When the royal guard left his order done, the sound of the lock sliding shut echoed like thunder in the silence.
The lamplight dwindled until only the faint shimmer of the golden card remained, glowing dimly in Suzan's trembling hand.
For a while, she just stared at it — blankly, as though her mind couldn't understand what her eyes were seeing.
A summon.
From the King.
Her throat tightened.
The King.
Her heart lurched painfully at the word.
What difference did it make?
A King was still power — the same kind that had ordered her beaten, chained, dragged across cold floors while men spoke of justice.
They'd call her liar. Monster. Thief.
The King would be the same.
Maybe worse.
Her breath hitched. "He'll… he'll just look at me too," she whispered. "And say I deserve it…"
Her fingers clenched around the card until her knuckles went white. The tears came again — not sudden, but slow and suffocating, rolling down her cheeks like they'd been waiting all along. She pressed her face into her knees, shoulders shaking.
"I didn't do anything," she sobbed. "I didn't do anything…"
The words came again and again, raw and small, as if repeating them could make them true in someone's ears — anyone's.
"Lily…"
Her voice broke on the name. "Jane… someone… please…"
Her breath trembled as memories flickered through her mind like pieces of a dream — Lily's laughter echoing down the streets, Jane's soft scolding voice warning her not to cause trouble. The smell of bread from the market stalls. The sunlight in the morning before she'd learned what fear was.
It all felt like another life.
A dream buried under stone.
"If tomorrow's just going to be..… executi-" she choked out a breath, "then… at least for tonight… I can dream."
She wept harder, the sound filling the narrow space of her cell until even the guards outside turned away, faces pale.
After what felt like hours, her sobs dulled into quiet tremors. Her eyes, swollen and heavy, drifted again toward the glint of gold still lying in her lap.
The card shimmered faintly — not bright, but steady, like a single star refusing to die in a sky already black.
'Someone wants you alive. Hold on to that at least'
The guard's confident voice echoed in her head, soft and distant, like a kindness she hadn't heard in for long.
She turned the card slowly in her fingers, staring at the crest pressed into its surface — a crown surrounded by silver ivy.
Something about it pulled at her.
Something deep, buried, old.
Her thoughts were hazy like she didn't bother to remember anything now that hope was all gone.
She knew she had seen this crest before. On robes, banners, doors that opened when she laughed and ran through them as a child.
Not once. Not twice.
Countless times.
Once, she had belonged where that mark lived.
She remembered Jane's robe, the one she wore when she worked at the royal clinic. It had this same emblem, delicate and gleaming near the collar. She used to play with it as a child, tracing its edge when Jane would hug her tight.
And before that — even further back — flashes of sunlight, laughter, white halls, a mother's gentle hum… a man's voice, deep and warm, calling her by a name she hadn't heard in years.
Elisa.
It echoed faintly in her head, far and thin like a whisper carried by wind.
She let out a small, broken laugh.
Her gaze softened on the card.
"The King…" she whispered. "The King....."
The name tasted strange. Familiar and foreign at once.
Her thoughts tangled and blurred, exhaustion clawing through her skull until even breathing felt like remembering something painful.
But somewhere, beneath all the noise, a faint echo rose — Jane's voice, soft, gentle as a lullaby. She remembered Jane once telling her the truth she had never dared believe:
"They're alive, Elisa… they're still ruling Eldis."
Alive.
In Eldis.
The words spun through her mind like ghosts she no longer believed in.
Her gaze drifted back to the golden card in her palm its light trembling weakly against the dirt and blood.
That crest… she had seen it many times. Often. Every day, once upon a time.
A broken breath left her.
Her lips twitched, shaping a name that barely touched the air.
"Dad…?"
It sounded foreign — too heavy for her throat, too sacred for this place.
The sound frightened her. She shook her head quickly, pressing her hand over her mouth as if to trap the word before it could escape again.
Her eyes stung. She clutched the card tighter — as if the light might vanish if she let go.
"It's just another lie. Just another trick. You wouldn't let this happen…"
The thought rose unbidden, trembling like something half-remembered from a dream.
