Lyra had buried someone she loved without knowing if they were truly dead.
She hadn't dug the grave, but the guilt still caked under her fingernails.
That day, the rain and blood, had embroidered themselves into her mind with sharp wire.
She heard the voice that screamed at her to run, but her limbs were sluggish. Slow. She turned toward the sound and...
She jolted awake, hand reaching for a blade that wasn't there.
Just stone.
Just chains.
Just the familiar smell of stale piss, moss, and regret.
She was back in her dungeon.
She stared at the ceiling. Water dripped from the same crack it always had, keeping time better than any clock. Her side throbbed where the faint birthmark lay etched into her skin, hidden beneath her shirt, if you could call it that, warm again.
Outside, a storm rolled. The mountains were waking.
And though she didn't know it yet, so was fate.
She let her mind drift, just for a moment, back to that day.
Her dreams were always about that day.
She sighed, flicked a pebble at the ceiling, and missed. The ceiling didn't seem impressed.
She was lying on the cold stone floor, idly tossing the pebble when,
"Hey, girl," croaked a raspy voice from across the aisle.
Gorma. A half-blind smuggler with a love for fermented turnips and tales. The self-acclaimed mayor of the cell block.
"You hear about the prince?" Gorma, ever the gossip, leaned toward the bars.
Lyra snorted. "What now, he trip on his crown again?"
"Nah. Got some kind of wasting illness. Been rotting from the inside out for years. Apparently it's worse now, got the royal court jumpier than cats near a fire."
"The dying one, they call him," piped up another, a wiry man with too many teeth and not enough sense. "They say he's cursed. Blood rotting from the inside out."
"Yeah, they say magic's eating him alive," Gorma added with relish. "Wild stuff. Like the old days."
Lyra flicked the pebble hard against the bars, her voice airy. "That's just royalty. They start rotting the second someone teaches them the word 'inherit'."
A ripple of laughter. Dark and dry. The kind only dungeon walls know.
Lyra grinned. Easy crowd.
Another inmate, a younger man with a chipped front tooth and optimism she'd never trusted, chimed in. "They say his skin glows sometimes. Like he's got magic in him."
Lyra whistled. "Tragic. Glowing skin. That'll ruin your court portraits."
"No, like, real magic. Maybe he is cursed."
"Sounds to me like royal inbreeding finally caught up."
More laughter. She liked making them laugh. It gave the illusion that she wasn't just waiting to die slowly in a moldy hole in the ground.
"How do you guys hear this stuff?" someone down the hall asked."
"Guards," Gorma said. "So bored they gossip like drunk pigeons."
The walls shuddered. Dust trickled from the ceiling. The floor vibrated faintly. A distant rumble.
"Mountains are restless," Gorma muttered.
"It's Eternity. She's awakening," the old man quipped.
"Who cares?" Lyra muttered. "Doesn't affect us anyhow."
A low murmur rippled down the rows of cells.
"I wish I could get out," the young one sighed. "My brother's sick. If I could take him there… maybe…"
"Wishful thinking, kid," Gorma spat. "Last time Eternity woke, hundreds died trying to reach it. The mountains play games."
Lyra yawned, exaggerated. "Restless mountains, dying princes, whispering walls. And yet, we're still here."
The boy turned toward Lyra. "You could get outof here. If anyone could, it'd be you. Why haven't you?"
Silence slipped in. Even the stones seemed to pause.
All eyes turned to her.
Lyra propped herself up on one elbow, gave him a long, theatrical look, then deadpanned, "The food's too good to leave."
Even Gorma chuckled. But the young one didn't drop it.
"No, really. What're you still doing here? Why haven't you tried to leave?" the boy pressed. "You're Windblade, right? You killed the assassin's guildleader. They say no one moves like you, So why're you still here?"
She looked away, flicked the pebble again. It bounced off the bars and skittered across the stone.
"Because," she said lightly, "there's no one waiting for me out there. And….I owe the rats rent."
Another laugh. But her smile didn't reach her eyes.
Running meant hoping. And what was that for?
So instead, she stayed. She cracked jokes. Counted cracks in the wall. Let the ghosts of her past keep her company.
"Doesn't matter anyhow," she murmured, lying back down. "The world turns without us."
But she didn't close her eyes again.
Outside, the ground trembled still.
Far above the rot and stone, in the highest tower of the royal palace, Queen Mair stood at a tall window with a goblet of spiced wine in hand.
Lightning flickered across a clear sky.
On the horizon, the Zmrylian Mountains shimmered through the mist, dark, jagged shapes rising where there had been only haze the day before.
Behind her, the chamberlain cleared his throat. "Your Majesty… the prince's condition."
"Worsened?" she asked, eyes still fixed on the peaks.
"Improved," he said.
Her fingers stilled around the stem of her goblet.
"What?"
"His fever has broken. He sat up, Your Majesty, asked for books."
She turned slowly. Her expression didn't change, but the wine in her cup trembled slightly.
"When?"
"At dawn."
She looked back out at the mountains. Thunder rolled again, though the skies held no storm. Her gaze narrowed.
"The mountains are awakening," she said softly.
"Yes," the chamberlain replied. "It is said that Eternity calls to the worthy when the mountains stir."
"Yes, yes.... The people adore their legends."
A pause.
Her voice softened. "My son has been ill for so long… do you t...think Eternity could help him?"
The chamberlain hesitated. "Some say Eternity is god come to earth. But the path is dangerous, Your Majesty. Treacherous."
A beat.
She smiled with what looked like hope.
"Then we have to try."
He shifted. "He'll need a protector. Someone skilled enough to get him there."
Her smile widened. Cold. Precise.
"Then he'll have one. Someone very capable… and very disposable."