From childhood, Arinel had despised being cooped up for days inside a wagon during her family's annual pilgrimage to Icemeet. Yet, she had never felt more relieved slumping down atop the cushioned seats in her carriage. All it would have taken Lady Crosset for a private conversation would have been going to her guest quarters. But as she was currently not Lady Crosset, this would have to suffice.

Jerald shuttered the windows, muffling the huffs and neighs of grazing horses in the nearby stables, then settled down across from Arinel and Gretella.

Arinel tugged off her mask. The cold, stale air was a welcome sensation on her cheeks. She felt a plump hand upon hers, and turned to find Gretella's unmasked face stricken with confusion and concern.

"My Lady, what's the matter? You're dreadfully pale." She demanded, her voice hushed.

Arinel flailed against the numbing fog in her head for the slightest clue on how to begin. She had never known her mother, yet here was the woman who had birthed her, raised her...outlived her.

How should she tell her? Should she unearth at all the grief and loss that had long been put to rest, and pour the acid of ugly truth onto it? However cruel and untimely Mother's death had been, Grandmother had made peace with Fyre for claiming her daughter. Wouldn't it simply cause her unnecessary suffering to learn that Erina's death was not destined, but planned?

Mother was up in the Heights. Did she ever learn from Freda how she had died? Would she yearn for justice? Had she willed that floorboard to shift and reveal the stolen treatise? Whose sake should Arinel prioritize? Mother? Grandmother? Herself?

Stumped, Arinel turned to Jerald. He gave her a heavy nod, his decision made. Perhaps he believed Grandmother deserved the truth. Or he had resigned himself to the fact that the secret was bound to be out anyway. Whether or not they chose to pursue justice, they couldn't continue Tyberne and Erina's work without revealing how they had found it in the first place.

At long last, Arinel nodded back to Jerald, a consent and a plea. After a deep breath, Jerald extracted the treatise from the inside of his cloak and handed it to Gretella, then quietly recounted what they had learned.

Like Jerald, Gretella recognized her daughter's handwriting on the papers instantly. As she listened to Jerald, her expression morphed from bewildered nostalgia to petrified horror. Her firm grip slackened and trembled as her arms fell onto her lap.

Jerald wrapped up his story and dipped his head. Yet, Gretella's gaze hadn't wavered; her frozen eyes stared through empty air to an altered past. When she finally stirred after a deafening pause, it was as if waking from a decade-long slumber.

"So, that apprentice girl killed her." She croaked, her trembling voice strained taut against the roiling tide of emotion as her hands gripping the once long-lost treatise. A mirthless smile twisted her pale lips.

"Out of spite. For a few pieces of parchment. And Erina had done nothing to deserve it?"

An ominous premonition gripped Arinel, paralyzing her. She glanced at Jerald, and saw the same fear splayed across his features. Whether or not to respond, and how to? A moment of hesitation was all it took, and it was already too late.

Gretella's howl of grief rose slowly, as if dragged out of her throat by a mighty hand, shrill and chilling as the tortured keen of a dying wolf. Like a branch broken on its back, she collapsed onto her lap, crumpling the yellowed parchment against her bosom, rocking from the sheer force of her bawling sobs. Rivers and rapids of thick tears flooded her wrinkled, plump face. And Arinel's own gasping, wringing heart.

"You want to see Dineira punished, Grandmother?" The breath she could muster was barely enough to fill a hoarse whisper, and she leaned closer to the mourning old woman, "You want me to bring the case before Lady Jaise?"

Gretella responded with wide, slow shakes of her head, pressing the papers flush against her chest, as if willing the long evaporated vestiges of her daughter's living warmth to seep into her heart.

"That hateful wench could burn a hundred times if it would bring me some joy of revenge. But it wouldn't bring my poor Erina back." She spat, her age-worn voice cracking under the strain, as she stroked the dry, rough parchment as if it were Erina's shining hair. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she closed her eyes against the bitter sight of the present.

"All I ever want is for her to finish what she had set off to do. See her work bettering Latakia. See her name down in history. Get the life she deserves. That's the best I could do for her. And it's still not nearly enough. Nothing would ever be enough!"

With that last screech, Gretella crumpled back down to the heap she had just gathered herself up from. A page of the treatise escaped her embrace. Jerald caught it before it had fluttered to the floor.

"This branch of study would remain banned, so long as the Royal Council believes Tyberne killed himself and his maid in a failed experiment." He spoke so quietly as if it were only to himself, his gaze fixed upon the paper's contents yet not taking in a word. He looked up and stared at Arinel, a tortured look in his eyes,

"We must bring the truth to light. That would mean exposing Dineira. I've no doubt it would end her career for good. Perhaps even her life. And also—"

"—Her research on Greeneyes." Arinel interjected, feeling the sudden, sickening realization like a ball of pure lead plummeting into her bowels. Her gaze was tugged towards the unseen castle beyond the confines of the carriage, and for a flash, her good friend's face dominated the forefront of her mind.

"Meya." She breathed.

Yes, this was no longer about her alone. Even though it galled Arinel to compromise with her mother's killer, it now seemed just as selfish for her to put justice for her mother above the wellbeing of a whole race of half-dragon people. But surely, there must be another way? Or a justification? Anything?

"Why? Is she the only soul in these three lands who could study Greeneyes?" Gretella's snap tore through her haze of indecision like the clap of cannon-fire, and Arinel tensed with guilt. It seemed as if they were weighing the value of Erina's forever lost potential against a half-baked treatise written by her murderer. Yet, she had no choice but to be fair and rational and magnanimous. Like the Lady Crosset she was supposed to be,

"I understand, Grandmother. But it would slow our progress at best or set us back decades at worst. Dineira holds the knowledge both in her hands and her head. She'd only be useful to us willing and alive."