She bit her lip until it bled. "Stop… stop thinking that, it's no use hoping for the impossible."
But the silence pressed closer — deep, endless, heavy — and in that silence, the smallest thing stirred inside her.
Not belief. Not yet.
Just… a flicker.
A tiny, trembling warmth she was too afraid to name.
Maybe it was madness.
Maybe it was mercy.
Maybe it was nothing at all.
Her fingers loosened around the card as her body finally gave in to exhaustion.
The faint glow from the royal crest shimmered against her cheek, soft and unreal the light of a world she no longer trusted, but still, for one fragile heartbeat…
She almost believed in.
And as sleep claimed her, Suzan murmured one last time, a broken whisper swallowed by the dark:
"Please… don't let it be too late…"
---
High above the city, the palace did not sleep.
Eldric stood near the long table in his private study, the windows thrown open to the night air. The stars beyond the glass were sharp and cold — indifferent witnesses.
"Prepare everything," he said quietly.
Kael straightened at once. "Everything, Majesty?"
Eldric turned, and the candlelight caught his eyes — steady, resolved, burning beneath exhaustion.
"A warm chamber," he continued. "Close to the infirmary. No drafts. No court access."
He paused. "Have the medics ready. Not one. All of them."
Kael nodded, already committing it to memory. "Clothes?"
"Yes," Eldric said. "Soft. Clean. Nothing formal. Nothing that reminds her of chains."
The King moved to the desk, resting one hand against its edge as if steadying himself.
"Food?" Kael asked gently.
"Broth first," Eldric replied. "Small portions. She'll be weak." His jaw tightened. "And send for the healers. Quietly."
Kael hesitated only a fraction. "The Council—"
"Will learn after she is safe," Eldric cut in. His voice did not rise. It did not need to.
"At dawn," he said, slower now, deliberate, "you will go yourself. You will not wait for permission. You will not argue."
Kael bowed deeply. "I will bring her directly to you."
Eldric nodded once.
"Not to the court," he added. "Not to judgment. Bring her into the light."
For a moment, neither man spoke.
Then Kael said softly, "She's still breathing."
Eldric closed his eyes — just briefly.
"That will be enough," he murmured. "For now."
⸻
Across the palace, lamps were lit one by one.
Servants were roused from sleep, summoned without explanation but with unmistakable urgency.
In a quiet wing overlooking the gardens, a room was cleared. Heavy drapes drawn. Fresh linens laid. A fire coaxed to life, crackling softly against the chill.
"She's a child," one maid whispered as she smoothed the sheets.
"And the King himself ordered this," another replied, awe threading her voice. "All of it."
In the infirmary, medics murmured to one another as trays were prepared — salves, clean bandages, warming tonics.
"After all these days…" one said quietly.
"The King has not forgotten," another answered.
And in the Queen's chambers, lights still burned.
The Queen stood near the window, hands folded tightly, watching the dark stretch toward dawn. When a maid approached, she turned at once.
"Is the room ready?" she asked.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"And the healers?"
"They are waiting."
The Queen exhaled, something like relief softening her features. "Good. Make sure the bath is warm. Not hot."
She hesitated. "And… lay out the blue shawl."
The maid smiled gently. "Of course."
Though it was deep night, the palace moved like morning had already arrived — footsteps hushed but constant, doors opening and closing, hope carried quietly through stone halls.
-------------------------
The dungeon had fallen quiet hours ago.
After Suzan finally slipped into exhausted sleep nothing remained except the sound of her breathing.
Soft, small whimpers at first.
Then not even that.
Her breathing settled into that hollow rhythm reserved for people who had run out of hope long before they ran out of tears. Curled against the wall, the royal gold card still clutched loosely in her hand, she drifted somewhere between sleep and sinking.
Her body ached with a heavy, throbbing pain, tired exhausted.
Her throat burned every time she swallowed.
Her eyes stung, too tired to even close fully.
She didn't know how long she'd slept — just when she dreamed, she heard familiar voices she missed — Lily's laugh, Jane's warm hum, the street bustling noise.
