Today, I woke with a start. Another nightmare full of sharp teeth, hissing smoke and searing fires.

They may be familiar now, but they are unwelcome. Dreams, I have been told by a friend, are often meant to serve as a battleground, a way to test someone's mettle. A testament to one’s character. Well, if that is true, then I hope he considers me a coward. If dreams truly are a test, I have thoroughly failed long ago, as he should know.

Going into detail would not be beneficial to me, so I will refrain, save one detail — the smell of sulfur will be forever burned into my nostrils and ash will linger in its phantom touch under my fingernails. I should be so lucky as to dream up a creature with boulders for body armor, scales thick and sharp. The smell of rot and smoke was all I could taste when I woke this morning.

A hollow, soundless scream clawed its way up my throat and into waking sometime after I caught fire. And, so, here I am.

I write this by candlelight and faint rays of sun, streaking through the windows of my room. It is much too early for most to be awake – and by most, I’m afraid I mean nobles, who can sleep away to their heart’s content. Even so, it is shockingly early; I have work to do.

Work being contractual obligations I’m not too enthused to fulfill. But, unless I want to never see my name on a diploma, I have to. That’s the catch of living, learning, breathing in the Broadhearth institute. It’s no fault of mine my contract happens to be the way it is.

But, instead of anything even remotely interesting, my benefactor – contractual overlord, really – has tasked me with a job better suited for a maid than someone learning to become a scientist. I digress. There is no real reason for me to complain – I am lucky, after all.

And, so, I continue writing this from the lab, candle clutched in hand. The light hovers and flickers over the coat. It casts eerie, warped shadows.

Yesterday, the color had been obvious, a warning – like aposematism for fine clothing. The stain, of which I am nearly certain is blood, had initially stretched from the very edge of the jacket up to the left breast pocket, just barely avoiding the collar. Thankfully, it has gone down since. Still, this task bores me – not the details of it all, of course, but the monotony of the work itself. I have been left twiddling my thumbs and flipping through old letters.

All I can smell is ammonia and old paper. It is not a pleasant combination. Sometimes, I wish I could step back from it all and climb to the roof like I used to. Lay on my back and watch as the sky drifts overheard; stargaze until I can barely keep my eyes open. But, of course, it’s unbecoming of me to even suggest such a thing – unchaperoned, unattended, alone.

Now, I could understand if it was out of concern for my neck and its potential in breaking, but, usually it isn’t. Few people have ever barred my presence from the roof for this reason, but it has always been family – or, sometimes, not too far removed from family.

There is something peaceful about the stillness that high – the taste of the air, the whisper of wind through trees. The whole world feels beautifully alive. But, it’s not to be. At the rate I’m going, I’ll be entombed in this lab.

One day, the turning of pages and sounds of paper may drive me mad, and it seems that day is rapidly approaching. Not even looking through institute archives could entertain me today – no searching for my parents’ names, or, more aptly put, where they once were.

I’ve never had a mind for the news, so I turn to archives. Library records, institute awards, graduating classes. Anything to stimulate my mind, at this point. Novels, too, are frequent – and the occasional non-required textbook. Even this, journaling, can bore at times.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Not to mention how tedious this is. It’s dull work, sitting around and watching as a stain comes out. It’s made worse when I have nothing better to do but journal. To be honest, I’m rather keen on slamming my head into a wall. At least then these sterile walls would have a splash of color.

Well, I’m not getting anything out of this for the time being. May as well stop.

❂

It is likely much too late for me to be up and writing, but there are thoughts that need to be relayed from mind to ink and paper.

My work finished successfully, with little problem. However, not long after, my schedule was disrupted.

It was a rattling of my door knocker, something that, very nearly, could have shaken the door off its hinges. Violent, insistent – and I was trying to take a nap.

“Fernsby!” a voice shouted, urgent, accompanied by staccato breathing. Someone ran here.

