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4E 210
Proudspire Manor is not home.
It belongs to Lilliandra in the same technical sense that a title belongs to her, or a blade she looted from some ancient tomb and then forgot to sell. It is hers because the law says so, because coin changed hands, because a steward somewhere has her name written in tidy script on a deed. But the walls do not know her. The floorboards do not know the rhythm of her pacing. The rooms do not bend around her habits the way Lakeview does.
Proudspire is too polished. Too vertical. Too near the noise of Solitude.
Even with the windows latched, the city presses in: wheels over stone, boots in the street, distant bells, gulls shrieking somewhere toward the harbour. Voices rise and fall beyond the manor walls, blurred by glass, old wood, and stone. The whole city seems built to remind its inhabitants that they are never alone.
Lilli hates it.
Which is unfortunate, because the city has decided it wants to look at her tonight.
The invitation lies open on the table beside a scattering of pins, ribbons, and one small silver clasp shaped like a moth. The words are polite, ornate, and absolutely unavoidable. A formal gathering in honour of visiting dignitaries, veterans, and notable defenders of Skyrim. The Last Dragonborn is humbly requested to attend. Her husband and child are, naturally, welcome.
Naturally.
As though there is anything natural about dragging a child into a room full of courtiers and retired soldiers and people who will look at Lilli as though she has stepped out of a song badly translated by a bard with more enthusiasm than sense.
Lilli fastens the last hook of her collar and tries not to bare her teeth at her own reflection.
The elf in the mirror looks composed enough to fool someone who does not know better. Tall, golden, sharp-eyed. Her hair is pinned back in a complicated spill of curls threaded with slim dark ornaments, the whole arrangement designed to look careless only because Lilli spent too long making sure it did. The formal coat she wears is deep blue-black, cut high at the throat and narrow at the waist, with silver thread worked along the seams in the suggestion of stars.
Not heroic. Not soft. Not grateful.
Acceptable.
Behind her, Miraak stands near the wardrobe and looks as though he is preparing to pass judgment on the entire city. His own formal clothing is severe enough to border on martial: dark layers, clean lines, subtle embroidery at the cuffs. Lilli had added the stars there herself at their daughter’s insistence. He had stared at them for a long moment, then at her, then said nothing. That had been permission enough.
He wears no mask tonight.
That, more than anything, makes him look dangerous.
Ophelia sits on the edge of the bed in the middle of all their careful preparations, dressed in soft formal clothes that had taken three arguments, two fittings, and one late-night alteration to make tolerable. The fabric is dark and smooth, lined so nothing scratches. Silver thread curls along the hem and cuffs in tiny broken constellations. Hidden among the stars are beetles, moths, and one little dragonfly stitched near the inside of her sleeve, where she can find it with her thumb.
She has tolerated the dress. She has tolerated the sash after Lilli replaced the stiff one with a softer length of fabric. She has tolerated having her curls combed and tied back with a ribbon, though only after Miraak solemnly promised that the ribbon would not be allowed to “strangle” her hair.
She has tolerated all this with the grave patience of a child who believes adults are often unreasonable but occasionally survivable.
Now only the shoes remain. They sit on the rug in front of her — small, polished, formal. Perfectly innocent. Ophelia looks at them as if they have personally betrayed her.
Lilli takes one step toward her. “They only need to stay on until we return.”
“No.” It’s not loud. That is the first warning.
Miraak looks over.
Lilli stills with one hand half-raised.
Ophelia does not kick. She doesn’t throw herself backward onto the bed or make any of the dramatic objections she has, on previous occasions, discovered to be very effective. She only sits there with her hands clenched in the fabric at her sides, eyes fixed on the shoes, her mouth pulled into a small hard line. “No,” she repeats.
Lilli exhales slowly.
A tantrum would be easier. A tantrum has shape, sound, motion. It can be weathered, redirected, occasionally bribed into collapse.
This isn’t that.
This is Ophelia going too still in a strange room, in strange clothes, after too many days of travel and too many hours of Solitude pressing itself against the windows. This is her daughter choosing the smallest remaining piece of the evening and planting both feet, bare and stubborn, against the world.
