The unsigned note was a ghost in my hand, its three lines of script burning with implication. I memorized them, then fed the paper to the solitary candle on my desk, watching the edges curl and blacken into nothing. Knowledge was power, but evidence was a liability. Someone knew Seraphina's plan in damning detail. Was it a rival? A repentant conspirator? Or a player setting a more complex trap? The mystery was a thorn in my side, but the information itself was a gift I couldn't refuse.
The Vale conservatory. The servant with the jade ring. The gold-rimmed china.
It confirmed my suspicion of White Veil and gave me two specific points of vulnerability to watch. It also meant I was not entirely alone in the shadows. The thought was a fragile warmth against the chill of my father's command.
My request to Elara was answered not with a note, but with her presence. She found me the next morning in the Royal Academy's Winter Garden, a glass-domed sanctuary of hardy ferns and frost-blooming flowers that reminded her of home. Few students braved the slight chill here, preferring the sunnier courtyards. It was why I'd chosen it.
"Rosalind!" Her voice was a bright, clear bell in the quiet space. She moved with a dancer's grace, her winter-blue gown swishing, a smile on her face that didn't quite reach her watchful grey eyes—eyes so like her brother's, but where Kaelen's were a glacial slate, Elara's were the color of a thawing sky. "Your note sounded serious. Social matters? You know I'd rather discuss blade forms or ley-line theory."
"Sometimes," I said, offering a small, genuine smile, "social matters are a form of combat. Just with finer porcelain."
Her smile faded into something more alert. She looped her arm through mine, steering us down a path between banks of silvery-lavender heather. The gesture was casual and intimate. "Alright. What's the battlefield?"
"The Crown Prince's Spring Tea Party."
A flicker of disgust crossed her fine features. "That gilded snakepit. I received an invitation too. I'm debating a convenient migraine. Why? Cassian isn't actually your romantic interest, is he?" She peered at me, concern overriding tact. "After the checkpoint, I thought you had more sense."
"Interest?" A dry, humorless laugh escaped me. "No, Elara. It's the opposite. I believe it is intended to be my execution chamber. Figuratively, and almost literally."
Her steps slowed. The playful light in her eyes vanished, replaced by the flinty sharpness of a Frost. "Explain."
I couldn't tell her everything. It's neither about the regression nor about my past life. But I could provide her with information that was close to the truth. "I have made an enemy of Lady Seraphina Vale. You've seen her hostility. It goes deeper than petty rivalry. My actions at the checkpoint embarrassed the Crown Prince's narrative. I am a problem they wish to solve. The tea party is a controlled environment. I believe they intend to manufacture a scandal so profound it will erase me."
Elara was silent for a long moment, her gaze fixed on a jagged crystal formation artfully placed among the heather. "You're not prone to fantasy, Rosalind. And you've been different since the checkpoint. Colder. Sharper. Like a blade that's been finally whetted." She turned her head, her gaze piercing. "What do you know?"
I chose my words like stepping stones across a torrent. "I know Seraphina has access to White Veil powder. I know she has bribed a servant on the prince's staff. I know the event is staged, and I am supposed to play the role of a hysterical fool who ingests poison.
The color drained from Elara's cheeks. "White Veil… Saints above. That's not just humiliation; that's a declaration of war. It causes chronic nerve damage if the dose is wrong." Her grip on my arm tightened. "You cannot go."
"I have no choice. My father has commanded it. To refuse would be to invite a different, but equally final, kind of ruin."
She muttered a curse in the rough Northern dialect, a word that would have made our etiquette mistress faint. "Blind fools, both of them. Your father for pushing you into the viper's nest, and my brother for—" She cut herself off, biting her lip.
"For what?" I asked, my heart giving a sudden, powerful thump.
"For not being here," she finished, but the evasion was plain. She shook her head, a fierce determination settling over her. "Fine. If you must walk into the fire, you don't go unarmed." She released my arm and began rummaging in the small, beaded pouch at her waist. "I can't give you a sword, and you can't wear armor under a tea gown. But this…"
She pulled out a small, cool object and pressed it into my palm. It was a charm, no larger than my thumbnail, wrought of a strange, dark grey metal that seemed to drink the light. It was shaped like a tightly coiled vine, etched with minute, interlocking runes that hummed faintly against my skin.
"It's star-iron," Elara whispered, leaning close. "Mined from the heart of the Frostfall Mountains. The runes are Old Northern, a ward against 'the creeping malady'—that's what our healers call ingested toxins. It won't stop a determined, magical poison, but what about common alchemical toxins like White Veil? It should weaken the effect and give your body a chance to fight it. Keep it on your person. You can keep it in your glove, your sleeve, or against your skin.
