The chamber allotted to Joanna in Silverwood was no longer the Luminae Manor.
That sanctuary, once a kingdom of winter-blooming snow blossoms painstakingly gathered by Lord Arthur Vane from every corner of Perinus, was now Elena's gilded cage. Young Joanna had declared them her heart's delight; the manor spent fortunes each winter preserving their fragile beauty against the frost.
All lost to Elena with a sigh: "How exquisite Sister's snow blossoms are!"
The old bitterness had faded to dust. Silverwood's jewels belonged to its true heir. Joanna was the interloper.
The maid guiding her, Brenna, had plump cheeks like a cherub carved in dough. "Miss Nyle," Brenna chirped, "Lady Viola assigned me to attend you! Anything you require—"
"You served Lord Cedric's apartments," Joanna interrupted, recognition flickering.
Brenna beamed. "You remember me, Miss?"
Joanna nodded once. She'd spent countless hours in Cedric's shadowed halls. So Brenna was his spy now—placed to watch for threats against the fragile Elena.
The Lilywater Chambers greeted them with bleak austerity. Bare-limbed willows drooped over a frozen pond pocked with broken lotus stems—ghosts of summer blooms drowned under ice. Decay hung heavier here than the courtyard's winter bite.
Firelight and steam softened the chill within. Brenna moved to help Joanna disrobe. Joanna stopped her with a hand firm as frostbitten oak.
"I bathe alone."
Brenna blinked. "But Milady, it's not fitt—"
"Alone." The word brooked no protest.
Brenna retreated, leaving the steaming water and clean linens. Joanna locked the door. Only then did she shed the scratchy grey wool, layer by painful layer, beneath the thin birchwood privacy screen.
——
Joanna found Lord Cedric blocking the Dowager's threshold an hour later.
"What mockery is this attire?" His lip curled, eyeing the coarse laundry dress like carrion. "Draped in servant's rags to manipulate Grandmother's pity?"
"Lord Cedric—" Joanna began, coolly.
He shoved her back. Hard. "Guard your schemes! Grandmother's health shatters at shadows. Hurt her, and I'll carve regret into your bones!"
Her injured ankle buckled. She crashed onto slick flagstones. Pain blinded her.
"Cedric! Desist!" Lady Viola's cry tore across the courtyard as she rushed forward, Elena fluttering anxiously beside her. Viola gestured frantically to maids to lift Joanna.
Cedric stood rigid. "She chose this humiliation! Gifted gowns sit untouched while she parades her laundry shame! It's psychological poison for Grandmother!"
Viola's gaze darted to Joanna's grey dress, distressed. "Joanna, darling, Grandmother is so fragile. Your brother acted monstrously, yes, but his fear drives him. Please… change."
Joanna met Viola's pleading eyes, then Elena's wide, tear-bright ones. "The gowns… don't fit." She spoke softly.
Cedric scoffed. "A fraction shorter? Excuses!"
Joanna exhaled, the sound thin in the icy air. Cedric thrived on condemning her motives. Slowly, deliberately, she pushed back the coarse woolen sleeve of her dress.
Gasps hissed like escaping steam.
Her forearms were a battlefield beneath the thin fabric. Hands, swollen, mottled purple and angry red with frostbite, knuckles cracked and bleeding. Up her arms stretched a cruel latticework—jagged, discolored stripes, some faded white with time, others livid crimson weals. A grotesque tapestry of violence etched by whip and cane and winter's malice.
"Shadows," Cedric choked out, understanding dawning cold and sickening. Too-short sleeves would expose this desecration to the Dowager's horrified eyes.
Viola let out a wail, crumbling to her knees, clutching Joanna's brutalized hands. "My sweet storm-petrel! I… I didn't know the touch caused pain!" Her tears splashed onto Joanna's raw skin.
Behind her, Brenna's own eyes flooded. "Is it… all over?" she whispered, horror-struck. "Is that why you wouldn't let me help?"
All over? The arms alone screamed volumes. The rest didn't bear imagining.
"Fetch the physician! Now!" Viola shrieked, her breathing ragged.
Elena pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, perfect tears spilling like diamonds. "Who… who would dare treat Sister like this?"
The theatrical grief scraped Joanna's nerves raw. A coil of vicious fire ignited low in her gut. She met Elena's tear-drenched gaze, her own voice devoid of heat, as cold as the frozen pond outside Lilywater.
"Her Royal Highness commands it." The chill deepened. "Rewards flow like spiced wine to those who inflict deepest suffering on the 'goblet-thief.' The more inventive the cruelty… the greater the prize."
Elena froze, a waxen doll suddenly devoid of breath. The tears dried mid-track, replaced by something raw and panicked in the back of her widened eyes. Her silent maid stared fixedly at her own shoes.
Here she stood, Joanna noted with detached irony. This very same serving girl whose finger-pointing testimony had sealed Joanna's fate three winters past. Still serving Elena. Protected. Beloved.
Lady Viola's 'torrential tears' tasted of ash.
