Zara's POV
The lockpick slides into the shackle with a soft click.
I'm sitting on my bed, hands behind my back like I've accepted my fate. But my fingers are working fast, feeling for the mechanism inside the lock. The guards outside my door think I'm helpless. They don't know I've been preparing for this moment for two years.
The first shackle springs open.
I freeze, listening. Footsteps in the hallway. Voices arguing. Sevrin is still with the Architect, probably getting screamed at for letting me see that photograph. Good. Let them fight. It gives me time.
The second shackle clicks free.
I rub my wrists where the metal bit into skin, then move to my weapons cache hidden under the floorboards. Two knives. Poison darts. A garrote wire. And the forged travel papers Sevrin gave me yesterday—before he knew I'd been "compromised."
My new identity: Lira Ashwood, servant girl from the southern villages, hired to work in Kaelen Thorne's fortress.
Perfect cover. If I can make it out of this fortress alive.
I'm strapping knives to my thighs when I hear it—a soft scraping at my window. My hand flies to my blade. The window's four stories up. Nothing human should be able to reach it.
The scraping continues. Deliberate. Patterned.
Someone's sending a message in Veil code.
I cross to the window and look out into the darkness. A figure clings to the wall below—impossible to see clearly, but they're wearing dark clothes and moving like a spider.
They tap again: Friend. Silver moon. Help you escape.
The letter mentioned a silver moon pendant. An ally in Kaelen's fortress. But how would they know I'm locked in here? How would they know I need help?
Unless they're watching. Unless this whole thing—the letter, my arrest, everything—is part of a bigger plan.
The figure taps again, more urgently: Guards coming. Decide now.
I have three choices: stay and face reconditioning, escape alone and risk getting caught, or trust this stranger.
All three could get me killed.
But only one gives me a chance at the truth.
I tap back: How?
The figure drops something through the bars. A small vial lands on my floor—clear liquid inside. They tap: Magic blocker. Pour on door lock. Melts metal. Silent. Five minutes.
Then they're gone, climbing up into the shadows like they were never there.
I pick up the vial. It could be poison. A trap. But my gut says otherwise. Someone is helping me, and I need to trust them.
I press my ear to the door. Two guards outside, talking quietly. Beyond them, more footsteps. The fortress is on alert because of me.
I uncork the vial and pour it onto the lock mechanism. The liquid hisses softly, eating through metal like acid through paper. Thirty seconds later, the lock is slag.
I wait for the guards to notice. They don't. The magic blocker must mask sound too.
I ease the door open an inch. Both guards have their backs turned, watching the hallway. I slip out like smoke, silent and invisible. Everything the Veil taught me kicks in—controlled breathing, precise movements, no wasted motion.
I'm a weapon. And right now, I need to be.
The fortress is a maze, but I memorized every corridor years ago. All assassins learn the layouts of major buildings. You never know when you'll need to escape one.
I take the servant passages—narrow, dark, rarely guarded. I'm three turns from the kitchen exit when voices echo ahead.
"—check all the exits. The Architect wants her contained—"
I press against the wall, controlling my heartbeat. Two guards pass within feet of me. Neither looks my way. I've become shadow itself.
The kitchen is empty. I slip out the delivery door into the cold night air.
Free. I'm actually free.
For about ten seconds.
Then alarm bells start ringing. Someone found my empty room.
I run.
The fortress erupts behind me—shouts, footsteps, magical lights blazing to life. I sprint toward the outer wall, toward the gate I scouted months ago. The one with the broken drainage grate that leads under the wall.
Almost there. Twenty more feet.
A guard appears in front of me, sword drawn. "Halt!"
I don't slow down. I throw one of my knives. It hits his shoulder—not fatal, just enough to make him drop. I leap over him and dive for the grate.
My fingers find the metal bars. I yank them up and squeeze through into the dark tunnel below. Water soaks through my clothes. Rats scatter. Behind me, the guard screams for backup.
I crawl through the drainage pipe, fast as I can. It's tight—my shoulders scrape against stone. Water fills my nose. But I keep moving because stopping means capture, and capture means reconditioning, and reconditioning means losing myself forever.
The pipe spits me out on the other side of the wall. I emerge into a forest, gasping and soaked and alive.
I run until my lungs burn. Until the alarm bells fade to nothing. Until I collapse behind a tree, shaking and exhausted and free.
