Natalia knew she had a privileged position in life. She knew this, because her grandmother drilled it into her every single day. She was the first Doamna Pavlenko in hundreds of years. According to Grandmother, the title meant “Grand Princess”, a title the House had recently re-inherited. Her cousins didn’t particularly think it was so great.

Natalia was trained in the sword starting at the age of ten, her first blade a hunter’s sword from the ancestral homeland, because her cousins wanted her dead.

“It could hardly be a sword.” She had been known to say, considering the blade a mere two feet in length. She realized however, a real sword was beyond her at that age.

“Today, I want you to read in the gardens, Natalia.” her bunica, her grandmother instructed. “Your history is weak. And take your sword, too. We do not have so many guards as to keep you watched all the time.”

She understood that. The estate was brimming with Pavlenkos, with each group their own guards. Family discussions were tense.

She wanted to know about her mother, but grandmother only waved the question away. “When you are older.”

Natalia was no slouch. For her to be Doamna, her mother must have been before her.

The Church of the Golden Lady kept sending requests for her to attend the Preux Academia, the state-run school for nobility. They were falling all over themselves for her to begin her attendance at 11.

They offered everything, a dazzling prize. Tutors, scholarships, books, extra lessons, advanced training in any subject, had she wished.

Truth be told, she wanted nothing more than to sing. But that was nothing the Church would want to hear, and it’s certainly nothing Bianka lon Pavlenko wanted to hear. Granpa Pavlenko was more open to the idea, but he always told her,

“Little heart, Bianka is going through a rough time right now. Give her space. Besides, you aren’t even eleven yet! Go practice the sword!”

Natalia wondered if her own mother had suffered such indignities from her parents.

“Bunic Grandfather, She has never told me of my mother.” She complained. “I can recite the matriarchy from ‘Doamna’ Mihaela lon Pavlenko down through Boiar Anastasija lon Pavlenko. Boiar Arina lon Pavlenko, Boiar Claudia lon Pavlenko, Boiar Bianka lon Pavlenko..." She paused. “And then, there’s me: Doamna Natalia lon Pavlenko.” She grit her teeth, eyes bright with unshed tears. “I want to know of my mother! Was she such a disgrace that we pretend she doesn’t exist?!” She screamed.

Rickard picked up the young girl and enfolded her in his arms. He was old, older than perhaps he should be, but he could still pick up a young lady in tears and comfort her.

“We wanted to keep you safe.” He began in a soothing voice. “Knowing who your mother was- what she is- makes you extremely dangerous, little ‘Talia.” he murmured. “If anyone knew- anyone!- they would try to kill you. Or worse.”

“Wha- what are you talking about?” She whispered.

“You need to be a little older for that conversation.” He comforted her gently.

“It’s that serious?” She asked, and he nodded. “I swear.”

Somehow, uneasily, she assumed the worst. Her mother was some freakish mutant that had somehow spit out a human child.

“You want to see her?” He asked, and she immediately jumped up.

“Her portrait is in the Hall of Ancestors. Maybe you’ll recognize her on sight. Or not.”

She dashed through the halls, gripping her skirts so she wouldn’t trip. Her grandmother would take a switch to her if she learned, but Natalia didn’t care.

She skimmed the nameplates below each portrait as she passed, stopping briefly at Anastajia’s to gape at the woman in armor, and then continued on.

The woman defied superlatives. More noble than noble. More beautiful than beautiful. More regal than regal. She gazed out from where she stood with an imperious gaze. Silvery hair hung past her hips in slow waves.

An older woman with wavy dark hair was standing there, looking up at the picture.

“She was really pissed when they painted this.” The woman observed knowingly to the little girl.

“How could you tell?” Natalia asked the stranger.

“When Kat got angry, royally angry, furiously angry, she let it grow cold in her chest. You can see it in the set of her eyes.”

“Did she- did she love me?” Natalia whispered.

The woman let out a slow breath. “When two people love each other so much they can’t stand it, a baby is born.” The woman explained gently. “And the two of them shower that child with as much love as they possibly can.”

The girl looked up at the older lady. Somehow, she looked uncannily familiar.

“Shouldn’t you be in the garden?” The woman asked, the subtext being more a command, and not a suggestion.

