The engine of the longtail boat didn't roar; it screamed, a high-pitched, metallic shriek that echoed off the crumbling stone walls of the canal as we tore away from the burning pavilion.
The water of the Chao Phraya River wasn't its usual muddy brown. Under the suffocating gloom of Lali's active narrative curse, it looked like liquid charcoal, thick and sluggish, slapping against our wooden hull like heavy oil. Behind us, the smoke from the tipped incense burners ballooned into a massive, oily column that blotted out the midday sun completely.
"Hold on!" Niran shouted over the deafening rattle of the motor.
He didn't look like a prince anymore. His silver-framed glasses were cracked across the left lens, and his white scholar robes were splattered with river grime and charcoal soot. His hands were clamped onto the wooden rudder lever, his knuckles turning white as he steered us nose-first into a narrow, arched drainage tunnel that smelled of rotting lotus and stagnant water.
*Splash.*
A heavy body crashed onto the wooden deck behind me, sending a spray of foul water over my crimson silk dress.
I whipped around, my heart hammering against my ribs. My hand flew to the small dagger I'd hidden in my sash.
"Don't stab me, Pee-Kanya," a rough, breathy voice wheezed. "I'm having a really bad day already."
**Prince Kovit** lay flat on his back, his black iron armor dented and scraped down to the raw metal. His chest was heaving. Blood—thick, dark royal blood—was seeping rapidly from a jagged gash where his neck met his shoulder. Vane's poisoned blade had missed his jugular by less than an inch, but the dark purple veins spider-webbing out from the wound told me the venom was already doing its dirty work.
> **Character:** Prince Kovit
> **Condition:** Critical (Poisoned by the Shadow Guild)
> **Affection Level:** +55 (He literally took a bullet—well, a dagger—for you)
>
"Kovit!" I dropped to my knees beside him, ignoring the dirty water soaking into my expensive skirts. I ripped a strip of silk from my trailing *sabai* and jammed it against the wound. "Niran, he's turning blue! The poison is spreading!"
"I need a clean workspace!" Niran called back, his eyes darting frantically toward the mouth of the tunnel ahead. "There's an abandoned apothecary outpost beneath the old Thonburi canal ruins. If the tracking spells haven't updated, we have exactly five minutes before Phurin's bloodhounds lock onto our aura."
"Phurin is actually going to hunt us?" I asked, my voice cracking. It was one thing to read about it in a webnovel; it was another thing entirely to feel the cold, sharp reality of your former fiancé trying to put your head on a spike.
"He isn't Phurin right now," Niran said, his jaw clenching so hard I heard his teeth grind. "He's an extension of her will. If she tells him we're the rebels who murdered our father, his magic will hunt us to the ends of the earth."
The boat slammed into a rotting wooden pier inside the subterranean cavern. The engine died with a pathetic, choking sputter, plunging us into an eerie, echoing darkness broken only by the faint green glow of Niran's residual mana.
"Get him up," Niran commanded, tossing a heavy leather medical satchel onto the pier.
I hooked my arms under Kovit's good shoulder, groaning under the sheer weight of his armor as Niran pulled him from the other side. We dragged him onto a stone slab that used to be an alchemist's table. The air here was freezing, smelling of ancient dust and dried herbs that had lost their scent a century ago.
Kovit let out a sharp, choked gasp as his head hit the stone. His eyes flitted open, the usual manic, playful spark completely clouded by a milky, feverish film.
"Hey... Kanya," he croaked, his fingers weakly curling around my wrist. "Did we... did we win the prize?"
"Shut up and save your breath, kid," I said, my voice shaking as I used a damp cloth from Niran's bag to wipe the black, bubbling blood away from his collarbone. "You still owe me fifty gold coins from that card game, remember? You don't get to die until I collect."
A ghost of a smirk touched his pale lips. "Fair enough."
"Hold his legs," Niran ordered, drawing a silver scalpel from his kit. The metal hummed with a low, blue light. "Vane uses a hydra-bile distillate. It binds to the iron in the blood. If I don't cauterize the main vein with raw mana right now, his heart will stop before the sun sets."
"Do it," I said, throwing my entire weight across Kovit's shins.
Niran didn't hesitate. He jammed the glowing silver blade directly into the dark, infected flesh.
Kovit's back arched off the stone table with a violent, bone-cracking snap. A choked scream tore from his throat, echoing off the damp cavern walls like a dying animal. The stench of burning flesh and magical ozone filled the tiny room, making my stomach roll.
"Hold him!" Niran shouted, his forehead dripping with sweat as his hands glowed brighter, forcing the blue lightning into the wound to burn out the black venom.
I leaned down, pressing my hands against Kovit's chest, feeling his heart hammering like a trapped bird against his ribs. "Stay with me, Kovit! Don't you dare close your eyes!"
Suddenly, the green mana stones lighting the cavern flickered.
Then they turned a deep, blood-red.
A heavy, low vibration rumbled through the stone floor beneath our feet. From the dark canal tunnel we had just escaped, the distant, terrifying sound of baying hounds echoed through the dark—but these weren't normal dogs. Their bark sounded like tearing metal.
Niran froze, his scalpel hovering an inch above Kovit's smoking wound. He looked toward the entrance, his eyes wide with a sudden, paralyzing dread.
"The Royal Bloodhounds," Niran whispered, his voice dropping into a hollow, breathless register. "They didn't wait for the sun to set. Phurin is already at the gates."