Eydis had made a miscalculation.

She showed up to class like a responsible student, pretending to care about molecular bonds while surrounded by hormonal noise. All of it to avoid another detention and the dreaded teacher-parent conference.

She endured the usual teenage rituals: petty taunts, recycled insults and the Elites' sudden fixation on her fashion choices. One of them, a freckled brute with the cognitive range of a houseplant, slammed his locker shut in front of her and grinned like he'd just completed a full sentence for the first time.

"Well, look who we have here."

She didn't stop walking. "Oh? Let me find a mirror."

The brute blinked, visibly straining himself with the effort of thought. A few seconds too late, he scowled. "Got the Chem homework, nerd?"

"Ah, Chem…istry. A subject that, regrettably, even the finest minds struggle with." Eydis spared him a glance. "Still, if you've moved on to pest control, I'd be delighted to help."

His face scrunched. "What the… are you speaking in riddles, you freak?" He grabbed for her collar. "Just hand it over before I—"

The air changed. Not a figure of speech. No, the actual temperature dropped.

The brute wasn't looking at her anymore.

Eydis turned. Amber eyes met crimson.

Silver hair, loose and sharp as falling snow, framed Astra's face. Her academy blazer was slightly too big, hanging off her shoulder just enough to make it seem intentional. A black choker hugged her throat.

Astra.

"Move," she said.

The brute's face collapsed from threat to something more pathetic: stunned, wide-eyed devotion. It was as if that single word had been spoken like gospel. His hand still hovered near Eydis's collar. "I—um—it's not what it looks like."

Astra did not ask again. She simply flicked her hand, and he hit the lockers hard. She kept walking as if nothing had happened, until Eydis caught her wrist.

"Impressive. Slightly aggressive in your approach to interior design, but I'll allow it."

Astra glanced at the dented lockers, then at Eydis. She mumbled something about him being in the way, a rather questionable excuse for an otherwise empty hallway.

"Of what? The oxygen?" Eydis straightened her collar. "Still, thank you. I was beginning to think our dorm arrangement was purely theoretical. We are roommates, aren't we?"

A muffled groan rose from the pile of former aggression behind them. Astra didn't turn and flicked her fingers again.

He faceplanted with a thud.

Eydis raised an eyebrow. "I used to think she—I mean, I—was being dramatic about you. Turns out I was just observant."

Astra's eyes widened. "What are you—?"

Eydis leaned closer. "The poem. It wasn't about feelings. It was respect. Honest admiration for your terrifying efficiency," she lied smoothly. "But if getting to know you better is on the table, I wouldn't object. Roomie."

"I wasn't avoiding you," Astra muttered, a flicker of colour touching her cheeks.

Eydis smiled. "Naturally."

Astra turned away, silent again. The faint scent of sandalwood lingered behind her.

Eydis watched her go, calculating, and ignoring why she'd even noticed someone's scent in the first place.

Getting closer to Astra wasn't sentiment. It was a plan. Sometimes the pieces didn't move the way you expected. Sometimes they moved you.

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And Eydis wasn't sure anymore if this was strategy or something far less manageable. But underneath Astra's frostbitten exterior, Eydis didn't sense hostility.

She was still charting the opening chess moves when Dean Saito arrived at her flank.

"Eydis. Your parents have arrived."

Her face remained neutral. Inside, she borrowed one of Natalia's favourite words.

"Motherforker."

There it was—the real miscalculation.

"Your Majesty! Look—a canary! He's hurt!"

Princess Eydis, ten winters old and still naïve enough to run, sprinted across the garden. Her small hands cupped protectively around the trembling bird.

The Queen of Shadows turned. Her gown shifted as if alive, silk-dark and fluid. Her obsidian eyes took in the bird with the same indifference she gave to most living things.

"Throw it away."

Eydis flinched. Her arms curled tighter around the bird's fragile form. "But he's alive, Mo—Your Majesty."

The correction came a little too late. The Queen didn't react to the slip. Not visibly. "Alive?" she said. "And for what? A bird that cannot fly is simply waiting to die."

"Then I'll protect him."

"A bold plan," the Queen said, a smirk brushing her lips. "And how will you protect it, child? Keep it caged? Feed it, tend to it, strip it of everything except breath?"

