noble cause? Am I right, my lady!?"

"L-lovy-dovey?" March questioned, her cheeks flushing a bright, tell-tale pink. The phrase was so absurdly straightforward, so devoid of the complex political and tragic layers of their situation, that it was somehow… perfect. She had been thinking the same thing, just in more complicated, frightened terms.

Luka continued, his voice reaching a crescendo that surely must have been heard in the highest spires. "Now then! By the authority vested in me by the culinary arts and the unassailable power of a really, really big pumpkin, I hereby declare that the Lovey-Dovey Pumpkin Wedding Bash is a GO!"

Dan Heng sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "He really just wants to use that pumpkin," he muttered to Himeko, who failed to suppress a small, genuine smile.

"It will take place on the day of the full moon! In other words, tomorrow! The perfect night for it!" Luka announced, his mind already racing through lists and plans. "We've got to cook and decorate and air out the grand hall and probably whip up a new batch of mead! Let's do everything we can! Let's make this palace shake with joy for once! Anyways, the decision is final! We're going to have a grand celebration!"

March looked from Luka’s determined, flushed face to Welt’s reluctant, sighing acceptance, to Himeko’s warm, encouraging smile, to Dan Heng’s quiet, supportive presence. A new warmth, entirely different from the cold dread that had gripped her earlier, spread through her chest. It was the warmth of being seen, of being supported, of being part of something. It was messy, it was chaotic, it was probably a terrible idea, but it was *action*. *I don't know if a party will convey the depth of my feelings, I don't know if it will crack the shell of his despair, but for right now, it’s a purpose. It’s a direction. And I'm going to pour my entire heart into what's in front of me!*

"All right!" she exclaimed, her voice firm and clear, a small, determined smile finally gracing her lips, pushing back the lingering shadows of tears. "Let's do it!"

The servants of the D’Varrow—the stern butler, the pragmatic head maid, the unflappable guard captain, and the boisterous cook—looked on at the young woman standing a little taller in the hallway, her resolve reforged in the crucible of their collective, bizarre support. A shared, unspoken sentiment passed between them: their March had found her light again.

---

That night, walking back to her room after a whirlwind afternoon of planning that involved debating pie fillings versus soup stocks, arguing over color schemes (Luka was adamant about "harvest gold," while Welt advocated for "tasteful neutrals"), and being measured by a flustered seamstress for a "party dress that says 'joyful future' not 'mournful obligation'," March’s heart was filled with a different, lighter species of worry. "Luka and the others said it was fine, but is it really all right for me to just… have a party? To take this break for happiness when the stakes are so terrifyingly high?" She glanced at the festive, if hastily assembled, garlands of dried autumn leaves and berries that a team of junior maids were already hanging along the main banister. The deep crimson and gold looked alien against the stark, grey stone, a brave declaration of life in a place so often defined by endurance. "I just hope… I hope he will be pleased. Or at least, not angry."

The grand, carved door of her chamber felt heavier than usual as she pushed it open, the day's emotional whiplash leaving her drained. She was about to collapse onto the vast, forgiving expanse of her bed when a soft, ethereal glow caught her eye from the corner of the room. It emanated from her small, battered chest of belongings, the one tangible link to her past life. She walked over, her weariness forgotten in a pulse of curiosity, and carefully lifted the source: it wasn't her mother's tarnished silver locket that glowed, but the small, plain, and stubbornly locked wooden box it had been stored inside for as long as she could remember. The box that had resisted all her childhood attempts to pry it open, all her curious shaking and probing.

Thinking back to the faded, precious past, her mother's soft, fading voice echoed in the quiet chamber of her memory. It was a voice from the annex, from a time when the world was small and cold, but love was a tangible warmth. *"My dear March,"* the ghost of the voice whispered, *"keep this safe. And open it… open it only during your hour of greatest need."*

For years, she had assumed that hour would be one of her own—a moment of starvation, of danger, of utter desolation in the annex. She had never imagined her greatest need would be for someone else.

"Mother..." she whispered, clutching the simple box to her chest as if it were a holy relic. Her greatest need was not her own survival. It was for the cursed prince who believed he was a monster, a man who carried his own heart like a burden. She grasped the box, her knuckles white, and prayed aloud, her voice cracking with a desperate faith she didn't know she possessed. "Please… I have nothing to offer but this plea. Please, if there is any magic left of you in this world, any guidance you can give… please save Prince Caelus."

*Click.*

The sound was impossibly loud in the silent room. Her eyes flew open. The simple, seamless wooden latch, which had resisted all her efforts, had sprung open of its own accord, as if an invisible key had turned. With trembling hands, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs, she lifted the lid. Inside, there was no grand treasure, no glowing amulet, no map to a hidden cure. There was only a single, folded slip of aged parchment, resting on a bed of faded velvet.

"It can't be… It's open! And there's… a letter?" Unfolding the paper with the utmost care, she saw the elegant, looping script she would recognize anywhere—her mother’s handwriting. She read the words aloud, her voice a hushed, awestruck whisper that seemed to be absorbed by the room's dense silence. *"Trust Evernight Aveloria. She will surely help you."*

She looked around the empty, opulent room, as if the answer might be hiding in the shadows cast by the dancing firelight. "This is Mother's handwriting… but I wonder who this Evernight is? The name sounds familiar…" She sifted through the dusty, neglected archives of her memory, past the sharp, painful memories of her father’s indifference and Camilla’s cruelty, back to the quieter stories about her mother. "So great was my mother's gift that she was considered the most powerful in the family in her generation," she murmured to herself, "but she grew isolated after she gave birth to me, a child with no gift. The family saw her as tainted, her legacy wasted. I don't think she was close to anyone in those final years… Oh. There was that one time…"

An image formed in her mind, fragile as a soap bubble: her mother, younger, paler, but with a light in her eyes that illness had not yet extinguished, smiling down at a child-March curled in her lap. Her voice was soft and wistful, a secret shared in the firelight. *"One person, March. In all that vast, cold house, I have just one, who is a precious friend. A true friend."* She had never given a name.

"I can't figure this out on my own," March murmured, feeling both thrillingly closer to her mother and more profoundly lost than ever. Who was Evernight Aveloria? A cousin? An aunt? The witch who cast the curse? The thought sent a chill down her spine.

As if in direct response to her confusion, the box in her hands began to glow again, brighter this time, casting long, shifting, amber-hued shadows that danced on the walls like silent phantoms. March gasped, nearly dropping it, as the light coalesced in the air before her, pulling itself together into a shimmering, translucent image. It was a hologram, a recorded echo of the woman she missed so dearly it was a physical ache. The image was of her mother, perhaps only a few years older than March was now, her face gentle and her eyes full of a love and a sorrow that transcended time itself.

"M-Mom!" March exclaimed, tears finally overflowing and tracing hot paths down her cheeks as she reached a hand toward the ghostly, smiling visage, her fingers passing through nothing but light and memory.