The carriage rattled over uneven roads, wheels catching on loose stones every few seconds. Each jolt shook the whole cabin, making the wooden frame creak and the three women inside shift uncomfortably. The space felt smaller than it actually was. Knees nearly touched. The air hung thick with the heavy scent of perfume, sweat, and the faint smell from the wine Ines kept sipping.
Ines's elder daughter shifted again on the narrow seat, pulling her already short skirts tighter against her thighs with an irritated huff. "Mother, did we have to take the smallest carriage? I can barely breathe in here." She kicked lightly at the seat across from her, more out of boredom than any real complaint.
Ines didn't even look up. She swirled the small glass of wine in her hand, watching the dark liquid catch the thin light coming through the window. "You know the larger one is being prepared for something else. Bear with it for now, dear; I'm sure you'll survive."
Liraya sat near the window, back straight, the way she always carried herself. Careful. Controlled.
She had stayed mostly quiet for the whole ride, watching the passing trees and fields instead of joining the small talk. But the silence had started to itch at her. Not knowing where they were headed made her uneasy in a way she didn't feel like admitting, even to herself. Her fingers rested lightly on her lap, hidden in the folds of her new dress.
"Madam Ines," she said finally, not being able to hold it in, though her voice was even. "Where are we actually going?"
Ines's lips curved into a slow, pleased smile, like the question had opened exactly the door she had been waiting for. She set her glass down on the small fold-out table between them with a soft clink. "Ah. I suppose it's time you understood a little more about where we're headed, and why."
The younger daughter groaned from her corner of the carriage, already sinking lower into her seat. "Oh, not this again. Mother, she doesn't need the whole speech. Does she?"
"She does," Ines said simply. Not unkind, just final. "Liraya works closely with me now. She should know exactly what kind of woman she's working for, shouldn't she?"
Liraya kept her face neutral, though something tightened in her chest. She had a feeling she already knew the shape of what was coming. Still, hearing it straight from Ines will have its own effect, so she kept her mind on Ines's talk, not wandering off to something else.
Ines folded her hands in her lap and settled back, the way someone does when they slip into a favorite story. "I wasn't born into nobility, Liraya. I was a commoner once. Did you know that?"
"I hadn't," Liraya answered carefully.
"I married into a minor branch of a baron's family. A respectable match, on paper at least. My husband's people had a name, a small estate, just enough breeding to make everyone feel comfortable calling themselves important."
While saying this part, Ines's mouth twisted, something bitter slipping through the polished surface. She continued, "Spineless, all of them. Even while the world was dying around us, while men everywhere were withering away under that curse, his family still clung to their little notions of honor. Etiquette. Propriety. As if any of that mattered while the entire male population was collapsing."
She picked the wine glass back up, turning it slowly in her fingers without drinking. "My husband died like all the others did, eventually. Quietly. Weakly. Exactly the way his family had taught him to do everything. And do you know what happened next? Nothing. Nobody stepped forward. Nobody acted. They simply mourned, and waited, and expected the world to go on being polite to them out of respect for their grief."
Ines looked out the window for a moment, her eyes hard. "So in order to survive in this world with my daughters, I stopped waiting. I took the household myself. I became the head of the "Vexley" family."
The elder daughter had gone quiet now, watching her mother with something between boredom and old familiarity. She had clearly heard this story enough times that the shock had long worn off.
"But even after taking on the family, there was a family near our estate that always became a thorn in my way of doing things," Ines continued, her voice smoothing out, almost gentle. "The Thornes family. A suitable name for its nature."
"The man who ran that house had built something real in his lifetime: land, harvests, real wealth, not just an old name. And he had this… courtesy in him. Even when I came for what he had, he offered me a moment to speak, to negotiate, to bare his throat and ask politely whether there might be another way."
Suddenly, Ines let out a short, humorless laugh. "Can you believe it? He offered me the exact same nonsense that got my first husband killed. Up until the very end, he still remained just like the others, so convinced that decency of being a gentleman in this cursed world would be returned to him, right up until the very end."
Liraya kept her expression still, though a cold feeling settled low in her stomach. She already knew where this was going.
"So I gave him exactly that," Ines said. "An honourable death. And nothing more." A low laugh slipped out of her again, sharp and satisfied in the cramped space.
The carriage rattled on as it kept going forward. Inside, for several seconds, nobody spoke. Only the sound of Ines's quiet laughter and the wheels on the road filled the cabin.
"But still, at the end, I still let his family live," Ines added, almost as an afterthought. "His wife. His daughter."
"I'm not without restraint, Liraya. I take only what is necessary, and back then I left enough behind so that no one could call me a monster for it. That restraint bought me a reputation. People respected it, even as they feared me. That's how you build something that lasts, not through only cruelty for its own sake, but through doing what's necessary, cleanly, without flinching the way men like my husband and his family always did."
Even while hearing the tale of how Ines had murdered the Throne family's head by herself, Liraya said nothing. She did the quiet arithmetic in her head, matching Ines's story against everything she already knew. The picture sharpened uncomfortably in her mind, as if she already knew the truth; just now she got its confirmation once again.
"The world didn't hand me what I have now by itself," Ines said, gesturing vaguely at herself, at the fine fabric of her dress and the rings on her fingers. "I took it. Because somebody always does the taking in a world like this, Liraya. The only question is whether it's you or whether it's done to you. I decided a long time ago which one I'd rather be."
The carriage began to slow. Through the window, the daughter perked up slightly, recognizing the approach of their old home, the baron estate.
High stone walls came into view, and beyond them the familiar shape of the estate's barracks, rows of disciplined structures where Ines's standing army was housed.
The carriage rolled to a stop. And a footman opened the door.
Ines stepped out first, unhurried, smoothing her skirts before turning to look back at the barracks with open satisfaction.
She asked the footman, voice calm, "Are the preparations complete?"
The man bowed slightly and replied, "Yes, Madam Ines, it is done."
Ines's lips curved again, with a small and pleased smile, making her look like she was once again about to do something just like that tale she just finished telling Liraya, moments ago. And as Liraya saw the scene in front of her through the window, she also realised this fact right away.