Not the shoes, then.
Or not only the shoes. The shoes are simply the last thing she can refuse.
Lilli lets her hand drop. “No one is forcing them on you,” she says.
Ophelia blinks once, quick and uncertain, as if she had expected the beginning of a siege and does not know what to do with open gates.
Miraak turns fully from the wardrobe. “Good,” he says. “Then we may proceed without tyranny.”
Lilli looks at him. He looks back, solemn as death. She narrows her eyes. “Do not make this worse.”
“I am not.”
“You are already using your war voice.”
“Am I now?”
“Yes. And that one has toppled temples.”
Ophelia’s eyes flick between them.
Miraak crosses the room with measured care and lowers himself to one knee in front of her. He does not reach for her feet. He does not pick up the shoes. He simply places himself at her level, which is an absurd sight in itself: Miraak, First Dragonborn, ancient rebel, terror of Solstheim, kneeling on the rug before a small child and a pair of offending slippers.
Ophelia watches him suspiciously.
“You refuse the shoes,” he says.
“Yes.”
“Both shoes, or one in particular?”
She pauses.
Lilli presses her lips together.
Ophelia’s brow furrows. She looks at the left shoe, then the right shoe, as though one might confess to being the greater criminal.
“Both.”
“A united enemy,” Miraak says gravely.
“Miraak.”
He does not look away from Ophelia. “I am establishing the terms of conflict.”
“It is not a conflict.”
Ophelia’s small chin lifts. “It is.”
Miraak gives Lilli a look that says, quite clearly, She has spoken.
Lilli looks at the ceiling for patience. The ceiling, being Proudspire’s and not Lakeview’s, offers none. “All right,” she says. “It is a conflict. A small one.”
Ophelia’s eyes narrow.
Lilli amends, “A precise one.”
This is, apparently, acceptable.
Miraak finally picks up one shoe between thumb and forefinger. He examines it with insulting seriousness. “What offense has it committed?”
Ophelia frowns at the shoe. “It is bad.”
“Bad in structure, intention, or effect?”
“She is four,” Lilliandra reminds him.
“She understands categories.”
“I know bad,” Ophelia says.
Miraak inclines his head. “Then we begin there.”
Lilli leans back against the dressing table, arms folded, and lets him work. For all his many faults — and there are enough to fill a library, annotated and cross-referenced — Miraak does not make the mistake of treating Ophelia’s refusals as small simply because she is small.
He has lived too long with Lilli for that.
He knows, perhaps better than anyone, how quickly a minor imposition can become a war of principle when it is placed upon someone already too aware of every hand trying to shape them. He knows the exact angle of Lilli’s spine when she is about to turn a request into a rebellion. He knows the coldness that comes into her voice when a command is poorly disguised as concern.
And Ophelia, unfortunate little creature, has inherited too much from both of them.
From Lilli: the instinctive recoil from any control that feels imposed.
From Miraak: his own talent for turning a minor conflict into a war of principle
Miraak touches the toe of the shoe. “Too tight?”
Ophelia hesitates. “No.”
“The buckle?”
“No.”
“The sole?”
No answer.
Miraak looks up. “The sole?”
Ophelia’s toes curl against the rug.
Lilli notices. So does Miraak.
“Ah,” he says. “We approach the crime.”
Ophelia scowls. “It makes the floor wrong.”
Lilli’s irritation drains away so quickly it almost leaves her dizzy. There it is. Not drama. Not childish spite. A problem so obvious once named that she feels foolish for not seeing it sooner.
The rug beneath Ophelia’s bare feet is thick and familiar enough by now; they have been in Proudspire for three days. The formal shoes have hard soles, stiff sides, narrow toes. They change the floor. Change the shape of her steps. Trap her feet. Add clicking sound and pressure and strange balance on top of an evening already full of too much.
Lilli softens despite herself. “The floor wrong,” she repeats.
Ophelia nods, miserable now that the words are out.
