She hesitated, then offered a quiet, wry smile. “I suppose... my father as well. Except he’s the one avoiding me.”
His expression softened. “Then we are well met, fellow fugitives.”
Before she could answer, a voice rang through the woods, sharp and scolding. “Alora!”
Her eyes widened. “I must go. My godmother will be furious if I am caught out alone with you.”
“Is that so?”
Alora opened her mouth to answer but stopped. She couldn’t tell a stranger who she really was. Even if she was an exiled princess no one cared for anymore.
“You are a stranger in the woods. I don’t even know your name.”
“Then you may call me Rune.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it, sending a flush through her cheeks. “May I meet your godmother? I would welcome the introduction.”
“Oh no,” Alora said quickly, backing toward the direction of her cottage. “That would not be best. I must go.”
He watched her back away with a faint smile. “I was enchanted to meet you, Alora. If I am so fortunate, may we meet again.”
Even as she rushed home, Alora turned back once, but Rune had already faded into the twilight, like a shadow lost to the trees.
“The king has summoned you home.” Lady Zinnia’s words cut through her thoughts of Rune like the cold wind that swept through Argyle’s halls. One moment she stood among trees, the next she sat in the dining hall, her fingers knotted in her lap.
Across the table sat her father. A stranger in gold, flanked by guards and nobles. Ten years of silence now broken with duty.
“You are to wed the Prince Calveron,” he declared, voice firm and devoid of warmth. “It is the only way to ensure peace.”
Her heart sank like a stone in her chest. Alora said nothing. She bowed her head in compliance.
Guards escorted her to royal chambers, dressed in silk and suffocation. Then she collapsed onto the velvet bed, tears silent, thinking of the stranger with copper eyes and gentle hands.
Alora wished she had his courage. Wished she had fled too.
Then a knock came at her window.
Rune stood beyond the glass, dark cloak billowing, hair tousled by wind. He smiled, his eyes catching in the candlelight. Alora rushed to unlatch the window.
“It’s you...”
He climbed through with ease, hands outstretched. “Don’t marry him, Alora. You need not accept the fate others have chosen for you. Your life is yours.”
Tears blurred her vision. No one had ever offered her that before. A choice. A way out.
“But a Sleeping Curse is spreading over the land. It has weakened my kingdom and led to an invasion. I cannot turn my back on my people...”
“Then we will find a way to break it.”
With that promise, she placed her hand in his.
And fled toward a new fate.
Rune brought her to a cottage nestled in unfamiliar woods, tucked between wisteria trees, where sunlight sometimes danced through stained-glass windows in fractured rainbows. It was his hidden dwelling, he told her, somewhere to retreat whenthe world pressed too close. It was hers now, to stay as long as she wished.
That first night, Alora lay awake, uncertain of this new life with a charming stranger. Yet Rune never asked for more than her company by the fire, speaking softly of distant places, of old songs and wandering roads. When she grew tired, he only brushed a kiss to her knuckles and bid her rest.
He left each morning before dawn and returned in the evenings with fresh game, wild herbs, and news from Argyle. He devoted his evenings to studying the Sleeping Curse that choked her kingdom, poring over maps and scraps of lore as if breaking it were his personal mission.
Then she slept soundly in that small cottage secured by his generous kindness.
