It took Ciro nearly an hour to scrub the blood from his fingernails.
He stood by the cracked stone basin in his quarters—a cramped, damp cell located deep within the servants' dungeons. The water had turned a murky pink long ago, swirling with the sins of the night, but he kept scrubbing.
He used a brush with bristles as stiff as wire, scouring his skin until it was raw, angry, and red. He scrubbed until the phantom sensation of sticky, warm blood was replaced by the sharp sting of abrasion.
He had to be clean. He couldn't touch her with hands that had just ended three lives.
Clean. You must be clean.
Once he was satisfied—or simply too sore to continue—Ciro stripped off his motley. The ridiculous, colorful patchwork leather that marked him as the court fool fell to the floor like shed skin. He dressed in a tunic of simple black wool, the uniform of a shadow. He left the jester's cap, with its mocking bells, silent on the table.
Tonight, he needed silence.
Scaling the Astronomy Tower was child's play. The rough limestone walls offered plenty of handholds, and Ciro moved with the unnatural, disjointed grace of a spider. The wind howled, biting at his exposed neck, threatening to tear him from the wall, but his grip was iron.
He reached the highest window. It was unlatched. It always was.
Ciro slipped inside, landing soundlessly on the plush rug. The air here was different. It didn't smell of copper or rot. It smelled of lavender, old parchment, and loneliness.
"You're late."
The voice was soft, melodic, yet laced with a weariness that shouldn't belong to a girl of nineteen.
Princess Elara sat by the fireplace, wrapped in a shawl of white wool. She wasn't reading. She was staring into the dying embers, gripping a silver letter opener so tightly her knuckles were white.
She didn't look like a princess waiting for a knight. She looked like a prisoner planning a murder.
"The King was... talkative tonight," Ciro lied smoothly, stepping out of the shadows.
Elara turned. Her eyes were a piercing emerald green—the only vibrant thing in this grey, dying castle. She scanned him, dissecting him with her gaze, looking for injuries. When she found none, the tension in her shoulders broke.
"You smell of lye soap and raw skin," she whispered, her voice trembling. "You scrubbed too hard again."
Ciro froze. He instinctively hid his hands behind his back. "Occupational hazard, Your Highness."
"Stop it."
Elara stood up. She was small, delicate, like a figurine made of spun glass, but she crossed the room with a storm in her steps.
"Don't call me that. Not here. Not when the masks are off."
She stopped inches from him. Ciro held his breath. He was a weapon, a tool forged in blood. She was porcelain. He was terrified that even his exhaled breath might crack her.
"Ciro," she said softly, reaching out.
He flinched, pulling back sharply. "My hands... they aren't clean, Elara. No matter how much I scrub, the stain doesn't leave."
"Let me decide that."
She captured his hand—rough, calloused, and scrubbed red—between her soft, pale palms. She brought it to her lips and kissed the knuckles, right over the scars of his profession.
The touch sent a jolt of electricity through Ciro's spine, shattering his composure more effectively than any blade ever could.
"Did my father make you do it?" she asked against his skin, her breath warm.
"Assassins from the South," Ciro murmured. His voice lost its high-pitched, mocking edge. It became deep, rough, and honest. "They came for him. I stopped them."
"You protected a monster," she said bitterly, looking up at him with wet eyes. "Sometimes... sometimes I wish you would just let them pass. Let the knife find its mark."
"If he dies, the wolves come for you." Ciro gently touched a stray lock of her golden hair, tucking it behind her ear. "The generals, the dukes... they would tear you apart to claim the throne. I keep the devil alive to keep the demons away from you."
"Safe?" Elara laughed, a brittle, fractured sound. She pulled away and walked back to the window, looking out at the dark kingdom. "I am not safe, Ciro. I am inventory. My father is selling me."
Ciro stiffened. "What?"
"I heard the advisors whispering. Prince Kaelen of the Southern Isles. He isn't sending assassins anymore." Elara turned, her face pale. "He is coming next week for 'peace talks'. My father plans to offer me as the peace treaty."
Ciro felt a cold spike drive through his chest.
Kaelen. The Butcher of the South. A man who collected wives like trophies and buried them just as quickly.
"Rumors," Ciro said, though his gut twisted with nausea. "Just wind."
"It is not a rumor when the King orders your wedding dress to be sewn," Elara whispered. Tears finally spilled over, tracking down her cheeks. "You are one man against a kingdom, Ciro. You are just... the Jester. What can you do against a Prince?"
Ciro crossed the distance between them in two strides. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest, burying his face in her lavender-scented hair. For a moment, the blood, the King, and the looming darkness ceased to exist.
There was only this warmth. This fragile, desperate warmth.
"I am the man death refuses to touch," he whispered fiercely into her ear, his eyes burning with a dark promise. "Let Kaelen come. I will burn this world down before I let him touch you. We will leave, Elara. Tonight. Tomorrow. We will go East, across the Ashlands, where nobody knows the name of King Valerius."
Elara pulled back slightly to look into his eyes. Her expression was a heartbreaking mix of hope and devastating sorrow.
"Promise me," she choked out.
"I promise."
It was a lie.
They both knew it. The Ashlands were a death sentence—a wasteland of poisonous dust and monsters. But in the cold, dark prison of Morvath, a beautiful lie was the only thing that kept them from freezing to death.
Outside, the wind howled again, sounding less like the wind and more like a warning bell. Far below in the courtyard, the heavy iron gates groaned open, signaling an arrival far too early for dawn.
The shadows in the room seemed to stretch, no longer hiding them, but waiting for them.