I groaned and uncurled myself from the chaise lounge nestled in the corner of the lab – for naps and occasional other rest – and approached the door. I open it, rubbing my eyes with the heels of my palms. (Thankfully, smoke or screaming do not feature in this nap – instead, I have hazy, pleasant dreams of a familiar wry grin).

“Yes?” I force myself to croak, despite the terrible raspy quality to my voice.

“Breakfast, Till.” He outright laughs at my disheveled state.

I sigh, adjusting my wire frame glasses – which have been slowly but surely creeping down the bridge of my nose – “Then, why, dear Radine, are we so urgent this morning?”

“You want to miss breakfast? Why, Tillis, I’d never – and you shouldn’t too. Not with the news this morning.”

Ah. That’s it then. The inner machinations of nobility, not an emergency.

That earns my all-too-enthusiastic cousin the arch of an eyebrow, “What news?”

“The scandal sheets say—!”

“Which scandal sheets, Rad?”

“Well, The Intrigue has been rather good–”

“And, yet, Crocus hasn’t been particularly kind to friends of ours.”

“No, no, too right,” he murmurs, but opens his mouth again, likely to redouble his efforts.

I just sigh, “Can we head to breakfast, cuz – please?”

“Alright,” he’s still grinning though, “but you won’t believe it when you hear it. Just don’t choke on toast, Tillis.”

“Course not, Raddie. It can’t be that bad.”

❂

It was, in fact, that bad — all that and worse, actually. My cousin was not kidding. I almost did choke hearing it.

Radine and I are opposites when it comes to things like this – he is studying to become a literature scholar, set to be renowned in his field, and gossip columns and scandal sheets, well, they’re his guilty pleasure. I’ve never read one that was not bestowed upon me by dear Rad.

Not that I am ungrateful. It is useful to know the goings-on of the rich, on occasion.

Onto to that oh-so-urgent news: according to a reputed source, the crown prince, Setra Calth, has been pressured to finally search for a betrothed. A future queen – or perhaps future consorts, with his, again rumored, taste.

The reason I nearly choke is because I begin laughing. “Wait,” I get out between gasps of air, “they think Setra of all people will be wed before the year is out. Have they ever had a conversation with the man?”

Now, I am the one who has eyebrows raised at them, “Of course no one has. No one knows just who Crocus is. They could know Setra as intimately as family.” Then, Radine shoots me a look, “Present company excluded.”

I sigh, “The only thing that would get Setra Calth to, well and truly, settle down is a nice, fat dowry. And, perhaps, a whole castle cellar’s worth of wine.”

Rad does not look convinced, “If the rumor didn’t have some weight, why would Crocus have written it?”

“Perhaps some poor soul misinterpreted a conversation. You never know what that original rumor looked like.”

“A good point,” Rad says around a mouthful of bacon, “But, it doesn’t change my mind much.”

“No,” I concede, “I suppose it won’t.”

I reach across the table with my fork, aiming for some of his leftover fried potatoes – still a luxury after the Blight – and Radine looks incredibly affronted, swatting my arm away.

He tuts at me, sounding every bit like an exasperated school teacher, “Now, now, Fernsby. We don’t steal. It’s hardly moral.”

I snort a soft laugh, “Says you of all people. And, it’s not stealing. It’s sharing. You were simply sharing your potatoes with me.”

“Sharing,” this earns me a mock-derisive look, “is for poindexters and the most pedantic of us, jackrabbit.”

His accent is all pompous and over-inflated. A dead ringer for an impression of the nobility – or, at the very least, the very snooty ones.

I full on guffaw now, even as I fight a scowl. Childhood nicknames will never die in his company, even if their course has long since been run. The habit has only rubbed off onto some of our mutual friends. And, yet, despite my despising his use of old nicknames, there is always something about conversations with Radine that soothes me. I almost forgot my troubles until I came back to my room.

The rumors are of laughable stock and not nearly as life-upending as I would have thought. And, yet, they unnerve me. What sort of unrest is brewing in the palace to fuel these rumors?

Alas, I will never know. The Calths have made that clear.