The halls of Inferna did not welcome.

  They weighed.

  Shadows clung to the stone like a second skin, cast long and sharp from braziers that burned with disciplined, narrow flames. The air carried the faint tang of metal and ash, scrubbed of warmth and laughter. Every step rang clean and hollow, the sound of a place that prized order over comfort.

  Flora walked a little ahead, her posture straight, footsteps quiet and precise. Her maid uniform was immaculate, hair pinned neatly, each motion measured — too practiced to be casual, too gentle to be military. To anyone else, she might have looked at ease here.

  Soliana kept to her side, half a step behind.

  The little girl’s eyes moved constantly — tracing the banners stitched with Inferna’s crest, the black stone, the slitted windows that let in thin strands of light and nothing more. She took in the guard patrols, the way they moved like part of the building, the way no one here ever let their shoulders drop all the way.

  The fortress pressed in around her. Heavy. Watching.

  Her fingers curled in on themselves.

  Then she looked at her mother.

  Flora’s face, in this place of sharp lines and straight backs, was softer than it had any right to be. Her eyes were calm, her mouth relaxed even when she wasn’t smiling. She didn’t belong to the stone. She simply walked through it.

  Soliana’s chest loosened.

  She inched closer — not enough to touch, just enough that if she leaned an inch more, their shoulders might brush. Her gaze dropped to Flora’s hand, swaying lightly at her side with each step. Warm. Familiar. Safe.

  Her lips tugged into a small, shy smile.

  Flora felt the gaze before she saw it. Years in service had honed that sense — the awareness of eyes, of attention, of people needing something they didn’t know how to ask for. She glanced sideways.

  Soliana’s eyes widened. She snapped her head away, cheeks coloring, as if caught doing something embarrassing.

  Flora’s steps did not falter. Her face did not change. But her heart squeezed once, sharp and sudden.

  She looked forward again, giving Soliana the space to hide.

  A few more steps. The air hummed with distant training drills — steel clashing, voices shouting orders, then fading. Inferna’s heartbeat. She knew every rhythm by sound alone.

  Soliana peeked again.

  Her mother’s profile, calm as ever. The straight line of her back. The small, almost imperceptible lift at the corner of her mouth.

  Soliana’s fingers relaxed.

  She followed.

  Just like always.

  ---

  The memory came back with the smell of sun-warmed earth and festival sweets.

  Roland’s footsteps faded over cobblestone, swallowed by the noise of the village. His small frame disappeared past the market stalls, blending into color and laughter until there was nothing left to see but the wake he left behind.

  Flora’s eyes stayed on that disappearing shape even after he was gone.

  “Roland…” she murmured, almost to herself.

  Soliana heard it.

  The word sat heavy, sinking straight into the quiet place in her chest that she’d hoped would feel lighter now that he had walked away. Flora had promised to visit. Flora had been gone for so long. Flora was finally here. Flora was still looking at someone else.

  Soliana’s fingers trembled, then reached.

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  She slipped her small hand into her mother’s.

  Flora looked down, startled — and smiled. “Tired?” she asked gently.

  She didn’t wait for the answer. She guided Soliana toward a bench near a quieter corner of the square, away from the worst of the noise. The village glowed with festival gold, but here the light was softer, the air less crowded.

  They sat.

  Soliana’s hand stayed in Flora’s a heartbeat longer, then slowly loosened. Her mother’s palm was warm. It always had been. It had also always been… busy.

  Flora’s gaze wandered back toward where Roland had vanished.

  “He really is troublesome,” she said, half to herself, half aloud. “Always doing as he pleases, skipping lessons, sneaking out of the castle. I’ve told him so many times, but he never listens…”

  Her tone was fond. Exasperated. Tired in a way that sounded more like affection than frustration.

  Soliana watched her mother’s face.

  She wanted the words to turn. To curve in her direction. To become: “And you? How have you been? What did you do this year? Did you sleep well? Did you miss me?” She waited for the question that didn’t come.

  Flora kept talking.

  “He gives Leon headaches too. You didn’t see it, but that time with the sparring lesson… he decided to—”

  Her voice blurred a little at the edges for Soliana.

  The sounds of the village softened — laughter, bargaining, a wagon rolling by. The world went slightly distant, like she was underwater, listening to noise from above the surface.

  Her mother’s words were about Roland. Her smile was about Roland. Her worries were about Roland.

