Elyon's slippers slipped on the marble as she sprinted across the hall, the train of her gown tearing on broken glass. Behind her, Petrid's laughter echoed off the vaulted ceiling - low, cruel, echoing in rhythm with her heartbeat.
"Run, little spark," he taunted. "It won't save you."
She pushed through the banquet doors and into the corridor. The torches flickered wildly as she passed, their flames bowing toward her like reeds before a storm. The sound of her own breath filled her ears.
At the far end of the corridor, she glimpsed movement - two royal guards turning toward her. Relief surged through her.
"Help!" she gasped. "He's attacking the king - my uncle-he's-"
Her words froze.
The guards were already moving toward her, but their faces...
Their eyes were empty. Their movements, stiff and jerky.
One of them spoke, voice monotone. "By order of Lord Petrid... seize the girl."
Elyon's breath caught. "What?"
The second guard lunged.
She stumbled backward, nearly slipping. "No! Stop! That's an order!"
They didn't.
Their armor clanged against the marble as they closed in, blades drawn, their expressions glassy and wrong.
She threw her hands up without thinking - and a burst of wind exploded outward, hurling them back into the walls. The force startled her as much as it did them.
They slid to the floor, motionless for a heartbeat - then began to rise again, creaking like puppets on strings.
"Arrest her," came Petrid's voice, disembodied, echoing through the hall.
The air itself carried his malice.
Panic clawed at Elyon's throat. She turned and ran.
Through the grand hall, past overturned tables and shattered chandeliers. The once-splendid ballroom looked like the corpse of a dream - the light gone out of everything.
Behind her, footsteps multiplied. The spell-bound knights were following, metal on stone, unhurried but relentless.
"Think," she whispered to herself. "Think!"
The main doors - sealed. The east corridor - blocked. That left...
The gardens.
She burst through a side archway into the cold night air. The sudden wind bit at her skin; rain clouds were gathering, dark and heavy. Moonlight spilled across the courtyard, silvering the fountains and statues.
She didn't dare look back.
Her feet pounded against the wet cobblestones as she raced past the hedge maze and across the bridge. The alarm bells began to ring behind her - slow, confused, uncertain whether to warn of rebellion or witchcraft.
Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement on the battlements - black figures gathering, bows raised.
"Archers," she breathed.
She dove behind a statue as an arrow hissed past her ear. It struck the ground beside her with a metallic clang, quivering.
A voice drifted down from above - Petrid's, carried by the wind.
"You cannot run forever, niece. The forest won't save you. It will consume you, just as it did your mother."
Her chest ached at the name she barely remembered - her mother, the queen lost to whispers and forbidden magic.
Elyon rose, teeth clenched, and sprinted toward the outer gates. The guards there stood motionless, their eyes glowing faintly under Petrid's spell.
She slowed, trembling.
And then, from somewhere deep inside her, came a whisper that wasn't quite her own.
The gate does not stop you. You stop you.
She lifted her hands, palms forward. The air between her and the gates shimmered, faintly golden. A ripple spread across the iron bars like heat over water.
"Open," she whispered.
The gates groaned. Slowly, painfully, they began to part.
The wind howled.
Elyon slipped through the opening just as the first of Petrid's enchanted guards reached the courtyard.
The moment she crossed the threshold, something changed.
The ground beneath her feet grew softer - no longer cobblestone, but soil. The air thickened, cool and wet, smelling of moss and decay.
Before her loomed the dark forest - vast, ancient, alive.
The trees towered like cathedral pillars, their branches knitting together to blot out the sky. Every tale she'd ever heard warned that no man entered and lived.
Behind her, the clatter of armor drew closer.
She hesitated at the edge. One more step would mean exile. Maybe death.
But staying meant something worse.
She took a breath. "Forgive me, Father."
And she ran into the forest.
The shadows swallowed her whole.