Chapter 136: Whispers of Farewell
The sun had just crested the snow - covered hills of the Ainsley estate, turning the frost - laced trees to crystal and brushing the windows with a faint golden warmth. Inside, the kitchen was already alive with soft clinks of porcelain, the quiet simmer of sauces, and the faint sound of music Eva liked to hum while she cooked — nothing dramatic, just a slow, tender rhythm she claimed reminded her of Seraphina's voice.
The world outside remained chilled, but inside Eva radiated warmth.
She stood on a stool by the kitchen counter, her small frame swathed in an oversized apron embroidered with the initials E.A. A faint smear of yogurt adorned one cheek, and her raven - silky curly dark brown with hinted blue hair — twisted back into a thick braid — glistened with soft blue tones under the early light.
Today's lunchbox, Eva had declared to the head chef the night before, would be a masterpiece of N•••••••• - inspired modern aristocratic cuisine.
She began with the core: thinly sliced cured salmon wrapped around cucumber ribbons, served with a delicate herbed cream on a small bed of seasonal greens — both elegant and refreshing. To accompany it, she included "a miniature sandwich" of toasted rye filled with goat cheese, dried lingonberries, and wildflower honey, its crusts trimmed with care.
Next came the "protein and vegetable array": fine slivers of reindeer sausage grilled lightly and fanned beside pickled turnips and carrots, roasted baby potatoes with dill, and small, tender cubes of soy-braised tofu arranged like a mosaic.
A small compartment held a "fruit and nut salad", blending chopped green apples, orange slices, and cloudberries with slivers of shredded almonds and mint. Each element was chosen not just for flavor, but for "color balance and visual composition". It looked like edible art.
For the "dairy course", she included a soft wedge of brunost, its caramel hue striking beside white slices of geitost and a tiny glass jar of homemade, dairy - free coconut yogurt parfait layered with chia, blueberry compote, and toasted oat clusters.
Then came the desserts — two, of course. A delicate layered krumkake filled with vanilla bean whipped tofu cream and a miniature marzipan tart shaped like a heart, brushed with edible gold leaf and topped with a single sugared violet.
Lastly, the drinks: an insulated bottle of rosehip - and - apple tea, lightly sweetened with birch syrup, and a second thermos of spiced oat milk with cinnamon and cardamom — warm, comforting, and perfectly balanced for the cold northern morning.
Nestled between the compartments, wrapped in lavender tissue, was a tiny scroll of handmade paper. On it, a short poem penned in her slanted, beautiful handwriting:
For Ina, the light in my frost - covered world,
Who warms me with a glance,
And anchors me with silence.
Eat this and know — my heart made it for you. Yours truly, your little moonbeam.
Eva folded the lunchbox closed with a final sigh of satisfaction and slid it into the specially cushioned compartment of Seraphina's school bag.
As the front doors creaked open and the driver waited outside, Eva turned to her closest confidante with a slight smile.
"Ina," she said, pulling at the hem of Seraphina's coat until the taller girl knelt, "don't share dessert with anyone."
"I won't," Seraphina whispered, kissing Eva's forehead. "It's yours alone."
Eva grinned before hiding her face in Seraphina's shoulder. "Good. It's my thank - you for listening… for still being here."
They embraced for just a heartbeat longer than necessary. Then Seraphina walked out into the snow, carrying not just a lunchbox — but the carefully packed weight of Eva's love.
At school, the air was thick with the smell of wet scarves and fresh ink. Students whispered and giggled, boots squeaked against the tiled halls, and the usual hum of pre-class chaos reigned. But the moment Seraphina sat at her desk and opened her lunchbox — silence.
Not abrupt. Not dramatic.
Just slow, creeping awe.
The girl beside her — Mira Elsen, always sharp - eyed — leaned forward to peer inside, then leaned back wordlessly. A boy across the aisle made the mistake of breathing a little too loudly. Another girl fanned herself with a worksheet, saying nothing but staring with open admiration.
Every item in the box looked intentional. Not just delicious, but personalized. Unique. Refined.
And impossibly beautiful.
Someone murmured, "Did her family hire a different professional chef again?"
Seraphina said nothing. She simply picked up a thin slice of fruit - glazed salmon with her chopsticks, her cheeks faintly pink. She didn't correct them. She never did. But her heart beat a little faster, and her fingers brushed the edge of the folded poem hidden beneath her napkin.
She made this. My Eva. My little moon.
During lunch break, she retreated to the greenhouse annex, where few students wandered. There, in the filtered light between ferns and orchids, she opened her thermos of rosehip tea and let the warmth chase away the cold from her hands.
It wasn't just food.
It was devotion in edible form.
She thought about the other night — Eva resting her head on her lap, whispering words she didn't always have language for. About the hidden room, sealed behind biometric locks, its walls lined with ancient codices and texts too dense for a university library, let alone a child's study. Maps of forgotten wars. Diagrams of diplomatic entanglements that spanned continents and centuries. Names and nations she'd never encountered, yet rendered with the precision of real history.
Who teaches a child these things? Seraphina wondered, fingers curled around her teacup. Who prepares a six - year - old for geopolitics and empire shifts like it's math homework?
The Ainsley family had always struck her as… off. Polished, polite, and disarmingly ordinary. But after last night, she no longer believed that was the truth.
She didn't think "Ainsley" was even their real name.
It was just a cover, a facade. A placeholder for something older. Bigger. Maybe even dangerous.
There were too many signs — the security, the books, the war room, the languages no one spoke anymore. Eva hadn't just been born into wealth. She'd been born into strategy. Into legacy.
And legacy, Seraphina knew, had fingerprints. The kind etched in bloodlines and veiled power.
Her own family history — the Langfords of N••••• — taught her to read between the lines. The right accent. The right access. The right silence.
