Technocracy 101:Rise Of The Steel Empire

Location: Oslo Keep – Mid-Level Terrace Garden

Time: Day 380 After Alec's Arrival

The morning sun was pale and low, struggling against the gray mist that clung to the Keep's eastern face. Dew sparkled like glass along the hedges, and the terrace garden smelled of wet stone, crushed mint, and faint jasmine.

Alec stood beneath the narrow arbor, arms behind his back, surveying the low walls that boxed the garden from the forest drop. One could see nearly all of the lower districts from here.

One small voice interrupted his internal terrain calculus.

"Why do you always look like you're fighting numbers?"

Alec turned.

Annarella stood beside the rosemary bush, balancing on one foot. She wore a forest-green cloak three sizes too large and a soft cap that barely stayed on her wild curls.

He blinked. "I don't fight them. I use them."

She squinted up at him. "But your eyebrows get all bent like you're mad."

He considered that. "Then perhaps I'm simply thinking."

"You look like the kitchen hens before a storm."

Alec tilted his head slightly. "You liken me to poultry?"

She grinned. "Smart poultry. But yes."

He found he didn't mind.

The child had a way of speaking that disarmed even the sturdiest logic walls. He had watched her from a distance — always careful, always distant — but over the last few days, something had shifted.

She began to appear.

In corridors. In corners of rooms he hadn't entered yet. In gardens he'd only just decided to visit.

And she never asked permission.

She simply arrived.

He nodded at the empty bench. "Are you permitted up here alone?"

"I'm never alone." She pointed behind him. "Cook Milla's watching from the stairs. She thinks I can't see her. But I can. She breathes like a bear."

Alec turned his head slightly and — yes — there she was. Half-hidden behind the latticework, pretending to pluck leaves from a planter.

Annarella climbed up onto the bench, boots muddy, legs swinging.

"Did you know your boots don't match?"

Alec glanced down. "They do."

She leaned in. "One is older. The heel's more worn. Your left stride must be heavier. You drag it slightly."

He studied her.

"You notice that?"

She shrugged. "Mama says I watch too much."

"Your mother says a great many useful things."

"She says you're strange."

Alec blinked. "Does she?"

"She says it nicely. Like how she talks to her mirror."

He raised a brow. "What else does she say about me?"

Annarella grinned again, wicked and wild. "That you walk like you belong. Even when you're silent."

Alec didn't respond.

She looked at him, eyes narrowing. "Do you belong?"

He hesitated. Then, "Not yet."

She nodded, accepting it without judgment. "I think you will."

They sat in silence for a moment.

Annarella pulled a wrapped sweet from her pocket. "Want half?"

"I don't require sugar."

"That's not the same as not wanting it."

She broke it in two and offered it again.

Alec took it.

The taste was sharp. Plum and bitter lemon. Unexpected. But not unpleasant.

Annarella chewed slowly, feet still swinging. "You don't talk to people like the guards do."

"I don't yell."

"No. You wait. Like you're giving them time to change their minds."

Alec looked at her again — truly looked. "That's very observant."

She shrugged. "People always talk over me. But not you. You answer."

He nodded. "Because you ask real questions."

She tilted her head. "Do you like my mama?"

That made Alec pause.

"I respect her."

"That's not what I asked."

He turned slightly, meeting her eyes. "I don't know yet what I feel. That's new for me."

Annarella chewed thoughtfully.

"Mama watches you when you're not looking. She smiles differently when you argue."

Alec raised a brow. "We don't argue."

"You do. Just without loud voices."

Another silence passed.

Alec broke it.

"Does it concern you?"

"What?"

"My being here. Close to your mother."

Annarella considered that carefully. "No. You smell safe. Not like the priests or the barons. Or my uncle."

Alec stilled. "You remember him?"

"Not his face. But the feeling."

She looked up at Alec again.

"You don't make the room small. You make it wide."

That did something to him.

Not a wound. Not quite a warmth.

Just a space.

A space inside him he hadn't realized was empty until something small and fearless filled it.

-----------

The stone beneath her shoes was warm with the noon sun, but Elira's steps were slow. Silent. Measured.

She hadn't meant to come this way.

Not deliberately.

But the moment her steward mentioned Alec had been seen near the terrace gardens, something had pulled her. Not suspicion. Not even curiosity.

Something older.

Something she hadn't named in years.

She reached the top of the stairs—and froze.

They were there.

Alec. Sitting.

Not speaking. Not calculating. Not dissecting.

Just… there.

And beside him—half curled like a cat under his arm—was her daughter. Her little girl. Cloak slipping off one shoulder, fingers hooked into the seam of Alec's coat like it was a tether to something solid in a world of ghosts.

Elira didn't move.

Didn't breathe.

Because she saw it.

The way Alec tilted his head slightly toward Annarella's. The way he stayed still, as if afraid to break whatever moment had formed between them. His eyes weren't scanning terrain. His shoulders weren't braced.

He wasn't a strategist.

He was something else.

Something that made Elira's throat tighten with a strange, unwelcome ache.

She turned before either of them noticed.

Her footsteps were soft, but they felt heavy now. Heavy with thoughts she didn't want to sort.

By the time she reached her study, the ache had settled behind her ribs like coiled thread.

She closed the door behind her and crossed to the hearth, though the fire had long gone cold.

A pause.

Then her hands gripped the edge of the mantle.

Not hard. Not clenched.

Just… grounding.

He's becoming part of her life.

It wasn't the idea that startled her. It was the ease with which it had already begun.

Alec had never tried. Never wooed. Never cajoled.

He hadn't brought sweets. Or flowers. Or pretty promises.

He had just shown up.

And more than that — he had stayed.

Not with grand declarations. But with quiet, consistent presence.

And somehow, that had carved deeper into both their lives than any gallant ever had.

She sat down at the writing desk and looked out the small eastern window. The garden was hidden by stone. But she could still feel them there. The weight of it. The peace of it.

And the danger.

Because it meant something more than affection.

It meant trust.

It meant roots.

And Elira — widow, regent, survivor — knew what roots did.

They anchored.

They grew.

And when they were torn out, they bled.

A knock broke her reverie.

Alvenne entered with a nod, placing two scrolls and a sealed letter on the table.

"From Armathane," she said. "Marked urgent."

Elira blinked.

Her hands hovered over the seal.

But didn't open it.

Not yet.

Instead, she looked down at the desk again.

At the ink stains near the inkwell. At the tiny handprint from Annarella years ago, when she first learned to dip a quill.

So small.

So smudged.

And now?

Now her daughter was choosing Alec.

Not as a father.

Not yet.

But as… something.

And Elira didn't know if that should terrify her or make her hope.

She finally stood, lifting the sealed letter with a slow breath.

She didn't read it.

She carried it to her room.

Laid it on the table near her bed.

And whispered — so faint she barely heard it herself:

"Don't let her love you unless you stay."