Irina’s POV
"Looks like...?"
My own voice ca out wrong. Too flat. Too careful.
The maid — the small one, the one who’d blurted it out — nodded eagerly, completely unaware of what she’d just detonated inside my chest.
"Yes, miss! The hair color’s different, but the eyes — they’re this pale sort of grey-blue, you know? And the bone structure, the jaw—" She tilted her head, studying my face like she was lining us up for comparison. "It’s uncanny, really. The girls were all joking about it. We said maybe he was a long-lost cousin or sothing."
A long-lost cousin.
I made myself smile. I don’t know how. My face just did it on its own — so automatic thing my body had learned to perform even when my brain had gone completely silent.
"How funny," I said.
"Isn’t it? He doesn’t talk much. Keeps to himself. But when you see him in the yard—"
"What’s his build?" I asked. Still smiling. "Tall? Short?"
She blinked. "dium, I’d say. Lean. Not as big as so of the others."
Lean. dium height. Pale eyes. Kept to himself.
"Does he have a scar?" My voice stayed steady sohow. "On the left side of his face. Just below the cheekbone."
All three of them stared at .
The bold one spoke first. "I — I’m not sure. I haven’t been close enough to—"
"It doesn’t matter," I said.
I stood up from the bench. My legs worked fine. Everything was working fine on the outside. My hands weren’t shaking. My breathing was even.
Inside, sothing was screaming.
"Thank you," I told them. "For the conversation."
They curtsied again. Said sothing — goodbyes, apologies for disturbing , sothing. I’d already stopped hearing them. I turned and walked back toward the residential wing, the guards falling into step behind without a word, and I counted my footsteps because it was sothing to hold onto.
One. Two. Three. Four.
*The family fled.*
Five. Six. Seven.
*Nicolas told himself. They ran before he got there.*
Eight. Nine. Ten.
But Alexei wasn’t really family, was he. Not the kind that ran together. He was a coward with good survival instincts and absolutely zero loyalty to anyone. He wouldn’t flee with my father. He wouldn’t go far. He’d look for sowhere to disappear into, sowhere no one would ask too many questions.
What better place to disappear than the winning side’s army?
---
I didn’t eat dinner.
Sofia brought the tray. Set it on the table. Lifted the covers with her usual cheerful efficiency. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall and said I wasn’t hungry.
She didn’t push. She’d learned by now.
She left the tray. She left the room. She closed the door softly behind her.
I sat there in the quiet and tried to be rational about it.
*It might not be him.* Pale grey-blue eyes weren’t rare. Lean builds weren’t rare. The maids were teenagers who’d found a face that loosely resembled mine and turned it into a story because stories were fun and their lives were otherwise uneventful.
It might be nothing.
I pressed my hand flat against my sternum. Felt my own heartbeat — too fast, too shallow.
It might be nothing.
But I’d spent a year learning to recognize Alexei’s footsteps in the dark. I knew the specific weight of his presence. I knew what it felt like when he was in the sa building as — that low-grade wrongness that settled into the base of my skull and stayed there. He’d stood outside my door twice. I’d lain there in the dark both tis, perfectly still, not breathing, waiting to see if the handle would turn.
It hadn’t. Both tis.
But I still rembered what waiting felt like.
I pressed harder against my sternum.
*He’s not here,* I told myself. *He can’t be here.*
My heartbeat didn’t slow down.
---
Nicolas ca just before ten.
Three knocks. Then the door opened. He’d stopped waiting for to answer — not aggressively, just in the way of soone who’d decided that making get up and walk across the room to let him in only made things worse. He was probably right about that.
He stopped when he saw .
I was still on the edge of the bed. The dinner tray sat untouched on the table. I’d only turned on one lamp and it threw everything into dim amber, which I’d told myself was because I had a headache and not because I didn’t want to see anything too clearly.
"Irina."
Not a question. Just my na, in that low, even tone he had.
"I’m fine," I said.
He crossed the room anyway. Pulled the chair from the vanity and sat down across from , elbows on his knees, green eyes level with mine. He glanced at the untouched tray. Then back at .
"What happened?"
"Nothing."
He waited.
That was the thing about Nicolas. He didn’t push, mostly. He didn’t demand answers. He just waited, with this absolute, unhurried patience, and sohow that was harder to outlast than being asked outright.
"The soldiers," I said, finally. "The ones from Iron Thorn."
Sothing shifted in his expression. Just slightly. "What about them?"
