The Firefly’s Burden-Chapter 66: Coffee, Crowns, and Council

The Firefly’s Burden-Chapter 66: Coffee, Crowns, and Council

Chapter 66: Coffee, Crowns, and Council
“First—Seneschal,” I said, braid digging into my palm. “skeleton crew stays for thirty days.” My voice only cracked on the last syllable. Victory. “Permanent replacement to be decided.”
“Alenya Dawnspire,” Aelric said before the ink had dried. “She has a steady hand. Young enough to learn your rhythm. No taste for gossip.”
“Maelis Ashvane,” Isolde countered, steel in every syllable. “Contracts like razors. Merchant court fluency. If you want your Glow Quarter to last a season, you need her.”
The room stretched tight between them. One name a lake, one a blade.
Cassie leaned in, her whisper grazing my ear. “Ledger angel or contract wolf. Firefly, pick your poison.”
My fang caught my lip. Saints, I could feel the copper. “Noted,” I said, because it was that or scream.
“Chamberlain,” I pressed on, like momentum could hide panic. “Household logistics.”
“Selvaris Dawnspire,” Aelric offered calmly. “Festival precision. She can run a reception without you thinking about it twice.”
Isolde said nothing, which was worse.
Cassie smirked into her cup. “Someone has to throw parties worth surviving. Otherwise we’re just a very expensive study group.”
I elbowed her under the table. She elbowed me back, harder.
“Master of Coin,” I said quickly, braid burning between my fingers. “Dawnspire liaison. And a mortal accountant.”
That made the air tilt.
Isolde’s eyebrow flicked like a sword being tested. “You would hand ledgers of the Summer Court to a mortal?”
“Yes,” I said, before my courage could vanish. “If the Glow Quarter crowned me, they’ll need proof they weren’t duped. They trust numbers. So do I.”
Silence.
Then Aelric’s mouth softened. “Transparency is its own ward.”
Cassie tapped the word
publish
on the page with one black nail, and I nearly loved her to death for it.
“Justiciar,” I said, heart slamming. “Civil disputes.”
“Merenya Halewyn,” Isolde snapped. “Razor clarity. She will tell you what you do not wish to hear. You need that spine.”
My skin itched with wildfire. “So she’ll hate me.”
Cassie’s whisper curled like smoke. “That’s half the job, Firefly. Someone has to.”
“Rite-Warden,” I said, pushing through. “Maerith Embercross.”
Aelric frowned faintly. “She is bold. Curious. But combustible.”
“Then she’ll fit right in,” Cassie murmured, too low for anyone but me.
“Wards,” I rushed. “Audit goes to House Veyra—” my throat locked on the name “—but Caelen Sylvaris co-leads. Two eyes are better than one spy.”
Cassie’s smirk was all teeth. “Didn’t think you’d steal my line that fast.”
“Marshal of Roads and Rivers,” I said, lungs fraying. “Nyssa Draevan. Silk-wrapped steel, they say.”
“She is forty-five,” Isolde said sharply.
“Closer to me than you,” I shot back, and the room blinked at my tone. Saints. I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
Cassie’s knee bumped mine, deliberate. “You’re allowed to have teeth, Firefly. Even here.”
“Harbor Liaison,” I finished, before my ribs cracked. “Varian Ashvane for gravitas. Caldyra’s office for yard design.”
The silence was not disapproval. It was worse—it was
waiting
. My braid hurt in my grip. Cassie’s scent coiled citrus-sweet and vanilla-steady around me like a rope.
Fake it. Fake it until it becomes true.
The paper on the table looked too small to hold something as sharp as my future. “Ladies-in-waiting,” I said, braid burning between my fingers. “I need them. I can’t… I can’t dress myself in politics alone.”
That earned me one of Isolde’s perfectly arched brows. Aelric only folded his hands, moonlight patience waiting me out.
So I laid it bare, voice too fast at first, then evening as I forced the words through:
“Chronological peers first. My generation’s eyes. Ledger brain, law and ethics, ritual, logistics and glamor—and one who keeps me human.” My pulse thudded three beats against my thigh, nails biting. “No spies. And if one slips through, the rest outvote her.”
Names went down like stones into water.
“Lady Althaea Drennath,” Cassie read off before I could, because of course she would. “Nineteen. Loyal. Disciplined. Stubborn.”
The air stung. I hadn’t let myself think it yet—not really—but she was right there, a heartbeat from me, as she’d been since childhood. The girl who made me re-button my jacket until my fingers blistered. The girl who once shoved me into a lake when I wouldn’t stop sulking. My almost-sister.
