Kaelyn POV
My feet were bleeding.
I knew that much by the end of day one. The servant's shoes were falling apart, and the forest ground didn't care about my comfort. Roots reached up to trip me. Rocks cut through the thin soles. By the time the sun started setting, I could barely walk without limping.
I found a stream on day two. The water was cold and tasted like dirt, but I didn't care. I drank until my stomach hurt. Then I filled the small cup from Mira's pouch and drank again.
At least water I could find.
Food was different. I'd walked past a berry bush that looked familiar from palace books I'd seen. I'd eaten a handful before fear stopped me. What if they were poison? What if I died out here, alone, having finally escaped one death only to create another?
I didn't eat anything after that.
The forest was nothing like the palace gardens. There were no stone paths. No servants to cut back the wild growth. Just endless trees and shadows and the constant feeling that something was watching me.
By night two, I was starting to lose my mind.
I found a tree with roots thick enough to lean against and sat there with the knife in my hand, listening to every sound. Every crack of a branch made me jump. Every rustle in the leaves sent my heart racing.
Around midnight, I heard something that definitely wasn't the wind.
A howl. Long and low and nothing like anything I'd ever heard before.
Wolves.
The word alone was enough to paralyze me. I'd heard stories about wolves in the palace. Guards talking about hunts. Stories meant to scare children into obedience.
I pressed my back harder against the tree. Gripped the knife until my hand shook. Told myself they wouldn't attack a human. Told myself I was safe.
Told myself lies.
The sounds got closer. Or maybe they didn't. Maybe my terror was making everything feel closer. Making every noise into a threat.
I stayed awake the entire night, knife ready, convinced I would die here and no one would ever know what happened to me. They'd find my body in the spring, and the palace would never have to admit I existed at all.
By morning, the sounds were gone. Or maybe the wolves had never been there.
Day three started with my stomach eating itself.
I was so hungry I felt dizzy. The water helped a little, but it wasn't food. My body was screaming for something real. I tried eating tree bark because I was desperate enough to try anything. It tasted like nothing and made me gag.
I sat by the stream for hours, trying to figure out if I should keep walking or stay put and hope someone found me. Neither option felt good. Neither option felt safe.
That's when I realized something. Nothing in my life had ever felt safe. The palace wasn't safe. My father wasn't safe. This forest wasn't safe.
Maybe that was just how life worked. Maybe safety wasn't real.
Around noon, I started walking again. My feet were worse. My head was pounding from hunger. But staying still felt like giving up, and I wasn't ready to die yet.
Not yet.
Hours passed. The sun moved across the sky. I followed what might have been a path or might have just been a worn spot in the ground. Direction didn't matter anymore. Just movement.
Just forward.
And then I smelled it.
Smoke.
Real smoke. Not the kind you imagine when you're half crazy from starvation. The kind that meant fire and people and shelter.
My feet moved faster without asking permission from my exhausted brain. I didn't care who had that fire anymore. I didn't care if they were bandits or soldiers or something worse. I was so hungry and so tired and so alone that nothing felt more dangerous than staying in this forest.
The smoke got thicker. I could hear voices now. Men's voices talking low and rough.
I moved toward them like something was pulling me forward. Like this was the only real thing left in the world.
Through the trees, I saw the glow of the fire.
There were maybe eight men sitting around it. Scarred. Weathered. Armed. These weren't palace guards. These were fighters. Real fighters. The kind of men who knew how to hurt people and didn't feel bad about it.
Every sensible part of my brain screamed to turn around.
I didn't listen.
I walked toward the fire like I belonged there. Like I wasn't a starving, desperate princess in servant's clothes with a broken knife and insane eyes.
The men saw me. Their hands went to their weapons.
I kept walking.
"We need someone small who can move quietly," one of them was saying. He was older than the others. Scarred face. Laugh lines around his eyes. "A stealth operative for a delicate retrieval."
He stopped talking when he saw me.
Everyone looked at me. Looked through me. Like I was a ghost that had just wandered into their camp.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Started again.
"I'm small," I said, and my voice was hoarse from not talking. "I'm quiet. And I have nothing to lose."
The older man studied me. He had intelligent eyes. Eyes that actually looked at people instead of through them.
"Can you fight?" he asked.
I thought about lying. I thought about saying yes to impress him. But I was too tired to lie.
"No," I said.
"Can you follow orders?"
I thought about my entire life. About following orders from my father. From the court. From everyone who'd ever told me what to think and feel and be.
"Maybe," I answered.
He laughed. It was a real laugh, not cruel. "I like honest. You're hired. Three months. Dangerous work. Pay's good enough to disappear forever after."
I didn't ask what the job was. I didn't ask who he was or where we were going. I just nodded and sat down by the fire and felt warmth on my face for the first time in three days.
The older man handed me bread and meat. Real food. I ate it so fast I almost choked.
"Name's Corvin," he said. "Welcome to the job."
I opened my mouth to give him my real name. Then I remembered. I didn't have a real name anymore.
"Kai," I said instead. "My name is Kai."
That's when I saw him.
He arrived after I'd finished eating, stepping out of the darkness like the darkness had created him. Tall. Scarred hands. Eyes that looked like they'd seen things that broke people.
He looked at me, and something shifted in the air around us.
Corvin grinned like he knew something funny.
"Everyone, this is Kael," Corvin said. "He's security and weapons expertise. Kael, this is our new recruit."
Kael didn't introduce himself. Didn't shake my hand. Just studied me like he was trying to read something written on my skin.
"We're hunting the same thing," he said. His voice was rough. Dangerous. "Try not to get killed."
I should have been afraid. I should have run back into the forest.
Instead, I felt something ignite in my chest.
"Try not to let me," I shot back.
Corvin laughed so hard he spilled his drink all over himself.
But Kael didn't look away. He just kept watching me with those dark eyes like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
Like I mattered somehow.
That's when I realized something that made my blood cold.
He looked familiar.
Not like I'd seen him in the palace. Not like I knew him from the court. But familiar in the way a weapon looks familiar. In the way danger looks familiar when you've been around it your whole life.
His hands. The scars on his hands were the same kind I'd seen on the warriors who came to train the palace guards. The same kind that came from weapons practice. From violence.
From being trained to kill.
I watched him sit down across the fire from me, and I understood that I'd just walked out of one dangerous situation directly into another.
But the difference was this time, I'd chosen it.
This time, I was choosing myself.
Even if that choice might destroy me.