"I… but…" The Princess stepped back.

The Queen's gaze darkened. "Would you choose that life? One without strength, without purpose? To merely exist?"

It wasn't a question, but young Eydis didn't know that. She tried to answer, and failed.

Her mother remained beautiful, tall, and cold. Always cold.

There was no winning these conversations. There never was. But for some reason, this felt personal. The canary. Her mother.

And Eydis, for all her cleverness, couldn't understand why.

Not then, maybe not even now.

Her lips pressed together.

"I thought so." The Queen turned and dismissed the matter. "Get rid of it."

Eydis stood beneath the arching boughs of the grove, alone except for the fading warmth of the bird in her hands.

Golden eyes flashed. With a snap of her fingers, she summoned the serpent: obsidian-scaled, violet-sheened, sharp-eyed, its forked tongue flicking in amusement.

Take it to the healer.

Understood, Your Highness.

The serpent wrapped itself gently around the injured bird and soared into the ashen sky.

Eydis squared her shoulders and followed her mother. She wasn't her. She never would be.

A chance and a life.

That's what she had given the bird.

Its fate, its freedom, would be its own.

"Eydis, can you hear me?" Dean Saito's asked.

She blinked away the memory. "Yeah… I'm just nervous."

"It's hard to believe," he said with a half-smile, pushing open the office door, "coming from the same young woman who argued with me the other day."

Inside, two figures sat waiting.

Eydis had half-expected them to look like her parents—beautiful, always beautiful. Intimidating. Frosted in ice, frozen in time, even if draped in rags.

Instead, she found… them.

Her father, dark-haired, amber-eyed, looking at her like she was still small enough to carry. Her mother, hair in a sleek bob, blue eyes bright, smile trembling.

They looked nothing like her parents. Not in their faces. And certainly not in the way their eyes shimmered with… emotions.

Mother never cried. Not even at the...

Eydis swallowed hard.

"Eydis, sweetie!" they exclaimed.

She sucked in a sharp breath. "Mom, Dad… I miss you."

The practised words left her mouth before she had fully decided to say them. She rarely called the former Queen Mother, let alone something as pedestrian as Mom.

And yet, that was all it took.

Tears welled in their eyes, spilled freely down their cheeks. And to her horror, she fidgeted. Her mother rose first, arms flinging around her. Her father followed. Together, they caged her like something precious.

Her fingers twitched, itching to ball into a fist. But Dean Saito was still watching from the doorway, and she had long since learned how to play a role.

So, after a pause, she raised her arms and returned the hug.

This is torture.

"They can't do this to you," her mother choked out. "If anyone's mistreating you—"

"Just say the word," her father added. "We'll fix it. But, really… this is the first time in years you've admitted missing us."

Lovely. Smooth move, Eydis.

"You're suffocating me," she complained into her father's sweater.

Her mother eased back, cupping her face. "Sweetheart, you look so thin. Are they feeding you anything decent?"

"Let's have lunch together, Eydis," her father said.

Eydis forced out a smile and followed them into the corridor in silence. She had outmaneuvered nobles, manipulated politics, even the primal evils.

This was exhausting.

"How are you adjusting to… everything?" asked her father.

"It's different," she said.

"Different is putting it mildly." Her mother squeezed her hand. "But you'll manage. You always do."

Eydis gave her a thin smile. "Perhaps."

When they reached the courtyard and started toward the cafeteria's brick building, her mother smiled and asked, "Got any decent food here? You always loved pizza."

"I'd rather have seafood pasta."

"Seafood?" Her father looked surprised. "But you hate—"

"It's the least offensive option," she said flatly, picking up speed through the courtyard, her shoes crunching sharply over the orange leaves.

Their concern felt alien, almost irritating. These weren't her parents. This wasn't her world.

All she wanted was for them to leave.

Her mind returned to that canary. Had it survived? Or had its song been silenced? How ironic now, the Queen's old saying: "A bird that cannot fly is simply waiting to die."

But Eydis was neither the Queen, nor the canary. She would not be silenced. She would fight, tear her way back to her world, to her rightful throne. Even if it meant enduring this.

An unexpected warmth invaded her personal space. The strangers' arms wrapped gently around her shoulders. And for just a moment, Eydis didn't shrug it off.

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