“Affection clouds judgment,” Isolde said, each word honed like her silk. “Unless it sharpens discipline. She will not flatter you.”
Aelric’s gaze softened, just slightly. “Trust is the rarest coin. You’ve already minted it together.”
My throat clenched. Saints, I wanted her. Not as a pawn, not as a name on a sheet, but as the one person who’d see me half-dressed and cursing and not think it was for leverage.
Cassie leaned closer, voice dry as citrus peel. “If someone’s lacing you into corsets and hearing you swear, Firefly, better a sister than a memoirist.”
My braid tugged hard enough to sting my scalp. My scent tilted wrong—smoke edging sugar—and I wrestled it down. “She’s in.”
“Alenya Dawnspire,” Aelric said, like he’d been waiting. “Eighteen. Calm ledger brain. No drama.”
I wrote it down, because I could breathe easier just imagining her with the numbers.
“Serenya Veyra,” I added, daring my tongue to work. “Eighteen. Glyph prodigy. Brilliant. Dangerous.”
“Pair her with a spine,” Isolde said immediately, eyes like cold stars.
“Selara Draevan,” Cassie suggested, tapping the table with one elegant nail. “Twenty-five. Impulsive, reckless, but she’ll keep you sharp.”
“And Seryth Ashvane,” I said, my voice wobbling. “Thirty. Humanizing chaos. She makes crews adore her.”
Cassie’s grin widened. “Adorable chaos. We could use some of that.”
Anchors came next, and the room shifted colder.
“Merenya Halewyn,” Isolde pressed, every syllable an order. “She will offend you. Keep her.”
“Nyssa Draevan,” Aelric said more gently. “Silk discipline, logistics, but kinder hand.”
“Veyra Firecrown,” Cassie smirked, “because every court needs a little sister who worships you. Keeps the crown from choking.”
The page blurred. My hair tugged under my nails. Smoke, sugar, panic.
Cassie, because she’s Cassie, drew a Venn diagram in the condensation of her coffee: three circles, overlapping.
Safe. Honest. Human.
“Pick one from each circle, Firefly,” she murmured. “That’s how you survive.”
I pressed my nail into the table hard enough to leave a mark. Then tapped names.
“Althaea Drennath.” Sister-close, my spine even when I bent.
“Alenya Dawnspire.” Calm, numbers, no mess.
“Serenya Veyra.” Risk, brilliance, fire to match my own—if I could leash it.
“Seryth Ashvane.” Heart on her sleeve, chaos I could breathe in.
And last, my stomach flipping as I said it: “Merenya Halewyn.” The law spine. The one who’d tell me I was wrong and make me thank her for it.
The room went still.
Cassie’s nail tapped the condensation. “Safe. Honest. Human. You did it, Firefly.”
Isolde’s eyes didn’t soften, but her chin dipped half an inch—approval, Drennath-style.
Aelric’s mouth curved like moonlight on water. “A good court is made of contradictions that don’t collapse. You’ve chosen well.”
My hands still shook under the table. Saints, maybe they always would.
The seneschal set three ledgers on the table. One thick with duchy seals, one slim with the starburst of my personal estate, and a third with a ribbon tied neat for “Consort Accounts.”
I cracked the duchy first, expecting chaos. Instead, it was all columns and quiet annihilation. Estates stacked on tariffs stacked on tithes. Then rents, levies, investments, trade surpluses from ports I’d never even set foot in.
My vision blurred halfway down a page. I flipped again. The numbers only climbed.
This wasn’t money. This was
infrastructure
. A machine built before I was born, humming under my name now.
I pulled the personal estate ledger closer, bracing for something smaller. It wasn’t. Not compared to mortals. This was the kind of wealth that made mortal CEOs into monarchs of gossip apps and glass towers. Mira Quinveil Firebrand: as rich as a mortal social network king at eighteen.
And Cassie—her little ribbon-bound ledger—was tied to mine.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. My braid tugged so hard my scalp stung. “This isn’t money,” I rasped. “This is a war chest.”
Cassie gave a low whistle, citrus sharp, vanilla steady. She leaned sideways to glance at the columns like she was reading the back of a cereal box. “Well, Firefly. At least we’ll never split a check.”
Her flippancy was a gift. My chest loosened by a millimeter.
“New rules,” I said, too fast, too loud, because if I didn’t fill the silence someone else would. “We publish a digest. Plain words. Quarterly. Everyone sees where coin flows. We do a two-signature rule for anything beyond a set limit—me and Cassie, or me and the seneschal. No single point of failure.”