Miraak sets the first shoe down and picks up the second, his expression darkening as though the shoe has personally offended his bloodline — which, Lilli supposes, it has. “Treachery from below.”
That startles a small sound out of Ophelia — not quite a laugh, but close. Lilli sees it and makes an immediate, private note: ridiculous phrasing useful under pressure. Repeat when necessary.
“They also bite,” Ophelia says.
Miraak’s eyes narrow. “Where?”
She points to the top of her foot, then toward her toes.
Lilli crouches beside them and picks up one of the stockings. The seam is neatly stitched, perfectly made, and exactly in the wrong place.
“Oh,” she says, with real disgust. “Yes. That would be vile. The enemy has accomplices.”
“The stockings guilty too?” Ophelia asks.
“Clearly.”
Lilli rubs a thumb over the seam. “In fairness, they have been badly led.”
“No,” Ophelia says. “Guilty.”
Lilli bows her head. “Guilty, then.”
Ophelia looks between them, still tense but no longer locked in that brittle, silent place. Her hands have loosened from her clothes. One thumb finds the little dragonfly hidden near her sleeve and rubs at the thread.
Good. Not fixed, not cheerful, not ready. But present.
Lilli rises and crosses to the open trunk at the foot of the bed. Inside are all the things they brought from Lakeview because Proudspire owns nothing Ophelia trusts: a blanket embroidered with insects, a carved wooden animal from Elikar, spare ribbons, soft sleeping clothes, familiar boots.
The boots are plain, worn, and absolutely inappropriate for a formal gathering in Solitude.
Lilli lifts them with satisfaction.
Miraak follows her movement and arches one brow. “Those are not formal.”
“No,” Lilli says. “They are useful.”
Ophelia leans forward.
The boots are soft from use, shaped to her feet, dark enough that from a distance they might pass as intentional rather than desperate. One lace is slightly frayed. There’s a tiny scuff near the toe from the road outside Morthal, where Ophelia had insisted a stone looked like a sleeping beetle and then tripped while trying not to step on it.
Ophelia reaches for them.
Lilli does not hand them over immediately. “Terms.”
Miraak looks amused. Ophelia looks betrayed.
Lilli holds up one finger. “You do not have to wear the biting shoes.”
Ophelia nods.
“You may wear your boots.”
Another nod, faster this time.
“But if anyone at this gathering notices they are travel boots, I will be forced to listen to some polished idiot comment on them.”
Ophelia considers this with the faint disdain of a child who does not care about polished idiots.
Lilli continues, “So the boots must lie.”
Miraak’s mouth twitches.
Ophelia blinks. “Lie?”
“Yes.” Lilli carries the boots to the bed and sits beside her. “Only on the outside.”
This, at least, earns Ophelia’s full attention.
Lilli sets one boot on her lap and passes her hand over it. Magic gathers under her palm, thin and silver, catching in the air like thread pulled through water. It’s a simple glamour, not worth the name of spellwork by the standards of anyone who has ever survived one of Lilli’s research spirals, but she builds it carefully all the same.
The scuffed leather deepens into a polished dark sheen. The frayed lace becomes a narrow ribbon. A little silver clasp appears near the ankle, shaped like a curled serpent chasing its own tail. Along the side of the boot, tiny points of light stitch themselves into the suggestion of a constellation — not accurate enough to invite discussion, not obvious enough to feel like a declaration. Just stars. Just a serpent, if one knows to look.
Inside, nothing changes. The leather remains soft. The sole remains flexible. The shape remains Ophelia’s.
Lilli hands it to her. “Well?”
Ophelia takes the boot with both hands and studies it.
Miraak leans closer, as if inspecting a forged treaty. “It’s still a boot.”
“Yes,” Lilli says.
“But it appears to be a shoe.”
“It appears to be whatever keeps strangers from speaking to me.”
“A noble enchantment.”
“One of my finest.”
Ophelia touches the silver serpent. “It’s pretending?”
“Most formalwear is,” Lilli says.
