Sunlight inundated the room as she woke up.

  While the highrain season had been more intense than it had been in quite some time, it was also shorter than normal, leading to a spring that was significantly chillier than usual. Outside of the castle, around the willows and cypresses, birds were chirping, the dogs were frolicking through the gardens in the early morning, dew fell from the roses and up above in the skies white clouds blanketed the province, sometime covering the buildings below in short-staying shadows.

  Right after Rose washed her face, the moment she looked up from the towel towards the mirror, she caught herself having a sweet smile plastered all over.

  It had taken two months since she had arrived back home, but for the past two weeks she had finally been stable and, more or less, back to normal. There were still some times in which she would find herself trembling a bit, or in which she thought she could see shadows moving in the edges of her sight. She could barely remember what had happened that caused her to essentially lose her mind, and since then, there were blanks in her memories, and things that she wanted to think were just nightmares. Horrible things like waking up surrounded by tall, faceless shadows, nightmares in which they forced her to draw arcane symbols in her own flesh that were gone when she woke up, but that she could feel the pain of the pointy quill used for it on her skin.

  She stared at herself in the mirror. Her auburn hair, once gorgeous, had begun to prematurely gray, presumably from her terrible mental state. She had talked to her mother about dying it back to its original color, but she had advised her not to. However, in a short conversation with Miss Rabineau, she turned to be of the same opinion as Rose and had made plans to go to a hairdressing shop that was quite popular with ladies of certain standings once they headed back to the capital.

  Curiously, despite how many differences there were between the two, Rabineau always seemed to agree with her in nearly everything. Except in things in which she was quite protective, like insisting her to not wear accessories with needles in them, or anything sharp at that, for her own safety.

  Rose left her nightgown nearly folded and changed, for the fourth or fifth time in years, into something actually practical to wear. White blouse, a long, dark blue skirt, and forced by the weather, a short knitted coat that was only slightly lighter in color. It’s not like she found the long, elaborate dresses worn in the capital to be actually uncomfortable at all, despite what some other ladies from neighboring fiefdoms may think, and she admired how beautiful they could be when worn properly; but dressing in a simpler manner always felt more natural to her. And, talking of Rabineau, her short conversations during the past week or so had revealed her to be much of the same mind, something that Rose already knew after having seen dress in that manner back in the capital, but she appreciated it.

  They had more things in common than she had expected, and while she found the idea to be a bit naive, she hoped that they could, in time, become friends.

  Wynthart Hall was a castle mostly on paper. While it was perched on top of a high hill, overseeing the valley and the town of the same name below, across the river, and had tall pointy towers and thick gray walls weathered by the long history of the family; its time as the seat of a great noble house had long past. Compared with the strongholds at the west, a castle at the foot of the eastern mountains like theirs had always been much smaller, and as their family fell from grace, so long ago, it was more like a normal mansion with extra details. None of them particularly luxurious, when compared with the city-sized estates of some of the newer houses.

  Inside its walls, beyond the manor that fused with them and its spires, laid an expansive garden, and in its center, built by the late lord for the current dowager lady, was a greenhouse. It was large, shaped like a rose, and with the metal that made its structure painted in the purest white. Inside, it was like being in the middle of a fairy-infested forest, full of glowing flowers, blooming vines falling from the ceiling and a pool so clean it illuminated the entire building by itself by reflecting the sun.

  When Rose entered it, ready to pick up some flowers for her room, she found her mother and Rabineau, sitting by the tea table in what she quickly realized wasn’t an ideal breakfast as she had seen them having every morning since she was feeling better. They seemed to be in a painfully polite discussion, not raising their voices but making their discontent clear.

  They hadn’t realized that she was present, so Rose took the opportunity to hide behind a pinkdew bush and listened in.

  “Lady Agatha, with all due respect,” Maran was saying “I hoped that you held more of a grudge towards prince Rull, at least enough to not blindly listen to him in this way.”

  “I appreciate your concerns, Miss Rabineau, but I am that boy’s own godmother, and I swore to his Majesty that, should my late husband fail to do so, I would stand behind him. I have known him for as long as he has been in this world and he has never given me reason to worry. I trust him wholeheartedly that what you two did to my daughter was for the good of us all, and that you will make amends for everything that has gone wrong. And as the same time, I believe him when he says that she is ready to return.” Her mother had almost hissed the last ‘he’, Rose could tell how angry she was.

  “In this world, huh…” Maran mumbled. “Regardless, I implore you to rethink your decision. A mother knows more than me about how her daughter is, that is for sure, but his Highness calling so soon for her return is strange.”

  Rose left the bush and revealed herself, making a small bow. “I apologize, but I have heard. Have I been called back to the capital?”

  Her mother looked towards her. She was a woman far past her middle age, her hair having all turned silver, and yet, due to the wonders of her curious bloodline, something she was secretive of, the only wrinkles in her face appeared whenever she made an effort. To anyone who was unaware, they could have looked like sisters. “Yes, my dear, just yesterday.”

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  “I have not been capable of confirming it.” Maran interrupted. She was still in her nightgown, a soft pink that reminded Rose of cherry trees in bloom.

  “Confirm it? Did it not come from his own eagle?” Her mother responded, pointing an accusatory finger towards her. “You yourself said as much, Miss Rabineau.”

  Maran nodded and furrowed her brow. “Yes, it was indeed his eagle. But upon calling to the palace to talk with him the line failed. I have not been able to speak with the capital since three days ago.”

