00:00i am standing in his bedchamber third hour past midnight he is reading by candlelight and he does
00:07not know i am here i have been standing in this doorway for six minutes the dagger in my sleeve
00:13has not moved my orders were clear tonight is the night complete the mission come home a hero
00:21i have been standing here for six minutes and i cannot make my hand move i need you to understand
00:28something before i tell you the rest of this story i was not supposed to fall in love with the
00:34man i
00:34was sent to kill nobody warned me that was even possible they really should have my name is seraphine
00:43of ashenfell though i have not used that name in eight months here i am era a girl from the
00:50northern
00:51provinces a minor noble's daughter with a smile that makes people trust her faster than they should
00:57my father's war with king calen has lasted eleven years eleven years of burning villages and conscripted
01:05boys and mothers who stopped counting their sons my older brother was one of them he was 19 he never
01:13came back i have been trained for six years for exactly this purpose infiltrate the court earn his
01:20trust learn his weaknesses and the war what they meant by end the war i understood perfectly i arrived on
01:29a tuesday in early autumn the castle smelled like wood smoke and cold rain on stone i wrote my first
01:37letter that night not to my father not to my handlers to him i needed somewhere to put the truth
01:44i had nowhere else to put it dear enemy king letter one i expected you to be like my father
01:53loud certain
01:55the kind of man who fills every room with his own importance you are nothing like that you sat through
02:02three hours of court this morning and said almost nothing you just watched i watched you watch i think you
02:10are more dangerous than anyone warned me and i think i am already in trouble the first month i wrote
02:18every night letter four you remembered the name of a stable boy who had been sick the week before
02:25you asked after him by name i noted the guard rotation behind you while you spoke to him east corridor
02:32changes every four hours i wrote it down i felt something uncomfortable move in my chest
02:38i ignored both things letter nine i found the cats today six of them in the south garden
02:46the cook told me you started feeding them after your mother died that you come every morning before
02:51court and never tell anyone i went at dawn and stood at the garden gate and watched you crouch down
02:58in the cold in your king's coat feeding scraps to a one-eared orange cat like you had nowhere more
03:03important to be i wrote i don't know what to do with the fact that you are kind then i
03:09wrote the
03:10south gate has no guard before sunrise i wrote it down too they didn't prepare me for the fact that
03:16both things could be true at once letter 12 you caught me in the library reading one of your books
03:22without
03:22permission you didn't report me you asked what i thought of it we argued for 40 minutes about whether the
03:28ending was earned or a betrayal you said earned i said betrayal i was right but when i left i
03:35was
03:36smiling and i didn't notice until i was halfway up the stairs my handler's message arrived that same night
03:42progress report deadline in 30 days i read it twice i wrote back still gathering intelligence timing not
03:50yet right i had gathered enough intelligence to end the war three weeks ago letter 17 you taught me to
03:57dance tonight your hand on my waist felt like the first honest thing that had happened to me in eight
04:02months i hate myself for writing that i crossed it out i wrote it again what i didn't know what
04:09i
04:10couldn't have known was that he was writing too she arrived in autumn speaks four languages too
04:18comfortable with silence for someone from a minor household watches the doors watches the guards
04:24watches me i know what a spy looks like i grew up in my father's court i have known since
04:31the second week
04:32my head of security wants her arrested he is probably right and yet she argued with me about the
04:40ending of a book for 40 minutes she was right i let her win i don't entirely know why she
04:48feeds the cats
04:49now every morning before i arrive she leaves before she thinks i get there i get there earlier now i
04:56have
04:57told no one dear girl with the jasmine in her hair i don't know your real name yet but i
05:03know your accent
05:04shifts when you're tired i know you count exits every time you enter a room i know you were lying
05:10to me about almost everything i know you had three opportunities last month to complete whatever
05:16mission brought you here you didn't take any of them and i keep inexplicably not having you arrested
05:24letter 41 i wrote my real report today i wrote down the guard rotations the supply routes the name of
05:34the advisor who can be bribed the time of morning when the east wall is unwatched every weakness i had
05:41found then i sat with it in front of me for an hour and thought about my brother he was
05:4719. he believed in
05:49the war he believed in my father he believed it would be over by winter it was not over by
05:57winter
05:58i thought about what it would cost to send this report how many boys on his side would not come
