Chapter 14 – Sunrise and Shackles
Sixteen days left.
We woke before dawn in the duchess's chamber (high in the oldest tower, windows open to the wind so the snow drifted across the stone floor like salt).
Evelyn was already at the window, wrapped in a wolf-fur cloak, watching the sky turn from black to iron to rose.
I came up behind her and slid both arms around her waist (whole arms, strong arms, the silver stag scar catching the first light).
She leaned back against me without a word.
Below us, Caer Veyral was waking for war.
Smiths' hammers rang on steel. Horses screamed in the lower yard. Ravens wheeled overhead carrying messages to every corner of the north.
Cedric's deadline was a noose tightening every sunrise.
Evelyn spoke without turning.
"They say his army crossed the Frostfang Pass yesterday. Twenty thousand. Royal banners. Siege engines dragged behind ice-drakes."
I rested my chin on her shoulder.
"They'll reach the valley in nine days if the weather holds," I said. "Less if the queen lends her storm-mages again."
She was quiet for a long moment.
"I used to dream of this," she murmured. "Of standing here with someone I trusted while the kingdom came to burn us out. I thought the dream would feel like terror."
She turned in my arms, eyes crimson in the growing light.
"It feels like coming home."
I kissed her then (slow, deliberate, tasting snow and certainty).
When we broke apart, her forehead stayed against mine.
"We have one advantage they don't know about yet," she said.
I raised an eyebrow.
She smiled (small, sharp, lethal).
"The old dragon roads. Father's maps. Tunnels under the mountain that come out behind their lines. We let them siege the fortress for three days, then hit them from the rear while the main army opens the gates."
A classic Clermont pincer. Her father's favourite tactic.
I grinned. "You beautiful, ruthless woman."
She kissed the scar on my arm (the silver stag) like it was a talisman.
"Tonight," she said, "we ride to the hidden gate and show the army what their duchess has planned. And tomorrow we begin teaching Cedric what it costs to hunt a stag."
The war horn sounded from the lower bailey (deep, rolling, ancient).
Evelyn pulled away only long enough to buckle on her father's sword (the one she had worn since the masquerade).
I belted on my own blades (two short northern swords now, balanced for my healed arm).
We walked out together onto the high balcony.
The entire fortress had assembled below (five thousand in the courtyard, another ten thousand camped on the valley floor). Every banner of the north snapped in the wind.
When they saw us, silence fell.
Evelyn stepped to the edge and raised her blood-stained right hand (still scarred from the kneeling vow).
"Sixteen days!" she shouted. "Sixteen days until the prince comes to finish what he began in a tower six years ago!"
Boos and jeers rolled like thunder.
She waited until they quieted.
"Let him come," she called. "We have waited six years to give him a northern welcome."
The roar that answered shook snow from the battlements.
I stepped forward beside her, drew one sword, and laid it flat across my upraised palm (the blade catching the sunrise like fire).
The army saw the silver stag scar and went wild.
Evelyn's hand found mine on the balcony rail.
Sixteen days.
Sixteen days to turn a broken girl and her half-dead maid into the storm that would break a kingdom.
We looked at each other and smiled (the same smile, sharp and fearless).
Let Cedric bring his twenty thousand.
We had fifteen thousand, the mountain itself, and a love forged in blood and fire.
The sunrise painted us both crimson.
And for the first time since I woke in this world, the future felt like ours to write.