The palace walls loom like the jaws of a beast, gold-veined marble gleaming mockingly in the fading light.
A fortress of lies wrapped in elegance, its towers hide gardens overflowing with imported fruit while the city beneath festers in hunger and filth.
Inside, it's another world entirely: silk-draped balconies, manor doors trimmed with gemstones, fountains that bubble with wine more expensive than a laborer's yearly wage.
Laughter from banquet halls drifts over walls thick enough to muffle the cries of the starving.
Outside, Almost half the kingdom Rowan swore to protect rots on scraps.
Rowan stands rigid on the road that leads to the palace, helmet tucked at his hip like a severed head. Four knights wait behind him—men he handpicked, their faces carved into masks of obedience, each one aware that a single wrong breath could get them all killed.
The king's voice still thunders in Rowan's skull: Bring them to me now, or I take your head.
But Rowan had knelt, hands steady, voice cold as forged steel. He invoked the ancient charter the law older than the throne itself.
"She has called the council, sire. You cannot touch her until they convene."
The king's rage had curdled the air, but even tyrants fear breaking the one law the realm still believes in. So he relented.
One hour.
A single, fragile hour.
Rowan sees them cresting the hill and his gut twists like a blade being turned. Three figures, dragging themselves up the empty road like survivors of a massacre.
Elsbeth's black dress hangs in tatters, stiff with mud and market rot. Fish scales cling to her skin like accusations; tomato pulp crusts in her hair like dried blood.
Luan stumbles beside her, his motley half-burned, sleeve charred through to blistered flesh. Blood drips steadily from the ruined hand still gripping hers because letting go would mean falling apart entirely. His painted smile is cracked, bells jingling in weak, broken notes.
Leonard trails behind, knuckles raw and split, jaw clenched so tight his teeth might crack. He scans every shadow like a man expecting ambush, ready to die before he lets another hand touch her.
Rowan's throat tightens.
Of course it failed.
We were fools to think a speech could wake those fools up when they hate her so much.
He strides forward, armor clanking like a warning.
"I faced him in the throne room," Rowan murmurs, voice a low growl. "I invoked the old charter. No royal can be seized until the council hears them. He nearly drew on me—gods help us—but the law held."
His eyes flick toward the towers, where silhouettes pass behind narrow arrow-slits.
"I've summoned everyone. Guildmasters, bishops, envoys. He can't move against you while they're watching. I'll stand with you, Princess. Sword and soul."
Elsbeth stops dead, her gaze locking on the great iron gates, still a hundred paces distant, where the towers loom like giant, waiting judges. She halts as though she's hit a wall no one else can see. Her breath comes in small, terrified bursts. The gilded bars that once caged her life seem to pulsate in the fading light.
"No," she whispers.
"I—I can't go in there."
Her voice fractures like thin ice.
"It's a tomb. A cage where they buried me alive I'm not ready to face him. Not until I'm ready to end him."
Leonard steps in, voice rough, hovering just shy of touching her. "My lady, you're about to fall. You've had no food and sleep in days. You won't make it to the council."
Luan squeezes her hand harder blood smearing across her fingers. His voice is barely a whisper. "Elsbeth… please. Rest. Eat."
She looks at them these men who bled for her, burned for her, defied king for her.
Luan's unwavering pain.
Rowan's scarred determination.
Leonard's fierce loyalty.
Tears streak down her filthy cheeks. Her entire body shakes from exhaustion, hunger, and the trauma clawing at her ribs.
"Together," she chokes out. "Promise me we eat together.Just… not in there. Not in that place."
She glares at the gates as though they are her father's eyes.
Rowan nods sharply there's no time to argue.
"Then not the palace."
He turns to the knights. "Guest manse. Tell the maids to get everything ready Princess's robes from the wardrobe. Hot water. Food bread, meat, wine. Enough for four. Move."
Two knights sprint off immediately, boots pounding like drums of war.
It doesn't take long. Minutes later, rhythmic clatter of hooves on stone echoes up the road.
A black, unobtrusive carriage rounds the bend, pulled by two sweating mares pink
The carriage halts with a jerk. Leonard pulls the door open, the hinges groaning, and offers a hand to Elsbeth. She climbs in, her movements stiff and heavy, collapsing onto the velvet seat like a puppet with cut strings.
Luan follows, his bells murmuring softly as he settles beside her, careful not to let his charred sleeve brush her arm.
Leonard hops in last, pulling the door shut with a heavy thud that seals them away from the looming gaze of the palace.
Rowan does not join them inside. He takes the reins of the chestnut stallion from the squire and swings into the saddle with a practiced ease that belies his fatigue.
He adjusts his grip, guiding the horse to flank the carriage window.
He kicks the horse into motion.
The carriage rattles toward the eastern guest house as the sun sinks low, turning the sky the color of bruised gold.
Through the small window, the scenery shifts filth and broken streets giving way to polished stone, trimmed hedges, and white fountains that throw shimmering arcs into the air.