06:04back either i have rewritten this report six times letter 67 i had a dream last night that i was
06:11home
06:12someone asked if i had found his weakness and i said i couldn't find one they laughed they said every
06:21man has a weakness and i said not this one i woke at the third hour past midnight and lay
06:28in the dark
06:28and thought about what i had just admitted to myself and then i wrote it down because i had nowhere
06:33else to
06:34put it i would rather die than hurt him letter 85 tonight i burned my mission orders if my
06:42father finds out i am already dead i burned them anyway back to the bedchamber back to me
06:50dagger in my sleeve him reading by candlelight six minutes he turns a page i take one step forward
06:59he speaks without turning around you have been standing there for six minutes seraphine my real name
07:08in his mouth in the dark i stop breathing entirely how long have you known he sets down his book
07:16he
07:17turns around slowly i notice two things simultaneously the door behind me is not locked from the outside
07:24and his hands are completely still this is a man who has prepared for this conversation who chose exactly
07:31how it would go who could have had me taken in the corridor an hour ago and didn't i found
07:38a letter
07:38three weeks ago in the rose garden you dropped it letter 41 i wrote your kingdom's weaknesses i signed it
07:47your undoing then why am i still alive because the next day i found letter 67 the one about the
07:54weakness
07:55you couldn't find i cannot feel my hands you read all of them yes the silence is the loudest thing
08:02i have
08:03ever heard you should hate me i say i do he says a pause both truths exist in the same
08:11breath i decided that
08:13three weeks ago when i read letter 85 you kept me alive three weeks after you knew you could have
08:20had
08:20me executed yes he says simply i could have the weight of that lands exactly as he intended it to
08:29he is not telling me he is safe he is telling me he chose this because i have been writing
08:35letters of
08:36my own he goes to his desk he opens the bottom drawer he sets a stack of letters between us
08:43dozens of
08:44them dear girl with the jasmine in her hair i caught you feeding the cats this morning you left before
08:51you
08:51thought i arrived emperor prefers you to me now i am choosing to find this endearing rather than catastrophic
08:59despite everything despite the dagger in my sleeve and the 11 year war and my dead brother and my real
09:06name i almost smile letter 31 i know you count exits i have started counting them with you there are
09:15four in this room i want you to know all of them i want you to never feel trapped here
09:21that one breaks
09:22something open and then this one he says quietly dear seraphine of ashenfel daughter of my enemy i knew
09:31what you were from the second week i fell in love with you anyway that is entirely your fault i
09:38am done
09:38writing to the dark i am sending this one i look at the letters all of them written to me
09:45in the dark
09:45the same way mine were written to him i reach into my sleeve he watches me he does not step
09:53back i set
09:54the dagger on the desk beside his letters my father will send someone else i say yes he says the
10:02war
10:02doesn't end because of this no he agrees it doesn't we stand in that truth let it be exactly what
10:11it is
10:12but maybe we stop letting our fathers write the ending maybe we write ours i look at him this king
10:19i was sent to destroy this man who fed stray cats before dawn and remember dead boys by name and
10:27wrote
10:28letters in the dark for eight months to a girl he knew was lying to him who could have had
10:33me killed
10:34who didn't that's a dangerous idea i say yes he says most of the good ones are i pick up
10:43his last
10:44letter i fold it i put it in my pocket something in his expression shifts like a man who has
10:51been
10:51holding his breath for three weeks and has finally been told he can stop i walk to the door i
10:58stop with
10:58my hand on the frame for the record emperor chose me because i bring the good scraps you bring the
11:04ends of bread it's not personal a pause it is extremely personal he says and for the first time in
11:12eight
11:12months i laugh a real one not the practiced one i hear him exhale behind me i go back to
11:21my room i sit at
11:23my desk i pick up my pen dear enemy king my brother was 19 when the war took him he
11:31believed it would end
11:32by winter i used to think ending the war meant finishing my mission i know now that some wars
11:39don't end with a death some of them end with a choice letter 86 the first honest thing i have
11:46ever signed
11:47with my real name seraphine dear seraphine letter one the first letter i am writing to someone who
11:54knows exactly who i am and is staying anyway i fed emperor the good scraps this morning in your honor
12:01he was ungrateful you would have enjoyed it come back to the library tomorrow i found a book with an
12:07ending i think you will want to argue about i am counting on it yours sealant not enemy not anymore
12:16not for a long time actually i just didn't know how to tell you until now dear enemy dear love
12:23dear
12:24impossible dear hours
