Chapter 143: Fragments of the Past
Morning filtered through gauzy curtains, casting a muted gold across the hardwood floor. It caught in the quiet spirals of Eva's hair, turning them bronze where the light touched. She sat still on the window seat, chin tucked to her knee, arms wrapped around herself — not watching the sky, just letting the warmth settle over her like borrowed breath. The light belonged to someone else. Someone softer. Someone before.
She blinked slowly, eyes dry. In the silence of her room, the past came like a blade.
The air then had been sharper — clean and ruthless, honed like glass. She remembered the woods behind the mountain estate, branches heavy with snow. She'd been seven. The wooden staff in her trembling hands was heavier than it should've been. Her shoulders ached. Bruises bloomed like violets under her sleeves.
Papa Reginald stood across from her in his dark wool coat, clipboard tucked beneath one arm as if this were a business transaction.
"Move again," he said, voice cold and low.
Eva tried. Adjusted her stance. Swung the staff, chest heaving from the effort.
"Hesitation is a weakness," Reginald said.
The wind lashed her cheeks. Her grip faltered.
"You cannot protect her if you move like a civilian."
She struck the training dummy again. The crack of wood against wood echoed.
"Better," he said. "But not enough."
"I won't let anything happen to her," Eva said, breathless.
"Then prove it. Skill before sentiment. Earn the right to speak of love."
He turned. Walked away.
She stood alone, frost clinging to her lashes, her breath a ghost in the still air.
Now, Eva's fingers brushed the edge of the window. It was too warm here. Too soft. The memory didn't belong to this place.
She didn't turn when footsteps approached.
Vivienne — her Aunt, her Mére — entered without knocking. She carried a folded shawl and a tray with tea and sliced oranges. Her poise, as always, was flawless.
"You haven't eaten," Vivienne said, setting the tray beside her.
Eva shrugged. "Wasn't hungry."
"Even soldiers eat," Vivienne said softly. "Even my little dove who claim they're not."
"I'm not a soldier."
Vivienne's lips curved, but the smile was edged in something older. "No. You're rarer than that. A girl being asked to carry the weight of a world not yet hers." Her voice gentled further. "My little poet who loves her Yue."
Eva looked away. "Am I allowed to say I hate it?"
"Yes," Vivienne said, without hesitation. "Let my older brother you papa Reginald hear you — I hope he does. He forgets your my niece too. And I will protect what's mine."
A quiet laugh slipped from Eva's throat. It didn't last long.
Vivienne touched her hair, smoothing it behind her ear. "Eat a little. Then find me in the music room. There's something you should see."
When Vivienne left, Eva peeled the orange slowly. The scent clung to her hands — bright, bittersweet. Her phone lay nearby. She turned it over twice, thumb hovering.
No message from Seraphina.
There never was, not first. Seraphina always waited. Patient, respectful. Gentle. But even patience had its questions.
Far away, in her study room in N•••••, Seraphina sat with a sketchbook open across her knees. Her lines today weren't flowers. They were shadows — tall, shifting, caught between memory and worry. One resembled Eva, standing on a cliff of snow. Another, a tall figure with hollow eyes in an oversized coat.
Her gaze flicked to her tablet. No new messages.
Her thumb paused near the screen — then moved away.
Instead, she opened the last photo Eva had sent: a dusky garden, twilight soft around the branches. A red ribbon tied to one limb, loosened, the knot undone.
Something in it made her heart tighten.
She set the tablet aside and returned to her sketching. She didn't think Eva was lying.
But she was hiding.
And Seraphina could feel the difference.
Eva stepped into the music room just past noon. The piano's lid was closed. Curtains drawn. A soft glow came from twin sconces by the mantle, casting long shadows on the floor.
Vivienne stood at the window. But she wasn't alone.
Evelyn — Maman — sat near the fire, curled in an armchair, a book in her lap, her fingers resting on its spine. She looked up, calm and composed.
"Come, darling," she said. "We were waiting."
Eva crossed the room slowly, sitting near the hearth. Vivienne and Evelyn exchanged a glance — quiet, weighted.
"You don't have to say it all," Evelyn said to Vivienne. "But she deserves a beginning."
Vivienne nodded. Then moved to a lacquered chest in the corner. She knelt, opened it, and pulled free a folded garment: a training robe, midnight blue, trimmed in silver thread. It shimmered faintly under the sconce light. It did not belong to N••••••••. Nor F••••.
