The news reached Vireloch by raven and rumor, riding faster than any horse:
Zareena Serinova had been named heir.
By Lord Malik himself. In front of the entire court.
It spread like wildfire. Through garrisons and guilds, through merchant whispers and mead hall mutterings. North and south, nobles clutched their wine cups tighter. Servants listened at doors. Spymasters rewrote their lists of threats.
And in Vireloch, Zareena stood at her frost-ringed window, the letter still cold in her hands.
She read it once. Twice. Then folded it neatly and placed it in the fire without a word.
For the first time in weeks, she allowed herself to breathe.
No more court games. No more veiled threats from House Vassren. She had time now. Not forever—but enough.
She turned to the map of her lands. The mines were growing. The forge was steady. But food…
That remained their weakest wall.
The north could not rely on southern grain or merchant convoys—not with snow-choked passes and bitter nobles.
So she began again. Quietly, methodically.
She summoned the old trappers and furriers. Consulted herbalists and winter farmers.
They spoke of moss flour, of dried fish, of underground root storage and northern salt-curing.
They would survive, but only if they adapted. So she ordered winter greenhouses built with ashglass frames. Issued salt rations and planned fishing runs beneath the frozen river. It wasn't elegant, but it was real. Northern.
Far away in the capital, the reaction was… less composed.
At House Serinova's ancestral estate, Liora, Zareena's stepsister, dropped her tea cup on the floor. It shattered across imported marble.
"She what?" she whispered.
Their stepbrother, Ren, turned pale as parchment. "He… declared her heir. Publicly."
The halls of the estate filled with shouting, with blame, with questions whispered behind locked doors.
Zareena, once the forgotten daughter, now had the Serinova name wrapped around her like armor. And there wasn't a single thing they could do about it.
Zareena didn't know their faces as they read the news—but she could imagine.
And in her quiet study in Vireloch, she smiled—just a little.
"Now," she murmured to herself, "let's feed a city built from ice and iron."