Every step was an effort. Her legs felt hollow, her feet heavy. She was walking back into a lie that had grown too large to carry.
Amelia joined her near the walls and stayed just behind her, a shadow tethered to a ghost. Enya could hear the quick, shallow cadence of her breathing—a frantic, bird-like rhythm. She could feel the tremor in the air between them each time Amelia opened her mouth to speak and choked the words back down.
“Ye’re shaking,” Amelia whispered at last. The words were thin, brittle with a panic she was trying to fold into the shape of obedience.
“Amelia, please dinnae.” Enya’s voice was an echo of itself. She softened the edge at the last second, reaching back to touch the girl’s hand. Amelia had followed her into this madness, hadoffered up her life for a secret that was currently turning to ash in Enya's mouth. She did not deserve the bite of Enya's tongue. “We’re nearly there. Just... a few more steps.”
They reached the side door, a narrow mouth of wood and iron sheltered from the watch lines. When Amelia reached for the latch, her fingers were useless, trembling so violently the metal clicked twice—a sharp, silver sound that felt like a scream in the silence.
Enya froze. She stood perfectly still, her heart thudding a slow, painful beat against her breastbone. She waited for the shout, the flash of a torch, the cold steel at her neck.
But no alarm came. Only the wind, whistling through the battlements.
They slipped inside. They shut the door with a care that felt like superstition, as if by moving slowly enough, they could undo the last hour. The corridor beyond was a tunnel of shifting amber, lit by guttering torches that leaned and swayed in a draft Enya couldn't place.
The air inside was warm, smelling of peat smoke and roasted meat—the scents of the home she was betraying. It made her stomach turn.
Amelia leaned in, her breath hot against Enya’s ear. “We should go straight tae yer room. If we can just get the door shut, we can say ye were sleeping. We can say the noise woke ye.”
Enya didn't answer. She was picturing Finley’s face—the way his eyes had gone flat and dead, the way he had looked at her as a failing asset. She felt a profound, echoing emptiness. The brother who had been her anchor was gone, replaced by a stranger wearing his skin.
“Aye,” she whispered, but her feet stayed rooted to the stone.
Amelia’s eyes flashed, wide and frantic in the torchlight. “Enya, if he finds out ye left taenight... after the ship... after everything...”
Enya bit her lip so hard she tasted the metallic tang of blood. She hadn't let herself truly picture it until that moment. Harald, leaving the map room with a heavy heart, seeking her out for comfort or for counsel. Harald, finding her bed cold. Harald, watching the map of his world fall apart, realizing the woman he wanted to protect was the very shadow he was hunting.
And then, the sound came.
Footsteps.
A measured, heavy pace that had been sharpened by purpose, echoing off the stone. It was coming fast from the direction of the great stairs. It wasn't the stroll of a guard; it was the stride of a man who owned the floor he walked upon.
Amelia’s hand flew to Enya’s sleeve, her grip a desperate claw, trying to pull her into the shallow dip of a doorway.
But Enya didn't move.
There was nowhere to disappear there that wouldn't look like a confession, and she was suddenly, bone-deep, exhausted of hiding. She was tired of the shadows.
She lifted her chin, forced her shoulders back, and watched the corner.
Harald rounded it.
He was not wearing his cloak now. His tunic was pulled taut across his shoulders, his hair loose and pale in the flickeringtorchlight, and his face was set in an ominous, jagged mask. There was a contained violence sitting under his skin—a predatory edge that suggested he was ready to tear the keep apart stone by stone.
Then his gaze found her.
It was like watching the sea break against the cliffs in a single breath.
The lethal tension in his mouth fractured. His shoulders dropped a fraction, the air leaving his lungs in a sharp, ragged exhale. Relief moved through him so plainly, so violently, that it made Enya’s stomach turn. She had never been the reason for anyone’s relief before; she had only ever been a burden or a weapon.
To see him look at her as if she was a miracle found in the dark made the weight of betrayal in her chest swell until it felt like it would crack her ribs.
He crossed the remaining space in three quick strides, his hands reaching out as if to grab her, then curling into fists at his sides to keep from touching her.
“Where were ye?” The question was low, a rough, broken rasp.
It hit her harder than a shout would have.