"Yours?" Eva asked softly.
Vivienne shook her head. "It was. Now it waits for you."
Evelyn joined her, voice gentler than Eva expected. "From the A••••••• estate. We trained there. Long ago, before you were born."
"You fought?" Eva asked.
Vivienne's gaze held hers. "We all did. Even your Maman."
Eva looked down at the fabric. It shimmered like water. "She kept it from me."
"She shielded you," Vivienne corrected. "That's not the same as silence."
A long pause.
"Were you ever afraid?" Eva asked.
Vivienne's face softened as she turned toward Evelyn.
"Only of losing the ones I loved more than my name."
That night, behind a locked door and drawn curtains, Evelyn and Vivienne found each other in the quiet language that didn't need words. A touch, a glance, the slow undoing of tension as fingers brushed fabric. Everything between them was lived-in and alive — layered with memory, sharpened by longing.
Outside, the world stayed sharp and rigid — all sharp heels and colder smiles. But here, wrapped in soft linens and the amber hush of dimmed lights, the rules didn't matter. There were no family names, no diplomatic poise. Just Evelyn and Vivienne, stripped of everything but each other.
Vivienne reached for the clasp at Evelyn's collar again, slower this time. "May I?" she asked, not because she needed permission, but because she always did.
Evelyn looked at her, something raw flickering in her eyes. "Always."
The coat slipped from Evelyn's shoulders with a whisper, pooling to the floor. Beneath it: pale skin, trembling restraint, and years of unspoken need. Vivienne kissed the space just beneath her jaw — the spot Evelyn only let her touch — and felt the weight loosen in her hands.
"You still look at me like that," Evelyn whispered, half defiance, half ache.
Vivienne smiled against her skin. "I've only ever looked at you like this."
Evelyn laughed, quiet and brittle. "Liar."
Vivienne leaned back just enough to meet her gaze. "Only when I'm scared."
They moved with the certainty of people who had memorized each other once and were doing it again, slower this time. Vivienne's hands traced old scars like stories; Evelyn's fingers threaded into Vivienne's hair, grounding herself in what was real.
"Don't be gentle," Evelyn breathed. "Not with me."
"I never have been," Vivienne answered.
Their bodies met like music — no rush, just rhythm. The kind born of years, not moments. The silence between them wasn't empty. It was full — of every time they'd said goodbye and meant to come back. Of every glance across crowded rooms, pretending not to ache.
Evelyn's breath stuttered. Her hands gripped tighter. When her voice broke, it wasn't surrender — it was something truer.
Vivienne held her close through it, her own eyes glassy with everything she couldn't say aloud.
They didn't sleep right away. There were too many ghosts to kiss away.
But in the hush that followed, limbs tangled and foreheads pressed close, there was peace — not perfect, not whole, but theirs.
By morning, Eva sat alone in the garden, sketchbook open, pencil unmoving. She didn't draw.
She wrote.
Who am I when no one is watching?
When the girl with the ribbon isn't near?
When the man who shaped me forgets my name?
And the woman who bore me speaks only in riddles?
She didn't finish the stanza.
Her phone vibrated.
Seraphina: Did the ribbon mean something? The red one on the branch?
Eva stared at the message.
Then typed:
Eva: It meant I was too afraid to keep it tied.
A pause.
Seraphina: Do you want me to ask more?
Eva exhaled slowly.
Eva: Not yet. But you can watch. I won't stop you.
That afternoon in N•••••, Seraphina returned to a slim volume of N•••• folktales Eva had once lent her. As she opened it, something slipped free.
A paper scrap — thin, yellowed. An unfamiliar symbol inked in gold. Not a rune. Not one from their known histories.
Something older.
She ran her thumb across it. A chill whispered through her.
Something was shifting. Breaking open.
That evening, Eva entered the mirrored training room alone. Her form was clean, movements sharp. Not fueled by fear. Not by anger.
By need.
Need to understand herself. To reclaim what had been layered over and cut away.
The past was no longer a place she visited.
It lived inside her now.
Every motion. Every breath.
And as the mirrors reflected her bruised ribs and steady eyes, she whispered over and over:
"I am still Eva."
And in a small room across the sea, Seraphina looked up at the darkened sky and murmured:
"I'm still watching. Waiting for your return, my little moonbeam."