The dungeon stank of damp stone and fear.
It was the kind of cold that didn't just bite — it seeped in, threading itself into your bones until you stopped noticing where your skin ended and the stone began. The air clung to me, heavy with the metallic tang of old blood and the mildew that thrived in the cracks.
I sat on the floor with my back against the wall, my wrists chained in front of me. The cuffs were slick from condensation dripping down the wall, the iron so cold it burned. My fingers still ached from gripping the sword. The skin at my knuckles was raw where the hilt had dug in, each pulse of pain a reminder that I'd acted before thinking.
The hem of my dress was a ruin — shredded fabric crusted with dirt and streaked with someone else's blood. My knees bore scratches from where the gravel and rose thorns had bitten into them. I could still smell the roses if I closed my eyes, faint and sharp beneath the stink of the cell.
I didn't know how long I'd been down here.
Minutes. Hours. Both felt the same in the dark.
The only clock was the slow, steady drip… drip… drip of water hitting the flagstones somewhere beyond my cell. The sound was maddening in its precision, a reminder that time moved on whether I was counting it or not.
Now and then, I thought I heard the scurry of rats in the shadows, but they kept their distance. Even vermin knew better than to linger where the Crown's prisoners waited for judgment.
I replayed the garden again and again. The moonlight glinting on Kael's cloak. The assassin's dagger flashing toward him. The crunch of my shoes in the gravel as I ran.
Every time I reached the moment where the guards surrounded me, I stopped. I didn't want to think past that — to the sound of Kael's voice giving the order to "take her."
I told myself it was good he hadn't recognized me from that other night — the rooftops, the palace wall, the almost-stolen letter. But that didn't make the memory of his eyes any less sharp. He had looked at me like someone fitting puzzle pieces together, and I didn't want to be here long enough for him to find the missing pieces.
I tucked my chained hands under my skirt for warmth, ignoring the stickiness of dried blood on the fabric. Every shift of movement made the chain clink softly — too loud in this place where even breaths seemed to echo.
Footsteps emerged faintly in the corridor — slow, deliberate, not the hurried tread of a guard making rounds.
I straightened, every nerve tight.
The footsteps grew louder. Then came the low creak of hinges, and a spill of torchlight stabbing into my eyes. I flinched, my vision swimming.
When the shadows settled, I saw him.
Prince Kael stood in the doorway.
He was no longer in his finery from the ball; his hair was damp, the loose strands curling slightly from the evening mist. He wore a black coat over a plain tunic, the lack of ornament making him seem… sharper. More dangerous. His eyes — that dark, assessing gaze — swept over me in a way that made me feel both exposed and invisible.
Two guards flanked him, but my eyes caught on the figure behind them.
The King.
I forced myself to my feet, the chains biting into my wrists as I pushed up from the damp stone. My legs trembled from the cold and from hours of stillness, but I locked my knees, forcing my body into something resembling steadiness. The shift in weight sent a faint shiver up my spine, the chill of the dungeon sinking deeper.
The King of Ardan was taller than Kael by half a head, his broad shoulders nearly filling the doorway. The flickering torchlight behind him threw his silhouette into stark relief, outlining the rigid set of his frame. Streaks of silver threaded through the darkness of his beard, catching the light like strands of tempered steel.
And his eyes…
They were nothing like his son's. Kael's gaze could be sharp, but it held a kind of restless energy, a searching quality, as if he were always on the edge of stepping toward something unknown. The King's eyes were fixed and unyielding, steady in a way that felt immovable — like frozen steel, hard enough to cut, cold enough to burn.
"This," he said, his voice low and dangerous, each word shaped with deliberate precision, "is the girl who took up a sword in my gardens?"
The sound of his voice seemed to fill the cell, heavy and absolute, as though there was no air left that didn't belong to him. It wasn't a question. It was an accusation wrapped in iron, already carrying its own verdict.
