The House of Ember Veil they call it. We learned that from the first village idiot we interrogated.
It sits like a black tooth against the cliff. No torches. Just narrow windows, high and mean.
Fuck my life.
Stone like this? I grew up in Seebulba. I've climbed worse with less clothing.
Bare fingers find cracks. Toes wedge into seams. I move slow, careful not to dislodge pebbles. The charcoal cloths drift in the courtyard below like ghosts.
I reach a window. No glass. Just wooden lattice.
Inside: a long dormitory. Straw pallets. Rows of charcoal-wrapped bodies.
It smells like damp linen and boiled grain.
I hiss softly.
"Pssst. Loma."
Nothing.
Again, softer.
"Loma."
A shape stirs halfway down the row.
She sits up like a startled cat.
Even wrapped head to toe, I know her.
She scuttles across the floor on bare feet, crouching low.
"Saya?" she whispers.
The sound is so small it almost doesn't exist.
"Who else climbs convent walls at midnight?" I grin.
She grabs the lattice.
"Saya, are you insane?"
"Frequently."
"You will reset my day count."
I blink.
"Your what?"
She glances back at the room, then leans closer.
Her face is half-shadow under the charcoal wrap. She looks thinner. Cheekbones sharper.
"The novice count," she breathes. "Three hundred days of silence. No speech outside chant. No whispering. No accidental sound."
"That's ridiculous."
"It is purification."
"It's throat strangling."
She presses her forehead briefly to the wood.
"If I speak, it resets."
"Well you just did."
Her eyes widen.
"Not that. Not counted. It's only counted if witnessed or if the Keeper hears."
I stare.
"You're gaming holiness?"
"I am trying," she snaps quietly, then winces at her own tone.
"How many days?" I ask.
She hesitates.
"Three."
I snort.
"Three?"
"I reached three twice."
"Impressive."
She scowls.
"It is harder than you think."
"I have done silence," I say.
She looks at me like that's the funniest lie she's heard in weeks.
"No you haven't."
Fair.
Wind snakes through the window.
"What is this place?" I ask.
"The House of the Veiled Ember," she says, straightening automatically. "It is a sanctuary for women who must cleanse pride from blood."
"Sanctuary," I repeat.
She lowers her voice further.
"They shaved part of my hair when I arrived."
My jaw tightens.
"Show me."
She pulls back the wrap just enough.
One side of her head is uneven, short.
The other side falls in pale waves.
I don't like the heat rising in my chest.
"They say when I complete three hundred days, I will be a Full Ember," she continues. "Then I may write letters. Then I may be acknowledged."
"By who?"
"My mother's cousins. The northern court. They say it protects me."
"From Higara?"
"Yes."
I lean my forehead against the stone.
"So instead of marrying you off, they buried you."
"It is not burial," she insists. "It is contemplation."
"On straw."
"It is… orderly."
"You're barefoot."
"It strengthens character."
"You're eating porridge."
"It is humble."
"You're making straw goats."
She stiffens.
"They sell well in the villages."
"Of course they do."
She looks at me, and the bravado slips.
"Do you know what the worst part is?"
"The cold?"
"No."
"The chanting?"
"No."
"The porridge?"
She almost smiles.
"It's not being allowed to say my own name."
That one lands.
"They do not call me Loma," she says. "Not until I finish. I am Novice Third Row."
I swallow.
"And if you don't finish?"
Her mouth flattens.
"Then I remain Novice."
Forever unacknowledged. Forever unlettered. Forever contained.
"You could just leave," I say.
She laughs — quiet, breathy, dangerous.
"And go where? Back to the baronies shouting that I am princess? You saw what happened last time."
I did.
Magistrates. Manacles. Cells.
"I thought they sent you north to marry some fur-covered idiot," I mutter.
Her eyes flash.
"They considered it."
"And?"
"And decided this was safer."
"For who?"
She doesn't answer.
Silence stretches.
Inside, someone turns on a pallet.
Loma grips the lattice harder.
"You should not be here," she whispers.
"Too late."
"If they hear me—"
"They won't."
"You always say that."
"And I'm usually right."
She leans closer.
"You will ruin everything."
"Everything?" I scoff. "You're at day three."
Her voice sharpens.
"I was at day four yesterday."
I blink.
"You reset?"
She looks embarrassed.
"I gasped during porridge. It was hot."
I stare at her.
"You're telling me the fate of Tanagra's rightful heir is currently stalled because of soup."
"It was scalding."
I start laughing before I can stop myself.
She clamps a hand over her mouth.
"Stop it," she hisses. "If they hear—"
"You're impossible," I say softly.
"And you are catastrophic."
Fair.
Her expression shifts.
"Are you angry?" she asks.
"Yes."
"At me?"
"At them."
She studies my face.
"You know captivity," she says quietly.