"Is there anyone—" I stopped. Tried again. "Are there any of them who seem off? Soone who doesn’t quite fit in, who keeps to himself, who doesn’t talk?"
He was quiet for a mont. Actually thinking about it — not just saying whatever would calm down fastest.
"Not that I’ve noticed," he said. "They’ve been consistent. Training well, following orders. No one’s raised a flag." He paused. "Why?"
I looked down at my hands. They were folded in my lap, very still.
"You told my family ran," I said. "You said the house was empty when you arrived."
"It was."
"All of them?"
"Every one."
I nodded slowly. "But when you say *my family* — you an my father. His wife. Katerina." I looked up. "Did you confirm Alexei was gone too?"
Nicolas’s jaw tightened. Just barely.
"He’s listed among the household mbers who fled," he said. His voice stayed even. "There’s no confird sighting of him here."
*Confird.* That was a very specific word to use.
"Is there an unconfird one?"
Silence.
"Nicolas."
"There’s nothing concrete," he said. "Nothing I could put in front of you as a fact."
My stomach dropped. "But?"
"Early on, one of my n thought he saw soone matching a description. It wasn’t followed up the way it should have been." His eyes didn’t move from mine. "I’ve since corrected that."
I sat with that.
*Soone matching a description.*
"Can you check the roster?" My voice ca out smaller than I wanted. "The Iron Thorn soldiers. I want to see if anyone on the list is called Alexei."
He’d already pulled out his phone. I hadn’t even noticed him reach for it. He scrolled for a mont, silent, his expression giving nothing away.
Then he turned the screen toward .
The list was long. Nas, ranks, origin territory, intake date. He’d highlighted the Iron Thorn contingent — forty-three nas, grouped separately from the rest.
I read through them. All the way down. Slowly, so I didn’t miss anything.
No Alexei.
I let out a breath. It ca out shaky — this long, unsteady exhale that seed to empty my entire body. My ribcage felt like it had been held tight for hours and had just now been allowed to loosen.
"No one by that na," he said, watching my face.
"No."
"Better?"
"A little." I handed the phone back. My hand was trembling now — just at the edges, just barely. "The maids said sothing this afternoon. About one of the soldiers looking like . And I just—" I stopped. "I know it’s probably nothing."
"Probably," he said.
Not *definitely.* Not *of course it’s nothing, stop worrying.* Just: probably.
I actually appreciated that.
"But—" Nicolas leaned forward slightly. His face was close to mine now, close enough that I could see the edge of sothing deliberate in his expression. "Even if it weren’t nothing. Even if there was soone here who shouldn’t be."
"It would matter to ," I said, before he could finish.
"I know." He didn’t argue. "But it wouldn’t change what happens to him."
There was no heat in his voice when he said it. That was the part that made believe him. He wasn’t making promises to soothe . He was just stating how things were, the way you’d state the weather.
"I’d keep him away from you," he said. "I’d keep anyone away from you who needed keeping away. That’s not a question."
I stared at him.
He held my gaze, steady, unblinking, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Sothing in my chest went quiet. Not gone — it was never that simple. But quieter.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay?"
"Yes. Okay." I exhaled again, slower this ti. "Thank you. For checking the list."
He made a sound — not quite a laugh. Sothing that would’ve been a laugh if he were a person who laughed easily. "You could’ve asked sooner, you know."
"I didn’t want to seem—"
"Scared?"
I didn’t answer.
"Irina." His voice dropped half a register. Not softer, exactly. Just lower. More direct. "Telling when sothing’s wrong is the point. That’s what I’m here for."
I looked down at the untouched tray again. The soup had gone cold and a thin skin had ford across the surface. The bread had stiffened. I hadn’t even noticed any of it happening.
"I know," I said quietly.
He sat back. The tension between us eased — not all of it, never all of it, but enough to breathe around.
He was quiet for a mont. Then:
"Tomorrow," he said. "Co with ."
I looked up. "Where?"
"I’m doing a full inspection of the troops. Down through the training yards, all the way through the east barracks." He tilted his head, watching . "You’d be at my side the whole ti."
I understood what he was actually offering.
Not a tour. Not fresh air. He was offering a chance to look. To put my own eyes on all forty-three of them. To check every face myself, in daylight, up close, and know — actually know — rather than lie awake turning a na on a list over and over in the dark.
Sothing loosened behind my ribs.
"Yes," I said.
I agreed.
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