Eva wasn't just a prodigy. She wasn't just gifted. She was being shaped for something vast and invisible — and Seraphina could feel it in the walls of that hidden room.
She just didn't know what family Eva belonged to.
But she was certain now: it wasn't Ainsley.
It was something far older. And far more powerful.
And the thought terrified her.
Because whoever they were… they didn't seem to care that Eva was still a child.
The salad dressing tasted like citrus and almond oil. Light. Sweet. Eva had chosen everything carefully.
But even with all that care, Seraphina could see what it cost her.
She finished her lunch slowly, unwilling to disturb the art. By the time she closed the box, her classmates were still silently glancing her way.
No one dared ask.
No one dared praise aloud.
But in their silence was a choir of quiet awe.
Back at the Ainsley estate, Eva stood once more in the hidden room beneath the east wing — the one that didn't appear on any blueprints. The light filtering through the frosted glass panels above cast a glacial sheen over the stone floor, painting her in tones of silver and ash. Dust motes spun through the air like falling stars. Her fencing instructor had just left, the sting of the morning's session still blooming across her arms and ribs in quiet bruises. She didn't wince. She never did.
She peeled off her leather gloves slowly, flexing her fingers — red, calloused, and blistered in the creases from the grip of her épée. A small split had reopened along her knuckle, and she dabbed it absentmindedly with antiseptic from the desk drawer before moving to the day's next lesson.
It waited in a tall stack near the central table: a diplomatic simulation dossier titled "Territorial Disputes in Post-Conflict Regions: Case 4.7." It involved border tensions, population displacement, and strategic alliances formed under fragile ceasefire terms. Eva flipped it open, eyes scanning paragraphs like a seasoned analyst. She mouthed the words in four languages — F•••••, E••••••, A•••••, and coded Ainsley cipher — as she read. The material didn't overwhelm her. It never had. If anything, it felt too simple.
Next to it lay a tablet loaded with modules:
Military logistics: supply chain disruption scenarios.
Cybersecurity: red team defense drills, network breach forensics.
Homeland security: psychological profiling, domestic threat identification.
Strategic communications: real - time response simulations for media and political crises.
Ethics and moral reasoning: situational debates with no right answer, where lives hung in the balance.
Critical thinking and leadership: case studies on historical coups and modern peacebuilding efforts.
Military survival: fire - starting in rain, code - black protocols, silent movement through brush.
Each subject was coded by priority. Eva worked through them in rotating triads, revisiting core themes every three days — repetition not for memory, but mastery.
Today was leadership and problem-solving. She set the simulation to "High-Risk Scenario." A fictional coalition government was collapsing, and Eva was responsible for securing aid routes, evacuating civilians, negotiating with both allies and enemies, and keeping the press from unraveling the story before a deal could be reached.
She solved it in just under forty minutes. Three strategies, cross-referenced with historical precedent. She left the notes in Reginald's preferred format: vertical bulleting with multilingual annotations. There would be no praise. Only a silent checkmark when he reviewed her work later.
Afterwards, she moved to the war table — a custom - built display with magnetic tokens and three - dimensional modeling. This morning's layout featured an imaginary incursion into the Balkan corridor. Eva adjusted the troop tokens, recalculated supply lines, and silently restructured the defense grid to minimize civilian loss. Then she turned to the adjacent map: A•••••, 2032 projection. Contested resource zones. She labeled the vulnerabilities.
She was six years old.
And her bedtime stories were about guerrilla resistance and constitutional reform.
This was the rhythm of her days. Wake. Drill. Analyze. Anticipate. Adapt. Survive.
No cartoons. No field trips. No idle moments spent in childish daydreams. Only the cold discipline of a life shaped by men who believed that children must be sharpened young if they were to cut through the world.
Eva stood back from the table at last, rubbing her sore neck. Her hair clung damply to her temple. She walked to the far end of the room, to the shelf where the old books lived — the ones Reginald said were "too advanced," which meant "too true."
She reached for one now: The Ethics of War, printed in a forgotten dialect of Lioré. She cracked it open and traced a passage with her fingertip:
"The sword that defends must never forget the weight of peace.
A warrior without sorrow is not a protector.
He is a weapon."
Eva stared at the words for a long moment.
Then she closed the book.
Her small shoulders rose with a breath too heavy for her frame.
She missed Seraphina. Missed the warm laugh. The soft clink of teacups. The ribbon on her wrist and the way she said, "Moonbeam," like it meant more than light.
This room was where she became sharp.
But it was Seraphina who reminded her she was still soft.
And for a brief second, Eva hated that she knew how rare that softness was.
Instead, she walked toward the corner cupboard and drew out a fresh ribbon — lavender, like the one she tied to Seraphina's wrist before departure.
She wrapped it around her hand and kissed it gently.
"My Moon, My Ina," she whispered to the ribbon. "Today I was strong."
That evening, a text buzzed across Seraphina's phone as she lay on her bed.
Eva: I made a snow fox in the garden today. It had a ribbon too. Lavender.
Seraphina: I wish I saw it.
Eva: It's waiting for you.
Seraphina: What else is waiting for me?
Eva: Everything.
A moment passed.
Seraphina: You seemed… quiet last night. Are you okay?
Eva: I'm always okay if you're with me.
Seraphina: That's not what I asked.
Another pause.
Eva: I'm tired, Ina.
Seraphina: I know. Soon, we'll rest. Together.
As Seraphina drifted to sleep, the faint scent of rosehip lingered on her fingertips. She imagined Eva curled in a blanket by the fireplace, hands stained faintly with ink and sauce, whispering poetry to a ribbon.
And somewhere, just outside the edges of sleep, she felt the stirrings of something larger — an ache that would soon become absence.
But not yet.
Not yet.
And certainly not without a fight.