The grease in the scullery did not clear for the solstice; it simply froze.
The air down in the lowest tier was a stagnant, white mist that smelled of boiled turnip water, cold lard, and the sharp, metallic tang of forty vanguard swords being ground against stone in the courtyard above. Selene stood by the secondary wood-pile, her charcoal wool tunic tucked between her knees as she bent to lift a heavy log of split pine.
Her fractured ribs gave a short, familiar hiss of protest, but her face remained an unreadable sheet of winter ice.
She was no longer carrying the bucket, but her presence here was part of the theater. To the kitchen masters, she was still the broken noblewoman who could be ordered down from her tower room to tally the birch logs or count the sacks of winter rye.
But