I snapped my braid again, found a rhythm, found my breath. “Separate personal accounts. Mine, hers. Weekly allowance for spending. Anything bigger than that goes through co-signatories.”
The seneschal blinked, quill twitching, but he wrote it down.
“Departments too,” I added, heat sparking at my temples. “Each with a budget. Payroll first. No missed stipends, not once. And—” My mouth was dry, but the words kept spilling. “Seed funds. Glow scholarships. A mercy buffer. If we’re this rich, then people who aren’t shouldn’t break every time a levy hikes.”
Aelric’s eyes glinted like moonlight on deep water. Approval.
Isolde’s jaw flexed like she’d bitten steel but not spit it out. Respect.
Cassie sipped her coffee, hiding her smirk. “Look at you. Already buying revolutions with pocket change.”
I wanted to kick her under the table. I wanted to kiss her.
Both.
The seneschal shifted another slate across the table, but I didn’t wait for him to speak. My braid was already twisted twice around my fingers, tug steady, grounding.
“We’re not drifting blind,” I said. “We’re putting teeth into this from day one.”
Cassie slid another sheet to the scribe, smooth as silk. The header gleamed in neat type:
Starveil — 90 Day Operating Plan.
She tapped the corner once, citrus bright curling through my lungs like punctuation.
“Week one, stipends are confirmed,” I said, voice steady. “No one under this banner waits for pay. Transparency digest goes out in plain words, one page, to every household. Anyone can read it, even in the Glow. Especially in the Glow.”
Isolde’s eyebrow notched, sharp. “Plain words invite plain anger when they don’t like what they read.”
I met her stare. My heartbeat stuttered, then steadied. “Better anger at truth than silence at rot. I can fight the first. The second kills courts.”
Her mouth pressed thinner—but she wrote nothing. Which, from her, was an acknowledgment.
“Ward audits begin immediately,” I continued, “paired: Veyra glyphwrights with Caelen Sylvaris. Two sets of eyes. Daily ten-minute debrief, directly to Cassie. If there’s sabotage, I want it flagged before it bleeds.”
Cassie arched a brow, smirk sharp, and murmured, “Guess I’m a ward expert now.”
“You’re my filter,” I said without thinking, and Saints, the curl at her mouth made my chest burn.
“Glow Quarter gets a provisional board stood up in two weeks—three Glow citizens, one Summer observer. They govern themselves under our charter draft. If they prove it works, we scale it.”
That earned me Aelric’s quiet, moon-deep nod.
“Security posture,” I pressed on. “Roran and Kael. Joint plan. And include co-seal clauses—no deployment without both captains signing.”
Isolde’s nostrils flared. “That will slow reaction time.”
“It will prevent coups dressed as ‘rapid response.’ I’ll take slower over bloody.”
A pause. Then she inclined her head a fraction. Respect.
I exhaled, pressed my palms to the table. “Weeks three to six, we build.”
I ticked each line with a nail against the ledger edge. “Hire the steward corps, set the kitchen rota. No more skeleton staff working themselves sick. Launch a Justice Pilot—two districts, mercy buffer included. We learn fast, then expand.”
The chef who’d set down a tray earlier startled when I glanced at him. “And you—get me that rota draft by week’s end. I don’t care if it’s three names and a mop, I want it started.”
He blinked. Then bowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Mini tour of fealty,” I went on, braid tug biting into my scalp, voice finding a rhythm. “Moonwell, then Starlight Vale. Open forums. Questions unfiltered. I’ll stand in them. Aevryn and Althaea at my flanks.”
Isolde stiffened slightly at her daughter’s name but didn’t speak. I caught the flick of pride anyway.
“Final phase. Weeks seven through twelve: we deliver.”
My voice rose, steady, no crack this time. “Glow charter, version one, put to vote. Metrics published—ward breaches, complaints resolved, levies tracked. The Court will see it all.”
Cassie leaned back, crossed her legs, and hummed, “Polish it with a bow.”
I smiled, sharp. “Festival of First Light. Co-hosted with Valenyor and Dawnspire. Not just dancing. Not just feasting. That’s when we announce scholarships. And merchant audits.”
A ripple ran around the table like I’d just tossed fire into still water.
“Scholarships,” I repeated, daring them to argue. “The Glow, the mortals, anyone with merit. We raise them up. Because I refuse to rule a duchy where brilliance dies in alleys for lack of coin.”
Silence stretched.
Then Aelric, soft: “Ambitious.”
“Necessary,” I said.
Isolde set her cup down with a click. “If you fail to deliver half of this, they will crucify you.”