Nobles stroll along clean walkways, their laughter soft and effortless, untouched by the hunger gnawing at the city beyond the walls.
Leonard leans close and whispers, almost smiling, "I know this isn't the right time… but sneaking in here as a kid was fun."
His voice is light, but there's a quiet ache beneath it. He had cared for her even then.
Elsbeth barely hears him.
Her eyes flutter open and shut, lashes trembling. She sways with every turn of the wheels, half-asleep, half-conscious, held upright only by the stubborn thread of will that hasn't snapped yet.
Beside her, Luan's hand keeps shifting skin knitting together, then splitting, flames flickering in brief bursts. Each healing and re-burning looks impossibly painful, but he only murmurs, "It doesn't hurt. Truly."
He says it with the gentleness of someone who would endure centuries of agony if it meant she could rest for one minute.
The carriage slows. They've arrived.
Sir Rowan is already off his horse, striding to the door before the wheels fully stop moving. He pulls it open with urgent precision.
Luan leans forward and touches Elsbeth's shoulder carefully, voice soft as breath. "Wake up…"
She blinks, dazed, trying to gather herself.
The guest manse towers above them massive, pristine, its carved pillars glowing amber in the sunset. White curtains flutter from high windows, and warm lamplight spills over polished stone steps.
Leonard hops down, staring up at it with a hollow laugh. "We should pace ourselves. Even for an hour."
He rubs at the blood on his knuckles, gaze darkening. "Who knows if we'll even be alive after tonight."
Luan turns sharply, helping Elsbeth down as she stumbles. His burning hand shakes but he steadies her first.
"I won't let anything happen to any of you," he says quietly, fiercely. "Even if it means dying a thousand times over."
Leonard startles, hands raised. "Hey easy, It was a jest."
But then he looks at Luan really looks at him.
At the exhaustion.
The pain.
The selflessness and kindness.
The way he holds Elsbeth like she's the last good thing in the world.
They step inside and warmth hits them like a foreign thing.
The palace maids Rowan summoned are already waiting—rows of crisp uniforms, heads bowed, hands neatly folded.
They stand beside steaming baths, trays of bread and roasted meat, fresh bandages, Elsbeth's old silk gowns laid out like artifacts from a life she was never allowed to live.
They bow to Rowan.
Not to her.
Elsbeth feels it familiar, sharp, cold. She was always a ghost roaming these halls. A rumor with a pulse.
Still, she accepts the clothes as the maids guide her wordlessly toward the bathing chamber.
The others remain in the main room.
Rowan strips off his armor piece by piece, setting steel gauntlets and pauldrons carefully aside until only his worn, dark tunic remains beneath. Leonard drops into a chair, rubbing his temples. Luan lowers himself slowly, hand still blistered from the fire earlier.
The round table seats five, but only three chairs are filled at first. Silence hangs heavy in the warm air thick, suffocating, filled with thoughts no one wants to speak aloud.
Finally Luan breaks it, voice soft but cutting through the quiet like a blade.
"I want you both to promise me something."
Rowan's head lifts. Leonard looks over.
Luan's eyes stay on the table, on his scarred hand trembling faintly against the wood. His breath hitches, as if the words themselves are a new kind of torment.
"If this doesn't work tonight… you must save her first."
His voice tightens, cracking at the edges. "No matter how much she protests. Give me away. I'll go willingly. Gladly."
Rowan stiffens. Leonard frowns.
But Luan continues, his words tumbling out now, raw and halting, like a confession pulled from the depths of a soul that has never felt this before.
"I can endure it. All of it. I can die again and again, as I have for centuries.
I can burn, shatter, bleed out on execution grounds while crowds laugh. It's nothing new. Nothing I haven't survived.
He presses a hand to his chest, fingers digging in as if to claw out the ache blooming there. His eyes squeeze shut.
"But this… this feeling…"
His voice drops to a whisper, trembling with wonder and horror.
"Thinking about her getting hurt—imagining her in pain, her light dimming because of me—it rips something inside that no resurrection can mend."
He opens his eyes, grey depths swirling with a vulnerability so profound it steals the air from the room.
"I've died a million times, in ways that would break gods. But this… this feeling… it's the first wound that truly kills me. The only one I fear. Because if she suffers, I will just die—I cease to exist."
His breath shudders out, the bells on his motley jingling faintly like a heartbroken chime.
"She's the only eyes that ever saw me as more than a curse. The only heart that ever beat for mine. I would unravel eternity if it meant keeping her safe."
For a moment, the room holds its breath stunned by the poetry of an immortal man discovering that love is the one death from which there is no return.
Then Leonard reaches across the table and places a steady hand on Luan's shoulder, his own voice thick with emotion.
"Steady now," he says softly, firmly.
He squeezes once solid, grounding.
"Everything's going to be fine. I promise. We're with you."
Rowan nods slowly, something like respect and quiet awe flickering in his eyes.