Work Text:
scandal
Claudia, at age thirteen, is rather more worldly than anyone expects her to be.
She blames the books. She can't help that she likes to read, and it's certainly not her fault that her father has told the librarians to allow her free reign, even if they do look dubiously at some of the romances she likes to borrow. It's been years since her mother left and her father is busy most days and Perran is only supposed to keep her out of trouble, not teach her about it, so there is no one to teach her about life, and about love, and about sex.
No one, except the books.
Ultimately, it's not as big a deal as anyone might think. Claudia likes to argue that she's a girl, and a lady no less, and she'll need to know where babies come from and how to please her future husband some day. In any case, it's not like she's interested . She can't imagine why anyone would be if they weren't at the very least betrothed. The novels make it sound so scandalous and secretive, and it's fun to read about but surely real life isn't like that; surely no self-respecting knight or lady would be stupid enough to risk that kind of ridicule for something as frivolous as sex .
“Prude,” Soren calls her.
“I'm not a prude for not being interested,” says Claudia primly. “It can't be that good.”
“How would you know? You've never tried it.”
“It's not like you have either,” sneers Claudia. Then she pauses. She frowns. “Have you?”
Soren finds something else to look at, his face the lightest shade of pink. “I'm not having this conversation with you .”
Claudia gasps. “You have !”
To his credit, Soren keeps a pretty straight face and doesn't go any pinker. “And?” He asks, just a tad defensively.
Claudia gawks at him, caught between scandalised and impressed. “You dog ,” she teases, her smirk sly. “Who was it?”
“I’m not having this conversation with you ,” says Soren again, sharper now and obviously not amused.
“That Loren girl who works in the kitchens?”
“Claudia.”
“Mellie? From the stables?”
“ Stop .”
She gasps again and leans in, her voice full of conspiracy. “Was it Marcos?”
“It's none of your damn business is what it is, ” he snaps, perhaps with more venom than Claudia expects him to have. “Who I sleep with has nothing to do with you so keep your nose out if you want to keep it.”
“I was just asking. Yeesh.” Claudia casts him a sidelong glance, gauging his reaction and the likelihood of him exploding again if she presses that little bit more. The mystery is maddening. She knows, objectively, that her brother is suave and charming and she's heard more than one of the maids swooning over his good looks, but the thought of him actually engaging in those things; the idea that he’s actually having sex is—
Claudia shudders. She says nothing in the end, because Soren is allowed his privacy (she supposes) and, in any case, she doesn't want to think about it, all the details and the body parts involved.
She finds out later anyway. She shouldn't and she knows it, but she’s curious: she’s a scholar and a mage in training, and she’s curious because it's easy, and just a matter of listening to the right conversations. She is poking around the kitchens under the guise of finding some jelly tarts when she hears them: two kitchen hands giggling over the wash basin:
“I don't believe you.”
“You should. And let me tell you, he knew exactly what he was doing.”
A laugh. “You’re lying . He’s got all those other rich girls vying for his attention and you're telling me you got the High Mage’s son into your bed?”
A snicker. A splash. A shriek and the sound of a scrubbing brush thunking heavily into an iron pan. “Please. Men like a good time and those rich girls don't know what to do with themselves beyond preen. Can't help that I'm just a better fuck.”
“ Linea !” The other kitchen hand gasps, and then there's more splashing, more laughing, and Claudia’s face grows warm at the now very real thought of her brother doing such things. “Your uncle’ll be furious if he finds out!”
“At him, maybe,” snorts Linea. “And Uncle Barius is never going to know. Who would tell him? You?” She snickers to herself, and then sighs a dreamy sounding sigh. “You know Soren's on track to be a knight soon? Maybe I can make him marry me and I’ll be a lady.”
“How do you expect to do that, exactly?”
There's a pause. Claudia inches around the corner in time to see a smirk crossing Linea’s features. “Oh, y'know,” she says lightly. “Some clever words here, some blackmail there. Womanly ways.”
Claudia’s jaw tightens.
Linea is dismissed that same week.
It’s not like Claudia wants to know. She just knows her brother well, and she can’t help that she knows his tells. There are only a handful of things that can put such a spring in his step and such colour in his face, and although Claudia makes it a point not to know who he’s sleeping with, it’s hard to ignore that it’s happening, and happening often enough.
She puts it out of her mind.