“Then we deliver all of it,” I said, braid coiled tight around my fist, my scent sharp with wildfire edged in rain. “And we deliver together.”
I leaned back, braid tight in my fist, adrenaline still buzzing from the word
deliver
. For half a breath, I thought I’d earned silence.
Then my brain betrayed me with the next panic loop.
Two days.
“I have…” My voice cracked, and I hated that, so I forced it smooth. “I have two full days left before school starts again.”
Cassie’s head tilted, eyes catching mine like she already knew where I was about to spiral.
“After that,” I said, “half of these meetings will probably happen with me still in a plaid skirt and blazer. I should be spending the next forty-eight hours moving, organizing, pretending I know where the hell to put half the trunks in this place.”
Aelric’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “But you won’t.”
“No,” I admitted, tugging my braid until my scalp smarted. “Because if I only have two days left, I want them in my territories. One in Starlight Vale. One in Moonwell. Among my people. Not locked in these walls.”
Right on cue, the house shifted around me. The side doors creaked open without a hand on them, and the pets padded in as if they’d heard the agenda. Ghost trotted straight across the polished floor, nose twitching at Aelric’s robes. Kit leapt onto the table without shame, tail flicking, inspecting the ledgers like she’d been born an auditor. Lynnix fluttered once in through the rafters, wings catching the light, before landing neat on Cassie’s shoulder and curling his tail around her braid.
Cassie smirked as if she’d trained them herself. “Even the animals know this house is yours,” she murmured, stroking Lynnix under the chin until he purred.
Aelric actually chuckled when Kit swiped a paw over the Justiciar’s ledger. Isolde merely raised a brow as Ghost nosed her chair, but she reached down and scratched his head anyway. Approval disguised as disapproval. Saints, it almost made me laugh.
“I wish I didn’t need protection,” I said, softer now. “But my mother would kill me twice if I walked into either territory without it. Roran’s guard corps won’t be ready in two days. So…” My eyes caught theirs, sharp. “I’ll need you. Both of you. To cover me until mine are assembled.”
Silence. Then Isolde inclined her head, precise as always. “You will not fall on our watch.”
Aelric’s voice was steady, lake-deep. “Moonwell already walks with you. Starlight will stand guard.”
Something in my ribs loosened. My pets settled as if they felt it too—Kit curling beside the ledgers, Ghost finally laying down at my boots, Lynnix tucking his head under Cassie’s jaw.
“Good,” I said. “Because I want to walk among them. Starlight first. Then Moonwell the next night.”
Cassie’s hand brushed mine under the table—silent approval, silent anchor.
I turned back to the agenda before the moment could swallow me. “And then we need cadence. Order, so we don’t drown in our own work.”
Cassie tapped her quill against the scribe’s page. “Enter to record,” she said smoothly.
“The Small Council meets weekly,” I declared. “Eight seats: myself, my consort, the seneschal, Master of Coin, Justiciar, Rite-Warden, Warden of Wards, Marshal of Roads and Rivers. No excuses.”
Aelric nodded. Isolde tapped a finger against her cup but said nothing.
“The Vassal Table meets monthly. Marquis, Marchioness, lesser nobles—yes, but also commoners. A rotating seat. If the Glow can crown me, the Glow deserves a voice here.”
That cracked Isolde’s mask just enough for her to blink—once, slow.
“And for red-flag calls,” I said, voice lower, steadier, “a private triad. Myself, Marquis Sylvaris, Marchioness Drennath. No scribes. No spin. If a decision can break this duchy, it gets made there, in stillness and shadow.”
Cassie leaned in, wicked-smiling. “And every decision gets logged the same day.” She tapped the page hard enough the scribe jumped. “So no one gets clever with the record.”
Aelric’s gaze flicked to her. Then to me. And for the first time since I’d walked into this room, I thought: maybe they actually believed I could do this.
The silence held after Cassie’s quill-tap. Everyone was waiting for me to move the air again.
“I want weekly meetings,” I said finally, braid tugged hard enough to sting. “Not just the Small Council. You, your spouses, your consorts, your most trusted advisors. Cassie, obviously.”
Aelric’s brows lifted, lake-calm surprise. Isolde’s eyes narrowed as if already weighing the logistics.
“Once a week,” I pressed on, “we sit down. We rotate who hosts—Moonwell, Starlight, here. Sometimes official, sometimes not. Yes, we’ll relay what the Small Council is doing, and yes, it should be a place to solve things before they hit the Solar. But it should also be a place where we can breathe. Where we don’t have to perform every second. Where I can…” My throat caught; I chewed it clear. “Where I can still be myself with you.”