Natalia was tall for her age, but not gangly. Her grandparents not only saw to her comprehensive education, they also saw she worked as hard as physically possible in fighting with swords and knives and feet and fists. Thin, but clean of limb with the characteristically pale skin and brilliant green eyes of a Pavlenko, she already cut an imposing figure. Like her grandparents had done with their daughters, Natalia’s hair was allowed to grow unchecked, so the wavy black tresses tumbled to the small of her back.

A young woman, a girl really, was in the garden already, examining the flowers. Natalia’s eyes blazed, and she stamped her foot and drew her blade, levelling it at the girl.

“I am Doamna Natalia lon Pavlenko, and you are trespassing. Turn and face me.”

The girl turned and smiled at her warmly. “I am not trespassing, for I was invited.” The girl replied and then bobbed a curtsey. “Sister.”

Shock upon shock; the girl was a mirror image of her, and greeted her as elder sister. The blade fell from nerveless fingers, and Natalia sat down quickly on the grass, lest she faint.

“Who are you? She asked.

“I am Adalynn Wolfe.” She replied simply.

“Then we are not related.” Natalia replied, circulation returning with needlepricks across her skin.

The girl sighed. “It was difficult for me to understand when it was explained to me.” She began, “But I will tell you what was told me, and perhaps it will make more sense to you, seeing as you’re ‘Doamna Natalia lon Pavlenko’.” The girl began, a sarcastic lilt at Natalia’s title.

“Your mother-” She paused a moment, and continued in a different tone of voice. “And my mother loved each other. They-” She eyed Natalia again. “How much do you know of your mother?” She asked.

“I know... how I was conceived.” She replied testily.

Adalynn smiled. “Our parents are the same. You were raised with the Pavlenkos, I with the Wolfes.” She explained.

“I have a sister?” She asked wonderingly.

“Yes, Elder Sister.”

“Both of you, come inside.” Grandmother Bianka called.

*****

Two sets of identical green eyes glared at each other across the expansive table, each daring the other to yield, to give up. Even at ten years old, Natalia lon Pavlenko knew all about not giving in.

“Who is this woman?” She demanded of her grandmother.

“That is your sister, Adalynn.” Bianka replied, amused at the silent contest between the twins.

“Sister? I have a sister?” Natalia scoffed. If anything the announcement made Adalynn’s small, secretive smile grow a little.

“You’ll receive a proper explanation when you’re an adult.” Another voice explained with a world-weary sort of acceptance.

Both little girls frowned at the same time.

“Like looking into a mirror.” Bianka observed. The two little girls were exactly identical, with the exception of hair lengths. Natalia’s hair was swept up into a glossy black ponytail; Adalynn’s was a pair of short braids.

“LIke looking into the past.” the other voice replied a hitch of pain to her voice. “They both look so much like her. Except the hair, of course.” the other voice added.

After a long pause while the adults watched the two eye each other dangerously from across the table, Bianka irritably clapped her hands, jolting them out of their silent contest.

“The both of you, stop that. From today, you two will be living, sleeping, and eating together. Best get used to it.” Both girls broke their staring contest to look at their respective interlocutors.

Olivia was on the cusp of middle age, glossy black hair swept back from her face with arranged combs. Bianka herself was much older, leaning ostentatiously on a cane near her chair.

“Natalia, take Adalynn to your apartments. You two will be sharing them for the next-” Bianka began, and Olivia interrupted.

“Five years?” She asked.

“Not this again. You people made me give up not one, but both of my daughters.” Bianka sneered. “You expect me to do that again?” She spat, daring the other woman to object.

Olivia sighed ostentatiously. It was an argument they’d had many times over the years.

“The Preux is a proper Academia for nobility. It is nothing like what Her Radiance went through. Besides, both the von Wolfes and the lon Pavlenkos have estates there; she will not be alone.”

Bianka let out a breath. “You think I could let her go, with the situation here as I explained?” She asked sharply. “You think I could let my only granddaughter-”

“The risks sending her to the Preux pale in comparison to the dangers here, and she will not be alone. Her Radiance left many allies in Darnell.”

Bianka shook her head. “The moment anyone catches wind- anyone! who her mother is, she will lose any capability to manage this household.”

Olivia barked a laugh. “Here, her parentage would paint a target on her back, in various ways.” Olivia replied smartly. “There, however, it would be an inviolable aura, shielding her from harm.”

“My only granddaughter-” Bianka again began, but Olivia cut her off. “She’s not your only.” her gaze sliding to Adalynn, who had once again resumed glaring at Natalia.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Oh? If we choose that route, are you perhaps prepared to surrender your own House banner to us?” Bianka replied jaggedly.

