I remember the day I was renamed.
I was eleven. Fresh from the eastern ports ... barefoot, skin sunburnt and stitched in places where the whip had missed.
My real name was still on my tongue, but no one spoke the language it came from. Not here.
The woman who bought me had ink-stained fingers and eyes like polished coal. She didn't speak to me directly. She spoke to her daughter.
"This is your new dog."
The girl looked maybe twelve. Pale, precise. She didn't smile.
"She doesn't speak our tongue yet," the woman said.
The girl ... Mira ... knelt before me and tapped my chin. "Then she won't need it."
I bit her.
Reflex. Weak. Childish.
She didn't flinch. Just stood. Her mother sighed.
"Break her gently," she said.
That night, they locked me in a candleless room with parchment on the walls. Nothing to eat. Just a bowl of water, just out of reach. I cried. The second night, I didn't. The third, Mira visited.
She brought no food. Just a brush.
"You're dirty," she said. "Dogs should be clean."
I let her brush my hair. Not because I trusted her. Because I knew the water bowl would come closer afterward.
It did.
------
Training didn't start with whips. It started with silence. If I spoke, I wasn't fed. If I looked her in the eye, the light was taken away. If I followed her without asking, I was given a blanket.
A reward.
It's strange how quickly a child can be rewired. By the time I turned thirteen, I stood behind her without needing to be told. My hands folded. My face blank.
Once, Mira gave me a toy sword. Blunt. Painted silver. I didn't know how to hold it. She laughed ... not cruelly. Just curious.
"You're left-handed," she said.
I didn't know what that meant. But I learned.
I watched her grow into her mother's shadow ... quieter, sharper, less emotional. The woman who raised her was called "The Lady of Letters." Men bowed to her. And some looked at Mira too long before they bowed. Mira noticed.
Once, her mother left the room. Mira turned to me.
"If a man touches me without permission," she said, "cut the hand."
I didn't ask which man.
I just said: "Yes, my lady."
------
When I turned sixteen, Mira's mother fell ill. Rumors whispered of poisons. Others said it was grief. Her brother had died. No one mentioned who the father was.
But when the royal envoy came, I saw Mira go very still.
A man stepped from the carriage. Crownless, yet people lowered their heads.
Jason Bendragon. He wasn't king yet.
But the way he looked at Mira ... more curious than affectionate ... made something behind my ribs twist.
She bowed. He didn't. He looked down at her like an artist inspecting unfinished stone.
Later that night, Mira asked me: "Would you die for me?"
I answered before thinking. "Of course."
She didn't smile. "Then I'll never have to."
She leaned her head against my arm.
"You are my blade"