For a while, I believed I'd lost them.
The alleys closed around me like old friends, swallowing my footsteps, stitching shadows over my shoulders. I slowed, pressed a hand to the cool stone, and forced my breath to steady. The guards' shouts had faded into the market noise.
Safe.
It had to be.
No one would send soldiers chasing an orphan over half a loaf of stale bread. Even the Fire Nation wasn't that cruel.
This can't all be for a loaf of bread.
The thought chilled more than it comforted. If it wasn't about the bread, then it was about me.
I cut away from the markets, deeper into the slums. A smart thief never keeps all her secrets in one corner of the city. I had half a dozen shelters scattered through these ruins—old bones of buildings, forgotten spaces no one cared to notice.
Tonight, I went to the oldest one.
The shell of a burned-out bathhouse crouched at the end of a crooked lane, its roof sagging, tiles scattered like broken teeth. The walls were blackened, ceilings collapsed in patches that let smoke-stained moonlight spill through. I slipped under a cracked arch and into the corner I once called home.
I hadn't used it in months, maybe longer, but the smell of soot still clung to the air. The floor was scarred with faint carvings—lines scratched into stone by small hands to mark days, games, victories of survival. My chest tightened as I traced the old marks with my eyes.
I wasn't always alone here.
When I was younger, before I knew how to run faster and fight harder, I spent whole winters in this place with other kids who had nowhere else to go. We'd huddled together against the cold, stolen scraps and shared them, whispered stories we half believed. I remembered one boy who always made us laugh, a girl who used to braid my hair with bits of colored string.
Most of them are gone now. Some starved, some slipped into gangs, some just… vanished.
The elders whispered about that. They said sometimes the palace took children who didn't belong. Said sometimes the streets themselves swallowed them whole.
I never wanted to believe it. Or maybe I just couldn't afford to.
But now, with the echo of silver-blue eyes and locks of black hair burning in my memory, the thought struck colder than hunger.
I crouched in the corner, arms around my knees, forcing my mind to still. I'd outrun the guards. I always did. I was safe.
I'm safe.
Clank.
I froze.
Clank. Clank.
Armor. Close.
My pulse lurched. I bolted before the sound reached the doorway.
The streets opened under my feet, the city's broken skeleton guiding me. My body remembered the rhythm: vault the half wall, duck the beam, sprint past the stair that never held weight. The guards clattered behind me, loud and sloppy. Easy to outpace.
I almost laughed.
But beneath their noise came another sound.
Quiet. Steady. Certain.
Not guards.
Him.
The realization sliced sharper than a blade. Panic surged hot and breathless. I cut left, sprinted up a ladder missing two rungs, and scaled a rusted pipe that groaned under my weight. My hands burned as I pulled myself onto the roof. The city tilted open—slanted tiles underfoot, beams lit by molten rivers far below. The wind ripped at my hood as I ran.
He can't follow me here. He can't.
I leapt a gap between rooftops, rolled, came up running. Tiles cracked under my weight. Behind me, boots struck just as hard.
I kicked a loose clay pot into my wake, heard it shatter against someone's shin. Shouts rose, curses chasing me. I veered toward a rope bridge sagging between two half-collapsed towers. The boards groaned beneath me, swayed wildly, but I sprinted across.
Halfway through, I cut the knot loose with my stolen knife. The bridge snapped behind me. Guards swore as they fell back.
But not him.
Through the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow leap the gap cleanly, cloak snapping like storm clouds.
My chest seized.
I vaulted another rooftop, slid across loose shingles, snatched a clothesline and swung forward. A jar of dye toppled, burst purple in the street below. The smell of vinegar stung my nose, but I didn't slow.
One more turn. One more leap.
Then he was there.
He dropped in front of me, landing soft, controlled, silver eyes locking onto mine. The night bent around him.
"Hello again, little thief."
My chest heaved. "This isn't about bread, is it?"
His mouth curved. Not a smile. Something worse. "No."
Ice slid through me. I lunged sideways. His hand snapped out, closing around my wrist. Not cruel. Not crushing. Just final.
"Let me go!" I snarled, twisting, clawing, fighting.
"Do you really want me to?" His voice was low, almost amused.
The ropes appeared before I could answer—rough, magic-woven, tightening with a pull that burned my skin. My wrists jerked together, useless.
"What the—"
He lifted me as if I weighed nothing, slung me over his shoulder. The rooftops spun past upside-down. I kicked, cursed, twisted, but his grip never faltered.
"Slippery little thing," another voice called.
"Revik. Nice of you to finally join us."
I craned my neck. Revik. Broad-shouldered, golden-eyed, grinning as if this was his favorite sport.
"Finally caught your mouse I see, Highness," he said, still catching his breath.
I bared my teeth. "Not for long."
Revik barked a laugh. "Spirited, even tied up."
He shifted me higher against his shoulder. "Enough."
The air changed.
A vibration thrummed through him, low and dangerous. With a crack like the world splitting, wings burst wide from his back—vast, black, glistening in the firelight. The gust ripped my hood away, sent my hair streaming silver in the night.
I gasped. "You're—"
He leapt.
The ground vanished. The rooftops shrank into patterns of tile and shadow. The molten rivers below glowed like veins of fire. Lanterns blurred into ribbons of light.
Wind roared, wild and merciless. My stomach lurched. My hands strained uselessly against the ropes. I fought them anyway, twisted until my wrists bled, and even tried to saw them against the sharp edge of his armor. Sparks of magic flared, unyielding. The bindings held.
I clung to him despite myself, every instinct screaming to flee, but the sky left me no ground to run on.
"You're insane," I spat.
"Possibly." His voice was calm, maddeningly calm. "But you're not screaming."
I bit down on the urge to prove him wrong.
The city sprawled beneath us, cruel and breathtaking. The higher we climbed, the thinner the air smelled—less smoke, more sky. Against my will, for one heartbeat, I felt something like freedom.
Then I saw the palace looming ahead. Black spires crowned in firelight, stabbing at the stars. It rose larger with every beat of his wings, unstoppable.
Of course he'd be the prince.