Ari awoke for the second time to the frugal light of a winter’s dawn and the peck-peck-peck of a raven at the window.

~It’s a crow.~

<…I can hardly tell that it’s not a pigeon when it’s this dark outside…>

~What kind of lady from the house of ravens would I be if I couldn’t tell a raven from a crow?~

Birds aside, here she was, another day, another blank in the sky. No missions, no stats, no clear way to level up. The only thing to keep her sane was Claribel’s schedule. That told her what to do.

But… wait. Perhaps she couldn’t see the meaning of life because she wasn’t of this world.

~About that… I have no idea what you’re talking about. There are no missions in life. No points, only a very important point, and that point is to embrace the Fated One at the end of each life’s journey.~

Was that really how people in fictional worlds went about their days? Or was it different for main characters such as Rosalind, Leolin and Tristram? Or… Ari groaned. It was too early in the morning to question her own existence. All she needed to question was this: when was coffee going to make its way back into her life?

===Welcome to Day 2.===

She muttered it to herself, just to cling to some sense of familiarity.

~Since we have an additional itinerary to complete today, I have woken us up a bit earlier than usual. There won’t be time to do the rounds within my own household, and as much as I’d hate to miss it two days in a row, returning Mal’s ashes is more important. We shall travel to Hes’s Thornsberry Hall and go to the Guild of Mage’s Court of Assistants meeting straight after. Then you’ve got to select the Aquilon glass to show off at Lady Agatha’s, and…~

Ari had had plenty of those. In some ways, being a Red was an easy job. A body could only take so much training every day, and missions were usually over in a flash, leaving her plenty of time to distract herself from all the moments she could no longer share with people she could no longer meet.

~What do you mean? If you are talking about my duties to House Aquilon, then I guess it will come to an end once I marry.~

Natty finally stirred from her spot near the hearth, gracing them with a stretch and a yawn.

‘What time do you call this?’ she said, rubbing sleep out of her eyes and picking straw out of Fabia’s curly brown hair. She flicked a look at the raven, still pecking at the window, and fell back into her mattress of hay. ‘You’re going to do Guild of Mages stuff, right? You don’t need me there, so I’m going to have a lie-in. Oh yeah, enjoy getting dressed!’

*

Ari did not.

The skirt and bodice part of the gown that went with the Guild robes, whatever that was called, was black, and she could hear Claribel sigh in her head as the chambermaids pulled it over her head.

~It is a colour I would usually rank below all except brown and orange, but sometimes we must don a layer of skin that is not our own. Imagine if ravens were pink instead of black.~

For the same reason that Ari liked to wear khaki and black…

Not red for a raven. No.

~I… was trying to say people will not see them as harbingers of death or birds of wisdom.~

Which was why it was a pain to live with living people much of the time. Living people went around subscribed to an arbitrary code and called it truth, drawing in its inevitable evolution as easily as they drew in each breath: red was for anger except when it was for luck; yellow was the joy of not being driven over; blue spoke of the serenity of the ocean, pulling you under. The dead were easier to read. They displayed their decay like an open book: white was for the promise of wings; brown was for the final transformation, back to the arms of Mother Earth.

Speaking of living people…

~Hmm?~

~What do you mean?~

~You met them yesterday!~

~Lucy! Patricia! Wini!~

~…How can you not remember?~

~No they are not! That’s disgusting!~

~Are you saying you’d eat people for lunch if there’s no risk of getting sick?~

~It’s my body you’re talking about. I don’t want to be eaten, thank you very much. My body, I mean. My spirit will feed the Fated One, as it should.~

~The Fated One–~

‘My lady…’ said Lucy the redhead with the rosary pea bracelet, stifling a yawn. She fidgeted with the already-straight hairnet on Ari’s head so that the diamonds could look even more evenly spaced. ‘Have you… considered finding a new lady-in-waiting?’

Claribel stiffened. A touchy subject. Touchier than cannibalism?

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘It’s just… we have lost Lady Guinevere in the middle of preparing for a tournament, happily to an upcoming marriage, I know, but still… You need to look after your health, my lady. You looked so lost in thought earlier. I know you have a lot on your mind.’

~Yes. Lost in thought. About eating people. Fated One give me strength. No. I’m not getting another lady-in-waiting! Lady Guinevere was outstanding. No one can replace her.~

‘You make a good point, Lucy, but it is difficult to find a lady as talented as Lady Guinevere,’ Ari relayed.

‘You know Lady Oriana…’ said Patricia, trailing off at the mention of the scandalous lady’s name.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

‘Has she let go of another lady-in-waiting?’

‘That’s exactly it, my lady,’ Lucy chimed in. ‘Right before the tournament of all times. All of Eirene is talking about it. Or was, before what she did yesterday at Lady Malory’s… I mean Malory’s… burning. Fated One forgive me. It was just a slip of the tongue. Her titles are no more, and she is just Malory. As she comes, so she goes.’

‘Don’t worry Lucy, we’ve all slipped up before.’

‘Thank you, my lady. What I mean to say is… Two days ago, Lady Oriana let Lady Jehanne go for no good reason.’