Olivia sighed. She hated when Bianka was like this. Acid, cutting, overprotective to the point of outright viciousness. Not like her beloved at all.

Help me, beloved. She prayed. Help me get this wretched woman to see reason.

A tingling thrill shot through her. Wasn’t I just as bad? A dry voice mocked gently, an undercurrent of love taking the sting away.

Surrender your banner. It’s a small thing, for such a boon. Sisters get to laugh, love, and play together until they’re ready for the Academy. A knowing laugh followed this proclamation. Knowing you, you’ll have already arranged it so that they would live and room together there as well? Of course you have. Bianka will honor the bargain struck... but perhaps you should have arrangements drawn up in a contract, no? Makes sense, anyway.

She could never tell if the voice of her beloved was simply her overactive imagination or if she really was communicating on some level with the woman she had fallen in love with, so long ago.

The House of Wolfes was- is- already on the decline, didn’t you say so yourself? Announce our marriage, beloved, and unite your house with mine. You stand to lose nothing but your name, and what’s in a name? I certainly never cared for such things.

“Bullshit.” Olivia growled, thinking of the time her lover stood in the High Court and had demanded demanded, of all things! That the Book of the Golden Lady address her as a Noble.

*****

Natalia sat staring across the table at her grandmother and grandfather, green eyes narrowed. Outwardly, she tried to affect calm, inside her whole world was falling apart. There had been some tense negotiation between Olivia and Bianka that she had not been a part of, and Adalynn had been sent somewhere else.

Despite having only meeting her for a couple of tense, mostly silent hours, her absence felt strange.

“I have a sister.” She repeated stiffly.

Her grandmother, Boiyar Bianka lon Pavlenko, who sat at the Table of Merchants, head of the House of Pavlenko nodded.

Her mouth trembled briefly; she clamped her lips tightly to stop it.

“To have a sister, I would have a mother.” She began dangerously.

“Obviously.” Her grandmother replied.

“You’ve never told me about her.” Natalia replied. “No matter how many times I’ve asked.”

“Things have changed.” Bianka replied simply. “The Wolfes are part of our family, now.”

“As if things weren’t complicated enough.” Her grandfather muttered.

“I want to know of my mother.” Natalia demanded.

Bianka let out a sigh and closed her eyes, and took her grandfather’s hand.

“The Living Saint Katarina.” Rickard replied. “She is your mother.”

Natalia sagged in her chair, feeling faint. She lay her head on the cool table and struggled to keep her wits as they explained things.

How Katarina fell in love with a Lady Cardinal- a woman, of all things!- and worked a miracle.

Two girls were born that day. Natalia and Adalynn.

Natalia was given to the Pavlenkos; Adalynn to the Wolfes.

After long negotiations that spanned a dozen arguments and acres of contracts, Adalynn now would be considered a family member of the Pavlenkos, and the von Wolfes were now considered a branch family of the Pavlenkos by marriage.

*****

“These were your mother’s apartments.” Bianka announced, leading Natalia and Adalynn into the suite of rooms. “She didn’t leave many belongings behind... but what she did leave behind is yours by right of blood, and by title, Doamna.”

“Grandmother, don’t call me that.” Natalia urged.

“I have to. You need to get used to it. You’re our first Grand Princess in hundreds of years. You need to carve the weight of that responsibility into your bones.” Bianka replied.

“Fine.” She finally spat, her anger growing hot in her chest.

Bianka gestured at the divan. Natalia shot a hot look at Bianka, who winced- that look was just like her mother’s.

“Your mother...” She paused. “We wanted to keep you safe.” She began in a soothing voice. “She knew the child of an Apostle of the Golden Lady could be singled out. Targeted. Exploited. So you were brought to us to keep you safe.”

Natalia let out a slow breath of amazement. She’d had no idea, even in her wildest dreams. Her mother was really the first Doamna, by right of title. Her mother was beyond a Doamna. An Apostle of the Golden Lady. A Living Saint, a Servant of the Goddess.

Natalia rubbed her face wearily. “Today has been ... very surprising.” She looked up at Bianka. “Bunica, may I have some time to think about these things?”

Bianka eyed Natalia and Adalynn, who were starting to eye each other like a pair of strange cats again.

