Vartis – First Night

  Sleep never came.

  The bed was too large. The pillows too soft. The drapes too heavy. The silence, far too absolute.

  Fran lay stiff beneath the covers, the sound of her breath loud in her ears. Rudy had curled himself into the crook of her arm. Nymph prowled restlessly across the furniture, knocking over a goblet sometime around midnight. She barely noticed.

  Her mind spun.

  Names. Faces. Places she hadn’t seen. Responsibilities she didn’t understand.

  And beneath all of it, the echo of that courtyard — the glares, the laughter, the whispers that clung to her like wet leaves.

  Wandering

  Sometime after the third hour of the night, she rose.

  Wrapped herself in her coat. Slipped out of her chambers barefoot, lantern in hand.

  The palace was darker than she expected. Older. It creaked with memory — every corridor filled with the hush of forgotten voices. She passed faded tapestries, chipped columns, a long hall of broken busts no one had repaired.

  And then, quite by accident, she found it.

  The library.

  Not the grand one the scholars used. This was older. Private. Tucked behind a crooked arch on the third floor. No torches, only dusty glass and cold stone. But the door was open.

  And inside: shelves. Dozens. Hundreds. Scrolls and volumes arranged in quiet order, inked in three languages.

  Fran stepped in.

  Breathed.

  And began to read.

  Not for Comfort

  She did not choose herbalism.

  Nor the histories of the empire, nor maps, nor philosophy.

  She chose tax law.

  Land disputes. Legal codes. Edicts of succession.

  A tome titled On the Manners of Courtly Grace nearly made her burn the whole shelf. But she read it anyway. Line by painful line.

  She sat cross-legged in an alcove by a high window, using a discarded military cloak as a cushion. The candle burned low. Her eyes blurred. But she kept turning pages.

  Not for comfort.

  For survival.

  Just Before Dawn

  She didn’t hear the guard approach.

  But she felt the quiet shift of air before he spoke.

  “You’ll ruin your back sitting like that, Your Grace.”

  Fran looked up.

  It was the same guard from the hall. The one who had nodded — the only one.

  He stood just inside the threshold, helmet tucked under one arm, face unreadable.

  She blinked.

  “I needed to understand a few things,” she murmured, her voice hoarse. “Before I started wearing the wrong fork or signing away half the province.”

  A pause. Then, dryly: “Careful. If you start making sense, they might start fearing you.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then nodded toward the books.

  “Read any of these?”

  “The ones with stabbing in them.”

  Fran snorted. “Good choice.”

  The Morning

  By the time the steward arrived, pale and disapproving, she had nearly nodded off into a page on agricultural tariffs.

  “Your Grace,” he said, as if it physically pained him. “You must look the part. The council will not respect burlap.”

  She followed. Reluctantly.

  And thus began the next nightmare.

  Dressing the Duchess

  They descended upon her like hawks to a carcass.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Seamstresses.

  A milliner.

  Two hairdressers.

  A woman who seemed to exist solely to criticize posture.

  The dressing began.

  First, the gown — which was beautiful, certainly, if one enjoyed being suffocated with embroidery and drowning in brocade. Then the corset. Then the undercorset. Then the structure beneath the corset that apparently made the whole architectural nightmare “carry better on the hips.”

  She was laced. She was pinned. She was turned and turned again. Arms lifted, adjusted, pulled back down.

  “Your shoulders slouch.”

  “Stop breathing with your chest.”

  “Chin up, Your Grace.”

  “Not that high.”

  “She’s sweating. Do we have powder?”

  “No, not the rose tone—gods above, not rose with that complexion.”

  By the time they reached the fourth hairstyle — a baroque crown of braids, twists, and pins that appeared to violate the laws of physics — Fran had stopped responding.

  Her feet were sore. Her skin itched.

  A stray pin jabbed the back of her neck.

  “Don’t flinch,” someone hissed. “It’ll bleed.”

  And that—

  That was it.

  She rose.

  Very slowly.

  Her expression blank.

  With careful fingers, she began plucking pins out of her hair. One by one. Deliberate. Methodical.

  The room fell into stunned silence.

  A single curl fell across her cheek.

  “Out,” she said.

  No one moved.

  “All of you. Out. Now.”

  “But Your Grace—”

  “If one more hand touches me today, I swear to every saint in the Temple I will bite it.”

  A beat of horrified silence.

  Then shoes scuffled.

  The women fled in a flurry of silks and whispers and scandalized glances.

  The door shut behind them.

  Fran stood in the middle of the room, barefoot, hair half undone, corset strings trailing behind her like a battlefield banner.

  She let out a long breath.

  Pressed a hand to her ribs.

  Then started to laugh.

  Just once.

  Quiet and tired and disbelieving.

  “Duchess of Foher,” she muttered. “What a bloody mess.”

  The Ducal Council

  They didn’t bow.

  Not properly.

  Oh, the motions were there — shallow dips, tilted heads — but no one said “Your Grace” like they meant it.

  Not even like they respected her.

  There were nine of them, seated in the old hall beneath the faded fresco of Foher’s founding. All silk and velvet and waxy rings, heavy crests pinned to breast or collar. All eyes too practiced. Too sharp.

