LOGINSierraThey didn't bind my hands, which felt like a small mercy until I understood it wasn't mercy at all, it was simply that no one seemed to know what the correct protocol was for restraining the Prince's own wife, caught fleeing his territory in the dark like a criminal."Mount up," the lead warrior said, his voice still carrying the aftershock of shock from moments earlier. "We're taking her back immediately.""I can walk," I said."You'll ride. Faster, and I'd rather not explain to the prince why his wife arrived home limping and covered in mud on top of everything else that's about to be explained."I didn't argue further. There wasn't any fight left in me for it, the run, the fall, the sheer collapse of every careful plan I'd built over months, had left me hollowed out in a way that made even standing feel like an effort.They rode in tight formation around me the whole way back, no one speaking, the silence heavier than any interrogation could have been. I watched the dark sh
SierraThe first mile passed easier than I expected, the pre-dawn dark still thick enough to hide me, the ground familiar from training drills Fenris had run near this same stretch of border. I kept low, moving the way he had taught me patient, deliberate, reading the terrain instead of rushing through it.I let myself believe, for that first mile, that this might actually work.The second mile was harder. The terrain shifted from the cultivated land near the palace into rougher wilderness, unfamiliar in the dark despite the hours I'd spent studying maps of the region. Roots caught at my boots. Branches I couldn't see in time scraped at my arms. I kept moving anyway, my breath coming faster, the pack on my back heavier with every step than it had felt when I'd shouldered it in my chambers.I was three miles out, the palace long since lost behind me in the dark, when I heard the horses.I froze instantly, every instinct Fenris had drilled into me taking over before conscious thought ca
SierraThe note came through Dennet two days after my collapse, shorter than any I'd received before, the handwriting hurried enough that I had to read it twice to make sense of it.Security doubled overnight. No warning, no explanation given to the household staff. Guards posted at the tower base I've never seen there before. Something's changed. I don't know what. Be careful.I sat with it in my chambers, my hands going cold around the parchment, reading the words over and over as if repetition might change what they said.Doubled security, no warning.I found Dennet in the stables that same evening, keeping my voice low despite the empty aisle around us."Do you know why?" I asked. "Anything at all about what changed?""No." He didn't look up from the harness he was mending, his usual steadiness carrying an edge of genuine unease now. "My contact didn't know either. Said it happened fast — one day the tower had its usual rotation, the next there were twice as many guards and orders
LirielI heard about the troop movements before Kairo told anyone officially, the way I heard about most things in this palace, through a servant who owed me a favor, whispered over breakfast like idle gossip instead of the alarm it actually was."Forty warriors," the girl said, refilling my cup without meeting my eyes. "Moved toward the Glendale border last night. No one seems to know why. Even Varek looked troubled by it, from what I heard."I kept my expression perfectly composed, the way I'd trained myself to do since childhood, and thanked her for the tea before she left me alone with the information settling cold and heavy in my chest.Forty warriors. Toward Glendale. With no formal justification, according to the servant's account, which meant Kairo hadn't even bothered to construct a cover story worth repeating.I sat with my tea going cold in front of me, turning it over, and arrived at the only explanation that made any sense given everything I already suspected.He was goin
Kairo"Since the day you arrived," I said, and watched the words land on her like a physical blow."You've known this whole time." Her voice had gone thin, disbelieving. "Every training session. Every conversation about Glendale. Every time I lied to you about where I'd been or who I was meeting, you already knew.""Yes.""And you said nothing.""I was waiting for you to trust me enough to say it yourself." The excuse sounded hollow even as I said it, and I watched her hear exactly how hollow it was."That's not fair. You let me carry this alone for six months while you already had the answer sitting in your pocket." Her hands were shaking, whether from exhaustion or fury I couldn't tell. "Do you have any idea what that cost me? Every secret I kept, every lie I told, and you already knew the truth underneath all of it.""I know.""Then why didn't you say something?"I felt the answer rise up in me, the whole truth pressing against my teeth, wanting out, that I'd known since the first
SierraI collapsed during morning training, and I didn't even see it coming.One moment I was moving through a evasion drill Fenris had run me through a dozen times before, my feet finding the pattern automatically, and the next the world tilted sideways and the ground rushed up to meet me before I'd even registered the dizziness building behind my eyes."Sierra!" Fenris was at my side before I'd fully hit the dirt, his hands steadying my shoulders, his voice sharp with alarm in a way I'd never heard from him before. "Sierra, look at me.""I'm fine," I managed, though the words came out thin and unconvincing even to my own ears. "I just—""You're not fine. You're grey." He was already lifting me, ignoring my protest, calling for someone to fetch the healer before I could argue him out of it.The healer's examination room felt smaller than it had the last time I'd been there, right after the poisoning, the memory of that night pressing uncomfortably close as she checked my pulse, my br