Actually free.
For the first time in eighteen years, I'm not in the Veil's cage.
I pull out my travel papers with trembling hands. They're wet but readable. Lira Ashwood, servant girl. My ticket into Kaelen's fortress. My chance to learn the truth about my mother.
I'm checking my remaining weapons when I notice something tucked into my boot—something that wasn't there before.
A flower. Purple petals pressed flat, preserved perfectly.
My heart stops.
This is the flower I've been keeping hidden for two years. My secret rebellion. But I left it in my room, tucked between the pages of a book. I didn't bring it with me.
Someone put it in my boot. While I was escaping. While I was running for my life.
I turn it over, and there's writing on the back in tiny letters:
"Your mother loved purple windflowers. She wore them in her hair. Kaelen has a garden full of them. He planted them to remember her. He's been waiting for you.
The market town is three miles east. Blend in. Rest. Tomorrow you reach his fortress.
PS - You were right to run. The Architect ordered your execution tonight. Reconditioning was a lie. You were supposed to die.
Keep the flower. You'll need it to prove who you are."
My hands shake so hard I almost drop it.
Someone saved my life. Someone who knows about my mother, about Kaelen, about the Architect's plans. Someone who's been watching me closely enough to steal my most precious possession and give it back with a message.
Someone inside the Veil is betraying the organization to help me.
But why? What do they want?
I stare at the purple flower. My mother wore these in her hair. Kaelen planted a garden of them. For her. For the healer named Elara Moonwhisper who died twelve years ago.
A healer he didn't save. Or couldn't save. Or—
What if the file was wrong? What if Kaelen didn't let her die? What if he tried to save her and failed, and he's spent twelve years growing flowers because he can't forget?
What if I'm supposed to kill the only person who actually cared about my mother?
I tuck the flower carefully back into my boot. Tomorrow I'll reach the market town. I'll become Lira Ashwood. I'll infiltrate Kaelen Thorne's fortress.
But I won't kill him. Not yet. Not until I know the truth.
Even if the truth destroys me.
I'm getting ready to move when I hear it—a twig snapping behind me.
I spin, knife ready.
A young woman stands there, maybe twenty, with silver-blonde hair and wearing simple traveling clothes. But it's the pendant around her neck that makes my breath catch.
A silver moon.
"Hello, Zara," she says calmly. "My name is Mira. I escaped the Crimson Veil five years ago." She holds up her hands, showing she's unarmed. "I'm the one who sent you the letter. And I'm here to make sure you survive long enough to meet Kaelen Thorne."
"Why?" I demand, keeping my knife raised. "Why help me?"
"Because your mother saved my life once," Mira says softly. "And because Kaelen has been searching for you since the night the Veil took you. He needs to know you're alive."
"The Veil took me twelve years ago. I was seven. How do you know—"
"I know because I was there," Mira interrupts. Her eyes are sad. "I was ten years old, hiding in the ruins after the attack. I saw everything." She takes a shaky breath. "I saw your mother die protecting you. I saw the Veil soldiers take you away while you screamed. And I saw Kaelen Thorne try to stop them."
My knife lowers. "What?"
"He fought them, Zara. He killed three Veil operatives trying to get to you. But there were too many, and he was already wounded from the battle. They escaped with you, and he—" Her voice breaks. "He's blamed himself ever since."
The world tilts. Everything I thought I knew is wrong.
"The Architect told me I was found on the streets," I whisper. "That I had no one. That the Veil saved me."
"The Architect lied," Mira says. "You were taken. Stolen. And Kaelen has spent twelve years trying to find you, trying to destroy the Veil, trying to fix his failure." She steps closer. "That's why the Architect wants you to kill him. Because the moment you two meet, their entire web of lies falls apart."
I can't breathe. Can't think.
"There's more," Mira says quietly. "Something you need to know before you reach the fortress."
"What?"
She looks me straight in the eyes.
"Kaelen Thorne is your godfather. Your mother made him promise to protect you if anything ever happened to her. That's why he's never stopped looking. That's why he'll recognize you the moment he sees your eyes—they're exactly like Elara's."
The knife falls from my numb fingers.
"And that's why," Mira continues, her voice barely a whisper, "the Architect has been so desperate to keep you two apart. Because Kaelen isn't just some target."
She pauses, and I see tears in her eyes.
"He's family. The only family you have left."