“I’ll have someone send for you at supper.” She decided, and left the apartments, closing the large double doors behind her.

Natalai focused her attention on Adalynn.

“So. We’re sisters.” She remarked, her voice flat.

“It seems so, Doamna.” Adalynn replied respectfully.

“Don’t call me that.” Natalia immediately fired back.

Adalynn thought for a moment. “Elder Sister?” She offered.

Natalia immediately frowned. “No.” She stated flatly. “I am Natalia. I will call you Adalynn; you can call me Natalia.”

Adalynn adopted a thoughtful look. “I paid attention to some of the talks between your grandmother and my... mother...” She rubbed her head a bit. “This is very confusing, to have two mothers from separate houses.”

Natalia nodded. It was, indeed.

“I think that in public I will have to call you Elder Sister. Do you mind?” Adalynn offered.

Natalia rubbed her face as she thought. “As long as we address each other by name here... I don’t mind.” She decided, and held out her hand. “Come tell me about yourself, Adalynn.”

“Awaken.”

Natalia’s eyes snapped open of their own accord.

“Sit up, and pay attention.” The voice was cool, calm, and authoritative to a fault.

Natalia’s vision cleared and her mouth trembled. The woman in front of her was radiant. Glorious to a fault.

“So you’re my daughter.” Katarina mused. “I wanted to come here and see you, but if I had showed up there would have been a scene.” She paused. “You understand?” She asked in a gentler voice, and Natalia nodded and began prodding Adalynn.

“Lemme lone.” Was all she mumbled.

“Don’t wake her.” Katarina urged, but Natalia only poked harder. Adalynn sat up, rubbing her eyes.

“What do you want?” She complained. “I want to sleep.”

“It’s mother,” Natalia replied, and turned to the awestruck angel. “I thought that if there was something important for me to hear, she needed to hear it, too.”

“Twins.” Katarina mused, and shook her head, smiling.

“We’re twins?” Natalia’s eyes flashed.

“No!” Adalynn blurted. “Olivia is my mother. Blessed Katarina is your mother.” She explained.

Katarina knew that wasn’t true. She hadn’t given birth to anyone. Was that a cover story to protect them? She skimmed their thoughts and found her musings correct.

“Okay, you two. I’m going to give you advice that served me well.” She began, and they immediately stiffened to attention.

“Train ten times harder than anyone else. Be faster than anyone else. Be smarter than anyone else.”

She paused. “Trust your instincts. And if I catch either of you disrespecting Olivia in any way, I will punish you in ways your ten-year-old minds can’t even dream of.”

And then she was gone in a shower of golden sparks.

*****

Natalia was ten years old. She was a beautiful girl, straight of limb, with flashing green eyes and a tumble of raven’s wing hair that fell to the middle of her back.

“Pavlenkos do not cut their hair.” Her bunica, her grandmother declared. “Especially the Doamna. Everyone needs to see you.”

She didn’t completely understand everything her grandmother said, and there was a sneaking suspicion that not everything was said.

For one, they had an inordinate number of bizarre visitors, all who claimed to want to see her. Her! She was only ten years old, not old enough to be considered an adult in any land.

One old woman, dressed in a strange suit of thin steel plates that contoured to her body snugly, visited her one afternoon.

The woman did nothing but stare at her with raptor’s eyes, assessing, weighing.

“Doamna Natalia lon Pavlenko.” The woman began as if it were a statement, not a greeting. The woman sneered at her cynically. “You look so much like her.” Her hard grin softened. “She would be proud.”

Natalia struggled with her words. The woman was disrespectful, rude, arrogant, and spoke in ambiguous terms. Further, she came armored to her presence.

“You should have been told,” Natalia began, “that it is forbidden to come armed and armored in my presence.” She began in a breathy voice.

The woman nodded at that. Comfortably. Contemptuously. “I beg your indulgence, Natalia.” The woman replied simply, with an indifferent gesture. “The armor is the only thing holding my body together.”

Natalia gave her a baffled look.

“The price of being an Inquisitor for so long.” The woman replied. “It catches up to you.” She waved this away as if it didn’t matter. “The point of this visit was to see you, and I have.” She announced. “I am satisfied. She would be proud. There is no need for me to correct you.”

“You-?” Natalia spat, her voice clogged with anger and shock. “Correct me?”

The woman nodded, gave her an indifferent wave, and stiff-backed, marched towards the door.

