The knock came hard and urgent, shattering the fragile quiet of Eris's chambers. She was already awake... had been for hours, watching the darkness thin beyond her windows, her mind churning through possibilities and contingencies like a mill grinding grain.
"Enter."
The guard who stumbled through her door was young, breathing hard, his face pale in the pre-dawn light. "Lady Eris. Commander Ryse sends word... the Ravencrests have fled the palace. They attacked the guards and escaped. They're… they're carrying something. Someone."
Mira.
The thought arrived with absolute certainty, cold and sharp as winter ice. Of course it was Mira. Of course they'd panicked. She'd driven Isolde into exactly the kind of desperate, stupid action that ended with people making fatal mistakes.
She just hadn't expected them to run quite this fast.
"Where is Commander Ryse now?" Her voice came steady despite the way her heart had kicked into a harder rhythm.
