Verena sat morosely in her room. It was raining so she couldn’t go out to the garden. She was supposed to be reading, but the last three books she’d looked for had been locked behind the block that marked them as being reserved for the Imperial household only. She was tired of being told things were out of bounds because she was in the lower court. She wanted freedom to do more with her life than simply marry another lord of the lower court and live her life watching her husband scramble for scraps of Imperial favor.
Spending time with Ethian and Fallon had awakened a sense of ambition in her that hadn’t been there before. She wanted to be a part of the upper court, to have the rights and privileges that came with being someone of importance. She wanted the wealth and rank that came with that wealth.
Part of her told her to be sensible. Even if they ascended, they would be one of the lowest ranked families in the upper court so she wouldn’t have a great deal of status. She’d still have more than she had now though, and she wanted that. She wondered when their father was going to do something to change their position.
“Probably not until he gets rid of Milisen and the others, and by then it will be far easier for him to find me a husband here,” Verena muttered.
A tiny part of her dreamed of marrying a high lord’s son, to sit at the high table with the Imperial family so she could still be close to Ethian and Fallon. Not even in her wildest fantasies did she ever consider marrying either of the Imperial princes. That was for women of loftier birth statuses than a lower court woman, even an ascended one.
Verena sighed and she picked up her pad again. She skimmed through the titles available to her and found one that somewhat matched what she was interested in and pulled it up. She began reading and tried to put her ruminations out of her mind. It would do no good to dwell on things she couldn’t do anything about.
It took a little effort but soon she lost herself in her book. It was with some surprise that her alarm startled her out of her focus. She set her pad aside and joined the family for lunch. “What has everyone been up to this morning?” Mislav asked.
“I was in meetings with Lord Helfried this morning.” Niklas had a satisfied smile on his face. “Negotiations are going very well.”
“I spent the morning helping my sisters.” Astera looked tired.
“I was reading.” Verena knew that her father would expect that of her.
“I reorganized my jewelry box.” Milisen looked bored as she ate.
“I sorted through my dresses to see which ones still fit and which ones were too small.” Nefari looked as bored as Milisen.
“I sat and daydreamed about potential husbands.” Ismat still had a dreamy expression on her face.
“I was reading.” Zdena surprised Verena. Her sister wasn’t usually one for reading books in her spare time.
“What were you reading Ver and Dee?” Mislav asked.
“I was reading a book on the fifth emperor.” Verena sighed quietly to herself. It wasn’t the one she wanted, but it would do to answer a few of her questions.
“I was reading a book of romantic tales.” Zdena sneered at her younger sister. “Verena’s book sounds boring.”
“Your book sounds dull.” Verena made a face at Zdena. “Mine was fascinating.”
“Each of you found books that appealed to you.” Mislav stopped the fight before it could start. “It does not matter the subject. I am just pleased you two were reading.”
“Yes, Father.” Verena subsided.
“What are your plans for this afternoon?” Mislav asked.
“Nefari and I are visiting some friends.” Milisen looked at her sister, who nodded.
“What friends?” Mislav asked sharply.
“Ladies Adelma and Cecilie.” Milisen named two women in the lower court they were on good terms with. “We are going to play some games with them. They sent the invitation to my pad this morning.”
“I want to see this invitation.” Mislav was skeptical of his daughter’s honesty, a fact Verena didn’t blame him for. Milisen got up and went into her room. She came back with her pad and showed her father the invitation. “Very well. Be back by dinnertime.”
“Yes, Father.” Milisen sat back down.
“I am going to continue reading.” Zdena smiled. “My book was just getting good when I was called to lunch.”
“I am going to tutor the children as I usually do.” Verena smiled at Niklas and Astera.
“Issy? What are you going to do?” Mislav asked.
“I suppose I will find a book to read like Dee.” Ismat sighed. “I do not have anything else to do.”
“I have a meeting this afternoon with Lord Nereo.” Mislav looked at his daughters. “I will be busy for a few hours. That does not mean any of you have the right to cause any trouble. I will find out about it if you do. Keep to the plans you have made, and I will see you at dinner.”
“Yes Father.” They all gave their agreement.
After lunch, Verena went over to Niklas’ suite and spent a very pleasant afternoon with her niece and nephews. Albrecht was excited to tell her about the things Niklas was teaching him in the evenings. Verena was thrilled to see Niklas had taken the advice she’d given him after a previous tutoring session had led to a frank conversation with her nephew. Albrecht was thriving under his father’s tutelage.