Then their lives fall apart, and their father goes mad, and then she goes mad and it’s years before she sees Soren again. Claudia learns to read other people, if only out of self-preservation. Enough people know what she’s done. Enough people want her dead.
She is twenty-five when she finally makes it home. Ezran, of all people, had found her in a clinic in a little border town hiding under her mother’s name, and against all odds had promised her a home, and safety, and forgiveness if she had the courage to face her past. It had taken a couple of years and some gentle coaxing, but the friendship she tore to shreds a lifetime ago is now very slowly stitching itself back together.
And, of course, Soren is here. He welcomes her back with open arms and brings her fresh jelly tarts when she inevitably ends up in the dungeons. He sits with her in the gardens after she is pardoned and promises her that it’s all okay now, in spite of whatever Callum might say. He is different from what she remembers. He’s older now, kinder to others than she thought he could be, more grounded in his cheek and his charm.
It shouldn't be such a surprise. She’s different now too.
But there are some things that haven't changed. He’ll still go on jelly tart runs with Ezran and find excuses to slack off. He’s still otherwise charismatic and roguish to a fault. And she wasn't here to watch it happen, but she knows he mellowed out a fair bit after Corvus so it surprises her to find out he’s still sleeping around.
He’s twenty-seven now. In another life, he’d be married already. There are noblewomen trying to win his hand.
“You're not interested in it?”
“Hm?” Soren blinks. “What, settling down? I mean.” He laughs a little and stares upwards at the statues on Temple Hill. Claudia’s allowed out here without chains now, and the grassy slopes remind them both of simpler days, when their mother would take them here to pray and talk to the clerics. “Maybe one day. With the right person.”
“There's no one now?”
“No one available,” he says. He tosses a grape into the air and catches it with his teeth as a procession of clerics make their way down the path with Opeli in the lead. He waves. Opeli nods. Claudia ducks her head.
“Do you ever think about it?” asks Soren when they’ve passed.
Claudia doesn't think she should get to. It's ridiculous she's even free to wander the city without a guard to keep an eye on her, and when she thinks about settling down now, she thinks about dark skin and blue eyes and an attachment she shouldn't have.
“No,” she says after a moment. “Not really.”
They don't talk about it more than that.
The strange thing is that no one else seems to be talking about it either. There were no secrets that could be kept in the old days. People talked and gossip spread, and everyone knew who got into bed with whom one way or another. People still talk, and gossip still spreads (and Claudia would know because there are plenty of rumours about her ) but according to the maids, Soren is as virtuous as they come.
She's not listening on purpose when it comes up. She's putting her gardening apron in for laundering while the washerwomen are talking about it.
“Good luck to her,” the older one is saying with a snort. “He’s more like Prince Callum than people think he is. Remember when her ladyship left? He wouldn't even look at anyone else. Soren’s been the same since he and Corvus went their separate ways. No Eveneerian noblewoman’s going to change that.”
The younger of the two snorts as well. “I don't get him,” she muses. “He’s got people throwing themselves at him left, right, and centre. He went after anything with legs when he was younger and suddenly he just stops?”
“You’ve clearly never been in love.”
The younger rolls her eyes. “No, it's more than that. He’s not nearly as, like, sad as Prince Callum was. He's not still sore about it.”
“Maybe he just grew up.”
The younger washerwoman huffs, frustrated. “Obviously, but there’s something else. I think he's got his eye on someone.”
“ Who ?” snorts the elder. “He’s the most eligible bachelor in the kingdom. If he wanted someone, he would already have them.”
“Not if it was someone he couldn't have.”
The older woman barks out a laugh. “You're dreaming. If you ask me, he just doesn’t care anymore. I’d give you five silver that if devoting himself to Justice was an option for him, he’d do it. Sometimes people just stop being interested in casual sex.” She gestures vaguely at Claudia even though her back is turned to her, like she knows she’s been eavesdropping from the doorway the whole time. “Put it over there,” she says, waving her hand towards the basket of dirty aprons by the wall.
The younger tilts her head as Claudia scurries past. “You’re his sister, aren’t you?”
Claudia shifts awkwardly after she sets her apron down. “So what if I am?”
“Well, what do you know about it? What’s his deal?”
Claudia clenches her jaw. “I don’t think we should be talking about him like that,” she says shortly. “It’s his business.”
The younger cocks her head. “He hasn’t said anything to you?”
“Even if he had, I wouldn’t say,” says Claudia stiffly. Then, a little quieter, she adds, “He doesn’t tell me anything anymore. I’m not… one of them the way I used to be.”
