Each book was a friend, a companion through long, lonely nights.
Each one had taught her something, shown her something, given her a window into worlds she’d never see.
She pulled down the volume of poetry first—a collection of works by various poets, the pages yellowed with age.
She opened it at random and read:
“I am not what I am, but what I might become— A seed beneath the snow, waiting for the sun.”
She’d read that line a hundred times, maybe more.
It had given her hope on the darkest nights, when she’d felt like nothing, like no one, like a mistake that should never have been born.
The idea that she might become something, that she was waiting, dormant but not dead—it had kept her going.
She set it aside.
That one would come with her.
Next, she pulled down a novel about a girl who sailed away to distant lands.
The girl in the story had been running from something too—a cruel stepmother, a life of servitude.
She’d stowed away on a ship and found adventure, found freedom, found herself.
Kat had read it so many times she could recite whole passages from memory.
She opened it to her favorite part, where the girl stood at the ship’s bow and felt the wind in her hair for the first time:
“And in that moment, with the salt spray on her face and the vast ocean stretching before her, she understood that she had never truly been alive before.
She had been waiting.
And now, finally, she was free.”
Kat’s eyes stung.
She closed the book gently and added it to her pile.
A book on herbs and healing came next.
She’d studied this one carefully, learning which plants could soothe pain, which could heal wounds, which could be made into teas for sleep or for strength.
She’d used some of that knowledge on herself, after the beatings, when no one else would tend her injuries.
She’d snuck into the kitchen gardens at night and gathered what she needed—comfrey for bruises, yarrow to stop bleeding, chamomile for the nights when the pain kept her awake.
This book had saved her, in its way.
It would come north with her.
The history of the northern territories was an obvious choice.
She needed to know where she was going, what the land was like, what the people valued.
She’d already read it twice since yesterday, but she would read it again on the journey.
She would memorize every detail.
A collection of folk tales and legends—stories of heroes and monsters, of quests and curses, of magic that was wild and dangerous and beautiful.
These stories had fed her imagination, had given her something to dream about when reality was too harsh to bear.
And finally, after a long moment of hesitation, she pulled down the slim volume on the old gods.
The pagan gods.
The ones Theron supposedly still worshipped.
She opened it carefully.
The pages were brittle; the ink faded in places.
This was an old book, older than any of the others. Find the original chapter at g.com.
She’d found it in a forgotten corner of the library, hidden behind newer volumes, as if someone had tried to hide it away.
It spoke of gods who lived in forests and rivers, who demanded blood and fire, who were wild and untamed as the land itself.
Gods of the hunt and the harvest, of war and wisdom, of life and death intertwined.
There was a passage about the god of winter, a fierce deity who brought both death and renewal:
“He is the cold that kills and the cold that preserves.
He is the silence of snow and the howl of the wind.
To worship him is to accept that death is not an ending but a transformation, that what appears dead beneath the snow is only sleeping, waiting for spring.”
If she was going to live in a godless household, as her mother had said, perhaps she should know something about those gods.
Perhaps she should understand what Theron believed, what shaped his world.
She added the book to her pile and looked at the six volumes she’d chosen.
Six books.
Six pieces of herself.
It would have to be enough.
The books fit snugly along one side of the trunk, their spines creating a neat row of color—brown and green and faded red.
Everything else—her entire life—barely filled the remaining space.
Kat sat back on her heels and stared at the meager collection.
This was all she had.
All she was.
Twenty years, and it fit in a single trunk with room to spare.
She wondered what Celeste would have brought.
Trunks upon trunks, surely.
Gowns and jewels and perfumes.
Servants to pack for her, to fuss over every detail, to make sure nothing was forgotten.
Their mother would have wept and clung to her, made it a grand tragedy.
There would have been farewell parties, gifts from well-wishers, tears and embraces and promises to write.
For Kat, there was only silence and a battered trunk and the growing darkness outside her window.
She looked around her small room, really looked at it, perhaps for the last time.
The narrow bed with its thin mattress and threadbare blanket.
The small table by the window where she’d eaten countless lonely meals.
The washbasin in the corner, the cracked mirror on the wall.
The shelves, now half-empty, that had held her books.
The rug with its faded pattern.
This had been her world.
This small, cold room on the third floor, far from the rest of the family.
This had been her prison and her sanctuary, the only space that was truly hers.
And tomorrow, she would leave it forever.
A knock at the door made her jump, her heart leaping into her throat.
“C-come in,” she called, hating the stammer that crept into her voice, hating that even now, even on her last night, she couldn’t control the fear that made her voice shake.
The door opened, and Mr.
Pemberton, the family butler, entered with a tray balanced on one hand.
He was an older man, perhaps sixty, with silver hair that had once been black and kind eyes that had always looked at her with something other than contempt.
In all her years locked away in this house, he’d been one of the few—perhaps the only—servant who’d treated her with a measure of gentleness.
He’d been the one to bring her meals when she was being punished, when her parents decreed, she wasn’t allowed to leave her room for days at a time.
He’d been the one to slip her extra bread when he thought no one was looking, to bring her a book from the library when she’d finished all of hers, to speak to her as if she were a person rather than a curse.
“Your dinner, Miss Katriana,” he said, his voice formal but warm, the way it always was when they were alone.
Kat rose and moved to the small table by the window as he set down the tray.
A bowl of thin soup, a piece of bread that was more crust than soft center, a small wedge of cheese.
A cup of watered wine.
And—her eyes widened slightly—a small honey cake, golden and glistening, the kind the cook made for special occasions.
Servant’s fare, mostly.
The same meal she’d been eating in her room for years.
But the honey cake…
Downstairs, she knew, her family would be dining on roasted pheasant and glazed vegetables, on cream sauces and berry tarts.
They would be sitting together at the long table in the dining room, candlelight glinting off silver and crystal, talking and laughing as if she didn’t exist.
As if tomorrow wasn’t happening.
As if they weren’t sending their daughter away to marry a stranger.
“Thank you, Mr.
Pemberton,” Kat said softly, her gaze lingering on the honey cake.
The butler’s expression softened almost imperceptibly.
“I took the liberty of adding something special for your last evening with us, miss.” He paused, then reached into his coat pocket and produced a small cloth bundle.
“And a few tea cakes from the kitchen, for your journey.”
Kat’s eyes widened.
“You didn’t have to—”
“I know, miss.” His expression softened further, and for a moment he looked almost sad.
“But I wanted to.”