Even a heart trained to kill can forget how to protect itself.
Underground Sanctuary, Dusklight
The silence between them had settled into something brittle. Not quite tension—but not peace either. Like the pause before a blade falls.
Cerys didn't move as Darian stirred awake. She stood at the far wall, her hands pressed to old runes carved into the obsidian stone—ghost language from the First Rebellion. Her profile was cut from shadow and firelight, her hair unbound, tangled from the wind and fight. Unarmored. Almost human.
Darian sat up, slowly, shoulder bandaged and stiff.
"You didn't kill me," he said.
"You're very observant."
"Is that… against the rules?"
She turned then, and for the first time, her expression wasn't carved from ice. There was something unreadable in her eyes. Not warmth. Not apology. Just… awareness.
"There were no rules once you said my name."
Darian rose to his feet, slower than he would've liked. But he approached her anyway.
"You really don't know why I know it?"
She studied him for a long moment. "No. And that's a problem."
He stepped closer, reckless in that way only the broken could be. "Or it's a sign."
"Of what?"
"That you weren't meant to kill me."
Cerys didn't answer. But her hand didn't move away when his grazed hers near the carved runes.
"It's stupid," he murmured. "But when I was younger, I used to dream about the girl in the fire."
"You dreamed of me?"
"I didn't know it was you. Just a pair of eyes. Just a girl I couldn't save."
"You still can't."
His fingers brushed her wrist. "Maybe I'm not trying to save you. Maybe I want you to save me."
Her pulse betrayed her. Just for a second. Then she pulled away.
"Don't mistake gratitude for clarity," she said. "You're injured. You're hunted. Your kingdom wants you dead. I'm just the knife that paused."
"And yet… here we are."
Before she could speak again, a crack sounded above. A pressure shift. Dust fell from the ceiling like ash.
She cursed under her breath, blades out in a blink.
"Move."
They scrambled toward the back passage—narrow, choked with moss and a chill that tasted like old magic.
Behind them, a crash. A hiss of dissolving runes.
"They're breaching the sanctuary wards," she said.
Darian's heart kicked. "Who? Royals?"
"No. Worse."
-
Palace Observatory Tower
Queen Ilyana poured wine into a glass shaped like a thorned rose.
Not for herself—for the guest across the marble table. A merchant lord from the eastern mines. Too bold. Too clean. He didn't know yet what price she charged for his favor.
"My son is missing," she said mildly.
"Terrible business," he offered.
"You have interests in steel, no? Contracts with the Guild of Sight?"
He blinked. "I—yes, your Majesty. Of course."
She smiled. "Then you'll deliver them this message: if the rebellion finds him first, I'll see their towers ground to salt. If you do… your name might make the new banners."
The merchant swallowed hard. "And if he's already dead?"
Ilyana leaned back, regal even in danger. "Then my mourning will begin with you."
When the man scurried out, Thorne emerged from the shadows like a wound opening.
"You're bleeding power," he said. "And threats."
"I'm bleeding time," she answered.
Thorne tilted his head. "She's alive."
"Which one?
"Your heir's ghost."
For the first time, Ilyana's mask slipped. Just slightly.
"She should be dead."
"She was. And yet… she bleeds."
"Find her," the queen said. "Before she remembers everything."
-
Frostrail Mountains, Abandoned Rail Line
Snow cracked under Cerys's boots as she led them through an ancient corridor—once part of an old coal transport line, now buried beneath frost and rock.
"Where are we?" Darian asked.
"Nowhere."
"Comforting."
She slowed, scanning the sigils burned into the metal support beams.
"They were here," she muttered. "Kael's people. They left trail glyphs."
Darian frowned. "Kael Moraine? The rebel commander?"
"He's more than that," Cerys said. "He's the only one who ever got me out alive."
Darian didn't like the way her voice softened when she said Kael's name.
"Is he… important to you?"
She paused. "He gave me a choice. That matters."
Darian looked away. "Did I ever give you one?"
She stared at him. "You didn't even know I existed."
Then, softer, "But now you do."
He met her eyes. "I know your name. I know you hesitated. That's more than anyone else has."
They stood like that, the cold forgotten, something warmer unspoken between them.
A rumble echoed beneath their feet.
"Too loud for snow," she muttered. "Move!"
They dove into a side tunnel just as an explosion tore the main line apart. Debris rained. Heat flashed. A war flare lit the dark.
From the shadows, hooded figures emerged—runed armor, cloaked in ash.
"They're not soldiers," Darian whispered.
"No," she agreed, blades drawn. "They're reclaimers."
"Reclaiming what?"
"Me."
-
Reclaimer Camp
From a distance, Thorne watched the flare burn.
He turned to the tracker beside him. A woman with glass eyes and inked bones.
"She's entering Kael's corridor," he said.
The woman nodded. "And the heir bleeds with her."
"Good," Thorne said.
Then he whispered a spell into the frost. Words that peeled open the air like skin.
"Let her remember. Let her run. And when she chooses him… break them both."