Some truths are sharp. Others are fatal.
The Ravine Sanctuary, Nightfall
They were close.
Too close.
Cerys stood with her back to the wall, breathing slow and silent. The blade strapped against her thigh pulsed like it remembered who she used to be.
Across from her, Darian leaned near the fire, half-asleep, the edges of his face lit with flickering gold. His profile was cut from something soft beneath all that iron will—like the boy she once glimpsed in the ashes, before war taught her to forget softness.
And now that boy had grown into a prince. A future king. The heir she was still meant to kill.
Her name was scrawled across every mission order like blood—Cerys Vale, execute and vanish.
And yet she hadn't. Couldn't.
Not when he'd spoken her name that night in the fog. Not when he'd looked at her like she wasn't just another blade in someone else's hand.
She turned away from him now, moving toward the outer cavern, desperate for distance. Her footsteps barely stirred dust.
The ravine's mouth opened to stars.
She sat on the ridge alone, unrolling the map Thorne had branded into her memories—rune markers, formations, weak points in palace shields. The Queen's arrays had shifted again. Something was brewing, and not just rebellion.
Darian found her there, eventually.
"You always run to silence," he said, sitting beside her.
"I'm not running."
"No, you're planning how to survive me."
She flinched.
He didn't press, only added, "What do you think I'll do if you leave again?"
"Probably live."
He studied her.
And in that moment, with stars hanging like knives above them, he asked, "Is that what you want?"
Cerys couldn't lie.
So she didn't answer at all.
-
Elserra, East Guard Tower
Queen Ilyana's chambers shimmered with silence magic. The guard tower had been repurposed generations ago to host monarchs who needed to feel both protected and above the people.
Tonight, Ilyana stood before a war table inked in red—five kingdom banners, each marked with a black X.
Advisor Mathen entered without knocking.
"We've intercepted rebel chatter," he said, bowing.
"Let me guess," Ilyana murmured. "Ash Vale rises."
"She's being followed."
"By who?"
"We believe the heir."
The Queen smiled, thin and cold. "Even better."
Mathen hesitated. "Majesty, there's a risk to letting this play out. If she remembers what we made her forget—"
"Then the game becomes more interesting."
She circled the table and set a hand atop the Elserran crest. "Cerys Vale was designed to fracture before she could ever rule herself. Let her run. She will break."
"And if she doesn't?"
"Then I will remind her who created her."
-
Rebellion Camp, Northern Spine
Kael read the letter twice.
Zura had returned from the northern outpost, and with her, the news: The Queen seeks the Solstice Relic.
That changed everything.
Beneath the flare of a cracked lantern, Kael spread his fingers across the old prophecy scroll. A weapon forgotten by time, locked beneath the palace crypts, written in bloodbound rune script.
Only a Vale could wield it.
Only one ever lived.
His fingers closed into a fist.
He should've killed Cerys when he had the chance.
But back then, she'd looked like a storm—unpredictable, untouchable, unfinished. And Kael had let his chest burn too long with hope.
Now she burned elsewhere, for someone else.
And he could not forgive her for it.
"Send the signal," he told Zura.
"To who?"
"To Thorne."
-
Old Temple Ruins, South Forest
Thorne sat in the center of the runic array.
The glyphs glowed silver-blue under moonlight—old magic, not Elserran. This temple belonged to the Dead Tongue, a forgotten order who knew how to raise memories like ghosts.
He placed a shard of bone on the central rune. Cerys's, from her childhood training, taken when she was still moldable.
The array pulsed.
"What do you want me to see?" he whispered.
The magic didn't answer with words. Instead, a flicker.
A memory.
Cerys in the Vale academy, eleven years old, bloodied knuckles, standing over a boy twice her size.
"Say it," she hissed in the echo.
The boy sobbed, "Cerys Vale."
"No," she snapped. "My real name."
Even back then, she'd remembered.
Even back then, they couldn't erase her completely.
Thorne exhaled.
"She's starting to remember," he murmured.
Another voice, from the shadows: "And what will you do?"
Zura stepped into the light.
"I'll test her," he said. "If she breaks, we put her down."
"And if she doesn't?"
He didn't answer.
-
Sanctuary Cavern, Dawn
Cerys woke to pain in her spine and a hand wrapped around her wrist.
Reflex kicked in—she twisted, knife drawn, only to find Darian blinking blearily up at her.
"You sleep like a blade," he muttered.
"Because people keep trying to kill me in mine."
He released her wrist.
Then, after a pause, added, "Do you ever dream?"
She froze. "No."
"That's a lie."
"Does it matter?"
"It does if they're about me."
She said nothing.
"I dream about you," he said. "That night in the burning village. You didn't run."
"I was ordered not to."
"But you didn't run."
She closed her eyes. The fire. The screaming. The way he'd shielded a child while soldiers died around him.
"You should hate me," she whispered. "If I told you everything—what I've done, who I really am—"
He touched her hand.
"Then I'd know more truth than anyone else in my court."
Her throat tightened.
And in that moment, she wanted to kiss him.
Instead, she stood and walked to the cave's mouth, air cold on her skin.
Behind her, Darian whispered, "The truth doesn't scare me. But losing you might."
-
Elserra, Vaults of Bone
Queen Ilyana stood before the sealed chamber.
She had not come here in years.
The rune-branded guards stepped aside, leaving her alone with the sigils. One command phrase—an old one, written in blood-language—split the seal.
Inside lay the Solstice Blade.
Forged before the crown. Buried with the first king. Bound to the House of Vale.
She reached for it—but her hand burned as it drew near.
A warning.
Not yours.
Not yet.
She smiled.
Then left.