As their first year at the academy dragged into spring, the initial cracks between the sisters deepened into an unbridgeable, jagged canyon.
Aurelia's spoiled irritation had metastasized into something much colder and far more deliberate. She was no longer just a brat annoyed by having to share the spotlight; she was a sovereign aggressively defending her borders. She had learned early on that outright cruelty was messy and often resulted in scoldings. True power, Aurelia discovered, was convincing the rest of the room to be cruel on your behalf.
She became the architect of Miré's daily isolation. Aurelia never shouted or threw tantrums. She simply used her proximity to Princess Clara as a weapon. Because Clara was timid and relied heavily on Aurelia to navigate the loud academy courtyard, Aurelia dictated exactly who was allowed near them.
"We are playing Queens and Courtiers today," Aurelia announced one afternoon, her pale blue eyes sweeping over a group of eager, hovering girls. "Clara is the Queen, of course. Beatrice, you may be the royal dressmaker. Selene, the guard."
Miré stepped up, holding a handful of woven grass bracelets she had spent the morning braiding for the group. "Can I be the royal scout? I run the fastest."
Aurelia smiled. It was a terrifying, flawless imitation of Elara's freezing grace. "Oh, Miré. Scouts have to be very quiet and observant. You're always so... disruptive. You'd frighten the Queen's horses. Why don't you play the banished beggar instead? You already have the dress for it."
The older girls snickered. Princess Clara, entirely shielded from the malice in Aurelia's tone, simply looked confused, assuming Aurelia was just organizing the game fairly.
Miré slowly lowered the grass bracelets, her cheeks burning with humiliation. She didn't cry. She just turned around and walked away, throwing the woven grass into the dirt.
Aurelia watched her go, feeling a dark, satisfying thrill. She had successfully trained the other girls to view Miré not as a rival, but as a joke. As long as Aurelia kept Clara smiling and completely oblivious to the venom, Aurelia was untouchable.
But the psychological warfare at the academy was nothing compared to the suffocating terror of Eldermere during daylight hours.
Viscount Adrian Veriton had finally returned to his duties. He spent his days in his study, managing the estate's ledgers, negotiating trade taxes, or riding out to the coastal ports to inspect the shipping lines. He was sober, he was present, but he was busy.
And his daytime absence left Miré entirely at the mercy of Elara.
Without Adrian's looming presence to temper her, Elara's mask slipped the moment his horse trotted out of the main gates. She didn't use paid assassins or falling stones anymore; the earth had proven too stubborn to let the child die. So, Elara committed herself to a daily, meticulous dismantling of Miré's soul.
"Stand still, you wretched little creature," Elara hissed one afternoon in the drawing room.
Miré, standing on a wooden stool, bit her lip as the seamstress aggressively pinned the hem of yet another heavy, dull gray wool dress. Aurelia sat nearby on a velvet settee, idly flipping through a picture book, draped in breathtaking imported blue silk.
"Look at her posture," Elara sneered to the seamstress, gesturing to Miré with the tip of her closed fan. "Slumping like a dockworker's child. There is absolutely no Veriton elegance in her spine. I suppose blood will always tell. You can dress a street dog in a collar, but it will still beg for scraps."
Miré stared straight ahead at the flocked wallpaper, her eyes stinging. She focused on keeping her breathing entirely silent. She knew from brutal experience that if she spoke back, or if she cried, Elara would dismiss her from supper, leaving her to go to bed with a hollow, aching stomach.
"You are a stain on this house, Miré," Elara whispered, stepping so close her suffocating lavender perfume made Miré dizzy. "Do not think for a moment that Prince Edmund actually likes you. He pities you. He plays with you the same way he plays with the palace hounds. The moment he grows up, he will forget you ever existed, and you will be nothing. Because nothing is exactly what you are."
Aurelia turned a page in her book, entirely unbothered by her mother's venom. Miré squeezed her eyes shut, digging her fingernails into her palms until they bled half-moons into her skin, waiting for the sun to go down.
Because when the sun set, Eldermere changed. When the heavy front doors opened and Adrian returned, Elara's venom was instantly boxed away behind her perfect, painted smile, and Miré was finally allowed to breathe.
The evenings belonged to Adrian and Miré.
After supper, when Aurelia was practicing the harp and Elara was nursing her port by the fire, Adrian would quietly slip out the side doors, a heavy wool blanket tucked under his arm. Miré would be waiting for him on the freezing stone terrace.