But when she woke, there was nothing.
Only cold.
Only stone.
Outside her cell, the guards muttered among themselves, the usual tired exchanges, armor shifting, boots dragging, someone swearing under their breath about the day's events.
It was familiar. A rhythm she had grown used to.
But then—
Cling.
Metal striking metal.
Not loud. But sharp enough to cut through the haze in her mind.
Suzan's eyes opened a fraction. Her head shifted slightly against the wall.
Her thoughts were fogged, sluggish
'Probably just a latch', she told herself.
'A sword being sheathed. Something ordinary.'
Her thoughts drifted, sinking again feeling the card still held loosely in her hand.
Another sound.
Cling—scrape.
Different.
Not a latch.
Not armor.
Something foreign.
Something wrong.
Suzan blinked, confused, trying to force her mind to make sense of the sound—
and then came the ones she couldn't mistake:
Clink of steel. Another.
A grunt.
A breath—choked.
Then—
THUD.
…THUD.
Bodies hitting stone.
Suzan flinched, but she forced herself to breathe, to stay calm.
'Probably a scuffle,' she told herself.
'Guards push each other around all the time. Someone slipped. Someone got shoved. It's normal.'
But even as she tried to believe it, something inside her, something instinctive and cold — tightened.
Because she knew.
Deep down, beneath the fog in her mind and the exhaustion in her bones, she knew this wasn't routine.
It wasn't the careless shove of bored guards.
It wasn't drunken wrestling or rough laughter.
Those sounds had weight.
Violence.
Finality.
This wasn't play.
This was wrong.
Suzan froze.
Silence followed — A silence too thick.
Too still.
Too total.
Too sudden.
Not the sleepy, lazy quiet of bored guards.
But an empty, hollow, unnatural stillness, that made her own shallow breaths echo too loud.
It made her heart grip itself painfully in her chest.
No whispers.
No tired sighs.
No shifting footsteps.
Only the faint drip… drip… drip of water in the far corridor.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Unhurried.
Not the heavy, disciplined march of guards.
Not Kael's purposeful stride.
Something else.
Something softer almost leisurely — as if whoever was walking was taking a peaceful stroll and had all the time in the world to move through a place no one should be able to enter.
Footsteps that didn't belong in the dungeon.
Suzan's breath hitched, her fingers closed tighter around the card.
The steps grew louder, echoing off stone.
Closer.
Measured.
Calm.
Wrong.
They reached the very edge of her cell—
and stopped.
Silence pressed in around her, heavy enough to hurt.
Suzan didn't lift her head at first.
She couldn't.
Her mind clouded with fear.
Her heart pounding too hard, hurting her ribs.
Her breath trembling in shallow gasps.
Maybe it's a guard, she told herself desperately.
Maybe one of the kind ones. Maybe—
"Hey."
A voice.
Low.
Smooth.
And utterly, horrifyingly wrong.
A man stood just outside the bars.
Tall.
Cloaked.
Hood drawn low.
Not a guard.
Not Kael.
Not anyone belonging here.
His head tilted — slow, deliberate.
A faint, amused breath slipped from under the hood.
Suzan's stomach dropped.
She knew that stillness.
That posture.
That voice.
He was the same cloaked man from the Velvet Sphinx Inn.
The one who baited her with the relic.
The one who watched the chaos he set in motion.
The one who used her to open the vault.
The one who made her take the fall.
The one who let her get dragged, beaten, starved, ruined.
The one who started all of this.
He stepped closer.
Torchlight brushed the edge of his hood — revealing the faint curve of a smile.
Not kind.
Not mocking.
Something… entertained.
As his shadow stretched across the floor toward her, Suzan's entire body went rigid.
Her fingers trembled around the card.
She pressed herself back against the wall, breath shattering in her throat.
Why was he here?
How did he get in?
Why were the guards not arresting him?
Why was no one coming?
What was going to happen to her now?
The man leaned just slightly nearer — enough for her to feel him looking at her through the hood.