  Soliana’s hands curled into the fabric of her dress.

  Flora noticed, finally, that the little figure beside her had gone very, very quiet.

  She turned. “Soliana? What’s wrong?”

  The girl’s head dipped lower. Her shoulders hunched, the way she always did when she didn’t want her face to be seen.

  “…Nothing,” Soliana whispered.

  The silence that followed was not the easy kind.

  It sat between them — thin, fragile, and sharp all at once.

  Flora’s brows drew together. Somewhere, under years of practiced composure, something twisted. She felt the weight of all the times she had rushed from one duty to another. All the times she’d told herself she’d make it up to Soliana next visit. All the days she’d spent worrying about one child while another waited.

  Before she could put shape to the feeling, before she could find a safe, proper sentence, Soliana’s fingers tightened around the hem of her own skirt — once, twice.

  Then, with a courage that didn’t show on her face but screamed through the tremor of her voice, she said the one thing she’d been holding for years.

  “…I miss you, Mom.”

  Flora froze.

  The words were small. Barely louder than the breeze. But they hit like a hand to the chest.

  Soliana’s eyes stayed down, mascaraed lashes trembling. Her small shoulders gave the barest shiver, as if bracing for nothing at all to happen.

  Flora swallowed. Her throat ached.

  “I…” She stopped, breath catching on the useless apologies that would change nothing. She chose the only truth that didn’t feel like a lie.

  “I miss you too.”

  She didn’t say I’m sorry. She didn’t say I’ll be here more. She couldn’t. The world they lived in didn’t care much for promises that soft.

  Soliana looked up.

  Just those few words. Just that one admission. It shouldn’t have been enough.

  It was.

  Her grip on Flora’s sleeve tightened, then eased. The corners of her mouth shook, trying and failing to decide whether to lift or not. Finally, they did, just a little.

  Flora reached out and smoothed a hand over her daughter’s hair, fingers slow, tender. The gesture said all the things her mouth couldn’t.

  For that moment, Roland wasn’t in her eyes. Neither was Inferna.

  Just Soliana.

  ---

  The echo of that bench lingered when Flora’s feet stopped moving.

  Soliana, lost in the memory, walked one more step and bumped gently into her back.

  “...Ah.” She blinked, pulled from her thoughts, and looked up.

  The hall had changed without her noticing.

  Ahead, wide reinforced doors opened into the inner fortress — the entrance to the heart of Inferna. Guards flanked either side, spines straight, eyes forward. Breath hushed at their passage.

  And a girl in black walked through as if the world parted for her by right.

  Carmilla did not glance at them. Her boots clicked softly against the stone, each step precise. Her black uniform fit like a pronouncement, not a costume — efficient, clean, unadorned. Her hair, dark as cooling embers, fell straight down her back.

  Flora bowed smoothly, lowering her head but not moving from where she stood. The gesture was exact — deep enough for respect, controlled enough for dignity.

  Soliana, startled, shrank behind her mother, peeking from the edge of her skirt.

  She watched the girl she had seen once before — at the Inferna gate, smiling faintly while Anastasia flung herself into her arms. That time, she’d seen her from afar, wrapped in warmth that didn’t match this place.

  Up close, Carmilla felt different.

  Not cruel. Not cold. Just… hollow. Like a blade with its edge turned inward, always cutting where no one could see.

  Soliana’s fingers tightened around the fabric at Flora’s back.

  Carmilla passed them without a single look. Her shadow slid over them and kept going. Only when she reached the far end of the hall did Flora straighten from her bow.

  “Come on, honey,” Flora said softly.

  Soliana’s eyes stayed on Carmilla’s receding figure a moment longer — the straight line of her spine, the way the air did not dare resist her step. Questions brushed the edge of her thoughts.

  Who is she really?

  Why did she feel different at the gate?

  Why does she feel so empty now?

  She shook her head.

  It didn’t matter.

  Her hand reached instinctively for Flora’s again — and this time, Flora noticed at once. She took it, fingers folding around Soliana’s small hand with deliberate care.

  The stone was still heavy. The air was still strict.

  But Soliana’s shoulders eased.

  As long as she walked beside her mother, Inferna could not swallow her whole.

  They moved forward together, deeper into the fortress, the sound of their joined footsteps echoing down the corridor — two small, stubborn notes in a hall built for silence.