He would wrap the blanket around her shoulders and walk her down into the overgrown south garden, far away from the glowing windows of the manor.
"Look up, Ndidi," Adrian murmured, his voice a low, safe rumble in the dark. He pointed toward the vast, glittering canopy. "Do you see the constellation of the Weaver?"
Miré leaned back against his leg, her stormy eyes searching the dark until she found the cluster of stars. "I see it. It looks like a spider."
"It does," Adrian chuckled softly. "The Weaver is patience. It reminds us that even when the world feels chaotic, everything is connected by invisible threads."
He spent hours teaching her the names of the stars, the cycles of the twin moons, and how to track the changing seasons by the tilt of the horizon. It was an education far older and far more sacred than anything Master Pellin taught at the academy.
And when the night grew too cold, he would tell her stories.
"Tell me about the River Woman again," Miré asked, her teeth chattering slightly as she pulled the blanket tighter.
Adrian's chest tightened, a familiar, bittersweet ache blossoming behind his ribs. He looked down at the copper-haired girl who possessed Amahle's fierce, untamed spirit. Miré had absolutely no idea that the magical heroine of these bedtime fables was her own murdered mother.
"The River Woman," Adrian began softly, his breath misting in the freezing air, "was the bravest soul the world had ever seen. The nobles in the high castles didn't understand her. They thought because she didn't wear crowns or sit on velvet thrones, she had no power. They called her wild. They called her dangerous."
"Like me," Miré whispered.
Adrian's throat clicked. He knelt down in the frost-covered grass, pulling her tightly against his chest. "Yes. Exactly like you. But the River Woman didn't care what the people in the castles thought. She knew that real power doesn't come from silk dresses or cruel words. Real power comes from the earth. It comes from knowing exactly who you are, even when everyone else tries to tell you you're a shadow."
He pressed a kiss to her freezing forehead. "They will try to make you feel small, Ndidi. They will try to lock you in the dark. But you must remember the River Woman. She built a bridge of starlight, and she walked right over their walls."
Miré held onto those words. She hoarded them in her chest, using them as a shield against Elara's daytime cruelty and Aurelia's schoolyard venom.
Elara, however, was playing a much longer game.
The Viscountess was intimately close with the Queen, having cemented their friendship years ago through shared secrets and strategic flattery. Whenever Adrian had council business at the royal palace, Elara made sure the entire family traveled to the capital.
The palace visits were Elara's grand stage, and she pushed Aurelia onto it with relentless force.
While Adrian sat in the stuffy council chambers debating trade routes, Elara would sweep into the Queen's private solar, dragging Aurelia by the hand. Aurelia would be dressed in breathtaking imported fabrics—spun gold, crushed sapphire velvet, pearls woven into her pristine hair.
"Your Majesty," Elara would coo, executing a perfect curtsy. "Aurelia has learned a new sonnet. I told her she absolutely had to recite it for you; she speaks of your kindness constantly."
Aurelia would step forward, folding her hands flawlessly, and recite the poetry with the precision of a wind-up toy. The Queen would clap politely, impressed by the girl's absolute refinement. Elara was aggressively planting the seeds for the future. She was forcing the Queen to see Aurelia not just as a noble's daughter, but as a perfect, dignified, highly suitable match for the Crown Prince.
During these royal visits, Miré was actively suppressed.
"Keep her in the guest wing," Elara would command Nurse Lysa before leaving for the Queen's solar. "If Prince Edmund comes looking for her, tell him she is unwell and cannot play. I will not have her mud-stained hands ruining Aurelia's introduction."
Aurelia was completely complicit. If they were walking the palace halls and she saw Edmund approaching from the other end of the corridor, Aurelia would quickly grab Miré's arm, pinching the soft skin on the inside of her wrist.
"We are going back to the room," Aurelia would hiss, dragging Miré toward a side door before the Prince could spot them.
"But Edmund is right there," Miré protested, trying to yank her arm free. "He promised to show me the armory!"
"You are embarrassing," Aurelia snapped, her blue eyes flashing with genuine malice. "You do not belong in the armory. You belong out of sight. Mother said so."
Miré would be shoved back into the dim guest quarters, forced to sit by the window while Aurelia returned to the sunlit gardens to drink sweet tea with the Princess and the Queen.
Elara was meticulously starving Miré of oxygen, ensuring that while the bastard child might possess the magic of the earth, Aurelia would inevitably possess the Crown.