The palace slept like a beast well-fed. Candles guttered out one by one across the upper floors. Music from the west wing ballroom had faded hours ago. Most of the guests had left. The servants were cleaning. The nobles were dreaming.
Elenya moved like a shadow.
She wore a plain cloak — charcoal wool, no trim, no crest. Her hair was bound tight, her dagger tucked under her sleeve. Lira moved beside her, silent and sharp-eyed, carrying the saddlebags under one arm. Neither of them spoke. They had practiced this route in whispers and dreams, and now it was real.
The east corridor was narrow, stone-walled and half-forgotten. Long ago it had been used by servants to carry messages between towers. Now it was just dust and echo. That made it perfect.
"Wait," Lira murmured as they reached the junction near the scullery stairs.
Footsteps.
Two guards stood down the hall, spears resting against their shoulders. They were mid-conversation, complaining about a lost card game and stale wine. Bored. Barely alert.
Lira pulled Elenya into an alcove behind a crumbling tapestry. They waited. The guards didn't move.
Elenya leaned in, whispering so low her lips barely moved. "If they see us, they'll raise the alarm."
"I can distract them," Lira offered.
"No. You're not splitting from me."
Lira glanced down the corridor again. "Follow me. Quiet."
They moved along the edge of the wall until they reached a side arch barely taller than Elenya. The tunnel behind it was old — probably hadn't been used in decades — but it curved back around toward the herb gardens.
Exactly where they needed to go.
They crept through, breathing shallow, boots muffled by worn stone. When they emerged into the garden passage, the sky had turned a deep, frostbitten gray. Dawn was not far behind.
The garden was quiet, mist curling above frost-touched hedges. Elenya's breath puffed visibly as she crouched behind a row of dormant rosebushes. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called once and fell silent.
The back gate was only thirty paces away.
A single guard stood at it, arms crossed, shivering slightly. Young. Half-asleep.
Elenya turned to Lira. "You take the gate. I'll go wide, from the shadows."
"No," Lira said. "I'll handle him."
"Lira—"
"I won't hurt him," she said, then cracked the faintest grin. "Unless I have to."
Before Elenya could argue, Lira was moving. Her steps were light as wind, quiet as breath. She approached from the open garden path — the direct, obvious way.
The guard looked up, startled. "Who goes there?"
"I'm late delivering wine to the east wing," Lira said smoothly, holding up a wineskin. "The lord steward is already furious. I just need a moment to cut through."
The guard frowned. "No deliveries after the third bell."
"Well," Lira said with a shrug, "if you want to explain that to the steward, be my guest."
The guard hesitated. A young man. No more than eighteen. Not paid enough to argue with an angry steward or question a maid.
He reached for the latch. "Fine. Just be quick—"
Elenya moved.
From the side hedge, she darted forward and slipped through the gate as it opened. Lira followed smoothly. Before the guard could fully register what had happened, they were past him, cloaked in the gray veil of pre-dawn.
The gate clicked shut behind them.
They were out.
Freezing wind bit at their faces as they rushed down the stone path that led toward the outer stables. Beyond that: the old east road. The first stage of exile.
Their horses were waiting where Lira had arranged — two sturdy, dark-coated mares, unremarkable and quiet. Saddlebags were already in place, filled with dried food, cloaks, coins, and spare boots.
Elenya stroked her mare's nose. "You didn't miss a detail."
"I've had time to prepare," Lira said, already mounting.
Elenya climbed up, heart pounding, hands steady. The palace behind them looked almost peaceful. Golden light flickered in tower windows. The city hadn't noticed her absence yet.
But it would.
"Once they realize you're gone," Lira said, reading her thoughts, "they'll send search parties. South, east, maybe even west."
"They'll never guess I went north."
"Good."
They kicked off at a trot, careful at first — watching for city patrols or early risers. As they neared the main road, the pace quickened.
Soon, they were galloping.
Wind howled past. Trees blurred. The cold was brutal, but it didn't matter.
Elenya didn't look back.
---
By midday, they were deep into the countryside. Hills stretched wide and gray around them, forests rising in tangled knots on either side. Birds scattered at their approach. The silence was absolute.
They stopped to rest in a wooded clearing. Lira passed Elenya a canteen and half a dried apple.
"How far until the next village?" Elenya asked.
"Three hours. Maybe less if we keep pace."
"And after that?"
"A long, hard road." Lira looked northward, toward the distant line of snow-draped mountains. "You're sure about him?"
Elenya nodded slowly. "No. But I'm more sure about what I left behind."
Lira tilted her head. "You think he'll say yes?"
