The first light of morning struck the palace like a blade.It cut through the mist that clung to the high walls, gleamed off the domes of silver and glass, and bled pale gold across the banners of the empire. From the outside, the citadel still looked eternal. Unshaken. Pure.But to Princess Elara, stepping through its hidden entrance, it felt like a tomb.Her boots were streaked with mud from the tunnels, her cloak heavy with the scent of smoke and damp earth. Every step through the marble corridors felt stolen, every echo a confession waiting to be heard. The palace was already stirring—servants lighting braziers, guards changing posts, the low hum of politics beginning its daily cycle of lies.If any of them knew where she had been, she would not live to see sunset.The passage she emerged from sealed itself behind a stone panel, leaving no trace of the night’s trespass. She pulled off her cloak, hiding it under a basket of linens before making her way to her chambers. Her hands sh

The world had gone quiet around him.Kaelen walked until the sound of his own footsteps became a rhythm against the earth, steady and hollow. The horizon stretched in every direction, a wounded sweep of mountains and ash-grey plains that shimmered faintly under a fading sun. His cloak hung in tatters, his boots were worn through at the soles, and still he did not stop.He had lost the trail of the patrol days ago—if they were even still searching for him—but the habit of silence clung to him like a second skin. Every shadow looked like a blade; every sound like the whisper of pursuit.He had been a soldier once, a loyal son of the realm. Now he was a fugitive marked by the council’s decree, stripped of name and station. The memory of that night still burned behind his eyes: the council chamber lit with golden fire, his father’s voice breaking as the seal of exile fell on him, the feeling of invisible chains shattering and cutting all at once.When he closed his eyes, he saw the same i

The rain had not stopped for three days.It drummed against the canvas of Kaelen’s tent and turned the dirt of the camp into a mire. The river had risen beyond its banks, flooding the lower paths where the soldiers once kept their watch. Fires hissed and sputtered in the downpour, their light dimmed to smoldering embers.Kaelen sat by the open flap, staring out at the dark line of trees beyond the encampment. The storm was relentless, but he welcomed it. The noise kept him company, and the chaos outside matched the weight that churned within him.He had not slept. Not properly. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the same thing — flashes of light, a ripple in the air like heat over stone, and a figure half-hidden in mist. He could not make out her face, but he felt her presence, felt her pulse through the thread that seemed to hum between them.It was madness. Or prophecy. He was not sure which.He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and ran a hand through his wet hair. The smell o

The forest swallowed him whole.Kaelen ran until the smoke of the burning village was nothing more than a scar on the horizon. His lungs burned; his boots tore through mud and thorns. Every heartbeat seemed to echo with thunder. It wasn’t just exhaustion. It was the power—still thrumming beneath his skin, restless, unspent.He stopped at last when the trees thickened into ancient trunks, their roots rising like the bones of giants. The ground here was softer, untouched. The air felt colder, older.Kaelen leaned against a tree, chest heaving. Lightning still whispered under his skin, the mark at his wrist glowing faintly through the grime. He pressed his palm against it, trying to will it still.But the storm inside him had no master.He sank to his knees, drawing a trembling breath. The memory of the village flickered behind his eyes—the captain’s body, the soldiers’ screams, the fear in the faces of the people he had meant to protect.He hadn’t meant to kill them. He never did. But w

Chapter 20 — The Ash and the SnowThe mountains rose like sleeping giants against the horizon — pale stone ribs jutting into the clouds, their peaks buried beneath a shroud of snow and mist.Kaelen had seen mountains before, but never these. These were older than time, older than the songs the elders whispered beside firelight. The air here felt alive, electric, as though it remembered something the rest of the world had forgotten.The wind bit through his cloak, carrying with it the metallic scent of frost and distance. Behind him, Arin trudged heavily through the snow, muttering curses with each step.“Remind me again,” Arin said, breath misting in the cold, “why your mysterious dream led us up the mountain instead of somewhere warm?”Kaelen didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the distant spire — a dark shape half-buried in the snow ahead. It rose out of the mountainside like a shard of black glass. The dream had shown him that shape a dozen times: the same peak, the same echoing