I look away.
"Yeah."
"I am not captive."
"Loma."
"I am choosing this."
"You are choosing between this and a knife."
She says nothing.
The wind fills the gap.
"Saya," she whispers, urgent now. "If you speak to me again tomorrow, it resets."
"I know."
"I need three hundred."
"You'll never make it."
Her chin lifts.
"I will."
"You couldn't stay quiet in a frozen tower."
"That was different."
"How?"
She doesn't answer.
Because we both know why.
"Do you want me to take you?" I ask.
Not joking.
Not teasing.
Real.
She freezes.
For a heartbeat, she is the girl in the snow again.
Then she shakes her head.
"Not yet."
That surprises me.
"I need them to believe I can finish," she says. "If I leave now, I am just… unstable."
"You are unstable."
She ignores that.
"If I complete the count, they must acknowledge me. They must allow letters. They must record my bloodline as active."
Ah.
There it is.
Not purity.
Leverage.
"You're not cleansing," I murmur.
"You think I am stupid?"
No.
She isn't.
She's slow. Sheltered. Soft.
But not stupid.
"I am becoming undeniable," she says.
In charcoal wrap. Barefoot. Counting days like a prisoner of her own voice.
I exhale slowly.
"Fine."
She blinks.
"Fine?"
"I won't reset you."
Her shoulders drop in relief.
"But if you hit day three hundred and they still shelf you?"
Her eyes sharpen.
"Then you may burn it down."
Now she sounds like herself.
A bell rings faintly in the corridor.
Her head snaps around.
"I must go."
"Loma."
She pauses.
"Princess," I correct softly.
Her lips curve.
"Do not call me that," she whispers.
"Why."
"Because it makes me want to answer."
She slips back into the row of charcoal shapes.
I stay at the window a moment longer.
Three hundred days.
She's at three.
The Dragon is waiting below.
This is going to be very inconvenient.
And I am very bad at leaving inconvenient things alone.
I'm already shifting my weight to climb down when—
"Saya."
Soft. Urgent.
I freeze, fingers hooked in the stone.
She's halfway back to her pallet, a charcoal shadow among shadows.
"What."
She scuttles back to the window again, quick and low like she's stealing something.
"Are you still with the Dragon?"
I snort quietly.
"Yes."
Her eyes search mine.
"Flying in the sky?"
"Yes."
"Over rivers and fields and roofs?"
"Yes."
"Still scamming people?"
I grin.
"Relentlessly."
"Still pretending to be a virgin sacrifice?"
"When necessary."
"Still stealing honey-glazed figs?"
"Obviously."
"And watermelons."
"Mhm."
"And running around the countryside with no escort, no guards, no rules?"
"Mhm."
She swallows.
"Free?"
I don't hesitate.
"Free."
The word sits between us.
Her grip tightens on the lattice.
A tear slips out from under the charcoal wrap and runs down her cheek, catching moonlight before disappearing into cloth.
She doesn't wipe it.
"Saya," she says.
I know that tone.
I hate that tone.
"Will you get me out?"
The wind presses against my back. The dormitory breathes behind her — slow, quiet, disciplined.
For a moment she isn't Novice Third Row.
She isn't Ember.
She isn't a political asset.
She's just a girl wrapped like a corpse asking if the door is real.
"You said not yet," I remind her.
Her mouth trembles.
"I know."
"That you needed three hundred."
"I know."
"That you were becoming undeniable."
"I know."
Another tear.
"I just wanted to hear if the door still exists."
Ah.
Not an escape plan.
A promise.
I lean closer to the window.
"It exists," I say.
Her shoulders shake once, almost imperceptible.
"You are very bad for my day count," she whispers.
"I'm catastrophic, remember."
She laughs — too loud.
A shift in the dormitory.
We both freeze.
Footsteps somewhere in the corridor.
She presses her forehead to the lattice.
"If I fail," she breathes, barely air, "if I never reach three hundred…"
"You will," I say.
"But if I don't."
I hold her gaze.
"Then I will come back."
She searches my face like she's memorizing it.
"And you will take me?"
"Yes."
"How."
"I'll think of something loud and dramatic."
That almost makes her smile.
The footsteps fade.
She pulls back slowly.
"Go," she whispers. "Before I ruin everything again."
"You already ruined it."
"How?"
"You asked."
That hits her harder than I expect.
She straightens, re-wrapping herself fully, tucking emotion away like contraband.
"Day one," she murmurs to herself. "Again."
I drop from the wall without another word.
The Dragon waits below, coiled like disapproval.
"Well?" he asks.
"She's in storage."
"I deduced as much."
"She wants out."
He watches me carefully.
"And?"
"Not yet."
A long pause.
"And later?"
I look up at the black walls, at the narrow window that now shows nothing but stone.
"Later," I say, "we burn the shelf."