  They didn’t look at her like a Duchess.

  They looked at her like a problem.

  “This is the girl?” one muttered — too low for others, but not for Fran.

  “Thirty-five isn’t a girl,” another replied, smirking. “Unless you’re desperate.”

  A few chuckled. One adjusted his gloves as if her presence were dust on his sleeve. Two shared a look.

  Only one — an older woman with silver braids and a tight mouth — watched her in silence, as though weighing something invisible.

  Fran said nothing.

  She stood in the center of the room with her hands behind her back. Her coat was plain but pressed. Her boots polished. Her hair pinned simply. She had slept two hours on a library bench and spent the morning being stabbed by pins and perfume bottles.

  Her feet hurt. Her head ached. Her pride was running thin.

  Still, she stood.

  So did they.

  Waiting. Watching.

  For a stammer. For nerves. For a misstep. For the provincial fool to shrink beneath the fresco.

  She didn’t.

  But it took effort.

  When she lifted her chin and met each of their eyes, one by one — there was no speech. No declaration. Only silence.

  Not cold. Not powerful.

  Just the silence of a woman who hadn’t yet decided whether or not to be afraid.

  The Parade

  They came, one by one.

  The steward, ever dry and dutiful, announced each name like a tax he resented paying.

  “Lord Therin Avordane of Eastmarch.”

  “Lady Vessena Marelin, Dowager of Coldmere.”

  “Sir Elden Rhyve, Lord Protector of the Twin Veins.”

  “Lord Mern Trave, Master of Coin.”

  “Baroness Isera Thalor of Lower Foher.”

  “Marshal Brenic Aldemar of the Inner Wall.”

  “Lord Kasher Lorrin. No title, but... useful connections.”

  Each bowed.

  Some just enough to count. Others not at all.

  Lady Marelin dipped slightly too low, out of long habit rather than respect.

  Baroness Thalor smiled a little too sweetly, casually mentioning how exhausting it must be to rule without a companion.

  Lord Trave asked, with mock concern, whether Candlekeep offered instruction in riot control.

  “You’ve not managed tenants before, have you, Your Grace?” he said with a grin. “Paper and ink don’t scatter mobs.”

  Fran endured it all.

  Not without blinking. Not without tightening her jaw. But she endured.

  They didn’t see her as a ruler. Not yet.

  Not even as a threat.

  Just a placeholder. A mistake. A scrap of paper with the wrong name written on it.

  The Suggestion

  It was Lord Avordane who said it.

  Smooth as silk. Soft as poison.

  “Of course, a Duchess newly come to her title cannot be expected to bear it alone for long,” he said, sipping watered wine. “The court will no doubt be curious to learn whether you have considered... suitable companionship.”

  Fran froze.

  “Companionship.”

  He said it like a courtesy. Like an expectation. Like she was incomplete until a man signed his name beside hers.

  “A match,” he continued. “Marriage. The Duchy needs heirs, after all. A consort could offer support. Perspective.”

  Her stomach turned.

  Not because of the proposal — but because she knew that to them, it wasn’t a proposal at all. It was a strategy. A power play dressed in politeness.

  She didn’t speak for a long breath.

  Then: “I’ve been here less than a day,” she said. “And you’re already measuring me for a cradle.”

  It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t loud.

  But it cut.

  Avordane’s smile faltered, just slightly.

  “That’s not what I meant—”

  “No,” she said. “It’s exactly what you meant.”

  The words surprised her.

  Not just that she said them, but that she didn’t flinch after.

  The steward cleared his throat, wisely interrupting.

  “Your Grace, we must proceed to the ducal notary. The appointment is due.”

  She didn’t look back as she left.

  The Will

  The notary’s offices were across the palace courtyard, nestled beside the armory in a wing that smelled of ink, dust, and bitterroot polish. The hall had once been part of the old imperial mint, and bore its age proudly — archways blackened with soot, bronze lamps older than some dynasties.

  Fran was ushered into a room with two chairs and a desk stacked with scrolls and ledgers.

  The notary, Master Selwyn, was a thin man with round spectacles and fingers stained permanently with ink. He bowed — deeper than anyone had all day — and gestured for her to sit.

  What followed was a recitation that might have crushed a lesser spine.

  “The entirety of the holdings of House Elarion,” he began, “lands measured from the outer edges of the Thirel River valley to the disputed ridge of Mount Dalmarin, including but not limited to: orchards, forests, three minor fortresses, all nine granaries, and—”

  She stopped listening. Not out of disinterest, but necessity.

  It went on for an hour.

  Property. Titles. Accounts in distant cities. Ancestral jewels. Two vaults she would need keys for. The inner tower residence. The horse stables. The long-abandoned summer retreat up in the northern hills. A merchant fleet — apparently now hers.

  And then, near the end, Selwyn paused.

  “Lastly,” he said, more carefully now, “His Grace left this, to be delivered directly. It is not part of the legal proceedings. Only... a letter. For your eyes only.”

  He reached beneath the desk and retrieved it: a simple envelope, sealed in green wax.

  There was no crest. Only her name, written in a hand that shook near the end.

  Frances.

  She took it.

  And for the first time all day, her fingers trembled.