The silence of the estate had a texture.
Not empty. Not peaceful.
It was the kind of silence that listened back.
Maryna wandered the hallways with careful steps, wrapped in a velvet robe someone had left on her chair that morning. No note. No name. Just the softest black fabric she'd ever touched, like it had been made from midnight itself.
She hadn't been summoned today. Not for lessons. Not for questions. Not for him.
That absence felt dangerous.
So she wandered.
The air in the eastern wing was colder than the rest of the house. The floors were older here, the portraits older still. She walked beneath oil-painted eyes that tracked her every step—noble, cruel faces in antique frames. Men with rings and swords. Women with blood at the corners of their mouths and silk falling off their shoulders.
No one stopped her.
That, too, felt dangerous.
She was beginning to learn that safety here was never silence. Safety was surveillance. Boundaries. Limits you could see.
When the limits disappeared, it meant you were already being tested.
She turned a corner and found herself at the top of a staircase she didn't recognize—spiral, steep, tucked into the stone like a secret. No guards. No torchlight.
Just… descent.
She didn't hesitate.
Not because she was brave.
Because she was tired of being afraid.
The stone steps curved down into darkness, her robe whispering around her ankles as she crept deeper. The air grew damp. The walls narrowed.
Then she heard it.
A soft cry.
Barely audible.
Then another.
More like a whimper this time.
Maryna stopped. Held her breath.
She crept toward the sound, one hand pressed to the cool stone. There was a door ahead—thick wood with an iron latch, slightly ajar. A flicker of candlelight bled through the crack.
She pushed it open.
And what she saw stole the breath from her lungs.
A girl.
Human.
Young—no more than twenty, maybe less. Curled on the floor, wearing nothing but a gauzy shift torn at the shoulder. Her collar was metal. No crest.
Just chains.
Fresh blood streaked one thigh. Her lip was split. Her eyes were open but unfocused, gazing at something far beyond the room.
She looked like she'd been crying for hours.
Or days.
Maryna stepped back instinctively, but her foot hit the doorframe, and the girl blinked.
For one terrifying second, she locked eyes with Maryna.
And smiled.
A cracked, trembling smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"You're the new one," the girl whispered. Her voice was raw.
Maryna didn't answer.
The girl tilted her head.
"They'll make you pretty first. They always do." Her voice dropped to something sing-song. "Pretty like glass. Pretty like wine. They won't break you until he says."
"Who—" Maryna started, but the girl shook her head.
"Too late. They're coming."
The door slammed behind her.
Maryna whirled—but it wasn't locked.
When she opened it, the hallway was empty.
But the moment her foot touched the stair, a voice cut through the air like a blade:
"You were not given permission to roam."
Maryna froze.
Vasilios stood at the top of the staircase, his coat unfastened, his crimson eyes unreadable.
The hallway behind him was dark.
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't move.
But she felt it—the weight of his disapproval. The cold pressure in her chest.
"I heard—" she tried.
"What you heard is not your concern." His voice was low. Final.
"You said I needed to learn the rules."
"I said you needed to listen." He stepped aside, motioning with one hand. "Upstairs. Now."
Maryna hesitated only a second too long.
His eyes narrowed.
She walked past him without another word.
But her hand trembled at her side.
Later, in her room, she found something new on her desk.
A card.
Plain. Black.
On one side, two lines of elegant silver script:
You are not safe because you are protected.
You are safe because you are useful.
There was no signature.
But she knew exactly who it was from.
And what it meant.