Elena's facade crumpled like spun sugar under Joanna's ice-water tone. Cedric's fleeting remorse drowned in renewed fury. "Must you salt every wound?" he snapped. "Had you spoken of these injuries sooner—"
He'd have stormed the Royal Apothecary? Joanna's faint derision hung unspoken as she gently withdrew her hands from Viola's tear-slick grasp.
"My Lord Cedric granted no pause for explanation earlier." Her voice remained level, the frost beneath it biting deeper.
Cedric's gaze sharpened. Still refusing to call me brother? Rage tightened his throat. "Explain this, then: Silverwood trained you from the cradle with its finest bladesmasters. How do laundry maids break the Heiress of Hawks?"
The question tore open old scars. Joanna lowered her gaze, slowly pulling the coarse woolen sleeve over the grotesque tapestry of her forearm. Her voice dropped, soft as falling snow and sharp as shards. "Resistance... ended swiftly. The girls fell easily beneath my fists." A pause like a blade being drawn slowly from a scabbard. "But defeat made them cunning."
Her eyes lifted, locking onto Cedric's. That frozen stare held no blame, only terrible witness. Yet it made his hands tremble.
"They came at night. Buckets of well-ice water drenched my pallet. At meals, they scraped kitchen slops onto my plate while others ate soup. They dragged clean linens through latrine pits. Doubled my workload." Each word, precise and pitiless. "I pleaded with the Matron. Her answer? Crimson stripes added to my flesh." She met Cedric's mounting disbelief with a ghost of a smile, chilling and mirthless. "So I learned. Slept on stone when bedding swam. Ate filth when offered. Bore the lash in silence." A flicker of grim acknowledgment. "Near death once… perhaps Lord Vane's name still held some shadow of power. The strikes lessened afterward."
Her eyes pinned Cedric. "Do you imagine I embraced this torment? Craved your poisoned remorse?" The word dripped venom. "I know my place now. My blood means nothing here. Truth pierces bone: you may bleed guilt, Lord Cedric, but never regret. This story only brings relief. Relief it was me, not precious Elena, who endured the Steamworks."
The invisible claws raked Cedric's heart again. He stood speechless, gutted.
"Joanna! Stop!" Viola gasped, tears choking her. "I failed you!"
"Lady Viola owes me nothing." Joanna's reply was gentle silk wrapped around steel wire. "Fifteen winters of shelter is a debt beyond repayment."
The contrast to Elena's calculated tenderness was brutal. Joanna's gentleness flayed skin from bone.
"But you rage!" Cedric spat, the pain twisting into fury. "This! All of it! Your ice-court manners! Falling where mother would see! Was it all staged? Did you spin webs for Thorne too? Snare his pity for this carriage ride?" He stepped closer, teeth bared in a predator's snarl. "Lay your delusions to rest! Thorne belongs to Elena. Their vows chime at the summer solstice!"
The blow landed true. The brother who knew which knives twisted deepest.
A flicker. Then glacial calm. Joanna's trauma-hardened heart absorbed the thrust. "The Lord Cedric's duties must crowd his memory," she countered, her tone light, almost conversational. "The gallery stairs three winters past… My ankle has never truly healed. Your… dismount from your carriage today only wrenched it anew. Hence my stumble. As for General Thorne's pity…" A wintry pause. "How curious. Does Lord Cedric overvalue my charms, or undervalue Miss Shaw?"
Elena flinched as if struck, color draining from her cheeks.
"Enough!" Cedric roared, sheltering Elena with his glare. "Your poisoned tongue! Joanna holds grudges like a miser hoards gold! I know your soul! Three winters in filth only sharpened its bitterness! You'll pay us back in pain!" He jabbed a finger toward Viola, now slumped against a maid, sobbing uncontrollably. "Look what your cold, vengeful heart did to our mother!"
Elena's tears flowed again, this time touched by genuine panic. She'd never seen Viola this undone. Not even the day Joanna vanished into the Steamworks. Is he right? Is this Joanna's design? A blade forged in three years of grime?
Her gaze darted to Joanna. Found only an arctic stare boring back. Unflinching. Accusing. Elena looked away, scalded.
Joanna's curtsy was a masterpiece of frozen grace. "My presence seems a dagger at Silverwood's peace. Please convey my profound apologies to the Dowager. I will return tomorrow."
She turned. The deliberate, painful limp carved the shape of her suffering onto every witness: Cedric's knotted guilt, Viola's unraveling despair, Elena's cold dread.
Even Thorne's.
Cedric found him after ushering Viola and Elena away. The General stood in the lee of the stone colonnade, his expression the familiar, impenetrable mask. But Cedric knew. He'd seen the scene unfold. Every lash-mark revealed. Every accusation hurled.
"What brings you, Thorne?" Cedric's voice rasped.
"His Majesty gifted rare alpine tonics. Useless to me. Suitable for the Dowager." Thorne's reply flowed smooth as frozen oil.
Cedric studied the General's profile—the stark line of his jaw, the deceptive stillness of those glacier eyes. "Speak plain," Cedric demanded, the accusation rough. "Was it Joanna who drew you here?"