Verena made her way back to the suite and went into her room and read until dinnertime. She went out to the table and sat down. Three of her sisters joined her. Ismat did not. Mislav came out and joined them. “Where is Ismat?” he asked.
“We do not know.” Nefari looked confused. “We just got back a few minutes ago.”
“I have been in my room all afternoon.” Zdena looked just as confused. “I have not seen her since lunch.”
“I went straight to my room after I was done tutoring the children.” Verena was as puzzled as her other sisters. “I did not see her.”
Mislav got up and went to Ismat’s room. He opened the door. Her room was empty. He turned around, anger plain on his face. Just then, Ismat walked into the suite, her dress askew and her hair a mess. “Ismat, where were you?” Mislav asked.
“Spending some time with a friend.” Ismat tried to fix her dress and her hair.
“I see. A friend.” Mislav’s voice was cold and tightly controlled.
“Yes, a friend.” Ismat stubbornly refused to say anything more.
“I am not an idiot, Ismat. Go to your room.” Mislav pointed to her door.
“It is dinnertime, Father,” Ismat protested. “You cannot mean to starve me.”
“You will not starve for missing one meal. Go to your room.” Ismat stalked into her room. Mislav locked the door behind her. “No one is to go in, and she does not come out.”
“You cannot just lock her up, Father,” Milisen protested.
“I will not tolerate promiscuity from any of you, Milisen.” Mislav fixed his oldest daughter with a stare that made her flinch. “I told you that five years ago. If you cannot control yourselves, by all the stars, I will see to it that you cannot keep up your bad habits. This is why I cannot find any of you husbands.”
“You cannot find any of us husbands because of Verena.” Nefari was starting the same old refrain they always brought out when one of them got into trouble.
“Verena has done nothing to cause issues for any of you,” Mislav snapped. “It is your promiscuity that has caused you to be unpalatable in the eyes of the men of the lower court.”
“All I hear about at court is how loose your morals are.” Niklas shook his head. “I have heard so many men talk about how they would sleep with you but never marry you.”
“You are lying.” Nefari looked at him in horror.
“He is not.” Astera regarded the three of them with disgust. “I have heard them say the same thing when they are talking to him.”
Zdena burst into tears. “You did this to yourselves. Avalyn did nothing to stop you, and she ruined your chances. I would send you to Henebore now, except I gave Egil and Julian until the end of the year to prepare for your arrival. They have things to arrange, and I do not want to rush them.” Mislav sat back down in his chair.
“It is not fair that you are not sending Verena as well.” Milisen glowered at her youngest sister.
“Verena has done nothing to ruin her reputation. I still have a chance to use her to seal a negotiation. I cannot use you four for anything.” Mislav gave his oldest daughter a cold look.
Milisen scowled and stared down at the table. The servants brought out the food. Verena ate and escaped to her room. Mislav came to see her before she went to bed. “Hello Father.” Verena set her book aside.
“Hello Verena.” Mislav leaned against the wall. “I am sorry, I seem to have made you a target for your sisters again.”
“I am used to it, Father.” Verena sighed. “I have a place I go where I can hide from them. If I get out of here in the morning, assuming it is a fine day tomorrow, and I get away from them I can get to my hiding place before they catch me. I spend my entire morning there with my friends and Mili and the others cannot touch me.”
“I will delay them so you can get a head start.” Mislav sighed. “I seem to put my foot in it more often than not with you and those four.”
“You do your best, Father. I know you do not mean to set them against me. It is just their nature. Mother turned them against me from the time I was a child, and they never changed even after she left. It was too ingrained into them.” Verena let the sadness she felt show. “I will never understand why mother hated me so much.”
“I do not understand it either, Ver.” Mislav shook his head. “You were such a sweet and loving child. How could anyone hate you? I never saw what she did, and it caused a lot of conflict between the two of us.”
“I suppose we will never know why mother hated me since she is gone for good now.” Verena stared at her hands, still convinced even after all this time it was her fault Avalyn had been sent away.
“No, we will never know.” Mislav walked over and kissed her on the forehead. “Are you headed to bed now?”
“I am.” Verena smiled, trying to hide the pain from him.
“All right. Good night, Verena.”
“Good night, Father.” Mislav left and Verena went to bed.
The next morning Mislav kept his word and delayed Milisen and the others so Verena could escape the suite and make her way to the Imperial garden. She settled down on the bench and began to read. Ethian and Fallon came out a couple hours later.
