Anya
I run a soft cloth over a shelf of tax ledgers from the reign of the Fifth Emperor. The dust is ancient, a fine grey powder that smells of time itself. Master Elian sits hunched over a desk, his quill scratching a slow, laborious inventory. He barely speaks, which suits me perfectly. Silence is a canvas, and I am learning to paint with it.
For three weeks, this has been my world. Fetching scrolls, organizing maps, and breathing in the scent of a thousand secrets. It is quiet. It is safe. But safety is not my goal. It is a staging ground.
The heavy oak doors of the archive swing open with a groan that echoes in the vaulted silence. A man strides in, flanked by two Royal Guards. He is tall, with broad shoulders that strain the fabric of his dark blue military tunic. His black hair is cut short, and his jaw is set with an impatience that seems to vibrate in the air around him. I know him instantly.
Grand Duke Alexandre. The Emperor’s younger brother. In my past life, his name was a whisper of tragedy, a brilliant general sent to die on a frozen border. Now, he is just a man, his face a mask of controlled frustration.
“Master Elian,” Alexandre’s voice is a low baritone that cuts through the musty air. “I asked you yesterday for everything you have on the nomadic siege tactics of the Northern Tribes.”
Master Elian looks up, blinking like a startled owl. “As I informed Your Grace, we have the standard campaign histories. I had them sent to your study.”
“The standard histories are useless,” Alexandre says, his voice dangerously level. “They speak of pitched battles in open fields. I need to know how they lay siege. How they starve a fortress built on permafrost. There must be something more. A firsthand account. A field report.”
“The archives are vast, Your Grace,” the old man wheezes, gesturing vaguely at the towering shelves. “Without a specific title or author, such a document would be impossible to find. If it even exists.”
Alexandre’s hand clenches into a fist at his side. “The lives of my men are not a matter for ‘if’, archivist. Find it.”
He turns, pacing the length of the central reading table like a caged wolf. His gaze sweeps the room, dismissing me as part of the scenery. I am a dust mote. A shadow. Perfect.
I know the exact scroll he needs. General Voronov’s ‘Reflections on the Winter War’. A disgraced commander from two centuries ago whose unorthodox tactics were deemed cowardly at the time. The manuscript was deemed worthless and misfiled in the cartography section, tucked behind sea charts of the Summer Isles. I remember reading it out of boredom as Empress. Its lessons could save an entire legion.
I can’t just walk over and hand it to him. A librarian’s assistant, a former laundry maid, finding a lost military masterpiece in three weeks? Impossible. Suspicious. I need to guide him. Let him believe it is his own discovery.
I move to a nearby cart laden with scrolls to be reshelved. With a carefully controlled stumble, I let a heavy roll of sea charts tumble to the floor, landing with a loud thud. The scroll I need is at the bottom of the pile I am carrying.
“Apologies, Your Grace,” I whisper, dropping to my knees. My voice is soft, intended to be overheard, not to command attention. Alexandre stops pacing, his eyes briefly flicking toward me with annoyance.
As I gather the charts, my fingers brush against the worn leather case of Voronov’s manuscript. “So clumsy,” I murmur to myself, just loud enough for him to hear. “Master Elian will be cross. Putting General Voronov’s war log in with the tide charts. Everything is so out of place.”
I say the name clearly. General Voronov.
There is a sudden, sharp silence. I keep my eyes on the floor, my hands busy with the scrolls. I can feel his stare on the top of my head. It’s heavy. Intense.
“What did you say?” Alexandre asks. His voice is different now. The impatience is gone, replaced by a focused stillness.
I look up, my expression a carefully crafted mask of frightened deference. “Nothing, Your Grace. I was just… this scroll, it has the wrong seal. It is a military log, not a map.”
I hold it up. The leather is dark and cracked, the seal a faded wolf’s head, the sigil of the long-disbanded Northern Legion.
He crosses the distance between us in three long strides. He does not offer a hand to help me up. He simply plucks the scroll from my fingers. His touch is brief, but his skin is cold, like stone.
He unrolls the manuscript on the table. Master Elian shuffles over, peering at the text. “General Voronov?” the archivist says, his voice thin with confusion. “But his campaigns were considered a failure. A disgrace.”
“He held the Frostfang Pass for three years against an army ten times the size of his own,” Alexandre says, his eyes scanning the ancient script. His voice is quiet, almost reverent. A muscle works in his jaw. “They called him a coward because he refused to meet them in the open field. He built defenses underground. Used the ice to his advantage. He…”
Alexandre’s voice trails off. He has found it. The precise passage detailing how to collapse ice tunnels to cut off supply lines, a tactic the tribes used against him in my first life, a tactic that cost him a quarter of his men.
He is completely still for a full minute, absorbing the words on the page. I slowly get to my feet, brushing the dust from my dress. I make myself small, ready to retreat back into the shadows. I have done what I needed to do.
“You,” he says, not looking up from the scroll. “The girl.”
I freeze. “Your Grace?”
He finally raises his head. His eyes are the color of a winter sky, sharp and piercing. He is truly looking at me now. Not at a maid’s uniform, but at me. I feel like a specimen under glass.
“You said the scroll was out of place. How did you know this was a war log?” he asks. His question is a blade, testing for weakness.
I must choose my words with the care of a poisoner. “The seal, Your Grace. The wolf’s head. Master Elian has been teaching me to recognize the old legionary markers.” It is a plausible lie. It credits my knowledge to my master, not to myself.
“And the name,” he presses, his gaze unwavering. “General Voronov. You spoke it with familiarity.”
“I… I read the inscription, Your Grace. It is my job to read the titles before I shelve them.”
His eyes narrow slightly. He does not believe me. Not completely. I can see the gears turning in his brilliant tactical mind. A laundry maid with a sharp eye for detail. A fortunate stumble. A perfect coincidence.
“What is your name?” he asks.
“Anya, Your Grace.”
“Anya,” he repeats the name slowly, as if tasting it. “You have been here long?”
“Only three weeks, Your Grace. I was in the laundry service before.”
The corner of his mouth quirks in a semblance of a smile, but it holds no humor. It is the expression of a man who has just discovered a new, unexpected piece on the game board.
“From the laundry to the archives,” he says softly, more to himself than to me. “Anya. See that this manuscript is delivered to my study immediately.”
He rolls the scroll up with practiced efficiency and hands it not to Master Elian, but directly to me. Our fingers brush again. This time, a jolt passes through me, a flicker of awareness that is both terrifying and exhilarating.
He turns without another word and strides out of the archive, his guards falling into step behind him. The heavy doors boom shut, leaving a profound silence in his wake.
Master Elian stares at the door, then at me, his mouth agape. “Well, I never. The Grand Duke…”
I clutch the leather scroll to my chest. It feels warm. Alexandre left annoyed and frustrated. Now he has a solution to his problem, and a mystery he cannot solve.
He does not know it, but our alliance has just been forged. Not in promises or oaths, but in the dust of a forgotten history. I have given him a weapon to save his men. And I have planted a seed of curiosity in the one mind in this palace sharp enough to matter. The ghost in the archive has made her first move.