The truth tastes like salt, and the washerwomen exchange furtive glances before they turn back to their washingboards. It’s weird for everyone—Claudia remembers them, and she’s certain they remember her. She has no authority over them now and the humility feels warm on her face.
“Can we do anything else for you?” asks the elder. It sounds bitten off. Claudia wonders if a courtesy title might have followed it.
“No,” mumbles Clauida. “Thank you.” Then she leaves, and the washerwomen don’t say anything else until the door has shut behind her.
This is when she does get curious because it doesn’t make sense. The entire castle seems convinced that he’s kept to himself since Corvus left when it’s abundantly clear to Claudia that someone’s been in his bed. There is no mistaking the light in his eyes and the colour in his cheeks and the spirit in his laughter when someone tells an unfunny joke. He’s not just happier. He’s—
He’s in love.
The realisation makes Claudia drop her trowel, and she sits back on her heels in the blazing summer sun with a potato half dug out of the soil. Maybe the reason no one is talking or bragging about it is because it’s not just anyone . It’s someone. Singular and specific and the only way it all makes sense.
It’s a wilder concept than it should be, although she supposes she only thinks that because she wasn’t here when he was involved with Corvus. He was in love then too, she’s sure, but she’s his sister again now and it’s the first time she’s actually seen its effects.
Soren is in love . And whoever it is—
Well, they’ve already been in his bed, that’s for sure, and they’re apparently in it pretty damn often.
But it’s none of her business. She has no right to know and no right to care. She picks the trowel up and goes back to digging, determined to put it out of her mind, even if the question gnaws at her, even as the whisper of the trowel in the soil sounds insistently like Who? Who? Who?
Claudia grits her teeth and scoops her freshly dug potatoes into the basket at her side.
When the lunch bell rings and she makes her way back into the merciful cool of the kitchens, Soren is already there with a mostly-empty cup of tea and a half eaten plate of jelly tarts. He grins when he spots her, then climbs out of the stool to fetch another teacup from the cupboard.
“Wondered if you were out there today.”
“Were you waiting or something?”
He shrugs. “I was already here. Cost me nothing to wait a little longer. Plus it’s nice to hang out, even if it’s only for a little bit.” He drags a stool out from under the bench for her and gestures to it with a grin.
Claudia tilts her lips up gratefully and sets the basket of potatoes on the counter without argument. She doesn’t make note of the cheeriness of his smile or the glow in his cheeks or the way he twitches his fingers like he’s still got the ghost of someone else’s between them. She just picks a jelly tart from the plate and thanks him quietly for the tea he places in front of her. “You’re not staying down here long?”
“Nah,” says Soren. “Got some Council stuff to do. What about you? Are you all done for the day?”
Claudia shrugs noncommittally. “Mostly. I still have stuff to do, and Ez has been complaining about migraines again, so I’m going back out a little later to get more tea leaves.” She nibbles a bit off the edge of her jelly tart. “Are these pomegranate?”
“Yeah,” says Soren. “They’re pretty good. Kinda got a taste for them while you were away.” He says it so casually, like Claudia didn't just spend years hiding from everyone and everything she ever knew. It does not comfort her the way he thinks it does. “That tea sounds handy,” he adds mildly.
Claudia cocks an eyebrow at him. “Are you getting migraines too?”
“Welcome to almost-thirty.”
“Oh.” Claudia tries not to be too sceptical. He certainly hasn’t looked like he’s had migraines these recent days. “Do you want some?”
“If you’re offering,” chuckles Soren. “Or you can just show me which plant they come from. Sounds like something cool to know.”
“Mm.” She pauses then and studies him. Tea and migraines and pomegranate tarts—these are not typical of him. They have never been typical of him. These are someone else’s fingerprints and, now that she knows, it's as blindingly obvious as the sun on his armour. Who? Who? Who? Claudia bites her tongue and doesn't ask. “I’ll get you some,” she says instead. “I’ll bring them up to you later.”
“You don't have to do that—”
“It's fine,” says Claudia. “I want to. I’ll bring them up. I usually take them to Ez’s office anyway and your quarters are on the way. It’s no trouble.”
Soren takes a moment to study her now, and for one long second, the back of her neck prickles under the suspicion in his stare. It's the truth: his quarters are on the way, but it's a favour she does for Ezran because his office is the one place in the castle she feels welcome as she is. Even now, even before her own brother , she feels like she’s performing because he's trying so hard to make it all okay without really understanding why it isn't .