“Hello Verena.” Ethian sat down beside her. “How was yesterday for you?”
“It was all right until dinner.” Verena sighed. “Then Ismat got caught coming in after sneaking out and having a liaison with a man. Father locked her in her room and then it just degenerated from there. My sisters ended up in a huge fight with my father, and I knew, by the end of it, I would be a walking target this morning. Father came and saw me before I went to bed and promised to delay my sisters, and I escaped them and came directly here.”
“I am so glad your father decided to help you out this morning.” Ethian smiled at her.
“So am I.” Verena looked pensively out at the flowers.
Ethian pulled out his pad. “I hate paperwork,” he muttered. “I have so much to do today.”
“What do you do for paperwork?” Verena asked. Ethian showed her the first petition he’d been given to review. Verena read through it. “Oh, that is going to be horrible for the lower court.”
“Really?” Ethian asked, reading through it. “Why?”
“If you look here, at this clause, it makes it virtually impossible to ascend.” Verena pointed to something Ethian had missed. “And if you look here, it says that no lord who is not born to the upper court can have more than fifty thousand credits to their name.”
“Well, this is a no from me.” Ethian rejected the petition out of hand and told the lord who had proposed it he would not cripple the lower court in such a manner. “Does this one have anything troubling in it?”
Verena and Ethian read through several petitions, with Verena making comments on several of them about how they affected the lower court or how they would affect tradesmen adversely because of her connection to her father’s family. Verena was pleased she could help Ethian even with how limited her knowledge was.
“This has been very informative.” Verena was sorry it had to end when Fallon told them it was time to go back to the palace.
“You have been very helpful.” Ethian smiled at her. “I would never have caught those issues for the lower court and the tradesmen that you saw and could have ended up causing far more trouble for your family than I wanted to.”
“You two should do that again the next time you meet,” Fallon suggested.
“I think that is an excellent idea.” Ethian looked at Verena.
“I will be glad to help where I can.” Verena smiled at the two men. She hurried off back inside.
Her sisters looked positively murderous as they glared at her over lunch. It was obvious they’d had plans for her that morning and she’d neatly avoided them by escaping to the Imperial garden. “What did everyone do today?” Mislav asked.
“We walked in the gardens.” Milisen glowered at Verena.
“I spent the morning chatting with my friends in the gardens.” Verena smiled serenely at her older sisters.
“We did not see you. You should tell us where you go so we can keep an eye on you.” Nefari glanced at their father.
“I do not think so.” Mislav glared at his older daughters. “I know what the four of you were planning for her this morning. I would rather she have somewhere safe she can go to get away from you than have another doctor bill.”
“We were not planning anything.” Ismat tried to look innocent and failed miserably.
“Ismat, I am neither blind nor stupid. I know you four were planning on ambushing your sister and giving her another beating.” Mislav watched his older daughters carefully. “Why do you think I detained you in the suite? I gave Verena a head start so she could get to her hiding place before you got out there.”
“You what?” Nefari screeched.
“You know she has a hiding place?” Milisen demanded.
“She told me last night.” Mislav shrugged. “I am certainly not going to discourage her from escaping the four of you.”
Her sisters glared at her even more as they ate as their father and brother discussed business. “Ver, Stasia is running a fever today. It will just be Albrecht and Harun this afternoon,” Astera told her as they finished eating. “Albrecht is feeling restless again so be warned.”
“I have just the thing for him to do,” Verena assured her.
Verena went to Niklas’ suite and started her nephews on their lessons. Harun she put to work studying history while Albrecht she set to researching trade laws. “Is this important?” Albrecht asked.
“Very important.” Verena regarded him with a serious expression. “This is something your father and grandfather already know by heart. If you show you are willing to learn them, you will prove to your father you are serious about learning the family business.”
“All right.” Albrecht got to work with a little more enthusiasm, though it was still dull work.
“Aunt Verena, will I have to learn the family business?” Harun asked.
“That depends, Harun.” Verena regarded her younger nephew with a smile. “Do you want to?”
“No.” Harun shook his head. “I want to be a shipwright.”
“I see.” Verena wasn’t surprised by his answer. The boy was a natural engineer. “Let me talk to your father and grandfather and see what can be arranged. I do not know if they will agree with your vision, but I can try.”
“I told mother, but she just laughed and told me I do not know what I want.” Harun scowled.
“That was wrong of her to laugh.” Verena didn’t like the fact that Astera was laughing at her son. “Children often do know what they want. It is the adults who never listen.”
