Elena told herself she was being good.
For approximately…two hours.
Which, given her track record in this citadel, honestly deserved a medal.
Claire had tried—she truly had—to keep Elena occupied. They walked the inner courtyard, visited the gardens, even sat together in the solar reviewing embroidery patterns that made Elena want to file a report with the Geneva Convention.
But then a messenger approached Claire, whispering urgently in her ear before pulling her away to the infirmary.
"I'll be back in moments," Claire had promised, squeezing Elena's hand.
Moments stretched.
Elena wandered the hall outside the infirmary, restless, bored, annoyed at Soren for simply disappearing on a mission without warning—
When two servants rounded the corner, whispering.
"…they had to drag him in from the southern watchtower…"
"…blood everywhere…"
"…and the strangest thing—he kept muttering in some foreign tongue…"
Foreign tongue.
Elena's pulse jumped.
Not because she recognized it—she hadn't heard a single syllable—but because the phrase foreign tongue hit a little too close to home.
She edged closer, pretending to study a nearby tapestry.
"Do we know where he's from?" the first servant murmured.
"No one's seen markings like the ones on his armor. And the way he stared—gods, it was like he knew something."
Elena swallowed.
She should go back to her room.
She should not move toward a suspicious, mysterious wounded man.
She should absolutely not think:
What if this is connected to me?What if he knows something about how I got here?
Curiosity was going to kill her.
She accepted this.
When the servants disappeared around the corner, Elena slipped down the infirmary corridor.
The room smelled of herbs and iron. Healers murmured softly over cots. Elena scanned the space—no sign of Claire.
But at the far end, behind a half-drawn curtain, lay a man.
His armor—dark, dented, foreign—rested on a table beside him. Not Varyn steel. Not any design she'd seen here. A jagged emblem was etched across the chestpiece, unfamiliar yet instinctively wrong.
Elena moved closer.
Just a quick look.
Quick as in: enough to fuel anxiety for years.
The man lay motionless, skin pale, bandaged heavily around the ribs. His breathing was shallow but steady. His hair was dark, tangled with blood.
Then his eyes opened.
Piercing.Glass-bright.And locked directly on hers.
Elena froze.
"I…" she whispered, scrambling for a lie, "was—just—checking on things—"
His lips curled faintly.
A smile.
A knowing smile.
He muttered something low and guttural—an unfamiliar, harsh sequence of sounds she couldn't place in any language she knew. The tone sent a chill down her spine even if she understood none of it.
Then, in cracked, rasping Common, he added:
"…the rift… brought you…"
Elena's blood turned to ice.
Her heart slammed once, painfully.
"What did you say?" she breathed.
His hand snapped upward—
Fast.
Too fast for someone half-dead.
Cloth pressed over her mouth.
She inhaled once—bitter metallic fumes flooding her throat—and her limbs flooded with warmth, heavy, slow, wrong.
Hands seized her from behind.Another man—silent, hidden—had been waiting.
Voices murmured in her ear, low and triumphant.
"Easy," one whispered."We don't want to hurt you."
Liar.
"The Empire thanks you," the other hissed. "You've saved us the trouble of searching."
Her knees buckled.
Her vision blurred.
She tried to twist free—a sluggish, futile movement. "Soren—" she gasped, or thought she did.
A low chuckle answered her.
"We know," the first man murmured. "The prince guards you. Possessive fool."
Hands tightened.
Her world tilted.
They dragged her back through the curtain.
Her last conscious thought—
a frantic, furious, terrified spark—
was of Soren's face the moment he realized she was gone.
Then the world went dark.