I laughed, sharp and too quick, and Cassie’s citrus-warmth brushed me under the table. “I mean, Saints, you watched me grow up. I grew up with your kids. I’m eighteen and already a duchess. If I only spend time with people of my station, I’ll have no friends left at all. Have you met my uncle Maelion? My cousin Zyrella? Not exactly paragons of joy.”
Cassie bit back a laugh into her cup; Aelric actually smirked. Even Isolde’s mouth almost twitched.
“I need allies,” I said, softer. “But I also need friends. If I don’t, I’ll end up just like them. And I don’t want that.”
The words sat there, heavy as iron filings. I tugged my braid once more, then set my palms flat on the table.
“And one more thing you have to understand before this room floods with the rest of the court.” My voice steadied, found its steel. “Cassie and I are still in high school. We’re still cheerleaders. Part of the agreement with my mother is we also have to go to college. So things are going to be awkward for a while. You’ll have to endure the indignity of your duchess running budget meetings in a plaid skirt between algebra exams and away games.”
Cassie elbowed me lightly, muttering, “And nailing a round-off back handspring with more grace than any ledger ever had.”
I didn’t look at her, because I’d laugh, and I wasn’t done. “That’s the truth of it. We’ll stumble. Saints, we already are. But we will stumble together. Or we will fail together. That is the only oath I can swear and not choke on.”
Cassie’s knee pressed warm against mine. Aelric’s gaze softened like moonlight over water. Isolde blinked once, precise, as if stamping approval into record.
And in that moment—high school uniform or duchess’s jacket, terrified or not—I believed them.
The words were still hanging in the air when I realized I was gripping the edge of the table hard enough that my knuckles ached. My lungs finally remembered how to work, dragging in a breath that felt jagged and too loud.
I looked from Aelric to Isolde, to Cassie’s steady presence at my side. My braid tugged through my fingers before I even thought about it.
“So…” I cleared my throat, winced at the rough sound. “Is this the part where I—what? Dismiss everyone? Or do we… take a vote? Or—Saints, I don’t even know. My mother—High Lady Seara—never let me attend any of these meetings. Not the real ones. Just the parts where I was supposed to sit pretty and stay quiet.” My laugh was thin, bitter at the edges. “So, yes. I don’t know how they work.”
Silence—then Aelric’s smile broke like moonlight over ripples. Small. Gentle. “Then we teach you.”
Isolde’s gaze was a needle, but not cruel. “Procedure matters. But leadership is not procedure. You’ve given your terms. You’ve made your vow. That is the work today.” She set her untouched cup down with surgical precision. “Dismissal is your right. Command it, and it is done.”
Cassie leaned close, her citrus-sweet voice pitched for me alone. “Translation: You already passed, Firefly. Now tell them to go home before you combust.”
I almost laughed—almost—but instead tugged my braid one last time and forced my voice to steady. “Then I dismiss you. Thank you… for today.”
Aelric bowed his head again, that quiet tilt that meant more than words. Isolde inclined hers, sharp as a blade and somehow—Saints help me—almost kind.
Cassie’s hand found mine under the table, our fingers lacing like they were always meant to. And for the first time that day, I didn’t feel like I was about to run.
The seneschal shifted by the door, ledger hugged like a shield. I remembered, belatedly, that procedure probably meant more people were waiting, that the day wasn’t done just because my ribs wanted to cave in.
“Send in the first candidate,” I told him, voice steady in a way it hadn’t been an hour ago. He bowed and slipped out.
Isolde had almost reached the door when I found my tongue again. “Isolde.”
She paused, spine straight, black silk cutting sharper than steel.
“I expect to claim your daughter as one of my ladies-in-waiting when we visit Starlight Vale,” I said. “So have her get her affairs in order—because she’s mine now.” The corner of my mouth twitched. “I mean that in the most loving way possible.”
For the first time in my life, I made Isolde Drennath blink. Once. Slow. And Saints, her mouth almost curved. Almost.
“Aelric,” I added, turning to catch him before the moment dissolved. “I grew up with your son. I don’t know what role he can serve here yet, but I want him here. In my orbit. He will play a role in this court—because I trust him.”
Aelric’s lake-ringed eyes warmed, the faintest ripple across still water. He inclined his head. “Then he will be here.”
The door closed behind them, and Cassie squeezed my fingers under the table, citrus curling warm into vanilla.
“Firefly,” she murmured, smug and proud all at once. “That was almost terrifying.”
“Good,” I said, braid tugged once for luck. “Maybe I’m learning.”

Chapter 66: Coffee, Crowns, and Council