“Well, if you’re sure,” he says finally, slurping the last of his tea down with a smile. “Thanks, Clauds. Do you want any help with any of this stuff?” He nods at the potatoes on the far end of the bench, but Claudia only shakes her head. It’s well-intentioned, but these tasks are her sentence, and she’s dragged him into enough.
“I’m okay. You go ahead. Leave your cup, I’ll take care of it.”
Soren gives her a look. “You’re not a maid, you know.”
No, thinks Claudia. She’s a criminal, and she doesn’t deserve such kindness from him, or anyone for that matter. “I know,” she says instead. “Go ahead. I’ll look after all of this.”
He doesn’t argue with her any further, and Claudia waits until she can no longer hear his footsteps in the stairwell before she packs away his dishes. There is a third teacup already in the basin, rinsed but set aside for a proper wash. There is still a lip mark on the rim.
Claudia washes it too while scrubbing brush demands, Who? Who? Who?
“Has Soren said anything about… anyone?” Claudia asks Ezran later. It’s such a lame question, and she only realises after it leaves her how incredibly vague it sounds. Ez glances up from the document he’s reading at his desk, and Claudia flushes and tries again. “I mean like. Has he said anything about… being involved with someone?”
Ez blinks at her. She is in the chair by the fire, prosthetic leg unlatched and leaning against the armrest on her right. The stump aches more often than it doesn’t, especially after working all day on her feet which is, regrettably, the case every day. There is growing redness underneath where the leather sits. Claudia massages it gingerly, trying not to wince at her own touch.
“No?” he says. “I mean, if he is, he hasn’t said anything to me.” He pauses and stares down at the document on his desk, eyebrows knitting together in an effort to remember. “Has he said something to you?”
“No,” says Claudia. “He doesn't trust me anyway but there’s something about him that seems…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. It’s so complicated, and she doesn’t really have any right to comment on it whether he is or isn’t. “I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.”
“It’s a little my business,” points out Ez. “If he is, I can actually tell people to leave him alone. What gave you the idea that he was?”
Claudia shrugs awkwardly. “Little things. He’s my brother, y’know?”
“Mm, I guess.” Ez climbs out of the chair and pulls a jar of salve from the desk drawer without asking. It’s her salve—the paste she makes and keeps in her own medicine cabinet for aches and pains like this. He’d asked for one a little while ago, and she’d assumed she meant for him. The jar he brings to her is unopened, and it’s with a jolt that she realises he’s been keeping it in here for her. “I didn’t think there was anyone,” Ez muses, cracking the seal and offering the paste to her. “This whole time, I thought he just wasn’t interested in finding a partner. He’s never even hinted that there might be someone there.”
“So you don’t know…?”
“Wouldn’t have a clue,” says Ez. He clucks his tongue and takes the salve back from her without asking, only to slump onto the carpet at her feet to rub the paste into her skin himself. Claudia looks away and pretends her warming face is because she is sitting so close to the fire. “Why would you think he doesn't trust you?”
Claudia snorts. “I mean. Why would he? He’s not the only one.”
“Callum doesn't count,” says Ez, rolling his eyes. “I trust you. And Soren does too. You’re his sister.”
“I haven’t been a very good one.”
“You’re trying now,” insists Ez. “You’re trying to be for him, and you’re trying to be better for everyone. He knows that. I don’t understand why you would think he wouldn’t—”
“Would you tell Callum? If it was you?”
Ez falls silent. He pulls his hands away from her stump. The pause that stretches between them is loaded. Then Ez gets up, sets the jar on the armrest, and the air rushes back in to fill his vacated spot like he was never there at all. Claudia recaps the jar and fiddles with it in her hands, trying to forget the sensation of his fingers on her skin. “It doesn’t matter,” he says at last, returning to his desk with brisk professionalism. “He’ll tell us when he’s ready. If he’s ready. If there’s something to know.”
If indeed. Claudia goes back to massaging her stump without a word and the crackle of the fire fills the silence.
It all comes together in the library. Claudia is there on her afternoon off in search of a book she’d read when she was younger. The castle doesn't do much for her nostalgia: there are too many memories of her father and her mother from when their family was actually happy; too many reminders of the innocence of her youth. The book is a comfort, she supposes, a story about someone else's fall from grace, but of finding peace afterwards too.