Ophelia turns the boot in her lap. “Does it still make the floor wrong?”
“No.” Lilli taps the sole. “Same boot. Same floor. Only a lie on top.”
Ophelia considers this with deep seriousness. “Good lie.”
“The best kind.”
Miraak picks up the abandoned formal shoe and places it aside with faint contempt. “And the original shoes?”
Ophelia looks at them. Lilli sees the last of the storm retreat behind her eyes. “They stay here!” Ophelia declares.
“Exile,” Miraak says. “Merciful.”
“They cannot come to the party.”
“No.”
“They cannot come next time.”
Miraak glances at Lilli.
Lilli lifts both hands. “I am not defending them.”
“Wise,” he says.
Ophelia thrusts one boot toward him. “Help.”
Miraak takes it at once.
There is something almost unbearably funny about watching him do up a child’s boot. His hands are large, scarred, steady — the hands of a priest, a killer, a scholar, a man who once bent dragons to his will — and they work now with solemn focus over a ribbon glamour on a little worn boot.
Ophelia sticks out her foot.
He pauses. “May I?”
She nods.
Only then does he slide the boot on.
Lilli watches the exchange with an ache she refuses to name too sweetly. There is no softness in Miraak’s expression that anyone outside this room would know how to read. He still looks severe. Still looks like a man who could turn a compliment into a threat with only a change in breath.
But he is careful with Ophelia’s heel. Careful with the ribbon. Careful not to pull too tightly.
Ophelia flexes her foot once the boot is on.
“Well?” Lilli asks.
Ophelia stands on the rug. Takes one step. Then another.
The glamour catches the light. Silver stars move along the sides of her boots. The serpent curls and uncurls in the illusion’s shimmer, subtle enough that it might only be the candlelight.
Ophelia looks down. Then she stamps one foot. The sound is soft. Familiar. A boot sound, not a hard little court-shoe click. She stamps the other foot.
Miraak waits with the patience of a man observing field tests.
“The floor is good,” Ophelia decides.
“Excellent,” he says drily. “A decisive victory.”
Lilli bends to adjust the hem of Ophelia’s dress, making sure the fabric falls comfortably and does not catch. “The victorious Serpent is now expected to attend the gathering without biting anyone.”
Ophelia looks up. “Can I bite if they touch my boots?”
“No,” Lilli says.
Miraak says, “Not first.”
She struggles to bite back a smile, and nearly fails.
Ophelia absorbs this distinction with visible interest.
“No biting,” Lilli clarifies. “Not even if they deserve it.”
“What if they touch my hair?”
“Then you may tell them no.”
“What if they touch your hair?”
Miraak’s expression changes.
Lilli catches it and sighs. “Then they shall regret it.”
Ophelia turns to Miraak. “What if they touch Father’s hair?”
“No one will touch my hair,” Miraak says.
“Because you look mean?”
“Because I am mean.”
Lilli snorts despite herself.
Ophelia seems satisfied by this. She lifts both arms — not in demand to be picked up, not quite, but in the way she does when she wants the option acknowledged.
Miraak rises from his knee and looks at Lilli. “Yours or mine?”
Lilli glances toward the window, where Solitude’s noise continues to scrape faintly at the glass. They still have to leave Proudspire. Still have to cross the streets. Still have to enter the hall, endure the greetings, survive the staring. The evening waits beyond the door. But Ophelia is no longer frozen on the bed. Her boots are on. Her fingers are worrying the soft sash instead of clenching. She is willing to be carried, which means she is willing to continue.
Small victories. Useful lies.
Lilli takes a breath and feels the high collar shift against her throat. “Yours,” she says. “Your face will discourage conversation.”
“My face often does.”
“I married it for a reason.”
His eyes flick to her, green and amused. “Only one?”
“At least three.”
Ophelia makes an impatient sound and lifts her arms higher.
Miraak obeys. He picks her up with the same care he used on the boots, settling her against his side. Ophelia immediately grips the front of his formal coat and inspects the star-thread at his cuff.
“You have stars too,” she says.
“Your mother put them there.”