Later that evening, after the children were in bed, she asked Mislav, Niklas, and Astera to meet her in the schoolroom. They joined her. “What is it, Ver?” Niklas asked.
Verena turned to Astera. “Did you laugh at Harun when he told you what he wanted to be when he grew up?” she asked seriously.
“What? Oh, yes, I did. He wants to be a shipwright. He is ten. How could he possibly know what he wants?” Astera asked dismissively.
“I knew what I wanted to be at ten.” Verena glanced at her father. “I was ignored.”
“What did you want to be, Ver?” Mislav asked.
“I wanted to be a scholar.” Verena’s answer shocked everyone. “Often adults laugh at a child, telling them they do not know what they want to do. Or we are ignored or misunderstood. But we do know what we want. It is the adults who do not listen.”
“You think Harun is serious, Ver?” Niklas asked.
“I do.” Verena nodded. “He is good with his hands, Nik. You know that model of the YTK-6000 that sits on the desk in here?” She pointed. “He built that in two days without any help and only minimal use of the instructions. He is ten, Nik.” She walked over and pulled two other ships off a shelf. “I let him build these instead of study literature because he detests it almost as much as I detest mathematics. He did this one in three days and this one in a week. Look at how good he is at ten. Imagine what he is going to be like as an adult.”
“It is not a career normally pursued by a courtier’s son.” Astera’s prim attitude grated on Verena. They were tradesmen, not courtiers. Not by birth, at least. Well, mostly not by birth, Verena amended with a laugh to herself. She’d never known the tradesmen side of their lives.
“We are tradesmen by birth, Astera,” Mislav echoed Verena’s thoughts. “We do not necessarily abide by court rules when it comes to our children. Mili and the others are going to be married off to tradesmen instead of courtiers when I send them to Henebore.” He looked at Niklas. “What do you think? I could talk to Royden and see if he can get the boy into the shipwright academy he went to. He will have to wait two more years because they do not take them until they are twelve, but we can see.”
“Uncle Royden would be the right person to talk to I think.” Niklas agreed with his father after a few moments of thinking. “If Harun is still interested in two years, we can see about enrolling him at the academy.”
“I cannot believe you are going to send a noble child to be a common shipwright,” Astera protested.
“Astera, we could ascend tomorrow, and we will still be tradesmen at heart.” Mislav looked at his daughter-in-law. “We see the value in the trades where you do not. If Harun wants to be a shipwright, by all the stars, we will help him become one. Ver, I never realized you wanted to be a scholar.”
“I told mother. I should have told you.” Verena sighed.
“Do you think you would have been happier?” Niklas asked.
“I would have been less of a target for Mili and the others.” Verena looked thoughtful. “I would probably be in the process of researching something esoteric by now or teaching large groups of children and not just your three.” She paused, thinking of Ethian and Fallon. “Then again, I would not have made the friends I have now, so I do not know.”
“I am glad you have friends to help you.” Mislav frowned. “I am just sorry I never knew about your desire to be a scholar before now. Avalyn never told me.”
“No, she would never have told you.” Niklas grimaced. “She never did anything that would improve Verena’s life. She wanted Ver to be beaten down and miserable.”
“I will never understand why.” Verena looked at her father and brother. “Are mothers not supposed to love their children?”
“They are.” Niklas shook his head. “No one understands why mother did what she did.”
“Ver, thank you for bringing Harun’s request to our attention.” Mislav pulled their attention back to the present. “We will take care of it. Niklas, will you speak with the boy tomorrow?”
“I will.” Niklas nodded.
“Good.” Mislav smiled. “I will call Royden tomorrow evening after dinner. I should be able to catch him before he goes to bed.”
“Does he go to bed that early?” Astera asked.
“Henebore is on a different solar cycle than we are,” Mislav explained. “Our dinner is late in their evening. I know Egil and Julian are up late, but Royden is not so I have to try to catch him before he goes to bed.”
“Speaking of bed, I rise early and need my sleep.” Verena laughed. “You three can stay up late discussing it. I told Harun I would bring it to your attention, and I have.”
“Thank you, Ver.” Niklas hugged her.
“You are welcome, Nik.” Verena hugged him back. At least one of her siblings valued her.
“Good night, Ver.” Mislav kissed her on the forehead. She hugged him and returned to her room. She changed and curled up in her bed. She fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of a life as a scholar with her life with Ethian intermingling to create a confusing tableau.
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