She finds a spot in the sun in the far corner of the library when she hears it: hushed laughter and the unmistakable sound of lips on lips. Quietly, Claudia shuts her book and gets up, burying her curiosity under the need to find somewhere else to read, but when she nears the shelves, she finds—
No one.
The aisle is empty, except for Opeli who is coming around the corner with a stack of books in her arms.
Claudia’s first instinct is to scurry away. Opeli does not care for her, and she’s certain the only reason the older woman had vouched for her in the first place was because Soren had asked. But Opeli sees her anyway and nods her head at the books before Claudia can escape:
“Claudia. Good. Would you mind?”
“Oh. Of course not. Hang on.” She puts her own book down to take half of Opeli’s pile, and Opeli huffs in relief as the weight eases in her arms.
“Thank you,” she says, twitching her lips gratefully. “They belong at the end of this aisle. I won't keep you much longer than that.”
Claudia offers a shy nod and follows her to the end of the stacks.
They work in silence. Opeli is quick and silent, as deft and practised as one of the castle librarians to the point where all Claudia does is hand her the books. Opeli tucks them all away, knowing exactly where they belong with barely a glance at their titles. She's mostly the same as Claudia remembers: prim, proper, purposeful in her every movement, although less rigid than the old days. She certainly seems happier, which was something Claudia noticed days into coming back, but as she watches her now, there's something… else .
Claudia does not pretend to know her well, or at all, for that matter. Opeli had never cared much for her family those early years because she was so at odds with Viren in those days, and it was with some surprise that she learned she got along so well with Soren. It’s a consequence of serving so long on the same council, she supposes, but she's seen them talking and walking together around the grounds, and she knows their friendship is genuine because of the way Soren looks truly relaxed in her presence and in how easily he seems to be able to draw out her smile. She is far more relaxed with him than with anyone else, Claudia has noticed, and even when she can deny the others, she can always be swayed if it is him who asks. If she didn't know any better, Claudia would might have thought—
“Oh, by the way—” Soren appears from around the corner, all grace and charm and easy smiles, but he stops short when he spots Claudia, and something in his face shifts. His smile grows guarded. His eyes lose a little spark. “Oh, hey, Clauds, I didn't realise you were here.”
Claudia shrugs awkwardly. “I was just helping out,” she murmurs.
“So you were,” says Opeli, ever brisk, ever professional, but grateful, even as she takes the last of the stack from Claudia’s arms. “Thank you. I can manage from here.”
“Oh, are you—”
“I’ll take them,” intercedes Soren, removing them from Opeli’s arms without even asking. The movement is so practised, so natural, and there is a split second where their masks drop, and their hands brush, and their smiles are genuine—
No .
Claudia drops her own book in her realisation and the thunk it makes against the library floor is so loud that whatever walls had fallen away between Opeli and her brother go back up again in an instant. Their heads snap towards her. Claudia ducks and picks up the book muttering an apology under her breath. Then she scurries away.
Surely not.
Surely not.
Their voices float through the shelves towards her:
“Ez said he would deal with it.”
“Her Ladyship is here to see you , Soren.”
“And I’ve told her over and over again that I'm not interested. I don't know how else to make it clear to her that it's not happening and this dinner thing they're trying to arrange is ridiculous.”
“You won't even consider—”
“ No. I won't. Don't ask why.”
Claudia hurries away before she can convince herself to overhear the rest of it.
Maybe she misunderstood. Misheard. Mislistened? It doesn’t matter. Claudia goes about the rest of her chores refusing to think about it—by which she means, it’s all she thinks about at all. How? When? And is Opeli even allowed—?
Claudia shuts her eyes, forcing her brain to be silent and willing the thoughts away, but in amongst it all, something protective rises in her chest. The age difference between her brother and his object of desire is not insignificant, and there is enough history, enough animosity between their family and Opeli that Claudia can’t help but feel suspicious of it.
Opeli wouldn't hurt him, would she?
Logically, Claudia thinks no. Between her and Soren, Opeli has more to lose if things go sour, but there are other ways to hurt someone. Other ways to kill. Claudia remembers the fallout between her mother and father; remembers the way her mother had shut down after every argument, remembers the fighting and the shouting and the day Lissa left, once and for all. And so many people have left . So many people don't make the effort to stay even when all the reasons are there, and to hear them talking—
Don't ask why.