  Rose shrugged and blinked. “Well, everyone know that connection from here so far out and the capital is bad unless better lines are used and we do not really have one here in the Hall.”

  Maybe it was being back home, but for Rose the capital was already feeling so far away, and their views seemed to be always misinformed of how life was here at the provinces, even if she knew for a fact that it wasn’t the case. Everyone knows that connecting to the palace from Wynthart Hall would be extremely hard, even knowing the right words to tell the operator there. For the same reason, her mother and her hardly talked while she lived in the capital.

  Maran muttered something to herself and rose from the chair. “I respect your opinion, Lady Agatha, as I said, but unless I can contact the palace by tomorrow, we should not go to the capital just yet.” Then she sighed. “And now, if you ladies will pardon me, I will go have breakfast. Have a nice day!”

  She curtsied and left the greenhouse.

  Rose stared at her mother for a few seconds in complete silence.

  “Mother, I agree with it being a bit ridiculous to get like this if one cannot contact the capital. But it does not strike to me that the idea of confirming it before leaving should make you this upset.” She said, watching how her mother quickly sipped from a small cup of a strong-smelling tea. She had probably put something alcoholic on it, like she did anytime she was nervous about something.

  “And why should it not make me upset?” Her mother asked, and then huffed up a bit “Rose, darling, you should not be outside this soon. It is still cold, what if you become ill?”

  Her mother sounded genuinely worried, but there was something underneath that immediately made Rose wary. Lady Agatha had never been deceitful, or really hid anything to her daughters that wasn’t for their own good, such as the time she had hid the death of her dog just so she could debut into high society, disastrous as that party was. Rose thought of the way she looked at Maran, and a suspicion came to her.

  “Mother, do you hate Miss Rabineau?” She asked.

  Her mother staggered in her chair, nearly spilling some of the tea she was drinking. She looked at her daughter wild-eyed. “What has brought this, my dear?”

  “I do not know how your relationship was with her as I suffered with brain fever, but I can suspect, knowing you as I know myself, that you think my breakup with his Highness, false as it apparently was, came about because of her, not in the sense that she was the intellectual culprit of it, as she has told me, but in the sense that the prince may have seen something in her that made his heart no longer flutter for me.” Rose arched an eyebrow, briefly. “Please, mother, be honest.”

  Her mother rose from her seat, tidying up the robe over her nightgown. Her cheeks had gone bright red, notable among the usual paleness of her face. Finally, after a moment of silence, she finally spoke: “Yes, I have thought as much. And I have not discounted it. Think of me as being overly worrisome, as you always do, but I do not like how that girl moves, if you know what I mean.”

  Rose shook her head.

  “Of course you do not, dear.” She sighed. “This may be one of the very few benefits of age. The way that girl carries herself is not natural. She is wise beyond her years, she knows things that girls her age do not.”

  She giggled, briefly. There was a bit of pain in her chest, it was cold and she decided that, once the conversation was done, she’d head inside. “Mother, of course she does. She’s a noble from the capital and an intellectual companion of his Highness. Of course she is wise.”

  “Again, my dear, this is one of the things you know with age.” Her mother let out a small cough, which she always did to signal whenever she had finished talking, conveniently enough for Rose, and having her follow her, they both exited the greenhouse and Lady Agatha closed it behind her.

  Her mother looked around. There was a strange expression in her face for a moment before it became one of thought. “Rose, you would not think about going back to training, would you?”

  She hadn’t even thought of it, to be honest, but it suddenly struck to her that to get a better mental state, as the old philosophers also said, physical exercise may be key. Going back to train, specially after so long without having touched a sword at any point, was probably going to be rather hard, but she’d be lying if she said that she wouldn’t look forward to putting trousers again and slice through dummies until she ends up covered in sweat and panting as she lays down on the floor. It would certainly be a welcome change from the enforced neatness of the capital life.

  “I am afraid, mother, that you just game the the very idea.” Rose smiled at her, it was an expression that held in some pain, and yet was full of hope for the future. For Rose, as far as she could tell, the problems had mostly ended and now she was looking at her bright life ahead.

  Lady Agatha scoffed again, her cheeks reddening to a bright pink, not yet red, before she walked off. Not saying one more word.

  Rose’s smile faltered a bit as she lowered her head. She was probably going to get an earful in a few days, once something went wrong while she trained, something bound to happen due to her sure rustiness.

  She walked back and entered the castle, greeting a couple of important men from the city, whose names she didn’t remember, although they were familiar enough, who had gone up to Wynthart Hall for some kind of business. They were waiting for her sister, Amelia, who whenever her mother wasn’t present, was the one who took care of political matters. She had been already set to go onto a brilliant career when she took care of the economic matters of the castle by herself at the age of just fifteen, and in the next year, hopefully, she would be sent to the academy.

  The training room was located in a semi-basement, in the base of one of the round and pointy towers of the western side of the castle, the one overlooking the valley below. It was a round room with thick walls and unadvisably large windows that gave up the fact that it was built in the times of her grandfather. The walls were gray and uncovered except for glued on papers with diagrams of fighting strategies, and some others that had messages supposed to be motivational, although Rose always found them to be useless.

  On the wall at the other extreme seen from the door, however, propped up by a small, and quite old, statue, was a legendary sword. It was the blade of Severinu Wynthart, founder of their line, back at the tail end of the Age of Darkness.

  And Maran Rabineau was staring at it, rather intently.