‘It would not be like Lady Oriana to act upon good reason.’

‘The good lady seems like such a kind soul, and she has been the one taking care of all of Lady Oriana’s parties in the past year. She is even on good terms with Cardinal Octavus. Perhaps… perhaps we could offer her a place at this manor, my lady?’

‘I shall think upon it. Is my carriage to Thornsberry Hall ready?’

‘Ready and waiting, my lady,’ said Lucy, popping a lump of sugar into Ari’s mouth as a parting touch.

They made their way down the stairs, down Ari’s abandoned point of investigation, Claribel’s secret-left-alone, to the kitchens and picked up a large wineskin for the guards at the gates, with a message that Ari had long forgotten from the night before.

‘Sir Irriforth, Saber and Asforn,’ said Ari, repeating after Claribel, ‘thank you for your hard work.’

‘My lady!’ said the guards, standing bolt-upright, even though only wood pigeons loitered outside the gates and not even a shadow of a threat could be seen.

Claribel’s Marshal, the only Sir of the lot, bowed low and said gently, ‘It is always an honour to see you visit us at the gates every morning, my lady. As I always say and you always ignore, there is no need for you to stop by in person, especially on such a cold day. Please make your way to your carriage at once. Lucy has tucked a bedwarmer among the cushions to warm you.’

‘The need is mine and mine alone,’ said Ari. ‘And on such a cold day, a skin of Mayam’s mulled wine shall go down all the better.’

She handed the wineskin to Sir Irriforth, followed by two silver coins minted with crescent moons. ‘You may receive an unusual visitor today. If he does arrive saying something about Malory’s remains, please hand him two moons.’

Sir Irriforth bowed, though just with his head this time, and walked her to her carriage. ‘There is a separate matter we should discuss as well, my lady. Today, your guards shall be Badd and Bador…’

~They like to say that Badd is not as bad as Bador.~

Ari supressed a groan.

‘Are you disappointed that it’s not Rin, my lady?’ asked Sir Irriforth.

And Claribel offered no explanation.

So she said, ‘Not at all.’

‘Good. For the past few weeks, you have been requesting for him to guard you a little too often. Others will start to talk.’

‘About important matters in their own lives, I hope.’

‘It is more realistic to hope that Lady Oriana commits another act next month so outrageous as to capture everyone’s imagination for another month. May it never be your turn, my lady.’

*

The carriage creaked on its way to Thornsberry Hall, towards the hazy morning sun. Ari sunk into the blue velvet cushions that matched the upholstered interior. The bedwarmer that Lucy had prepared was a thin, rectangular bottle made from copper, filled with hot water, and wrapped in its own velvet casing to stop it from burning her hand. She hugged it in her lap, then found herself tugging at a strand of a cushion’s fringe that had come loose.

Ari was loath to leave Natty behind, especially when she’d just found her, but bringing a fool to return a beloved sister’s ashes hardly seemed right. There was no room for Natty at the Guild’s meeting either, as Natty had noted herself.

~If you keep doing that, you’ll have to sew it back yourself. I’m not having one of Tarry’s girls fix it.~

She snapped her fingers away and fought the urge to tap her elbows instead.

It’d be the first time she’d have to speak to a named character in ‘Rosalind by Any Other Name’. Though she’d glanced at them from afar, that hadn’t felt far removed from seeing them within the coloured illustrations tucked next to the covers. Talking to one though… like she’d talked to all the others around her? For some reason, the namelessness of the others had made them seem more rightfully human, but Hesperus was undoubtedly a character because…

Because…

That was it, wasn’t it?

Before the Chief was to send an Agent on a mission, there’d be a briefing session where the target’s files appeared on screen for all to see. Family, friends, likes, dislikes, past shopping history: data that could be used for leverage, data that he’d also kept on all his Agents; data that Max had died to keep from enemy hands.

What she’d seen in the few fragments from Hesperus’s point of view felt flimsy against those cold, hard categories.

Family: father, shit; mother, dead; sister, older, unknown.

Friends: none to start with, but apparently mistaken as a firsthand witness had mentioned that he had one; later Tristram and Leolin.

Likes: being the best?

Dislikes: Claribel; not being the best?

Past shopping history: previously nothing, because his family was dirt poor; presently dodgy books.

She dwelled on the same few lines over and over again, preparing herself for – what exactly? Hesperus was not her target. There’d be no harm done leaving him alive and breathing in his own home, ready to face another day with the words of his father hanging over his head.

Because she knew things about him that no one should know, much less a complete stranger.

The authors words had faded, but the memory of the glimpse she’d taken inside his mind remained. A child in a nightgown in a snowy field, barefoot, lips growing blue, struggling to spit out the words between his clattering teeth. ‘I… I… I’m c-c-cold…’

A man in a thick, undyed cloak tugged it against him with thickly gloved hands. ‘Make it burn, boy! Make. It. Fucking. Burn. You won’t be cold if you make it fucking burn! Why do I bother feeding you, hey? Why do I bother with a useless fuck like you? Out of the goodness of my heart, that’s why. And what do you do? Stand there looking like the fool you are. Where are your flames, eh? I know you’ve got them in you.’

