Even ghosts leave footprints when the snow is soft enough.
The train screamed across the winter-blasted plains of Averraine, dragging behind it a cloud of black smoke and unspoken sins. Snow hissed as it struck the iron rails, evaporating on contact. Inside the third car—an old freight compartment repurposed for passengers who preferred not to be seen—a figure in tattered leathers sat motionless, hood drawn low.
She hadn't moved in over an hour.
Not when the vendor passed, trying to peddle charred bread and licorice root tea.
Not when the child across the aisle coughed so hard his mother cried.
Not even when the whistle howled as they neared the city's edge, where lights in the distance bled through the storm like fevered lanterns.
Her name, once, had been Cerys Vale.
Now, she was simply Shade.
A blade, a breath, a command made flesh.
Tonight, she would kill a prince.
She fingered the worn strip of vellum Kael had given her before she boarded—creased from being folded and refolded. One name written in sharp ink: Darian Rathborne.
The crowned heir.
Target of the rebellion.
The boy with flame in his blood and the weight of an empire on his back.
And, for some reason she hadn't yet deciphered, the only person spared from her usual detachment.
Cerys slid her thumb across the edge of a thin throwing blade she kept hidden in the hem of her coat. She could feel the array engraved into the steel—rune-burned silver that sparked faintly against her skin. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat, just like the sigil embedded along her spine.
Her handler, Thorne, had left no room for deviation: Finish it, or the vow consumes you from within.
And yet… her mind kept returning to the boy from the fire. The child with soot in his lungs and blood on his hands who had turned, even back then, and reached for her.
She had never spoken of it. Not to Kael. Not to Thorne. Not even to herself.
But tonight, as the train neared Averra City, she couldn't unsee his face. That same softness, that same knowing, the look of someone who had already seen too much.
The train hissed and groaned to a halt beneath the towering arches of the capital's old station—its iron and glass canopy stained with soot and time. The sound echoed like screams in a cathedral.
She stood.
No one noticed.
Ghosts weren't meant to be noticed.
The festival had already begun.
From the rooftops above, colored banners fluttered in the night air. Enchanted glass lanterns hung from threads like glowing fruit. Drunken nobles waltzed to spell-charmed violins while guards in red armor patrolled the edges of the light, trying to look sober.
Tonight was the Moon Banquet—a celebration of winter's turning. And the court's golden heir, Darian, was its star.
Cerys moved between shadows like a memory, her cloak trailing behind her. Every step carried her closer to the palace where he waited. Every breath pushed her deeper into the maze of marble and masks.
The sigils tattooed along her ribs began to warm as she approached the palace gates—sensing runes, tracing magic boundaries. She marked them silently.
One word on her lips, over and over: Freedom.
Not safety. Not survival. Just… the possibility of silence without obedience.
She entered the banquet hall through a servant corridor, unseen. Beneath the scent of clovewine and lavender candles, she could taste tension in the air—like iron on the tongue. Something off.
She emerged into the gallery just above the main hall. She could see him.
Darian Rathborne.
He wore deep navy lined with gold, a sword at his hip, and a half-smile on his lips as he nodded through a courtier's flattery. Hair tied back, posture regal, presence undeniable.
Cerys waited for the rhythm of the dance to mask her descent. Waited for the lights to dim as the firemages performed their show. Waited for the perfect breath between music and silence.
Then she moved.
Down the stairs. Between the guards. Past the pillars. Through the scent of roses and smoke.
He turned before she reached him.
And spoke.
"It's been a long time, Cerys Vale."