The shower took too long, and still it was not enough.
Lara stood beneath water hot enough to turn her skin red and let it pound against her shoulders, her neck, the bruises left by chains and guards and court and consequence.
Steam curled thick around the black stone chamber, blurring the edges of everything, but not enough to blur the inside of her own head.
Sarisa.
The name rose again and again, threaded through every thought like a wire pulled too tight. Sarisa in that little room, eyes wet, mouth shaking, whispering that it might be too late.
Sarisa kissing her like a woman trying to hold onto something already falling away. Sarisa left behind in the Celestian palace while Lara had been dragged across a border and told not to come back unless she wanted the title of enemy on top of exile.
Lara braced both hands against the tiled wall and lowered her head. Water ran over her back and through her hair and down the line of her spine. She tried to force herself to think clearly.
Sarisa was still there. Aliyah was still there.
And now there was Neris.
That thought still felt unreal, a splinter too deep to reach. A child with her eyes. Her fire. Her blood, if the court was to be believed. A child she had never known existed until a room full of nobles used him like a blade.
Lara closed her eyes.
It was a mess. A complete, impossible mess.
But none of it was Neris's fault.
That much she knew with absolute certainty.
The little guy had looked terrified. Too quiet. Too watchful. Thin, too. Not starving, not sick, but thin in the way of a child who had learned early not to ask for too much.
Lara had seen children like that before on the roads and in war camps. They learned to fold themselves small. To take up less room. To expect less softness from the world.
Maybe talking to him would help.
Maybe not.
Lara let out a humorless breath. She was terrible at talking to children when they weren't Aliyah, and even with Aliyah most of her parenting strategy had involved panic, stubbornness, and whatever Sarisa had not already fixed.
Still. Neris was here now. Confused and frightened and apparently hers in some way she still did not understand. That deserved something better than avoidance.
By the time she shut off the water, the light beyond the high window had shifted. Afternoon dragging toward lunch.
She dried off, dragged on a clean black shirt and loose dark trousers someone had left folded outside the bath, and tied her damp hair back with more force than necessary.
When she stepped into the corridor, the castle felt quieter than usual. The lunch bell had rung not long ago; most of the household would be in the lower dining hall or clustered in private parlors.
The torches hissed softly in their brackets. Somewhere farther away, servants moved with the hushed efficiency of people who knew a household was nursing a fresh scandal.
Lara was halfway down the corridor toward the family wing when she heard a servant's voice.
"Please, young boy, do you not want to change?"
A pause.
Then a loud thud.
It was followed by the unmistakable crash of something ceramic hitting stone and shattering.
Lara moved before she thought about it.
The room was one of the smaller sitting chambers near the nursery wing. She crossed the threshold in two quick strides and stopped just inside.
The servant: young, nervous, and clearly regretting all her life choices had backed herself nearly against the far wall.
At her feet lay the remains of a tray, little glazed bowls broken across the floor, fruit rolling in two directions.
A neat stack of folded clothes nearby had black scorch marks climbing across the top shirt, and the last trace of yellow fire still flickered over the fabric before vanishing into smoke.
Neris stood in the middle of the mess like a very small storm.
His little fists were clenched. His shoulders were up around his ears. His eyes were wild and defensive and too bright, and one of those tiny horn buds at his temple showed starkly through the dark tangle of his hair now that he'd clearly tried and failed to hide behind it.
He looked from the servant to Lara and went even stiller.
Lara took in the room once, quick and complete. No one hurt. Only a tray destroyed, clothes burned, one servant one heartbeat from tears.
Fine. That was manageable. Very manageable compared to literally everything else.
She looked at the servant first.
"Out," Lara said.
The girl blinked. "My lady, I was only trying to—"
"I know." Lara kept her tone calm, because this was not the servant's fault either. "Get someone to clean the glass. I'll handle this."
The relief that crossed the girl's face was almost painful. She bobbed a nervous curtsey and all but fled, skirts gathered in both hands.
The door shut behind her.
Silence settled over the room, broken only by the faint crackle of the burned cloth and Neris's too-fast breathing.
Lara looked at the shattered tray, then at the clothes, then at him.
"Well," she said. "That's one way to say you don't like the outfit."
Neris did not laugh.
He did not speak at all.
He only stared at her like he expected something terrible.
Lara crouched down slowly, putting herself nearer his height but not too close. She kept her hands where he could see them. The room smelled faintly of smoke and fruit and fear.
"Are you hurt?" she asked.
The question seemed to surprise him. He blinked, then shook his head once.
"Good." Lara glanced toward the broken tray. "Anyone else?"
Another tiny shake.
"Also good."
She reached for one of the unbroken apples that had rolled near her boot and set it on the table instead of the floor, mostly so she had something to do with one hand.
Her voice stayed even, low, the same tone she used with frightened horses and wounded soldiers.
"You know, burning clothes is dramatic. Effective, maybe, but dramatic."
This time something shifted in his face. Not trust. Not even curiosity. Just enough confusion to interrupt the fear.
Lara took that and kept going.
"If you hated them, you could've just said so. Saves everyone a lot of sweeping."
Neris swallowed. His little chin lifted with that stubbornness Lara had already seen in him. "What do you want?"
Lara leaned one shoulder against the edge of the low table. "Right now? Less broken pottery. Maybe lunch. A nap if the universe ever starts apologizing."
That was not the answer he expected. She saw that immediately.
His eyes narrowed. "No."
"No?"
"What do you really want?" The question came out sharper now, pushed by fear trying to sound brave. Then, in a smaller voice that hit Lara like a fist to the ribs, he asked, "Are you going to hit me like they did?"
The whole room went cold.
Lara did not move.
For one awful second all she could hear was the pounding of her own blood. Something dark and murderous rose in her so fast it almost made her dizzy.
Not at him. Never at him. At whoever had taught a three-year-old to ask that question like it was normal.
Very carefully, Lara lowered herself the rest of the way until she was sitting on the floor.
She looked up at him from there, making herself smaller, quieter, harmless in every way she knew how.
"No," she said. Her voice was steady. "I'm not going to hit you." She held his gaze. "Not now. Not ever."