“Why?”
“To make me tolerable to look at.”
Lilli swats his arm as Ophelia touches the embroidery. “You match me,” she points out in a focused tone.
Miraak goes still for half a breath.
Lilli sees it. Of course she sees it.
Then he says, very evenly, “So I do.”
Ophelia nods as though this is the proper order of things.
Lilli gathers the invitation from the table, folds it once, and tucks it away. She takes one last look around the room: the abandoned formal shoes left on the rug, guilty and exiled; the stockings draped over a chair, accomplices stripped of influence; the trunk from Lakeview still open, familiar things spilling into the unfamiliar space.
Proudspire is not home. But for a moment, with Miraak holding Ophelia and Ophelia wearing false shoes over honest boots, it becomes less hostile.
At the door, Ophelia twists to look back.
“The bad shoes stay there,” she says.
“Yes,” Lilli says. “They may reflect on their crimes.”
Miraak opens the door. “I doubt they are capable of remorse.”
“Then they will reoffend,” Lilli says. “Best to keep them contained.”
Ophelia rests her cheek against Miraak’s shoulder, apparently comforted by the thought of the shoes under imprisonment.
They make it down the stairs without incident.
Mostly.
Halfway to the entry hall, Ophelia leans toward Lilli and whispers, “My boots are lying.”
Lilli whispers back, “So is my face.”
Ophelia studies her. Lilli gives her the serene, polished expression she intends to wear for the next several hours.
Ophelia’s nose wrinkles. “Bad lie.”
Miraak makes a low sound that might be a cough if Lilli were feeling generous. She is not.
“My face is an excellent lie,” Lilli says.
“No,” Ophelia says. “It looks like when you want to stab.”
Miraak’s shoulders shake once.
Lilli stops on the bottom stair and looks at him. “Do you have something to contribute?”
“No.”
“Truly?”
“I am admiring our daughter’s observational skill.”
“Our daughter is about to learn the value of discretion.”
Ophelia looks between them. “What is dis-cretion?”
Miraak adjusts his hold on her. “A thing adults praise when they want children not to repeat accurate statements.”
“Oh.”
Lilli points at him again. “You are not helping.”
“I rarely claimed to.”
Despite herself, despite the invitation, despite Solitude, despite the long evening waiting to turn her into symbol and spectacle, Lilli smiles.
Only a little.
Only where Ophelia can see.
At the front door, she pauses to adjust the child’s sash one final time. Her hand lingers briefly over the hidden dragonfly stitched inside the sleeve.
“If it becomes too much,” Lilli says, low enough that it is only for the three of them, “you tell one of us. You do not need a reason polished enough for anyone else. Too loud is enough. Too bright is enough. Bad shoes would have been enough.”
Ophelia looks down at her glamoured boots.
“They were bad,” she says.
“They were terrible,” Miraak agrees.
Lilli nods. “Villainous.”
Ophelia relaxes another fraction. Then she points at the door with sudden authority. “We can go.”
Miraak opens it. The noise of Solitude spills in at once: stone, voices, distant music from somewhere up the street, the living press of the city. Ophelia tenses, but only slightly. Her fingers find Miraak’s cuff, rubbing the stars there. Her boots — her real boots, her lying boots — stay firm on her feet.
Lilli steps out first.
The Last Dragonborn, dressed for a formal gathering she does not want to attend. Her husband follows, carrying their daughter like a guarded secret no city has earned the right to hold. And Ophelia, solemn in her constellations and victorious over footwear, looks down at the shimmer on her feet with quiet satisfaction.
“The shoes lost,” she says.
Miraak looks ahead, expression cold enough to frighten any passerby foolish enough to stare too long. “Yes,” he says. “Remember this well. Not every enemy deserves mercy.”
“Miraak.”
He glances at Lilli.
Ophelia giggles into his coat.
Lilli sighs and leads them toward the gathering. Behind them, in the upper room of Proudspire Manor, the formal shoes remain exactly where they were sentenced: abandoned on the rug, guilty beyond appeal.