ATASHA’S POV


    55 vouchers


    However, what I expected didn’t happen. In fact, none of the scenarios I imagined yed out. For a moment, I wondered if I’d just gotten lucky or if they were still testing me.


    They seated me at the head of a long rectangr table. After the shrine, the council invited me to a wee feast, and I braced for tests. Yet, none came. Everyone stood when I entered, bowed once, and waited for me to sit. No extra vows. No probing questions.


    The spread in front of me cut against everything I’d assumed about the north. I’d thought meat would be scarce, doled out in thin strips.


    Instead, tters came out one after another. A roast of frostboar with crackled skin, smoked river troutid over sliced onions, a thick stew heavy with marrow and roots, dark bread still warm, hard cheeses, pickled mushrooms, winter berries in syrup, and a clear broth steeped with herbs that tasted clean. The serving boards were set on stone warmers that glowed faint blue, fae cores keeping food from freezing at the table.


    I swallowed as I tried to look away from the feast. I wanted to pretend that I wasn’t hungry, but my grumbling stomach had betrayed me. Still, I maintained a calm expression on my face- or at least I tried to.


    Matron Yara Ironsong spoke first. “Princess Consort, the north isn’t like the south. Some customs will feel sharp at first,” she said. “If you have questions,e to me. I also grew up in the South.”


    Almost immediately, Sister Veris Briarholt lifted an eyebrow. “Matron, you make it sound as if you’re the only one who’s traveled,” she said, then turned to me with a small smile. “I visited the south a few times when I was young. Different markets, different tempers. If you choose to, you cane to me as well.”


    “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll take both of you up on that.”


    While we ate, I matched names to faces and houses. Sister Veris Briarholt was the oldest at the table and the council’s authority on stores and the infirmary. She controls winter rations, approves any release from grain and meat reserves, signs off on medicine and stone allocations for heaters, and sets triage rules when supplies run thin.


    People defer to her whenever food, fuel, or hospital beds are mentioned. She wore a in ck dress, her gray–streaked hair pinned back. Her hands were steady, her eyes missed nothing, and she spoke in short, exact sentences while an aide beside her kept notes,


    Matron Yara Ironsong was younger than the rest, her hair braided into a crown so pale it was nearly white. The forges and cutters answered to her. She asked for numbers, ore intake,


    <b>78 </b>


    55 Vouchers


    output by shift, breakage rates, fuel use per batch, and pressed anyone who spoke in guesses to give a figure. Waste made her frown. Repairs and prevention made her nod. When she promised something, she named the crew and the hour.


    Halden Morrow, steward of ounts, looked to be the youngest on paper but worked like an old auditor. Ink stained his cuffs, two ledgers sat at his elbow. He tracked cost per head for rations, stone cores issued versus returned, and the margin on each caravan. He didn’t interrupt often, but when he did it was to ask who had signed a release or where the second signature was.


    Oren Frostgate, the roadmaster, had windburned cheeks and a scar across one knuckle. He spoke in distances and times like drift depth on the east spur, crews needed for the pass, escorts per wagon, toll waivers during storms. His reports were brief. His questions were about keeping caravans moving and checkpoints manned.


    Captain Ilya Keldar of the wardens sat straight, hands folded, eyes on the room more than the food. He cared about patrol rotations, casualty counts, ward–tower cores, and discipline. When he answered, it was in clean, clipped lines. What he had, what he needed, what he would do if denied. He and Oren rarely smiled, both acknowledged remarks with short nods and returned to the exchange of reports rather than talk for its own sake.


    As they gave me a quick run down of how the north work, servants kept cups filled. Steam rose from the bowls. No one rushed me. They let me eat, let me watch and listen to them, and when I had a question, how meat reserves were managed through a long winter, how often caravans ran in deep snow, Sister Veris and Oren answered cleanly without circling back to


    test me.


    It wasn’t what I expected. It felt like an introduction, not an ambush. But soon I understood the courtesy. It wasn’t because I was likable or the new wife, it was pity.


