Chapter 851: Nerith di Myrrhvale [I]

The servant led Trafalgar and Rhosyn through another section of the castle, moving at the same measured pace he had kept since leaving the dining hall. Neither of them said much along the way. There was little point when they were about to meet the woman Lyren had spoken about so many times.

Eventually, the servant stopped in front of a closed door. It was larger than most of the others they had passed, though there was nothing especially extravagant about it. Trafalgar and Rhosyn remained a few steps behind him, waiting to see what came next.

The servant raised one hand and knocked twice against the wood.

Knock. Knock.

"Lady Nerith," he called from outside, his voice respectful but clear enough to pass through the door. "Your guests, Lord Trafalgar and Lady Rhosyn, are here as you requested."

There was a brief wait before a woman's voice answered from the other side.

"Thank you for bringing them. You may leave now."

Her voice was higher than Trafalgar had expected, distinctly feminine without being irritating or childish. There was a calmness to it as well.

The servant bowed toward Trafalgar and Rhosyn. Trafalgar gave him a small gesture of thanks with one hand, and a moment later, the door began to open.

They stepped inside.

The room beyond was clearly an office, though calling it merely an office almost felt unfair considering how much had been fitted inside it. Shelves lined much of the walls, packed with books, ledgers, folders, and neatly stacked documents. A large desk occupied the center, and even that was covered with papers waiting to be read, signed, or moved somewhere else.

Despite the amount of work filling the room, nothing looked messy.

Documents were arranged in clean stacks. Books had been returned to their places instead of being abandoned across tables. Loose sheets were gathered together rather than left scattered wherever someone happened to finish reading them.

Trafalgar noticed it immediately.

'That says a lot.'

Nerith clearly liked knowing where everything was. Maybe she needed to, considering how many documents surrounded her. Either way, she was organized enough that the room looked busy without looking chaotic.

At the very least, she was tidy.

Nerith herself sat behind the desk, partially hidden by several stacks of papers she was currently reviewing. She had yet to look up at either of them, her attention still fixed on the document in front of her.

Her hair was a very dark green, dark enough that it could almost have looked black under weaker light. She had tied it into a bun behind her head, keeping it away from her face while she worked. A pair of glasses rested over her eyes, apparently there to make reading the endless pages in front of her easier.

Those eyes were unusual.

Golden-brown.

Trafalgar had already met enough members of House Myrrhvale to notice how rare that looked within the family. Thin scales rested along Nerith's temples, subtle enough that they might have been missed from a distance, another reminder of the bloodline running through her.

She wore a simple white blouse while she worked, far less formal than what Trafalgar might have expected from someone currently fighting for the position of family head.

She also seemed noticeably shorter than Lyren.

It was difficult to judge properly while she remained seated, but Trafalgar could already tell that the difference was there. Lyren had always looked tall and narrow, while Nerith seemed built on a smaller frame than her brother.

Without lifting her gaze from the papers, Nerith spoke.

"Take a seat. I expect this will be a long conversation."

Trafalgar and Rhosyn moved farther into the room. Two chairs had already been placed in front of the desk, so they sat opposite her while Nerith continued reading.

For several seconds, the only sounds came from turning pages and the faint scratch of her pen against paper.

Trafalgar waited.

He had not expected her to abandon whatever she was doing the second a Morgain entered the room, and honestly, he preferred it this way. There was something more useful about seeing how someone acted when they were busy than watching them perform politeness for a guest.

After a short while, Trafalgar decided to speak first.

"To be honest with you, Lady Nerith, I wasn't expecting Lyren to come looking for me to serve as an observer."

Nerith did not immediately stop working.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," she replied, still reading. "You weren't the first person we asked."

Trafalgar's expression shifted slightly.

Nerith continued before he could answer.

"The others rejected us. They didn't consider a favor from us enough payment for involving themselves in this situation. Our relationship with them became somewhat colder afterward."

There was no visible frustration in the way she said it. She spoke about the rejection as if she were explaining another line from one of the reports covering her desk.

"I want to trust Lyren's judgment," Nerith added. Only then did her attention move briefly toward Rhosyn. "And she is?"

Rhosyn answered without hesitation.

"Rhosyn. Technically, I'm your observer in all of this."

"I see."

Nerith returned her attention to the document in front of her, finished reading the last few lines, and finally signed it. Once she was done, she placed it neatly onto another stack instead of leaving it where it was.

Then, for the first time since Trafalgar and Rhosyn had entered, she properly looked at both of them.

"I believe this is the first time we've met," she said. "I don't remember us crossing paths during any of the Councils, at least."

Trafalgar shook his head.

"No. I don't remember seeing you either. Still, I'm glad I can finally put a face to the name Lyren kept mentioning."

He settled more comfortably into the chair.

"He explained the situation to me. Your family is going through a complicated period."

"Yes..."

The answer came slower than everything she had said before.

For a moment, Nerith's eyes lost their focus. Her attention drifted toward the documents covering the desk, though Trafalgar doubted she was actually reading any of them.

The pause lasted only a few seconds.

Then she looked back at him.

"Just as Lyren told you, we believe someone is breaking the agreement and receiving outside help regarding the succession. That's one of the reasons it has taken so long to choose the next head of the family."

Her fingers rested lightly against the edge of one of the documents.

"As you can imagine, it isn't a simple matter."

"No," Trafalgar replied. "It isn't."

He understood that better than most.

Considering the kind of families they belonged to, choosing a new head was never going to be something simple. Too much authority, history, and people with their own ideas of who should stand above everyone else.

Trafalgar watched Nerith for a moment before asking the question that had been sitting in his head since Lyren first explained the situation.

"And do you have any suspicions about which of your siblings it could be?"