The road to House Verath was lined with crows.
They gathered on leafless branches like black-robed mourners, silent and still against the pale grey sky. Liora watched them from the carriage window, her gloved fingers pressed to the cold glass. The frost had not yet melted from the fields, and a low mist crawled across the earth like breath from something ancient and restless.
Three years away. Three years in the Monastery of the Hollow Vale — cloistered, hidden, forgotten. And now she returned at her father's command, summoned not with affection, but with duty. The wax seal on the letter had cracked along the edges, as if even it could no longer hold.
The carriage wheels clattered over stones. Liora sat straight, hands clasped in her lap, her posture perfect despite the jostling. Her dark hair was pinned in a modest knot, her cloak clean but plain. There would be no jewelry, no painted lips. She had left the court a noble's daughter. She returned a girl shaped by silence and sermons.
The gates of House Verath came into view — twin iron doors that once stood proud and red. Now, the paint was chipped, the metal streaked with rust. Two guards opened them without a word, avoiding her gaze.
She stepped out alone.
The estate was withering. The gardens were unkempt, the once-glorious fountain cracked and dry. No servants rushed to greet her, no lanterns were lit to guide her return. The cold air smelled of stone and decay.
Footsteps echoed on the steps above.
"Liora."
The voice was as familiar as it was unwelcome. Iria stood beneath the arch of the great house, clad in ivory silk, her golden hair braided with pearls. She smiled like a noblewoman greeting an unwelcome guest — warmth on the surface, frost underneath.
"You look well," Iria said, descending the steps. "The monastery agreed with you."
"Strange," Liora replied. "You don't look changed at all."
Their eyes met. Half-sisters. Daughters of the same man, born of different women. Iria, the daughter of the Duke's true wife. Liora, the child of a favorite mistress who died before she could teach her daughter the art of survival.
"You were summoned," Iria said, leading her inside. "He'll be pleased you obeyed."
Obedience. The word itched.
---
The audience chamber had not changed. High windows let in pale winter light. Stone pillars lined the walls, once hung with banners, now bare. At the far end, the Duke of Verath sat on the ancestral chair — no throne, but a seat carved with symbols of old victories: the Falcon Crest, the Sword of Ten, the Bound Crown.
He looked smaller now. Not in stature, but in spirit. His hair had thinned and silvered, his skin sagged at the jaw, and the fire in his eyes had dulled to embers.
"You've returned," he said, voice dry as parchment.
"You summoned me," Liora answered. She bowed low, out of formality, not love.
The Duke nodded once. "You and Iria will leave for the capital in three days. The King will choose a queen before the harvest moon. You are to present yourselves."
Liora blinked. "Present ourselves?"
"He has no bride. His Council demands one. And his harem must be filled."
Liora's chest tightened. "You wish to offer us to the King like—"
"—like what we are," the Duke interrupted. "Daughters of a ruined house with no coin to offer. This is our chance. The only one left."
Beside her, Iria stood serene, unaffected. She had known already.
"If the King chooses either of you," the Duke continued, "our family may be restored."
"What if he doesn't choose?" Liora asked, voice low.
"Then you will remain in the palace," the Duke said. "As a concubine. Or worse."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Liora wanted to scream. To demand answers. Why now? Why bring her back after three years of exile, only to dress her up and throw her into the lion's mouth?
But she knew the answer. Power. Reputation. This wasn't about her. It never had been.
---
That night, she lit a single candle in her childhood chamber.
The room had been stripped. Her books were gone. The carved bird her mother had made — vanished. Only the basin remained, silver and shallow, once used for blessings, now dusty with disuse.
Liora stared into the flame. Her breath slowed.
She whispered the old words — the ones her nursemaid had murmured when she was small, before her father forbade it. Names of the dead. Names of the bloodline. Names of those who watched from the other side.
"Mother," she whispered last.
The flame flickered.
Then, for a breath, it turned blue.
She sat motionless.
And in the quiet, a voice not her own whispered through her mind:
You will not be chosen. You will choose.
---
When morning came, she dressed not in silk, but in charcoal grey. Iria wore blue trimmed with silver. A servant combed her hair as the carriage prepared for the journey to the capital.
As they passed beneath the withered gates, the crows lifted from the trees in unison, a rush of wings against the sky.
Liora did not look back.
Let the house behind her rot.
Her fate lay ahead — in a palace of secrets, a crown of serpents, and a war of women.