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The northern keep wakes slowly, as if it resents dawn for daring to touch its stone; frost clings to the shutters and the wind rasps like an old crone whispering curses under her breath, but inside the Duchess’s chambers the air is still, weighted, almost devotional in its hush, and Saheon moves through it like a shadow that has learned to walk on two legs and obey orders, though she has always had a thing for competence and her sister used to tease her—you like being good at things, don’t you; you like knowing better than the people who command you—which is perhaps why she has never forgiven the Duke for letting such potential wither in front of him.
Soleum sits by the window with her back too straight, her profile too pale, her eyes too large and too empty for someone who was once likened to midwinter sunlight on glass; she’s wearing a gown far too thin for the season because no one bothers to dress her properly anymore except Saheon, and Saheon is always arriving just late enough that Soleum has already decided not to ask for help; the Duchess has always carried her pride like a fragile locket she refuses to open even for herself.
The Duke is somewhere in the east wing, probably busy or asleep or hunting some new monster to hold his attention for half a week before forgetting it entirely; he barely looks at his wife now except to remember she exists, and Saheon thinks bitterly—as she carries the morning tray in with a grace that borders on viciousness—that it is astonishing how a man can overlook something as luminous as Soleum and still call himself lord of anything at all.
Soleum lifts her eyes at the soft knock, the faint rasp of Saheon’s knuckles against the oak; her gaze has a glint today, faint but unmistakable, a hint of rose-red in her irises like the thin line of blood on fresh snow or the gleam of a polished ruby pressed against pale skin, and Saheon feels it like a pull along her ribs—this woman, wasting away indoors under the name of “safety,” is still sharper than any sword the north has forged.
“Breakfast,” Saheon murmurs, setting down the tray with mechanical precision, though something about the sight of Soleum’s hands—the slenderness of her fingers, the wan bluish tinge beneath the skin, the delicate bones that show too easily now—makes her falter almost imperceptibly; she has seen women bleed on the daily, seen them carry burdens their husbands never noticed, but there is something obscene about a brilliant mind being starved of air, of movement, of purpose.
“You’re early,” Soleum says without looking directly at her; the comment is almost a joke, almost a reprimand, almost a plea, but none of those things survive fully in her voice, which has become hollow as a birdcage over the last harsh winter.
“I try,” Saheon replies, meaning I try because you deserve someone who does, but she cannot say that, cannot say much of anything anymore, not when one wrong word can cost a maid her tongue or her livelihood or her sister’s home in the village below.
Soleum shifts, and the morning light cuts across her cheek; it makes her pallor look like porcelain left too long in a cabinet, gathering dust instead of glory, and Saheon’s throat tightens because she used to imagine Soleum out on the training fields directing cavalry drills or standing in the war room with ink-stained fingers, strategizing routes through the snows with the ease of someone who sees not just what is but what could be, but instead she is here, confined indoors like a relic.
“You haven’t eaten again,” Saheon says, not gently but not cruelly either; it is simply a fact, and facts are the sharpest tools she’s allowed to wield.
Soleum’s lips twitch in something like defiance but crumble quickly into resignation. “I wasn’t hungry.”
“You must eat, my lady,” Saheon murmurs, pouring the tea, her hands steady even though her pulse kicks up when she stands close enough to see the curve of Soleum’s collarbone, the delicate rise and fall of her breath, the subtle tremor in her thin wrists; she resents herself for noticing, but she also resents the Duke more for forcing her to.
There is silence then—soft, strained, laced with the kind of tension Saheon pretends not to feel even as it curls around her like cold air—and she steps behind Soleum to gather the Duchess’s hair, sweeping the fragile strands away from her face, pulling them into a loose knot so the steam from the tea won’t dampen them; her fingers brush the nape of Soleum’s neck, and the heat there startles her.
Soleum inhales sharply, almost imperceptibly.
Saheon freezes.
For one wild, trembling heartbeat she is close enough—so close she can see the fine down at the edge of Soleum’s hairline, can feel the ghost of her breath on her knuckles, can almost touch her lips to the back of that pale, vulnerable neck; the urge comes swiftly and with teeth, like something that has been waiting in the dark to lunge—and yet she steps back at the last second, fingers curling into fists as if punishing herself for even thinking it.
“I apologize,” Saheon murmurs, but the apology is meaningless; what she means is I shouldn’t want this, I shouldn’t want you, I shouldn’t think you deserve more than this cage they call a marriage, but every woman knows the rules of the north—men may tear the heart out of a deer and feast without guilt, but a woman must swallow her hunger like medicine and pretend it was never there at all.
Soleum doesn’t turn; she simply exhales, a small, weary sound, and Saheon cannot tell if she noticed the almost-kiss or if she is too far gone into her own thoughts to care; both possibilities bruise her in different ways.
“You have more freedom than I do,” Soleum says suddenly, voice low, fragile but not broken; she says it like an accusation, but also like envy, and Saheon’s breath catches because she has never heard the Duchess admit such a thing out loud.
“I’m a maid,” Saheon answers.
“Yes,” Soleum whispers, eyes fixed on the frost-laced window. “And you can walk out of that door.”
The words fall like a crack in winter ice; thin, dangerous, prophetic.
Saheon says nothing—because what is there to say, when it is true, painfully true, that even a servant girl can cross the threshold and feel the bitter wind on her face, while the Duchess of the North sits in a gilded cage and waits for a husband who does not see her fading like a candle left too long in draft.
They are both leashed, but at least hers is longer.
But Saheon thinks, viciously and quietly, what a waste of mind, what a waste of genius, what a waste of a woman who should have ruled armies or rewritten trade laws or led the council meetings herself, and she wants to shake Soleum awake, wants to pry open the windows and drag her into the snow just so she can breathe cold air and remember she is alive.
Instead, she says, “Eat.”
And Soleum, surprisingly, obeys.