Anne finds herself locked in the castle like a bird in a cage. She didn't want to marry Jerry, but the pressure coming from both families was maddening. There was no love, she thought... Why go through with it?
The heavy stone walls of the east tower did little to comfort her. Outside, wedding preparations echoed—clinking glasses, shouted orders, the rustle of silk and gold. Inside, Anne stood in silence, fingers trembling around the cold iron window bars.
Jerry was a good man by all standards. Polite. Handsome, even. But he was chosen for her, not by her. Their conversations were shallow, scripted by duty. Every smile he gave her felt borrowed, like something he'd worn too many times for too many people.
She pressed her forehead to the cool window glass and whispered, "What if I ran?"
There was a knock on the door. A quiet one.
"Anne?" It wasn't Jerry.
The voice was softer, lower, hesitant.
She turned slowly. "Elric?"
He slipped inside, closing the door behind him. "You don't have to do this," he said.
Anne looked around the chamber—the gold-draped gown, the jeweled hairpins, the bridal veil folded neatly on the bed. It all felt like armor in a war she never asked to fight.
"I'll need my riding boots," she said.
Elric's eyes lit up with a mix of fear and admiration. He handed her a small leather satchel. "Food, water… and a dagger. Just in case."
She took it without a word. Her hands were shaking.
Outside, the storm that had threatened all afternoon finally broke loose. Thunder growled in the sky like a warning from the gods, and rain began to splatter against the stained glass windows.
A perfect cover.
Elric moved to the hidden servant's corridor behind the wardrobe. "The guard changes at the south gate in ten minutes. If we leave now, we can be past the forest by dawn."
Anne hesitated just long enough to look back at the veil on the bed. The symbol of a life she didn't choose.
Then she turned away.
The corridor was narrow and cold, lit only by Elric's flickering lantern. Every step echoed like a heartbeat. One wrong move, and it would all come crashing down—her freedom, his life.
Halfway down the passage, Anne whispered, "Do you think they'll come after us?"
Elric didn't look back. "They'll try."
She swallowed hard. "Then we'll have to make sure they don't find us."
He nodded. "One step at a time, my lady."
"No," she said. "Not 'my lady.' Just Anne."
Rain beat down like nails on slate as Anne and Elric slipped through the ivy-covered archway and into the courtyard. The torchlight flickered violently in the wind, casting monstrous shadows across the stone walls. Thunder cracked above them, echoing through the open sky like the judgment of angry ancestors.
They ran low across the training yard, ducking behind the old armory, past the weeping statues of long-forgotten queens. Just beyond the far wall lay the servant stables—and the south gate.
They were nearly free.
But Anne stopped.
Elric didn't notice at first, not until he turned and saw her frozen near the garden terrace, breathless and drenched, her boots sunk in the mud.
"Anne?" he whispered, stepping toward her.
She didn't respond. Her eyes were on the chapel spire towering above the east wing, lit briefly by a flash of lightning.
"I don't know if I can," she said softly.
Elric's face tensed. "We're almost out."
"I know," she whispered. "That's the problem."
She looked down at her hands—no longer trembling from fear, but from doubt.
"My father…" she began, voice cracking. "Duke Alaric of Windmere. He spent his entire life preparing for this alliance. This wedding. He said it was the crown's will. That peace depended on it."
Elric didn't interrupt.
"My mother—Lady Maerlyn—once told me I was born during a storm just like this. She said the midwife wrapped me in silk before I even cried. Because from the moment I drew breath… I belonged to the kingdom."
Tears blurred her vision now, mixing with the rain. "How do I walk away from that? From duty? From everything they sacrificed?"
Elric stepped closer. "Because duty shouldn't feel like a prison, Anne. And freedom shouldn't feel like betrayal."
She looked at him—really looked—and saw not just a boy from the stables, but someone who saw her. The real her. The girl buried beneath layers of lace, obedience, and expectation.
And still… she hesitated.
Anne looked past Elric, beyond the garden, beyond the gates where freedom waited—wild and uncertain.
"I was raised to obey," she murmured. "To smile in the face of sacrifice, to dress in silence, to sit like a statue and never ask 'why.'"
The wind howled through the courtyard like a warning.
"But I've asked," she said, louder now. "And no one ever gave me an answer that didn't feel like a chain around my neck."
She stepped forward, rain-soaked hair clinging to her cheeks, her jaw set. "Maybe I will bring shame to my father. Maybe the duchy will curse my name. But I'd rather be hated for living on my terms… than praised for dying slowly in a golden cage."
Elric stared at her—half in awe, half in disbelief. She was not the girl he had first served tea to in the rose garden. She was something more now. Something becoming.
She exhaled. "Let's go."
They ran.
Across the old stables. Past the abandoned orchard. Toward the overgrown southern gate cloaked in vines and moss. Anne's boots splashed in puddles, her heart pounding in rhythm with the storm.
Elric reached into his cloak and pulled out the iron key.
The gate creaked as he slid it into the lock.
Click.
Freedom was one breath away.
Then—
"HALT!"
A shout pierced the storm.
Torches flared to life above the parapets. Steel boots thundered across the courtyard stones. Arrows were raised.
"They're at the south gate!" another guard bellowed.
Anne turned to Elric, eyes wide, adrenaline surging. "What now?!"
Elric looked toward the forest beyond the wall, then back at her. "We run anyway."