By the time the village came into view, the sun had burned away most of the fog, casting warm light over the cluster of thatched roofs nestled in the valley. The rhythmic clang of a blacksmith’s hammer echoed from the far side of the square, accompanied by the occasional burst of laughter from the tavern, where early risers had already settled in with their tankards.
Gwenna took a calming breath, forcing herself into the role she had crafted over years of careful deception. A trader. A nobody. Just another face passing through.
She entered the village with the easy stride of someone who belonged, nodding to the occasional merchant she recognized. Her ears remained sharp, sifting through the buzz of conversation for anything of use.
At first, it was all the usual prattle—weather and crop yields, the neighbor’s no-good son sneaking out at night, the latest engagement between two families whose grandmothers had feuded for years.
As Gwenna arranged her wares in the market square, she paid little attention to the chatter around her—until something made her stomach lurch.
“…heard it straight from my cousin in the capital,” a merchant gossiped nearby, his voice low but urgent. “King Darius is offering a fortune for anyone who brings him the lost princess.”
Gwenna froze, her fingers tightening around a wooden carving she had just handed to a customer.
“The princess?” the other scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Wasn’t she kidnapped years ago? Probably long dead by now.”
The older woman across from Gwenna clicked her tongue. “Terrible business,” she muttered, accepting the wrapped fox carving without noticing the way Gwenna’s hands had stiffened. “You’d think the king would have given up by now.”
But the first man shook his head. “No, no. Word is she’s alive. The king’s desperate to get her back. The reward…” He let out a low whistle. “Enough to set a man up for life.”
For half a second, the world tilted.
Gwenna forced herself to move, to keep her hands steady as she tied the twine on the package. She nodded at whatever meaningless words the woman was saying, forcing a polite smile. She couldn’t afford to falter.
A reward.
For her.
Why now?
She exhaled through her nose. This isn’t the time to panic. She needed more information—how much did Darius know? How much had Finn told him? Had Cedric’s secret been exposed, or was this just about her?
A hundred thoughts tangled in her mind, but only one thing was clear.
She had to get ahead of this.
As the day wore on, she kept her ears open for any scraps of useful information. The rumor of the king’s reward was spreading like wildfire, excitement crackling through the air with every whispered conversation.
“I heard she might be in this very region,” a young man was telling his friends, his voice alight with the giddy thrill that came from thinking himself at the heart of something important. “Can you imagine? We could walk past a princess every day and not even know it!”
You are right now, idiot. But then he held something up—a sheet of paper, edges curled from handling.
Gwenna shifted closer, careful not to look too interested. The inked lines were crude, the details rough—but there was no mistaking it. A woodcut portrait of her face, printed for all the world to see.
The artist had clearly worked from an old royal painting, back when she’d been forced to sit still for hours while some court fool tried to capture her likeness. The carving hadn’t been kind. The nose was wrong, the eyes too large—but the shape of her face, the set of her jaw? Unmistakable.
This is bad.
She edged backward, heart pounding as though she had already been spotted. Her fingers itched to tear the poster from the boy’s hands and stomp it to tatters beneath her heel. Instead, she ducked her head, turned, and quickened her pace. Calm. Stay calm. You’re just another trader, just another face in the crowd.
She needed to get back to Cedric. She needed to warn him.
But as she turned, she collided with something solid—someone solid. Gwenna nearly lost her balance, breath hitching as soft hands caught her arms. Too close. Too close.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” a breathy voice exclaimed.
Gwenna looked up into the round, weathered face of the innkeeper’s wife. Her gut clenched.
The woman peered at her, kindness laced with curiosity. “No harm done, dear?”
