Elena realized she wouldn't be leaving the citadel the moment Eris started walking half a step closer than usual.
Not looming. Not aggressive.
Just… closer.
Protective proximity, he'd called it before. Now it felt like containment with a friendly smile.
He didn't follow her into rooms anymore.
He followed her through them.
When she slowed, he slowed.When she stopped, he stopped.When she turned suddenly, he nearly collided with her and apologized like he'd personally offended the concept of space.
By midday, there were six Sentinels rotating instead of four.
By evening, Kael himself appeared twice "by coincidence."
Elena adjusted immediately.
She stopped pacing.Stopped sneaking.Stopped looking like someone planning to vanish.
Instead, she became… cooperative.
Annoyingly so.
She attended meals. Asked harmless questions. Let Eris lecture her about safe corridors and approved routes while nodding earnestly like a reformed delinquent.
At one point, she even asked, sweetly, "Do you think the council will ever let me visit the border?"
Eris choked on his drink.
"Absolutely not," he said, horrified. "Never. Under no circumstances."
"Ah," she said thoughtfully. "Good to know."
That night, alone in her chambers, Elena lay staring at the ceiling.
Okay, she thought. Direct escape is off the table.
Time for the indirect method.
She sat up and began to plan the way she always had in her old life — not like a warrior, but like a doctor navigating hospital politics.
Step one: normalize the threat.
She stopped asking about the Rift. Entirely.
Instead, she asked about weather patterns. Supply chains. Cold injuries among border patrols.
Boring questions. Safe questions.
Step two: be useful.
Elena had learned long ago that usefulness was the most effective camouflage.
At the hospital, it had been the difference between being the young consultant with opinions and the young consultant everyone quietly deferred to because she fixed problems before they became disasters. Authority didn't come from asking. It came from solving.
So the next morning, she asked Eris if she could observe infirmary rounds.
Not to work. Just to observe.
Eris hesitated, then shrugged. "That's… fine. You're not touching anything."
"Of course not," she said solemnly, hands clasped behind her back like a model citizen.
He relaxed immediately.
Which told her everything she needed to know.
The infirmary was busy, understaffed, and quietly strained. Winter always was. Frostbite. Falls. Exhaustion. Soldiers who didn't complain until their bodies forced the issue.
Elena watched. Listened.
She didn't correct anyone outright. She asked questions that sounded like curiosity but functioned like scalpels.
"Has this tremor been progressive or intermittent?""Do the headaches worsen after patrol or improve with rest?""Has anyone mapped symptom onset against route exposure?"
The healers exchanged glances.
"No," one admitted. "We treat what presents."
"Of course," Elena said easily. "I was just wondering if patterns might save time."
Time. Efficiency. Prevention.
Those were holy words.
By the end of the second day, the healer master asked her to write things down.
Not instructions. Not treatment plans.
Observations.
It happened quietly.
He stood at the end of a cot, arms folded, listening while Elena asked a patrolman about the timing of his headaches—after cold exposure, after rest, after sleep. When she finished, she stepped back without comment, hands neatly clasped, as if she had never intended to speak again.
The infirmary master watched her for a long moment.
Then he said, gruffly, "Write that."
Elena blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"The pattern," he clarified. "What you noticed. Not conclusions. Just the sequence."
Eris, standing near the doorway, straightened immediately. His presence shifted the room—less defensive, more… permissible.
Elena hesitated, just enough to look appropriately unsure. "Only if that's acceptable. I know I was told before that—"
"I told you no treatment," the infirmary master cut in. "Not no thinking."
He glanced briefly at Eris, who gave a short, approving nod.
"If the Sentinel is satisfied with oversight," the healer continued, "I see no harm in documentation."
Eris cleared his throat. "She hasn't touched anything. And she's been right. Annoyingly so."
A corner of the healer's mouth twitched despite himself.
"Very well," he said. "Write."
Elena took the slate he offered, careful not to look triumphant.
As she wrote—precise, neutral, impossible to misinterpret—the infirmary master leaned closer, scanning her notes.
"This is how you were trained?" he asked.
"Yes," Elena replied simply. "To see before acting."
He grunted. "More healers should learn that."
Elena handed the slate back.
The healer master nodded once. "You may continue observing."
Not permission to lead. Not permission to decide. But enough.
And Elena understood exactly what kind of door had just opened.
By the third day, she was being handed reports.
By the fourth, she was asked—tentatively—what she thought might explain a cluster of odd neurological symptoms among a patrol returning from the western Frostline.
Elena didn't mention the Rift.
She didn't mention stones. She didn't mention power. She said, "Environmental exposure."
The word did exactly what she'd hoped. Environmental issues weren't political. They were logistical. They belonged to supply chains, routes, weather anomalies.
Not princes.
She drafted a short assessment. Dry. Technical. Impossible to argue with unless you actually understood medicine.
Pattern suggests non-infectious, non-traumatic etiology. Recommend on-site correlation of symptoms with terrain exposure to rule out environmental contributors. Delay may increase risk of permanent neurological impairment.
She signed it as Medical Advisor.
No flourish. No Elena.
When the healer master frowned, she added, gently, "It doesn't require escalation. Just verification."
That night, the request moved.
Not upward. Sideways. By the time it reached Kael, it was already framed as routine.
Kael read it in silence. Eris hovered behind him, suspicious.
"This doesn't say her name," Eris noted.
"No," Kael agreed. "It doesn't."
"That's worse."
Kael exhaled slowly. "It's correct."
Eris frowned. "Correct doesn't mean safe."
"No," Kael agreed. "It means permitted."
Eris crossed his arms. "She shouldn't even be in the infirmary."
"She isn't practicing medicine," Kael said evenly. "She isn't issuing orders. She isn't touching patients or equipment. She is observing patterns and recording what the healers themselves overlook."
"That's still dangerous," Eris insisted. "She's not trained for this world."
Kael finally looked at him, gaze sharp but controlled.
"She is trained not to interfere," he said. "Which makes her less dangerous than most."
Eris opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Kael continued, voice low. "The healer master requested documentation. Under Sentinel supervision. That invokes protocol—auxiliary observation, non-combatant, non-invasive."
Eris stared at him. "You're letting her do this?"
Kael shook his head once. "I'm not letting her do anything."
A pause.
"I'm letting procedure proceed," he said. "And until she crosses a line, there is no lawful reason to stop her."
Eris muttered, "She's going to cross one eventually."
Kael's mouth curved faintly. "Perhaps."
Then, more quietly: "But not today. And not carelessly."
Eris sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "I don't like it."
"You're not required to," Kael replied. "Only to guard her."
...
By morning, Elena was informed—casually—that a short, non-combat patrol would reassess a western route.
Medical presence required. Escort mandatory.
Eris read the notice three times. "This is not you going to the border."
"It's not," Elena agreed. "It's a medical assessment."
"You planned this."
"I wrote a memo."
"Kael signed it."
"Yes."
"And Soren—"
"Hasn't objected," she said softly. "Which means it wasn't framed as something he could refuse."
Eris groaned. "You're terrifying."
She smiled faintly. "I'm organized."
As she prepared—simple clothes, layered warmth—Elena felt something settle in her chest.
Not fear. Not hope. Agency.
She wasn't fleeing the citadel.
She was walking out the front gate with approval stamped by systems older than any one man.
And somewhere beyond the Frostline, beneath stone that had already answered once—
Something was waiting to see if she would come back on her own terms.
...
Elena had not lied.
That was the thing that made it work.
She was accompanying a patrol.She was doing a medical assessment.She was under escort.
Every word on the parchment was accurate.
She simply hadn't mentioned what she intended to do after.