The Flight
The castle of Kingsfall did not sleep.
It had never slept. Not in the twenty years since Malrik seized the throne, not in the hundred years before that when Rhaena’s ancestors ruled from the great hall, not in the thousand years before that when the first stones were laid by the hands of slaves and the prayers of priests. The castle was a living thing — a creature of stone and shadow and memory — and it was always watching.
Rhaena had learned this long ago. She had learned to move through its corridors like a ghost, to slip between its watchful eyes, to become part of its darkness. She had spent twenty years learning to be invisible.
Tonight, she would vanish.
The kitchens were quiet at last.
The fires had burned down to embers. The scullions had gone to their beds. The cooks had retreated to their rooms above the pantry. Only the night boy remained — a thin, pale child of twelve who sat by the hearth and threw salt into the flames to watch them change color. He did not look up when Rhaena passed.
She had packed nothing. There was nothing to pack. She had no possessions that were not given to her by the castle, and the castle would reclaim them the moment she left. She wore her gray wool dress, her coarse linen shift, her worn leather boots. Over her shoulder, she carried a small sack of bread and cheese — stolen from the pantry, though no one would notice until morning.
She walked through the corridors with her head bowed, her hands clasped before her, her footsteps silent on the cold stone.
She had memorized the patrol routes years ago. She knew when the guards passed the north corridor, when they lingered at the east gate, when they slept at their posts. She knew which staircases creaked and which were silent. She knew which doors were locked and which could be opened with a touch.
The knowledge had been useless to her for twenty years.
Tonight, it was everything.
Corin waited for her at the postern gate.
He had shed his travel-stained cloak for something darker — a cloak of black wool that seemed to drink the moonlight. His face was still hidden beneath his hood, but she could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands gripped the hilt of his sword.
“You’re late,” he said.
“The night boy was awake.”
“The night boy?”
“He watches the hearth. He throws salt into the flames. He does not sleep.”
Corin’s jaw tightened. “Then we need to move faster.”
He pushed open the gate.
The sound was soft — a whisper of iron against stone — but it seemed to echo through the courtyard like a scream. Rhaena froze. Corin grabbed her arm.
“Go,” he said.
She went.
The city of Kingsfall lay spread before them.
From the castle walls, it looked beautiful — a sea of dark rooftops and silver chimneys, the occasional lantern flickering in a window, the distant glow of the temple of the forgotten gods. But Rhaena knew the truth. The city was dying. The streets were filled with beggars and thieves. The markets were empty. The temples were closed. Malrik had bled the city dry to feed his wars, and the people had nothing left to give.
“They say the Withering is waking beneath the old city,” Corin said.
They were walking through the narrow streets of the merchants’ quarter, their footsteps muffled by the mud and refuse that coated the cobblestones.
“Who says?”
“The priests. The ones who still remember the old gods. They claim the ground has been trembling for weeks. Small tremors. Nothing that reaches the castle. But the rats are fleeing the tunnels.”
“Rats flee the darkness. That is their nature.”
“The rats are fleeing something worse than darkness. They are fleeing hunger.”
They passed a group of beggars huddled in the doorway of a burnt-out shop.
Their eyes followed Rhaena and Corin as they walked, hollow and hungry and hopeless. One of them — a woman with gray hair and no teeth — reached out a hand.
“Spare a coin, my lady? A bit of bread? Anything?”
Rhaena stopped.
She reached into her sack and pulled out a heel of bread — not the fresh loaf she had stolen for herself, but an older piece, hard and dry, the kind that would break a tooth if you bit too hard. She gave it to the woman.
The woman stared at the bread. Then at Rhaena. Then at Corin.
“You shouldn’t be out at night,” the woman said. “The king’s men are hunting.”
“Let them hunt,” Rhaena said.
She walked on.
The temple of the forgotten gods stood at the edge of the old city.
It had been built before the castle, before the kingdom, before the written word. The stones were black and rough, worn smooth by centuries of rain and wind and prayer. The doors were iron, rusted and heavy, carved with symbols that no living person could read.
Corin pushed one open.
The inside was vast — larger than the great hall of the castle, larger than any building had a right to be. The ceiling was lost in shadow, the walls were lost in shadow, the floor was lost in shadow.
But there was light.
A single flame burned at the far end of the temple — a brazier filled with coals that glowed deep red, casting long shadows across the stone.
And around the brazier, a circle of figures.
They did not wear cloaks or robes. They wore the simple clothes of farmers and merchants and laborers. Their faces were pale, their hands were calloused, their eyes were bright.
“You came,” one of them said.
A woman. Young — younger than Rhaena, younger than Corin. Her hair was red, her skin was freckled, her eyes were green.
“Who are you?” Rhaena asked.
The woman smiled.
“Your people.”