“Oh, a giant of a woman may want to see you.” The woman tossed over her shoulder. “Be kind to her and she will be kind to you.”

*****

Natalia knew she shouldn’t be out of bed. It went beyond her grandparents’ wishes that she get a full and restful night’s sleep, or at least let her Paia, her governess, get a full night’s sleep. If Natalia was awake, then by rights her Governess needed to be awake, as well as her Stolnic, her seneschal, and a hundred troops to guarantee her safety. The Pavlenko estate was divided into two factions; one belonging to her bunica, her grandmother Bianka, and the other belonging to the Judes and Cneaz under the leadership of the High Ladies Catalina and Eveline. It never quite came to blows, but that’s why the troops were needful; to prevent just such a violent conflict.

She shouldn’t have been out of bed, she shouldn’t have left her apartments without an appropriate escort, yet she did so anyway. Come the morning it would be her sixteenth birthday, and formally invested with her blood-title. Despite the hostility in the estate, the occasional poisoning, She strode through the halls easily, comfortably.

“-if she’s got the slightest wit in her head, she’ll call for the heads of those traitorous-” She overheard her grandmother just around the corner. Natalia ducked behind the edge of a tapestry and froze, hoping she hadn’t been spotted as her grandmother and grandfather rounded the corner and walked away from her. Her heart thundering in her chest obliterated all but part of her grandfather’s reply.

“-our daughter-”

She strained for more, but they had moved out of range. She hesitated, torn between trailing after them and returning to her apartments. That was too close.

“High Lady.” A gravelly voice piped up behind her, and a heavy hand descended on her shoulder. She opened her mouth to scream and the man’s other hand clamped down with an iron grip on her mouth.

“Shush, else you call down your bunica’s wrath upon us both.” The voice whispered in her ear.

Natalia turned her head. A man in the livery of a guard, part of the Cneaz faction under the High Ladies Catalina and Eveline. Baurus.

“No screams.” He whispered, and she nodded, and he took his hand away. As he did, she couldn’t help but note the long dagger at his waist.

Suddenly it all became crystal clear to her. Tomorrow she would be formally invested with her title as the head of House Pavlenko. Tomorrow she would face the full enmity of the Old Blood faction from Ardeal. She was out from under the constant supervision of anyone who could protect her. Tomorrow she would be technically untouchable, but tonight, she was just a girl.

This was it. It was over for her. She’d feel his knife dig into her heart in just a moment, and her grandparents would- her whole house would- everything would-.

“High Lady, you need to return to your apartments.” Baurus advised gently. “And quickly. There’s villainy afoot.”

Her mouth opened and closed. “Wha-” She scarcely began, but he cut her off.

“There are some that hunt you tonight.” He replied to her unasked question, and lifted the long knife out of the sheathe a little and let it drop. “Tomorrow, everything changes for you, isn’t that so?”

She nodded numbly.

“I can’t protect you openly.” He urged. “They think- well, it doesn’t matter what they think, but I need to keep up appearances.” She frowned at that, not understanding him at all.

“When you do that, you look just like her.” He marveled, and touched her forehead, right between her eyebrows with a fingertip.

“Who?” She whispered.

“Your mother, of course.” He replied easily, dropping a shocking truth on her as if it were a simple thing. Nobody spoke about her mother in front of her. It was all a tightfisted secret. “Now listen: You run back to your apartments. Hopefully you get back nice and safe. If we’re caught, I’ll have to kill you, to keep up appearances.” Another shocking, unbelievable truth, just like that. “I don’t want to, but if I absolutely have to, I will.”

She glanced up at her interlocutor, but in the dim light of the hall she couldn’t make out his expression.

“I’ve been trying for years to get in their good graces, to get close enough to-” He cut himself off, and gave Natalia a little nudge back down the hall, towards her apartments.

“You’d kill me? Just like that?” She blurted. He nodded. “If it got me close enough to Eveline and Catalina, sure. Those two need a taste of what Victoria got. I’d rather not have to kill you, though.”

“Right.” She replied drily.

“I am on your side, but only because you’re my best hope of getting rid of those squalling High Ladies.” He replied. “And because your mother would have wanted it that way. She spared my life; I’ll use it to protect her daughter.” He paused. “Even if it means killing her.”

“That doesn’t make sense at all.” She spat at him, and he chuckled. “I’ve been trying to get close to them for years. They know me too well, though.”