Not a memory she wanted to dwell on. His world had nothing to do with her.

She took a peek outside the carriage for a change of scenery, for something far removed from that cold winter’s day, but it was winter here too, and the morning was cold enough to bite even with Claribel’s fur-lined boots. Ari clung to her copper water-warmer a little tighter.

To her right, the yellow limestone palace she’d spotted yesterday appeared in the skyline, then disappeared once more behind the white marble of the cathedral walls with the trot-trot of the carthorses. The streets widened, and the well-swept roads turned into dirt tracks.

Pictures of babies graffitied the houses here, lurching under those heavy thatched roofs, each painted larger than the windows that were squashed to either side of these frightening portraits.

~Oh. Those. They’re royal commissions. They are supposed to remind people of how wonderful babies are.~

She pointed at one that was probably meant to be a swaddled baby, with a pained smile and wild eyes that made it even creepier than its neighbours.

~It’s not working very well. Too many families are having too few children, so we don’t have enough servants or farmhands. Now there is a shortage of mages too, and we have too few citizens from Ventinon willing to dig up mana stones from the mines. The families I talk to say they can smell war in the air and don’t want their children to perish in them. How unreasonable. The stupidity of the peasants, etcetera, etcetera. Surely they will change their simple minds with a few inspired pieces of art.~

Ari raised an eyebrow at the words that dripped with sarcasm.

Eight. Nine. Ten.

She counted them as she went past, tapping her gaze against each one. Would an achievement unlock once she got to one hundred?

===Achievement unlocked: Inaccurate Conception. You have lost your count while trying to count one hundred babies. Congratulations, you are now pregnant.===

Ari swatted away her imagination. On second thought, she didn’t need those types of achievements.

She pointed at the only baby-free house, hoping for a better distraction this time. On it, someone had stuck another poster of the missing couple she’d seen near the port last night, this time distorted by dried raindrops: the lamentations of having no lamination machine.

~Lord Selvan and Lady Mona.~

~If they were close friends of mine, the reward would be two thousand crowns, not twenty. But… I did know Lord Selvan. We attended the Academy together. He is a fire mage like Hes – they used to be good friends. I have never met Lady Mona though. They married some years ago, I believe. No children yet. She is a baron’s daughter with fealty to House Carnell, so our paths rarely crossed. I do hope someone finds them soon. It’s so worrying that they could just… disappear…~

Much like Tristram. A strange unease oozed in through Claribel’s words, making the chill from the winter’s morn all the more biting: a familiar feeling of mission compromised. Surely not. Not a main character like Tristram…

‘We’re here, my lady.’ The carriage eased to a stop.

Thornsberry Hall was a cosy cottage built with red bricks that caught the glow from the lazy winter sun. She could imagine herself living in it in her own world, growing her own tomatoes, making her own bread, taking long leisurely walks with her two mutts and scraping the mud off her boots by the back door.

But right now, it was quiet. Too quiet.

Ari knocked and waited. And waited.

The door finally flew open, revealing a person… maid, servant, doorwoman, something else?... with wide, doe-like eyes that made her look much younger than Ari’s original estimate that was somewhere in the mid-forties.

‘My lord! Where have you been, we… oh…’ Smoothing out the skirt on her olive-green gown and cream apron, smeared with streaks that were unmistakeably blood, she bowed her head at Claribel. ‘My lady! It is a true honour to be graced with your presence once more. I… please excuse my attire. I was in the middle of gutting herring, you see, and… and…’

‘Not to worry at all. The fault is mine for visiting at the crack of dawn, Jesse. How is your leg faring? My Steward said that rain is likely tomorrow. I hope it hasn’t been making it difficult for you to sleep at night?’

Ari hunted for the name ‘Jesse’ throughout the book she’d skimmed, but drew a blank.

~She’s Duke Taur’s Nanny. The previous Duchess Taur brought her in when she was a young maiden, and she has brought up both her children. Unfortunately the Duchess passed away some years ago, so Nanny Jesse was never sent away.~

‘Oh, my lady, you are too kind,’ said Nanny Jesse, blushing as if she was still a young maiden, ‘I am faring well, but what brings you here?’

‘I was hoping that His Grace was staying here, and from your presence, I gather that he is indeed here. I have an urgent matter to discuss with him.’

‘Oh… I am sure His Grace would be overjoyed to see you, but the truth is, he is not in… In fact, he has not been in since yesterday morning. I thought he might have returned at last, but… Alas.’ Yet a faint smile played about her lips, saying anything but alas despite her missing duke.

‘Not to worry. May I request an audience with Hesperus instead, since I am already here? It has been a long time, and it would be good to catch up on our days at the Academy.’

‘That’s the other thing.’ Nanny Jesse squirmed, wiping the rest of the herring’s blood onto her apron. ‘He has not been back either since yesterday afternoon. I’m afraid you’ve wasted a journey, my lady. I cannot let you into the house when the owner is absent, you see.’