The torchlight caught on the fine embroidery at the edge of his cloak as it shifted slightly with his breath. Somewhere behind him, a drop of water fell and hit stone, sharp in the silence.
The guard nearest him answered without hesitation, his voice clipped and precise. "Yes, Your Majesty. A palace maid. No record of training, no noble blood, no permission to bear arms." The words fell into the cold air like stones into deep water, rippling outward but leaving the prince's expression untouched.
The King's gaze didn't waver from my face. I'd seen that look before — not on him, but on nobles in the market courts, weighing a trade, calculating a bargain, deciding whether the thing in front of them was worth the coin, the risk, the trouble. His eyes were doing the same now, measuring me in silence, though I could feel no warmth in the assessment — only the detached precision of a man accustomed to power and the right to use it.
"Do you know the punishment," he asked at last, each syllable deliberate, "for a woman wielding a blade in the royal grounds?"
I swallowed, my throat dry, but my voice was steady. "Death, Your Majesty."
Kael's voice cut in before the echo of mine had faded. Calm, but edged with something unyielding. "She saved my life tonight."
The King didn't so much as glance at him. His words came like the clang of a dropped blade. "And yet the law is the law."
I forced my chin up, refusing to shrink. "If I had not acted, Your Majesty, you would be mourning a son right now." My voice was firmer than I felt, but the truth in it rang clear even in the chill air.
Finally, he moved — not a sudden motion, but a slow, deliberate closing of the space between us. Each step sounded against the stone like the toll of a distant bell. By the time he stopped, his presence seemed to press against my skin, his shadow stretching over me, filling the cell like a second wall that I could not pass.
"I've been told you fought with skill," he said, his tone neither praise nor rebuke, but something that carried weight all the same. "Where did you learn?"
I hesitated. The truth was a blade with two edges. The truth would drag my family's disgrace into the light, along with the reasons our name had been scraped from the court's memory. Still, a lie might cut even deeper later.
"From my father," I said at last, forcing the words to stay even. "Before he passed."
A long pause followed — the kind of pause that was more dangerous than anger. His eyes searched my face, not for the words I had spoken, but for the ones I hadn't.
Then, his lips curved — not into a smile, but into something thinner, sharper, like the edge of a knife testing the grain of wood. "Very well. The law says I may take a life for this crime." His gaze held mine, unblinking. "But perhaps… I shall take yours in another way."
Confusion prickled through me, cold and sudden, threading into the spaces where fear had already settled.
"You will no longer be a maid," he said, the words landing like a decree already carved in stone. "From this day forward, you are a member of the royal guard."
For a moment, I thought I'd misheard. "I… beg your pardon?"
"Disguised," he continued, as if I hadn't spoken, "as a young man. No one must know you are a woman. Not the guards, not the servants, not even the council. You will answer to the name Eli."
The guard to his left shifted uneasily. "Your Majesty, why—"
"Because," the King cut in, "if an assassin could get that close to my son, my current guard is failing. I want the one who stopped him by his side at all times."
I stared at him, my heart pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
"If you refuse," he said softly, "you die."
The words fell like a stone into still water, ripples of finality spreading in the silence.
The King turned without waiting for an answer. "Prepare her. She begins tomorrow."
The guards stepped forward, unlocking my chains. My wrists burned as the metal slid away, leaving red welts.
They pushed me toward the open door. The torchlight was blinding after staying so long in the dark. My legs felt unsteady, my thoughts scattering like dry leaves in the wind.
As I passed Kael, he didn't move aside immediately. His eyes caught mine, and for a heartbeat, we were the only two people in that freezing corridor.
He leaned in just enough for his words to reach only me.
"I don't know what game my father is playing," he murmured, voice low and dangerous. "But if you betray me, Eli… disguise or not, I will end you myself."
The torchlight threw his face into sharp relief, the flicker catching in his eyes.
Then he stepped back, and the guards shoved me forward into the shadows beyond.
Whatever tomorrow held, it would not be survival alone—but a game of knives in the dark,