As her anguished outburst echoed in the cramped space, Arinel bowed and bent, her fingers pressing down on the throbbing veins in her forehead, as her palms draped down over her eyes. Once the rebound and the pain had subsided, she sighed and shook her head slowly.

"I can't be the one to decide. Least not the only one."

Silence descended as her two subjects digested her verdict. Arinel felt Gretella shifting to face her fully, and she strived to remain unresponsive even as fear engulfed her.

Her grandmother addressed her by name, her voice cold, and Arinel huddled tighter. Grandmother had only done this twice, and Arinel remembered the circumstances that had led to both vividly. The first was last year, when she had spotted Zier leaving her room, and entered in a rush to find Arinel sprawled in bed, fast asleep, naked save for the marks of illicit passion. The second happened mere weeks ago, when Grandmother had confronted Arinel, in private, about her initial decision to die in the forest.

Both times, it was as if Grandmother had echoed the screams of Erina's blood inside her, the half that had been an ambitious peasant girl. Reminding her that while she was Crosset, she was also . That she had the right to treasure herself and to speak. That she loved the brother of the boy she was supposed to wed. That she wanted to live even if it would taint whatever remained of her family's honor.

Yet, this time, it was more than honor and duty that had held Arinel back. And she struggled to throttle silent the echoes of her darkest doubts, as Gretella's piercing words slammed into her.

"This is your mother. The mother you have never known and never will know. And it's all—because—of that—!" Gretella snarled, her words punctuated by jabs of her trembling finger towards Dineira's lab, "And you're putting the needs of others above your own? Again?"

Arinel exploded, the sheer force of her rare outburst flinging Gretella back against her cushions. She whirled to confront her grandmother, her face blotchy with both blood and tears, twisted further by her sneering smile,

"And she'd never known me, either!"

Gretella's cheeks lost whatever little color they had left, as if it had petered out in her shallow, fevered breaths. Jerald stared, wide-eyed and petrified, like a child caught in the path of a hurtling wagon, knowing what was to come and that there was no evading it. And the sight of their horror cemented Arinel's worst fears.

To protect her, both of them had kept the entire existence of Dineira from her. Freda knew how much more about Mother they had been hiding from her.

"She might not have given a damn about me—might have hated me, even." She spat, feeling the venom in her own festering, long hidden words sizzle on her lips. Yet, she could not hold them back any longer. They had been eating her alive from the inside, hollowing her out until she was little more than a husk, a name, a title. Glaring unseeing at the invisible spectre of her mother haunting her, she shook her head with a bitter grin,

"And I don't blame her. Father had her delivered straight to his bedchambers, like meat on a platter, and raped her—a maiden of eighteen! And I was the shackles that kept her chained to him. I, the could-be heir of Crosset! For all we know, she might have been saved that night, but they chose me over her, because I have Crosset blood!"

Her cry of grief and guilt echoed back to her in the silence. Arinel crumbled to her knees on the cold floorboards. Her cheeks were on fire, but her arms were cold. Yet, her disgust for her father's blood was so overwhelming, she felt it safer to dig her fingernails into the wood than rub feeling back into her limbs, lest she tear out her very flesh in anguish.

"Whether she'd want Dineira to be able to work on, and help Greeneyes as soon as possible. Or whether justice for herself and her findings would come first. I don't know, because I've never known her."

She whispered with what little was left of her willpower, dipping her head in shame and sorrow,

"I couldn't decide on her behalf. And I don't think she would ever want me to."

Gretella and Jerald knelt down beside her. The shivering warmth of their hands hovering unsurely over her head and shoulders. Somehow, Arinel was relieved that they had refrained from lulling her back with lies of her perfect, loving, nurturing, forgiving mother.

More than ever, she longed for Zier. She yearned for someone who would treat her as an equal. For a voice of bitter truth. Of honesty. Someone who would not deny, but would share and validate her suffering.

It was this need that pushed her back to her unsteady feet, and she stumbled out into the late afternoon sunshine, hardly caring whether they would make a move to pursue her or stop her. The moment her first foot touched the grass, she took off, sprinting blindly towards the castle.

The soles of her hay slippers slammed against flagstones, then something collided bodily with her, throwing her back down to the sun-dried lawn. Swaying on her feet, Arinel raised her face to find a mask of black glass, emblazoned with the white peacock of Graye.

"Arinel!" The panting voice bursting from behind the metal grille was of one exasperated Agnesia Graye. She snatched Arinel's wrists in her scarred hands, rambling in annoyance, "Finally! I've been looking everywhere! Aren't you supposed to be at the alchemist's?"

Arinel hastily scoured her numb brain for a sound excuse, forcing up what she hoped was a dainty smile of affection.

"The sulfur fumes gave Grandmother a headache, so I took her for some fresh air by the stables."

Agnes cocked her head. Arinel could almost see her sharp intuition stirring as it caught the scent of deception; Gretella was not scheduled to be visiting the Sameris along with them. Yet, she finally settled on a grudging nod, and Arinel soon understood why when she continued tautly,

"Coris's summoned us to his quarters. He's probably made some shocking discoveries in the Library."

More shocking discoveries?

Thank Freda.

As much as she longed to throw herself into Zier's embrace as soon as he came in sight, Arinel was grateful to have the urgent troubles of other people to lose herself in rather than those of her own. A state of comforting distractedness she almost perpetually indulged in.

Shunting her issues aside, into the dust-choked cupboard of forgotten demons where they belong, she straightened up with a sniff and a stiff nod, then led the way back to the black fortress.

"Very well. Let's not prolong Lord Hadrian's fretting, then."

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