Oath of Steel

38 |Blazing Fires|

The dawn that followed was one of the coldest of the season. Every servant rushed in their private dwellings to escape the growing chills that roamed free inside the corridors.

Pharah sat solitary on a velvet chair, quill in hand as her personal attendant stood still beside the double oak doors. Rosalynde hadn't said a word after Grey left last night, a messenger had come from him, he'd left in quite a hurry.

The princess had started her work before dawn, and Rosalynde couldn't had been more grateful.

"Do you have any news on my bastard sibling?"

Rosalynde took her place beside her – her nails scraping the barrel of her gun.

"I have a lot of matters at hand. Your concerns, albeit on top of my list of personal preferences, are one of many." Between that, Verity, the reappearance of Vivianne and the revelations behind her true father, she didn't know what to think nor where to turn to.

"I don't want them dead. Even if it must be hard to believe it." Rosalynde knew she was saying the truth. She remembered when they'd first met how close she'd been with her twin – how Lord Regulus encouraged them to play with her.

But then Jeremias Bellcarver had been assigned as Pheron's instructor, and whatever bond they had formed had been severed with vile and serpentine words. Pharah had spent countless nights crying herself to sleep over those lost ties, with Rosalynde silently watching over her.

"I know."

"No, you don't. But I appreciate the sentiment."

"Do you?"

"Do I appreciate you trying to sound more human than usual? Oh, absolutely."

The hours passed slow, the only sound being the quill ruining the pristine paper announcing the imminent speech engagement between her person and the Egor's son.

Only after the first dinner was served did they start conversing again.

"I have a dinner with her majesty tonight. You'll be able to leave the palace grounds for a at least four hours, but you must be back before midnight. You know how strict my mother when time is involved."

"I do appreciate your trust."

Pharah stopped doing whatever she was doing to properly look at her. Narrowing her gaze before she threw a silver threated embroidered cushion at her. Rosalynde took the hit fair and square.

"Trust? Is that the only thing you think moves me this much to care about you?"

"Don't pressure her this much. She'll burst into flames before she'll even start formulating such sweet and endearing words." Katherine curtseyed before throwing herself against the soft coach.

"You came back from the rehearsal?" Katherine still had her tipless gloves and extra harp strings attached to her belt.

"Don't get me wrong. Jameson is an amazing director, but he doesn't realise that if you summon people before dawn, without giving them a chance to eat, drink or a simple break it quite obvious that someone will drop from exhaustion before he starts a new act." She suffocated a yawn, stretching her legs on the coach.

"Take those filthy things off the coach before I severe them and hang them in Reslow Plaza," muttered Rosalynde, gagging at the sight.

"For someone that deals with death as much as you do it baffles to see you hate on filthy things. Especially after you have taken more than one under your wing."

"That's because you don't see things in the way that I do. Where I see a chance of possible gain you only see failure."

"Tell that next time you decide to take in a stray that nearly had you killed do tell me in advance. Cleia Spinster was a problem since the day she found herself in front of the imperial carriage. And yet you continue to take her side. That, I will never understand."