"I think," Elenya said, gripping the reins, "that if Kael Dravon is truly the demon they fear — then he's also the one man in this kingdom powerful enough to keep me out of their hands."
"And if he says no?"
Elenya's gaze didn't waver. "Then I make him regret it."
The road twisted like a ribbon of frost, half-hidden beneath snow and dead leaves. The horses' hooves clapped steadily, their breath steaming in the cold night air. Behind them, the capital faded into the dark, its towers swallowed by mist.
Lira glanced over. "Keep your hood down. Just in case."
Elenya tugged the edge lower. "You think we'll be recognized this far out?"
"Unlikely," Lira said, "but not impossible. Patrols stretch further than they used to. And bounty hunters aren't picky."
"Do you think they've issued one for me yet?"
"Not openly. Not while they still have hope of spinning this as a misunderstanding. But they will. They always do."
The silence between them stretched, heavy with the weight of what had been left behind. Elenya's muscles ached from tension, but she refused to loosen her grip on the reins.
She had no right to feel safe. Not yet.
The moon slipped behind clouds, plunging the road into patches of deeper dark. They slowed as the forest thickened, branches leaning like claws toward the path. The trees were ancient here, remnants of a time when the kingdom hadn't yet tamed the land.
"How far until we're out of royal patrol reach?" Elenya asked.
"By morning, if we ride until sunrise. There's an old rest post in the foothills. Hunters use it. We can shelter there before heading toward Nareth."
Elenya didn't know the name, but she nodded anyway.
After a while, she asked what had haunted her since the first map was drawn in secret:
"Do you think Kael Dravon will help us?"
Lira didn't answer at once. Her eyes stayed forward, scanning the road like it might suddenly split open.
"I think he's dangerous," she said finally. "But not careless."
"That's not an answer."
"No, it's a warning."
Elenya looked away, snow catching on her lashes. "I don't need him to be kind. I need him to be powerful."
"You need him to be willing," Lira corrected. "Those are different things."
The wind picked up, howling through the branches like a scream caught in a tunnel. Somewhere in the trees, a bird startled and flew off, its wings slicing the silence.
"You've heard stories, haven't you?" Elenya asked.
Lira didn't deny it. "Everyone's heard them. The Demon of the North. The man who never kneels. They say he made peace with no one and war with everyone."
"And yet his lands have held longer than the crown's."
"They're loyal to him because they fear him. That's not the same as love."
Elenya's jaw clenched. "Love is overrated."
For a while, there was only the sound of hooves and wind. Then Lira said, almost gently, "I don't think you believe that."
Elenya didn't respond.
She thought of her mother's hands braiding her hair. The perfumed lies. The soft voice saying, You were born for this. She thought of her father looking through her, not at her, like she was already part of someone else's ledger.
If that was love, she'd rather ride into the mouth of a beast.
The forest began to thin. Ahead, the first soft glow of morning touched the edges of the horizon, brushing the sky with a pale gray-pink.
Lira pointed. "There. That ridge. Just past it — there's a cabin. We rest there. No fire. No noise."
They crested the ridge and found the shelter nestled between frost-laced pines — a half-rotted hunter's cabin made of stone and moss-covered logs. One wall was nearly caved in, but the roof still held.
It would do.
Inside, the air was dry and cold, but still better than the wind. Elenya slid from the saddle and winced. Every muscle in her body throbbed. She hadn't ridden this long or hard since she was twelve.
Lira untacked the horses, rubbed them down, and gave them dried oats from the saddle bag. Then she disappeared around the side of the cabin to scout the perimeter.
Elenya dropped to the cabin floor, her back against the wall, cloak wrapped tight around her. Her hands trembled — not from cold, but from everything. The weight of escape. The echo of her parents' silence. The pounding rhythm of the road behind her.
She didn't cry.
But the ache behind her eyes told her she could.
When Lira returned, she didn't speak. She just sat beside Elenya, handed her a strip of jerky, and leaned her head back.
"We'll sleep in turns," she murmured. "You take first."
Elenya nodded, though sleep felt impossible. Her mind was too full of what came next.
Blackspire Fortress.
Kael Dravon.
The kingdom's most feared man.
If he turned her away, they would have nowhere to go.
If he accepted her... she would belong to a warlord.
Better than a duke.
Maybe.
She stared at the cracked wooden ceiling and let the silence settle. Her hands finally stopped shaking.
No fire. No roof over the full sky. No silks or chambermaids.
And yet — for the first time in her life — she felt the faintest flicker of something real.
Freedom.
Cold and terrifying.
But hers.