They walked for a while without speaking.

  Eric adjusted the strap around the books once, then stopped fidgeting, as if he’d decided discomfort was preferable to drawing attention to himself. Soliana followed half a step behind him, her eyes moving automatically now—corners, doorways, the way people passed without slowing. Her body knew how to move through Inferna. That realization sat strangely in her chest.

  She hadn’t meant for it to happen like this.

  A few minutes ago, she had been hiding behind a pillar, holding her breath while her mother asked where she was. Now she was walking openly again, carrying documents meant for someone important, with no one stopping her. The transition felt unreal, like she had stepped from one rule into another without noticing the line between them.

  Eric broke the silence.

  “So,” he said, not looking at her. “You’re not actually a servant.”

  It wasn’t an accusation. It was almost idle.

  Soliana didn’t answer right away. She watched the stone beneath her feet pass by in steady rhythm.

  “No,” she said finally.

  Eric nodded once. “Okay.”

  They kept walking.

  The corridor shifted subtly. Fewer voices. Fewer footsteps. Soliana noticed it before she meant to, the way you noticed quiet only after sound left. She adjusted her grip on the books and tried to focus on the weight in her arms. It helped.

  Eric spoke again, quieter this time.

  “Then why are you working?”

  Soliana inhaled.

  It caught on something already loose inside her, tugging at thoughts she had been stepping around for days. Soliana had answers ready—practical ones, simple ones—but the moment she reached for them, they slipped through her fingers. They felt rehearsed. Borrowed. Things she had told herself because they sounded right, not because she had tested them.

  She realized, with a quiet discomfort, that she had been moving faster than her understanding. Doing first. Thinking later. And now that someone had asked her to stop and explain, all she could feel was the gap between what she was doing and why she had started at all.

  She had answered that question before. To herself. To the empty rooms she waited in. To the tasks she accepted without hesitation.

  But now, walking beside someone who didn’t belong to her world, the answer felt thinner.

  “I—” She hesitated, “I wanted to help.”

  Eric hummed. “Yeah. That tracks.”

  Soliana frowned. “What does?”

  He gestured at the stack of documents on his hands.

  “Carrying all this by yourself kind of says it.”

  She almost smiled. Almost.

  They walked a few more steps.

  “That wasn’t all of it,” she said.

  Eric glanced at her, surprised by the continuation, then looked forward again. He didn’t interrupt.

  Soliana’s thoughts loosened, slipping out more easily now that she’d started.

  “I wanted to be near my mother,” she said. “She’s always busy. Always moving. If I stayed where I was, I wouldn’t see her at all.”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Eric nodded slowly. “So you followed the motion.”

  “Yes.”

  She said it simply. It felt true.

  “When people are busy, they don’t leave,” she continued. “They don’t disappear. They’re always somewhere. I thought if I did the same thing… I wouldn’t be left behind.”

  Eric was quiet.

  Soliana swallowed.

  “But when she asked where I was,” she said, “I hid.”

  The words landed heavier than she expected.

  Eric didn’t react right away.

  After a moment, he said, “Yeah. I noticed.”

  Soliana’s grip tightened.

  “I didn’t plan that,” she said quickly, then stopped herself. She forced the next part out slower. “I didn’t think it would happen. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  Eric exhaled. “You usually do.”

  Soliana shook her head. “I thought I did.”

  They passed another turn. The walls looked cleaner here. Less worn. The castle felt different—not hostile, not welcoming. Just… narrowed.

  “I thought becoming useful would bring me closer to her,” Soliana said. “But I think… I think it did the opposite.”

  Eric glanced at her again, more carefully this time.

  “How?”

  She struggled for a moment, then let the struggle show.

  “Because now I’m doing things she doesn’t know about,” she said. “And when she looked for me, I wasn’t there. I was hiding.”

  Her chest tightened.

  “I wanted to be beside her,” she said quietly. “Instead, I’m… avoiding her.”

  Eric frowned. “That sounds backwards.”

  “I know,” Soliana agreed. “But here I am now.”

  They walked in silence again.

  Soliana’s thoughts kept moving, no longer waiting for Eric to prompt them.

  “I also didn’t expect to like it,” she admitted.

  Eric raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

  “This,” she said, gesturing vaguely with her chin. “The work. Carrying things. Being told what needs to be done and doing it. Knowing where to go.”

  She hesitated, then added, “Not being a burden.”

  Eric let out a quiet laugh. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  Soliana nodded. “Servants don’t have to wait. Servants don’t get told ‘Later’. I just— I just feel like I’m the reason that my mother is in pain.”

  Her throat tightened again.

  “And I don’t know why my mother looks the way she does now,” she continued. “Like she’s carrying something she won’t put down. I don’t know what Inferna is doing to her. I don’t know what she’s preparing for.”

  Eric was silent.

  Soliana stared at the books in her arms. “I don’t know what I’m preparing for either.”

  Eric slowed slightly as the corridor narrowed further.

  “What are you trying to accomplish?” he asked, gently now.

  Soliana stopped walking.

  Eric took one more step, then realized she wasn’t beside him anymore and turned back.

  She stood still, eyes lowered.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Eric said nothing.

  “I thought I did,” she added. “But every answer I had was just another reason. And now they don’t line up anymore.”

  Eric studied her for a long moment, then nodded once.

  Eric opens his mouth.

  Nothing comes out.

  He rubs the back of his neck, frustrated with himself.

  “Yeah,” he says, finally.

  He adjusts the books in his arms, glances down the corridor.

  “Why don’t we keep going and see what happens?”

  And he turns, not leaving her behind — just continuing forward like she’ll be there.

  Solians stood in place. Her expression unreadable.

  She took a step. Then another.

  Until she stood beside him, lighter on her feet.

  ***

  They resumed walking.

  The corridor ahead felt different now. Somewhere darker. As if the rest of the palace had agreed to stay somewhere else.

  Eric glanced around. “We’re definitely not near storage.”

  “No,” Soliana said.

  He looked at her. “You still won’t tell me who those are for.”

  She shook her head.

  Soliana hadn’t thought about who would be on the other side of the door.

  Important, for sure—but importance had taken on many shapes in Inferna. A steward. A commander. Someone older. Someone distant. Someone whose authority lived in paper and signatures and decisions made far away from her.

  She reached for the handle without bracing herself.

  They reached the door.

  It was taller than the others. Plainer. The kind of door that didn’t need decoration because everyone already knew what it guarded.

  Eric stopped short.

  “…This is where you’re going,” he said.

  Soliana nodded.

  He shifted his weight. “Then I should probably—”

  She interrupted, softer than she meant to.

  “Thank you.”

  Eric blinked. “Hmm? For what?”

  “For walking with me,” she said. “And also lying for me.”

  Eric scratched his cheek. “Yeah. Well. I’m simply doing my job. I am a knight in training after all.”

  Soliana huffed a small laugh despite herself.

  She reached for the handle.

  Only then did she notice how quiet it was. How the air pressed in gently, without urgency. How the corridor behind them felt distant, like something she’d already stepped away from.

  She hesitated.

  Eric watched her, unusually serious.

  “Whatever’s in there,” he said, “It seems to be a really big deal.”

  Soliana nodded. She already hears the heated discussion happening inside.

  She pushed the door open.

  The room beyond was busy, controlled, precise. Documents stacked neatly. Men seated who carried authority without armor. And at the center—

  A girl not much older than her, composed, focused, already burdened with things that should not have belonged to someone that young.

  The girl looked up.

  Her gaze met Soliana’s immediately.

  And she smiled.

  As if she was to be expected.

  As if Carmilla had been waiting for this moment longer than Soliana realized.