Beyond the training yard, the castle rose, a vast silhouette carved against the mist, its towers serrated like knives and merciless as if they had been hewn from the very bones of the mountain. Moonlight caught on its ramparts, turning stone to silver, but there was nothing soft in the sight. It stood like a sentence waiting to be carried out. One misstep, and this place would be her ruin.
Even the courtyard carried that same austerity. Between the wide sections of onyx-laced stone stretched neat squares of frost-covered grass, trimmed and manicured as meticulously as the divisions of the yard itself. It was a kingdom built on symmetry, on discipline, on cold order that left no room for warmth. Every line of it reminded her of what awaited inside:power, reckoning, and the chance to prove she could survive them both to find the relic.
To the west, a group of guards stood gathered in loose formation, too far to see her but too close to risk.
Ella moved, swift and silent. She dipped low, hugging the shadows where torchlight failed to reach, each movement measured.
Until it wasn’t.
Halfway across the training grounds, her boot struck a groove in the stone, sending her staggering into a crouch, ribs flaring with the crackle of bruised bone. She bit back a cry, forced her breath to even, and propelled herself forward.
The cloak dragged behind her like dead weight, its hem dark and sodden from crossing the courtyard. Ahead, the neatly sectioned grounds narrowed into a corridor flanked by towering columns of the castle, their carvings twisted into snarling beasts.
She had nearly made it.
The clatter of steel drifted up ahead, followed by low voices. Three guards rounded the far edge of the courtyard, half-laughing, relaxed, and unaware of her. Ella slid behind a pillar, lungs straining as she stilled her breath.
She didn’t want to kill them if she didn’t have to. But if they saw her Orchid mark flare… The cloak might hide her face if she pulled it tight, but the combination of her royal mark and her eyes might betray her. Ella had always known she looked too much like her mother, Queen Serenya, especially with her ocean-blue eyes, and these were not mere townsfolk that she could charm or distract. She wasn’t sure what powers they possessed beyond brute force, and unfortunately for her, the men were massive, towering figures. Ella cursed under her breath.
The men slowed, turned, and then stopped. One of the guards shifted, his gaze sweeping the shadows. For one breathtoo long, his gaze lingered on the pillar where she crouched, and the weight of it settled against her skin. Her hand tightened on the dagger at her thigh, ready to strike if he took one step closer. But then he snorted, turned back to his companions, and the moment broke.
A bead of sweat traced a cold line down her neck to the collar of her cloak.
One guard shoved his arm out to halt the others. “High alert, boys.” His chin lifted toward the tower where a crimson flag had been raised, its fabric catching the torchlight. A silent signal, meant to spread warning without stirring panic. “Weapons ready.”
Clever.
Perhaps she had underestimated their castle defenses.
The second scoffed, low and mocking. “Probably just a trainee setting off the outer ring again.”
The first snapped back, voice clipped. “They wouldn’t raise the flag for that.”
“What then? One of the outer wards?” The second sneered. “Impossible. No one crosses those. Not unless they’ve got Dravaryn blood. Or they’re summoned by Jakobav.” His voice dropped. “Andsomeone’sbeen doing a lot of summoning lately.”
A beat of silence, and then came a third voice, dry and biting. “Careful how you talk about the prince.”
“Just saying,” the second guard replied, shifting his weight. “He seems to be running things. And no one’s told us different.”
“The king is handling trade agreements with Velmire,” the third shot back.
Their voices faded as the men drifted on, oblivious, but Ella had gone still, a knot tightening low in her stomach.
Dravaryn blood.
Summoned by Prince Jakobav.
The words coiled like venom through her chest, and though she cursed silently, it was not the name alone that made her stomach twist. She knew who he was, not the boy prince from faded war tales, but the blade behind Dravaryn’s resurgence. The one whispered about in border towns, rumored to look more beast than man, forged in blood and shadow like the kingdom itself. She had been too young to remember the devastation his father had brought, but the stories lingered everywhere. The Dravaryn king had been brutal during the war with Orchid, and Jakobav would be catastrophic if another conflict ever began.
She had no intention of crossing paths with the prince, not while the prophecy still pulled her deeper into enemy territory, toward something she prayed to the gods was an artifact, a key, something tangible and easy to steal. Especially if she had any hope of making it out alive. And she did. High hopes, as a matter of fact, because if she didn’t, she’d already be dead.
She waited, counted to three, and then ran, her steps silent across the stone. When she passed the last column and reached the inner corridor, the spaces between the pillars narrowed into tighter passageways lit with torchlight and banners bearing the Dravaryn crest. She would not be getting out unscathed. It was too far away, with far too many torches burning to cross unseen.
That strange magic stirred again, humming from the hidden sigil in her chest, raw and unfamiliar, flaring as if it wanted to be seen. Her vision pulsed at the edges, hands slick with sweat and blood that wasn’t hers. Or maybe it was. Hard to tell anymore.
The practiced smile of a princess, the mask she had perfected and wielded like a weapon more times than she could count, would serve no purpose here, not covered in filth like this. There was no gown to disarm them, no crown to draw their gaze, no honeyed laughter to turn danger into a dance. That mask had fooled generals, courtiers, and even more than one would-be suitor into underestimating her. But here, in a corridor of steeland stone, there was nothing left to hide behind but knives and blood.
The first soldier saw her just as she threw the knife. The blade found its mark, buried to the hilt in his throat, and he dropped with a wet gurgle.