I stared at the little charm, a lump forming in my throat. This was no mere trinket. It was a piece of her home, of his home, crafted with ancient, protective knowledge. It was an act of faith. "Elara… this is…"
"Don't thank me yet," she said, her voice low and urgent. "It's a last line of defense, not a strategy. You need more." She glanced around, ensuring we were truly alone, before pulling me closer to the murmur of a small, artificial stream. "I've heard things. Whispers Seraphina thinks are confined to her inner circle. She's been… boasting. She does not boast openly, but she does so in the dormitory baths, speaking to her sycophants. She said the 'rose will wilt in the pavilion,' that she'll 'claim her prize,' and watch the 'thorns get plucked.' I thought it was just a vile metaphor. Now, with what you've said…"
"It's her plan," I finished, cold certainty settling in my bones. The 'rose' was me, Rosalind of House Thorne. The 'prize' was my utter destruction. The 'thorns' likely meant my family's influence, which she believed would snap off and discard me.
"She's confident," Elara said. "Arrogantly so. That's a weakness. She'll be watching for your fear, for hesitation. She won't be prepared for…" She trailed off, studying my face. "What will you be prepared for, Rosalind? You have a plan. I can see it in your eyes. They've gone all… distant and calculating. It reminded me of Kaelen when he is sizing up a battlefield.
The comparison sent a shiver through me. "I have the beginnings of one. To turn their stage against them. But I need to understand the actors perfectly. The servant with the jade ring. The gold-rimmed china set. The layout of the Rose Pavilion at the third bell—where the sun will be, where the shadows fall."
A slow, fierce grin spread across Elara's face. It transformed her from an elegant noble lady into something resembling a warrior princess. "Now you're speaking a language I understand. Reconnaissance. The Pavilion has two main serving entrances, east and west. The east one faces the sun at that hour; servants will be half-blinded coming in. The Prince always sits facing the main garden path, his back to the old marble fountain—it's a power position, but it means he can't see who approaches from the rear service corridor. As for China…" She frowned, thinking. "The gold-rimmed set is the most ostentatious. Cassian will demand it. It's also the most easily distinguished in a crowd of porcelain."
She was giving me a tactical breakdown. My gratitude swelled, fierce and warm. "Elara, you risk making an enemy of the Crown Prince by helping me."
She snorted, a very un-ladylike sound. "My family's loyalty is to the Empire, not to a preening prince who's never seen a real monster. And you…" She looked at me, her expression softening. "You stood tall at that checkpoint when everyone else was bowing to fear. You saw a wound and tried to heal it, consequences be damned. The North respects that. I respect that. Consider this my investment in a future where people with spines don't quietly disappear at tea parties.
Her words were a balm and a catalyst. She saw a fragment of the saint's purpose in me, even if she didn't know its name. And she was willing to stand against the tide for it.
"Thank you," I said, the words utterly inadequate. I closed my fist around the star-iron charm, its coolness a promise. "This changes the equation."
"It better," she said, her grin returning. "Now, details. The servant with the ring—he's a junior under-steward, named Gil. He has a gambling debt to a loan shark who just happens to be a cousin of the Vale steward. Classic leverage. He'll be nervous. Watch his hands. They'll shake."
I stored the information away, with each piece serving as a tool. "And Seraphina? How will she act?"
"Like a cat who's already eaten the canary," Elara said, her lip curling. "She'll be overly solicitous of you. She'll try to keep you close, guide you to your seat, and ensure you're served first. She'll be the picture of concerned friendship. It will be nauseating."
A perfect picture formed in my mind. The stage, the actors, their motivations. My role was no longer that of the doomed victim. I was the variable, the unscripted chaos about to enter their meticulously arranged play.
I had the charm to mitigate the poison.
I had the knowledge to identify the players.
I had the warning to anticipate the moves.
And I had a fierce, unexpected ally in the unlikeliest of places.
I couldn't avoid the event. My father's decree and the jaws of the trap itself saw to that. But as I stood there with Elara Frost in the quiet Winter Garden, the phantom scent of blood and snow from another life fading, I knew with crystalline clarity what I had to do.
I had to prepare to counter it. Not with passive defense, but with a strike so precise it would use their momentum to shatter them.
"Elara," I said, meeting her storm-grey eyes. "When the day comes, regardless of what you see or hear, no matter how bad it looks… trust that I am not the one falling. I am the one laying the groundwork for the collapse."
She held my gaze for a long moment, then nodded once, a solemn, Northern oath. "I believe you. Just make sure you're not buried in the rubble."
She squeezed my arm once more before turning to leave, leaving me amidst the frost-touched flowers with a cold star-iron charm in my hand and a fire of grim resolve in my heart. The warning had been given. The alliance was sealed.
The preparation began now.
Later that day, while attempting to practice a subtle grasping spell to manipulate small objects at a distance—a skill crucial for my plan—the fledgling holy energy within me flared unexpectedly. A vase of flowers across my room shattered, not from force, but from the water within it instantly purifying and boiling over with a burst of golden light. The sound was like a gunshot in the silent afternoon. Footsteps immediately pounded in the hallway outside, heading for my door.