They arrived with the dawn, not with ceremony, but with the grim inevitability of a season changing.
I was at my window, as I had been every dawn since waking in this body, completing the final breathing exercises of my saint's regimen. The first hint was the sound—a distant, rhythmic thunder that was too ordered to be weather. Hoofbeats. Many of them.
Then I saw them, a dark serpent winding up the academy's main thoroughfare from the city gates. No pennants, no polished parade armor glinting in the weak morning light. Their gear was dull grey steel, functional, and scarred. They moved not like a noble procession, but like a military unit returning from the edge of the world.
And at the head, astride a beast of a black warhorse, was Kaelen.
My breath seized. The careful control I'd maintained for weeks shattered like glass.
He was here. Alive. Here.
The distance couldn't disguise the sheer physical presence of him. Even from my second-story window, I could see the breadth of his shoulders under a heavy, fur-lined traveling cloak and the way he held himself—not with royal haughtiness, but with the poised, effortless balance of a predator. His black hair was wind-tousled. As he drew closer to the courtyard below, I saw the familiar, stark line of the scar on his right cheek.
A sound escaped me—a choked, half-sob I muffled against the heel of my hand. Tears, hot and sudden, blurred the scene below. You're alive. You're breathing. The memory of his hand falling, his eyes going distant, the terrible stillness that followed… it crashed over me with a violence that buckled my knees. I gripped the windowsill, my knuckles white, forcing myself to watch, to drink in the living reality of him.
He dismounted in the courtyard with a fluid, powerful motion, handing his reins to a knight without a glance. The academy headmaster and a flock of officials scurried forward, their greetings swallowed by the crisp morning air. Kaelen's responses were short, his head giving slight, impatient nods. His gaze was already sweeping the academy's façade, assessing battlements and sightlines, not bowing courtiers.
He looked younger than my memory's final, grief-carved image, but no less intense. This was the Duke of the North in his prime, a wall of ice and iron between the empire and the abyss. And he had no idea I existed.
The pain of that truth was a fresh wound. I wanted to throw open the window, call his name, run down, and confront him, but what would I say? He would see only Rosalind Thorne, a noble girl with a notorious reputation for causing trouble.
A knock at my door made me jump violently.
"Lady Rosalind?" It was Eloise, the maid. "The headmaster requests all students assemble in the Grand Courtyard to formally welcome the Northern delegation."
No. I couldn't. I couldn't stand in a crowd and look at him. I'd break. I'd do something unforgivably stupid.
"Tell them I'm unwell," I said, my voice raw. "A sudden fever. I cannot attend."
A pause. "Yes, my lady."
I heard her footsteps retreat. I stayed at the window, hidden behind the curtain, as the courtyard filled with students in neat rows, a sea of white and gold. Kaelen stood before them, a stark monument of black and grey. He said a few perfunctory words about border security and imperial unity. His voice, that low, resonant baritone, carried up to me, each syllable a physical blow to my chest.
The ceremony ended. The crowd dispersed. The fawning headmaster led Kaelen and his knights inside.
I finally released the breath I was holding, my body trembling. I had to get out of this room. I needed air that wasn't thick with the ghost of his presence. Slipping a plain hooded cloak over my dress, I took the servants' stairwell down to a side garden rarely used by students—a neglected patch of herbs and wild roses behind the kitchens.
I walked the overgrown paths, trying to calm my racing heart, to reassemble my composure. He is alive. That is what matters. Your goal is to keep him that way. Do not jeopardize it by being a sentimental fool.
"Oh! I'm so sorry!"
I collided with someone rounding a thick boxwood hedge. A young woman stumbled back, dropping a large, leather-bound sketchbook. Charcoal sticks scattered across the flagstones.
"My fault," I said automatically, bending to help gather them. She did the same, and we nearly bumped heads. She looked up, and I froze.
