The smell of burnt iron and horse manure clawed at the back of my throat. Ten yards away, a supply wagon lay splintered against a stone wall, its axle snapped like a dry twig and its grain spilling into the mud like gold for the desperate. The screaming hadn't stopped yet.
This wasn't some textbook history lesson. This was a goddamn slaughterhouse.
My hands shook, slick with the cold sweat of someone who had woken up in the wrong century. I shouldn't be here. I should be at my desk, looking at blueprints, not staring at a child pinned under a ton of oak and shattered crates.
"Help him! Move the wheel!" I shouted, my voice cracking.
Nobody moved. The dockworkers just backed away, their faces gray, terrified of the cargo—heavy iron machinery from the capital that was never meant for these rotted coastal roads.
If I don't move, he dies. If the grain gets trampled, the whole district starves.
I lunged forward. My boots skidded in the muck, and my heart hammered against my ribs so hard it felt like it would crack a bone. I reached for the splintered wood, my fingers screaming as the rough grain dug into my palms. I just needed leverage. One shift. One push.
"Step back, Lady Ainsworth."
The voice wasn't a request. It was a goddamn blade.
A hand clamped onto my shoulder, the grip so tight it bruised. I was hauled backward with enough force to make my teeth click together. I stumbled, my heels catching on an uneven stone, and slammed into a chest that felt like a slab of cold marble.
"Let go!" I hissed, twisting in the grip.
Captain Alaric Veyron didn't let go. He tightened his hold, his gloved hand moving from my shoulder to the nape of my neck, forcing me to stay pinned against his uniform. The scent of gunpowder and expensive tobacco smothered me.
"You're making a scene," he muttered into my ear. His breath was warm, but his tone was sub-zero. "Look at them. You think you're a savior? You're just a target."
I looked. The crowd wasn't watching the dying child anymore. They were watching me. The noblewoman. The girl whose family owned the very roads that had just failed them. Their eyes weren't full of hope; they were full of teeth.
He's right. God, he's right, and I hate it.
"The boy is still breathing, Alaric. Order your men to lift it. Now."
"No."
"What do you mean, no?" My voice rose, a sharp, ugly sound. "He's right there!"
Alaric didn't even look at the wagon. His eyes, sharp and predatory, stayed locked on the perimeter of the square. "The axle is under tension. You lift that, the rest of the crates slide. We lose the iron. The King wants the iron, Elowen. He doesn't care about a dockhand's son."
"I care."
"Then you're a fool."
He didn't just stand there. He leaned in, his shadow swallowing me whole. He was the only thing keeping the mob from surging forward, but he was also the one holding the leash around my neck. I needed his soldiers. I needed his authority. Without him, I was just a girl in a silk dress about to be torn apart by a hungry city.
He's a monster. But he's my monster.
I felt the heat rising in my face—frustration, shame, and something darker that I didn't want to name. My pulse was a frantic rhythm in my throat where his thumb rested.
"Give me your coat," I said, my voice shaking.
Alaric's brow quirked. "Excuse me?"
"Your coat. The heavy one. Give it to me."
"Elowen, get back in the carriage."
"No." I reached up, my fingers fumbling with the silver buttons of his military Greatcoat. I didn't wait for him to agree. I ripped the top button open.
I saw the flash of something in his eyes—not anger, but a dangerous kind of amusement. He didn't stop me. He let my hands shake against his chest, watching me with the intensity of a man watching a fuse burn down.
"You're going to get blood on this," he warned, his voice dropping an octave.
"I'll buy you a new one."
"You can't afford the price of my loyalty, Lady Ainsworth."
I ignored him. I shoved the heavy, wool coat off his shoulders. It was massive, weighted with lead-lined hems and the smell of his skin. I didn't use it to stay warm. I didn't use it to hide.
I ran back to the wagon, ignoring the roar of the crowd and the sharp shout of Alaric's second-in-command. I shoved the coat into the gap under the main beam—not to lift it, but to wedge it. To create a friction block.
It was a stupid, impulsive move. It was an architectural gamble with a human life.
The wood groaned. The coat caught. The tension shifted.
For three seconds, the weight held. I reached under, grabbing the boy's slick, blood-covered arm, and hauled him out. The screech of wood on iron followed immediately. The wagon collapsed the rest of the way, the heavy crates smashing into splinters exactly where the boy's head had been a second ago.
Silence.
Then, the sound of Alaric's boots. Slow. Rhythmic.
I was kneeling in the mud, the boy gasping in my lap, my hands stained a deep, terrifying crimson. I looked up. Alaric stood over us, his white shirt pristine except for where my muddy fingers had gripped his chest. He looked down at the ruined, blood-soaked pile of wool that used to be his ceremonial coat.
"You saved the boy," Alaric said, his voice flat.
"I did." I wiped a streak of blood across my forehead, feeling a grim spark of victory.
"And you just signaled to every person in this square that the Ainsworth heir is soft enough to break protocol for a peasant." He stepped closer, his boot inches from my hand. "The Church will call this interference with fate. The Council will call it weakness. And I?"
He reached down, his fingers catching my chin, forcing me to look up at the wreckage of the square.
"I'll call it a debt."
I felt the air leave my lungs. The victory tasted like ash. I had saved one life, but the look on the faces of the merchants nearby told me I had just started a fire I couldn't put out. They weren't grateful. They were calculating.
"I don't owe you anything," I whispered.
Alaric tilted his head, a ghost of a cruel smile touching his lips. He leaned down, his face inches from mine, loud enough only for me to hear.
"That coat was a gift from the King, Elowen. By destroying it to save a nobody, you've officially tied your neck to my leash."
He stood up, turning his back on me as he barked orders to clear the square. He didn't help me up. He didn't offer a hand. He just left me there in the mud, surrounded by a thousand people who now knew exactly how to hurt me.
I looked at my hands. The blood was drying, turning dark and stiff.
I wanted to move the world.
I just didn't realize the world would move back.
Alaric stopped at the door of my carriage, looking back over his shoulder with eyes that promised a very long, very painful night of explanations.
"Get in the damn carriage, Elowen. Before I decide to let them have you."
I got in. I didn't have a choice.
The door slammed shut, locking us both in the shadows of the velvet interior, and I realized with a jolt of pure terror that the boy wasn't the only one who had just been trapped.