The morning light broke over the Vael'ethor Estate not with a grand flourish of magic or dramatic thunder, but with the quiet, persistent dripping of condensation from the high, arched windows of the grand library.
I sat at the heavy oak study table, my eyes burning from hours of reading by the dimming glow of an oil lamp. My velvet robe was wrapped tightly around my shoulders against the chill that always settled into the stone walls before dawn. Spread out before me weren't grand spell scrolls or dark forbidden scripts, but thick, dry ledgers of estate management, supply manifests for the Southern garrisons, and delicate invitations to upcoming seasonal galas.
This was the quiet, invisible side of being the Duchess of the South—the grueling, mundane reality that storybooks always conveniently skipped.
A soft, familiar rustle near the hearth pulled my attention away from a particularly headache-inducing page of grain tax calculations.