    The looks were easy to read once I saw them. The softened eyes, careful voices, a chair pulled an inch closer to the fire as if I might chill faster than the rest. Sister Veris kept refilling my broth without asking. Yara trimmed a thick slice of frostboar and set it on my te herself.


    I understood the source. They knew Cassian’s record with his brides. They knew what Nightfall had done to me and what I had done back. They knew the north eats the unprepared and that a beast tide was moving. Put all of that together and I looked like amb walked into a ughterhouse with a crown on its head.


    I let it stand for now and made it useful. Pity tells you who expects you to break, who will step in if you fall, and who is already counting the days.


    As Grace helped me into my coat, she exined, “Sister Veris once had a wolfless sister. That’s why she traveled so much when she was young. Their parents chased every rumor, anyone who imed they could ‘give her a wolf‘ and make her a real werewolf.” Grace’s mouth tightened, “Nothing worked. Her sister died young, and Veris never married. Briarholt has no


    legitimate heir now.”


    <b>78 </b>


    55 vouchers


    The gathering had ended. So Grace led me out of the hall. “Your rooms are in the Lord’s wing,” she said as we took the stairs. “By custom, the Princess Consort uses the Lord’s chambers unless she asks for her own suite.”


    We turned down a corridor lit by bluenterns. “It is Lord Cassian’s room,” she added. “But he barely sleeps in it. He lives in the study or the war tent when he’s in the field.”


    I nodded. It made sense. He had no reason to linger here. The man who killed his previous brides was not a man who practiced domestic life.


    Grace hesitated. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t expect the council to behave like that either. You’re the first bride who’ssted this long. I think no one knows how to act around you.”


    “What do you mean?” I asked.


    “The previous ones… never made it through the ancestral rites,” Grace said just as we reached the door. A guard opened it and stood aside.


    Inside, the Lord’s chamber was spare and cold in its order. A wide bed stood against the inner wall, sheets tight, nkets folded with a soldier’s corners. No trinkets. No flowers. A rack held a few cloaks and one set of ceremonial armor.


    On the opposite side, a table wasid out with maps pinned under knives, colored marks showing patrols and supply runs. A sealed stack of dispatches waited beside an inkstand. The hearth wasn’t wood–fed. Instead, a core heater glowed behind an iron grate, throwing a steady, pale warmth.


    “Tomorrow, we can make some changes and rearrange the bedroom, make it more… decent,” Grace said after clearing her throat. She must have been seeing the room for the first time too. “I apologize for not thinking this through.”


    “It’s fine,” I said with a small smile. “I’m used to it.” I wasn’t exactly expecting something luxurious. Perhaps, the servants never thought that I would even reach North alive, so they didn’t make any preparations. That is understandable, of course.


    Grace gave me a look before she continued. “The bath is through there,” Grace said, pointing to a side door. “Closet beyond it. Bell cord by the bed for night staff. Two wardens outside until the beast tide passes. I’ve had a writing desk set for you in the anteroom with the council packets and the ledgers you asked for.”


    I set my gloves on the table and looked the room over again. “He never stays.”


    “Not unless duty pins him here,” Grace said. “He prefers the study across the hall when he’s in the manor. The clerk can show you the document chests in the morning.”


    I exhaled. “Fine. This will do.”


    :


    <b>78 </b>


    55 vouchers


    Grace lingered a step. “One more thing. The others before you… no one ever reached this point. There was never a proper wee or feast. So they were cautious today because they don’t have a pattern to follow. Take the space you’ve been given.”


    “I intend to.”


    Grace bowed and withdrew.


    I walked to the map table and brushed a finger over the inked lines, roads, towers, mines. Then I set the silver band with the wolf crest down beside the dispatches, opened Grace’s folder of council notes, and began to read.


    After what felt like hours, I took a bath and theny down on the bed. My body ached from the long travel, but the room was calm and quiet and cold and…fortable. Yes, that was the word I was looking for. When was thest time I felt this…fortable?


    I closed my eyes, let the silence settle, and I caught myself smiling.


    田