So he's in deep. So they both are, and still, Opeli is trying to push him away.
Claudia presses her lips shut and yanks too hard on the clover growing in her garden, tearing the plant up without the roots. She scowls and tosses the shredded plant into the basket of weeds at her side. She’ll have to dig deeper now, disturb the soil more for her trouble, and even worse—
“Er… hey.”
Claudia glances up and is startled to find Rayla there with baby Sarai chewing on a teething ring strapped to her chest. Rayla smiles awkwardly and Claudia realises a little belatedly that this is the first time Rayla’s ever been in her garden, and the first time they've ever been left alone.
They are not enemies anymore, but they're not friends either, and every interaction so far has felt fragile and easy to break.
“Your Highness,” Claudia greets quietly.
Rayla makes a face. “Don't call me that,” she snaps, more reflexive than malicious. She winces at the way it comes out. “Sorry for disturbing your garden,” she adds more gently. “You don't have any Starleaf around here, do you?”
Claudia tries not to shudder. Stars and the things that resemble them are not a comfort. “Starleaf?”
“Yeah, it's this plant we have in Xadia. The elves in the Silvergrove use it to numb pain. Little miss here is teething really badly.” Rayla smiles ruefully at her little girl, four months old now and looking more and more like her father every day.
Claudia lets herself smile too. “Aw, not having a good time, are you, precious girl?” She reaches out and then stops herself, remembering Zym in Ezran’s arms and Rayla slapping her hands away. Even Rayla hesitates, her smile faltering a little before slowly, unsurely, she shifts Sarai a little in her sling so that Claudia might be able to see her better. “Sorry,” she says quietly. “You saved our lives. I shouldn't have—”
“Don't,” cuts Claudia. “Don't apologise. You guys have been… kinder than I deserve.”
Rayla frowns to herself. At herself, almost. “We can't keep pretending you're the same as you were,” she says. “Things have changed. You have too.”
“Mm.” Claudia twitches her lips gratefully but change doesn't erase all the bad. That's why it's so hard to be here some days: Soren tries too hard to pretend none of it happened and Callum doesn't try to see the change at all. Every day is a reminder of how much is different now, every potato she digs and every apron she washes is another nail in the coffin of the life she destroyed. Everyone else has moved on now, to bigger, brighter things while she digs in her garden atoning for her many sins. At least Soren—
She cuts off the thought before she can think of who he's attached to.
“Thank you, I guess,” she mumbles at last. “I’m… doing my best to earn it.”
“We know,” says Rayla. “Most of us anyway.” She rolls her eyes then, and Claudia tries not to chuckle at the way she obviously means Callum. “Ez told me everything,” she adds quietly. “About how he found you in that village by the border and how it took years to convince you to come back. He trusts you. I trust his judgement. Callum… will get over it one day, I’m sure. He’s just not as easy going as he used to be. Too much has happened, y’know?”
“Yeah,” mutters Claudia. “A lot’s changed.”
A pause settles between them, and not an uncomfortable one. She’d been angry at Rayla once: Rayla, who pushed her father off the edge of the Storm Spire, Rayla who’d slipped into all the spaces she left those years Claudia spent in Xadia, Rayla who is a better sister to Soren now than Claudia has ever been. But that's changed too, thinks Claudia—these days, she’s just glad Soren finally has the family he deserves.
The thought of him brings her thoughts back to the conversation she overheard in the library, and Claudia wrinkles her nose, willing herself to put it out of her mind.
“What's wrong?”
“Hm? Oh.” Claudia flushes. “I—uh—I just…” She takes a breath. “I was just thinking,” she murmurs.
Rayla cocks an eyebrow. “About?”
How to put it? How to ask in a way that doesn't make her sound nosey or inappropriate or insane? Ez hadn't even known Soren was involved with someone, and such an accusation would be met with—
Well. Opeli is respected and well-liked, and Claudia is a maid with a criminal history. She does not need to imagine what might happen if she voiced her suspicions out loud.
“It’s nothing,” she says in the end. “I don't know about Starleaf but I can get you liquorice root? It's what I used to give out at the clinic…”
She leads Rayla through the garden, glad to put it out of her mind.
For a while, Claudia simply watches.