She had the same sharp, intelligent gray eyes as Kaelen, though hers were warmer, lit with friendly apology. Her hair was a deep, rich brown, braided simply over one shoulder. She wore a practical blue dress, not an academy uniform. Lady Elara Frost. Kaelen's younger sister. In my past life, I'd met her only once, years later at a frosty state dinner. She'd been quiet and observant and had shown me a small, unexpected kindness when Cassian's court had snubbed the "overzealous Saint."
"You're not from the kitchens," she stated, looking at my cloak but clearly recognizing it as too fine for a servant.
"No. I'm a student. Rosalind Thorne." The name felt like a betrayal on my tongue.
Her eyes widened slightly. "The one who refused the Crown Prince's tea party?"
News traveled fast, even to newcomers. "That's me."
A genuine, intrigued smile touched her lips. "I like you already. I'm Elara. My brother is the intimidating lump of gloom currently being force-fed pastries in the headmaster's study." She rolled her eyes with sisterly affection. "I escaped to find somewhere to draw. This garden is perfect—everyone ignores it."
She had an effortless, unpretentious manner that was utterly disarming. This was the ally Kaelen had died to protect in my original timeline—the sister he'd raised alone. Seeing her so vibrant, so alive, tightened my throat.
"It's a wonderful spot," I managed. "Quiet."
She studied me for a moment, her head tilted. "You look like you could use some quiet. And maybe some tea that isn't at a prince's party." Her offer was startlingly direct, free of noble posturing.
This was an opportunity. A dangerous one. Getting close to Elara meant getting closer to Kaelen's orbit. But it also meant a potential ally inside the Northern delegation—someone who might listen if I ever needed to warn them.
"Tea sounds… peaceful," I said carefully.
"Excellent! I commandeered a little sitting room near our guest quarters. Less stuffy than the main halls. Come on." She tucked her sketchbook under her arm and led the way without waiting, as if we were already friends.
I followed, numb. This wasn't in my plans. But as I walked beside Elara Frost, the fragile blue thread in my vision—the one of potential salvation—brightened and gently wound itself around her.
We reached a small, sunlit parlor with a view of the mountains. She poured tea from a simple pot, not the delicate porcelain of the academy.
"So," she said, handing me a cup. "Why did you really refuse? Not the 'river erosion' reason. The real one."
I nearly dropped the cup. Her candor was a powerful force. "What makes you think there's another reason?"
She shrugged. "I grew up in the North. We have to read the weather, the land, and people to survive. You look like someone who saw a storm coming and decided not to be in the field when it hit."
The accuracy was terrifying. I sipped my tea, buying time. "Let's just say I've learned some gatherings have higher stakes than others."
She nodded slowly, her gray eyes knowing. "My brother says the same about court. He calls it "the pretty poison.'" She sighed. "He hates it here. But the Emperor requested his presence, so…" She trailed off, looking out the window. "He's been having awful dreams lately. Wakes up like he's been fighting all night. It worries me."
My blood ran cold. Dreams. Kaelen was dreaming. Of the past? Of the battlefield?
"Perhaps the pressure of the border…" I suggested weakly.
"Perhaps." She didn't sound convinced. She turned her keen gaze back to me. "You're different than I expected, Rosalind Thorne. The rumors paint you as rather… single-minded."
"Rumors are often tools," I said.
Her smile returned, sharper this time. "Now you sound like a Northerner." She leaned forward. "I'm going to be bored to tears with all the official meetings. Will you show me the real academy? The interesting bits? The libraries, the hidden courtyards… the places where things are actually happening?"
It was a request for an alliance. A simple, friendly one, but an alliance nonetheless. This request came from the sister of the man I was destined to save.
I looked at Elara Frost, at her open, intelligent face, so unlike the calculating masks of the southern court. Here was a thread of something real. Something human.
"I'd like that," I said, and for the first time since seeing Kaelen alive, I felt a flicker of something other than dread.
It felt like hope