Flight from a golden cage always draws red.
Darian didn't run. Not at first.
He stood, frozen on the dais, even as the courtiers erupted in fear and guards poured inward like armored tides. He should have called for her arrest. Should have roared for blood. Should have cast the spell that lived beneath his collarbone, the one that could've pinned her soul to the stone.
But all he could think about was her voice, soft in his ear.
"Run. Tonight. East Gate. You have one chance."
Cerys Vale.
The name burned like a spell on his tongue.
He'd thought she was dead. Thought she had vanished with the village they both barely escaped.
Now she'd come back as a blade meant for his throat—and offered him mercy instead.
He didn't know why.
But he would find out.
-
That night, Aerlyn Palace turned to steel.
Searchlights swept the courtyard. Hawk runes circled in the sky. No servant moved unguarded. Every envoy, guest, and commoner was held and questioned. The palace gates slammed shut like a crypt.
Queen Ilyana wasted no time.
"She was an assassin. You saw it, Your Majesty. She crossed consecrated lines and wasn't burned—that alone is sorcery treason."
Her voice sliced through the war chamber like a honed crystal edge.
"Why didn't you stop her?"
Darian faced his mother with the cool stillness of someone trained from birth never to flinch.
"Because she wasn't there to kill me."
"That girl wore a rebellion mark under her collar."
"And I'm still breathing."
Ilyana narrowed her eyes. "So what was it, then? A lover's signal? A secret message?"
He didn't answer. Because he wasn't sure.
And Queen Ilyana—never one to tolerate silence—stepped closer, the moonlight catching the dark stain of her ceremonial gloves.
"I'll ask you this only once, Darian: are you compromised?"
He met her gaze.
"No. But I'm curious."
"Curious?" she echoed.
"Enough to find out what she's running from."
The Queen's lips curled. "Then do it quietly. Or I will."
But Darian had no intention of waiting for his mother's poison to run its course.
-
Nightfall – East Gate
The bells hadn't yet struck midnight when Darian appeared at the east perimeter wall, dressed in commoner gear, his royal sigil removed, a hood shadowing his face.
He'd left a false trail—a decoy sent west with a royal decoy convoy, half the guard trailing it. If Cerys was lying, he'd be cornered with no defense. If she was telling the truth…
He waited.
One minute.
Two.
Then—
"You shouldn't have come."
Her voice was shadow behind him.
He turned.
Cerys Vale stepped out from the black elm grove, cloak muddy, breath sharp, face drawn. A dagger glinted at her hip, but her hands were raised.
"I told you to run. Alone."
"You said 'chance,'" he replied. "Not 'suicide.'"
She stepped closer. "There's a kill order on your name. My name. Everyone who even breathed during that ceremony is being traced."
"So why did you spare me?"
"Because I owed you," she snapped. "And now we're even."
Darian stared at her, searching for the girl he'd known years ago. A girl with soot on her face and blood on her knees who still refused to cry.
"You're not even close to even."
Cerys cursed under her breath and turned to go. "Follow if you want. Just don't slow me down."
He followed.
-
An Hour Later – Outer Wall Perimeter
The pair climbed the lesser-known ravine path beneath the outermost arc of the palace wall. The trail was lined with carved stone teeth—old enchantments built to slash through spirit forms. Cerys had run this route dozens of times. Darian, never.
She offered no help.
Darian, to his credit, didn't ask for it.
He kept pace.
"You're not exactly fragile for a prince," she muttered.
"You're not exactly kind for a savior."
They didn't smile, but the silence between them cracked slightly.
Until the silence shattered.
A flash of light cut across the trail—red and blistering.
"Down!" Cerys hissed.
Too late.
An arrow thudded into Darian's shoulder.
He dropped, gasping, as blood soaked through his sleeve.
Shadow hunters dropped from the trees like falling blades—cloaked in rebel sigils, faces covered, eyes burning with stolen magic.
Not Kael's men.
Not Thorne's either.
"You've got bounty eyes," Cerys muttered, drawing twin knives. "Private hunters."
"Yours or mine?"
"Does it matter?"
The fight was short, brutal, and not clean.
Cerys moved like a wraith—cutting through the hunters with precision and fury. Darian fought with his off hand, his injured arm tucked, fending off blades with a rusted polearm Cerys kicked toward him.
By the time the final hunter collapsed—gargling on his own breath—Cerys was bloodied, panting, and furious.
"That's what I meant," she snapped, pulling him to his feet. "You cannot follow me."
Darian winced. "And yet here I am."
"Bleeding all over my escape route."
"Bleeding with style."
That almost earned a laugh. Almost.
As they vanished deeper into the ravine, Darian finally asked:
"So what happens now?"
Cerys didn't turn. "Now you become what they said you were."
"Which is?"
She looked back once. Her expression unreadable.
"A traitor. Same as me."
-
Aerlyn Palace, Throne Hall.
The goldflame braziers had long burned low, but Queen Ilyana remained seated, unmoving, her silhouette cut from polished obsidian beneath the high arches of the Moon Throne. The court was silent. Empty now, save for a few late-night whispers between veiled advisors, and the shuffle of her personal guard, who knew better than to meet her gaze.
Before her floated a glowing projection—rune-born, jagged with pulses of broken tracking glyphs.
"He slipped the binding circle," murmured her steward. "Your son isn't in the palace."
Ilyana didn't respond immediately. She lifted a goblet, swirled the dark wine once, and set it down without drinking.
"Is the girl dead?"
"Unknown, Your Majesty. Reports vary. There was a skirmish. Private hunters dispatched—freelance."
"Idiots," she whispered.
She rose slowly, her gown a sweeping trail of storm-colored velvet and embroidered ironleaf. The room stiffened with her movement.
"Contact the Black Archive. I want every record of the Vale bloodline unsealed. Immediately."
"That family was purged in the Ash Trials. Their name was struck—"
"Exactly," she said coolly, cutting him off. "Names aren't burned unless they matter."
She turned to the high windows, where the moons were splitting through night fog.
"My son isn't just fleeing. He's remembering." A pause. "And that… is far more dangerous than treason."
-
Eastern Outskirts, Hours Later.
Cerys moved quickly through a gap in the rockfall, leading Darian down a stairwell carved straight into the cliffside. The walls were etched in symbols older than any crest—markings meant to repel sight, memory, and sound. A sanctuary for the forsaken.
"What is this place?" he asked through grit teeth, still clutching his wounded shoulder.
"It was a temple once. To the Veil."
"The god of silence?"
"No," she said softly. "The god of secrets."
Torches flickered as they entered the crypt-like chamber. Stone pillars reached upward like petrified roots. At the center stood an altar, cracked but still thrumming with faint runes.
Darian staggered and nearly collapsed. Cerys caught him, her hands rough but steady.
"You need rest. And stitches. Sit down."
He obeyed. Not because of weakness—but because the fire in her voice left no room for pride.
She vanished into the shadows to fetch cloth and salve.
When she returned, he studied her. The dim torchlight made her ghost mark shimmer across her spine—visible for just a moment.
"You were marked in the Trials," he murmured.
She froze.
"I never saw it before. In the village."
"Because I didn't have it yet."
A long silence passed between them.
"Cerys," he asked quietly, "what did they make you become?"
Her hands trembled for a second. Then steadied.
"Someone who forgets her own name."