She watches Soren when he passes by her garden, his grin boyish and cocky as he offers his arm to Opeli. She catches the easiness of Opeli’s smile, the fond exasperation in the way she rolls her eyes, the fit of her hand in his elbow as if it’s a gesture she's grown used to. Claudia watches them at dinners, making note of the way he draws her chair for her and of the way she laughs as she takes a seat. Claudia even catches Soren making tea in the evenings sometimes, brewing the leaves she’d given him in a teapot accompanied by two teacups, not one.
The hints are subtle but they are there. It's common knowledge throughout the castle that they’re good friends, but friends do not often look at each other like they hang the stars in the sky. Claudia has never known Opeli to be easy going and unguarded but she is around Soren, and though Soren will behave like a gentleman for other suitors, it is Opeli that draws his eye like she is a flame in a darkened room.
Claudia can't understand it. She’d never thought of Soren as someone who would want someone so much older and so much more serious when he has every eligible suitor of noble standing clawing at each other for him.
It scares her. He was always going to grow up and fall in love one day, but everything has changed so much, too much, and he was the one thing she thought she still knew but—
Perhaps she doesn't really know him anymore, either.
She is weeding the gardens by the temples this morning, her gloves muddied, the sun hot against the back of her neck when a shadow falls over her as she works. Claudia glances up to find Opeli there, imposing as ever in her hood and her circlet and the sun at her back. The only thing that takes away from her severity is the tray of orange juice in her arms.
“I believe you're due for a break,” she says.
Claudia twitches her lips gratefully and sits back on her heels. “Thanks,” she mumbled. “I didn't think you cared.”
“All members of staff are entitled to rest,” she says, “and, in any case, I don't imagine Soren would be happy if I allowed you to collapse as a result of heatstroke.” She twitches her lips a little as she hands Claudia her drink which is new in and of itself: she has never known Opeli to joke.
“I didn't think he cared either,” snorts Claudia.
“Why wouldn't he?” says Opeli. “You're his sister.”
“Things have changed.”
“So they have,” says Opeli, “but his love for you has not.” She studies Claudia for a moment, and Claudia avoids her eyes because they know too much, see too much, seem too much like they belong beneath a blindfold while she holds scales in one hand and a sword in the other. It surprises her, then, when Opeli takes a seat and helps herself to a glass. “He went looking for you,” she says after a moment. “And when you came back, he fought Callum tooth and nail to make sure you were given a trial, at least. He never once gave up the idea that you had good in you.”
Claudia eyes her warily. “Do you believe that?”
Opeli pauses then and looks out over the city. “I believe him,” she says finally. “So, in a way, I suppose I do.”
It is kindness that Claudia does not expect and trust that she does not really deserve, but Opeli gives it anyway, and it makes sense, all of a sudden, why Soren would be drawn to her after all the things that happened in their youth. Who else could provide such counsel, such warmth? Who else would have listened and allowed him to work through his problems as they presented? Who else would have understood?
Claudia says nothing for a long time. There are questions in her throat that demand to be asked— Why him? What do you want from him? Do you love him?— but she swallows them, not because she's afraid to ask—
But because Opeli does not doubt her. Even after all of Claudia's crimes and Opeli’s disdain for Viren, and the hand that Claudia had in Soren’s emotional abuse, Opeli does not question her motives or scorn her for her mistakes.
Claudia cannot bring herself to do any different.
“Is he happy?” she asks instead.
Opeli eyes her warily, the slightest hint of suspicion in her eyes—but then the moment passes, and she twitches her lips. “I think so,” she says. “Things have changed, as you say.”
They lapse into silence. The sun shines brightly overhead.
Later, after dinner has been cleared and the sun has long set, Claudia finds Soren in the kitchens again with a pot of tea and two mugs.
He blinks, surprised to see her still up so late, then smiles, and gestures to an empty chair. “Care to join me?”
Claudia chuckles a little and ducks her head. “I’m okay. I get the feeling that that mug isn't for me anyway.”
Soren pauses. If she didn't know him so well, she might have missed the hint of panic in his eyes, but she shakes her head and smiles. “You don't have to say anything. I don't have to know.”
“What do you know, exactly?”
“Only that it's not for me,” says Claudia. “And… that you deserve to be happy. That's all.”
Another pause. Soren keeps his face carefully neutral, which would work better if it wasn't obvious he was trying so hard. Claudia tries not to laugh.
“I'm happy for you, Soren. And for whoever that's for.”
“You're not going to ask?”
“I don't need to. It's your business.”
He purses his lips. “How do you know at all?”
Claudia only shrugs. “You have your tells.”