That night, the castle moved like a shadow under moonlight.
Kael moved through the corridors with the silent precision of habit, passing through marble halls and winding stairways that echoed with distant torches. His every step was measured, his gaze unwavering.
That moment, three of his most trusted men had been placed within the prison's lower halls—old soldiers whose loyalty was beyond question. They would rotate by hours, their duty not of command but of quiet guardianship. Five of Arven's men joined them as well, sworn to secrecy.
Food, water, medicine—nothing would touch the child without their eyes watching.
It was a fragile thread of protection—but a thread woven tight.
Far beyond the palace, beneath the paling sky, Captain Arven rode at the head of six men through the waking capital. Their armor was hidden under rough cloaks, their crests replaced by plain brooches. To the world, they looked like common mercenaries—travel-stained and silent. To those who knew better, they were ghosts of the royal guard, trained to hunt what others could not see.
The air carried the scent of dawn and dust as they passed the sleeping streets. Arven said little, his eyes constantly moving—from shadowed corners to rooftops, from flickering lanterns to cracks in the cobblestone.
Every movement was calculation. Every silence, suspicion.
---
By midday, they reached the outskirts of the merchant quarter. A cluster of inns and warehouses lined the narrow road, their signs faded and half-hung. Arven dismounted, the others following suit.
"Keep your faces low," he murmured. "No titles, no names. If they're watching, we're already behind."
The men nodded, dispersing with instinctive precision. Two vanished into the crowd, two to the upper street, while Arven and one more slipped into the tavern that locals called *The Ember's Rest.*
Inside, the air smelled of smoke and spilt ale. A bard strummed softly in the corner, his eyes darting up only once before quickly looking away. Arven leaned against the counter, tapping a gloved finger once.
"Looking for travelers," he said, his tone casual. "Two men, cloaked. Passed through here in the last few days."
The barkeep hesitated—too long. "Can't say I remember, friend. Many pass through."
Arven smiled faintly, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Then you won't mind if we ask your stable boy instead."
A flicker of panic crossed the man's face. "Wait—! I didn't say they weren't here. Just… didn't want trouble."
"Describe them," Arven said quietly.
"Dark cloaks," the barkeep whispered. "Didn't talk much. Paid in foreign coin. One tall, one limped slightly. They left by dawn, heading north."
Arven nodded, dropped two silvers on the counter, and turned. "You've never spoken to us." He said more like a threat.
When they regrouped outside, his second-in-command, Garran, approached from the alley. "Heard the same from a peddler near the gate," Garran said. "Two cloaked men, moving quick. Bought dried meat and a map of the western ridge."
"So the story holds," Arven murmured. "They're leaving crumbs."
For three days, they followed those crumbs. They combed through the capital's veins, moving from taverns to trade houses, from the docks to the abandoned watch posts at the city's edge. Each time they found traces — a half-burned note in coded glyphs, an empty carriage that smelled faintly of night-herbs, a tavernkeeper too frightened to speak.
Every mark led to another, yet none to the men themselves.
By the fourth night, the men sat in a rented room above a cobbler's shop, the air heavy with sweat and ink. A lantern flickered between them, casting sharp light on tired faces.
One night, as they camped beneath an old bridge, Garran knelt beside the fire, tracing the map's surface with a calloused finger.
"They're pulling us west," he said. "Always two steps ahead, always the same pattern. It's not just hiding. It's… herding."
Arven's gaze flicked up from the flames. "Toward what?"
"Toward nowhere," Garran muttered. "They could vanish into the western woods and we'd never find them again."
"We're chasing ghosts, Captain," said Thalen, the eldest of the six, rubbing his temples. "Every trail we follow fades before we reach it."
"They're watching their own tracks," another muttered. "Someone's clearing the signs after us."
"No," Arven replied quietly, his eyes fixed on the map spread before him. "Not after us. Alongside us."
The room fell silent.
"What do you mean?"
He looked up, voice low and steady. "It isn't their work. It's… mimicking theirs."
A pause.
"Then someone else is watching them?"
Arven nodded once. "Another faction." He hesitated. "Or someone within the city. Someone feeding both sides." Arven said slowly. "And they're circling us."
He looked again at the map—the lines of travel, the broken marks, the spacing between each lead.
It wasn't random. It was a loop.
"They're watching our chase," he said, voice low. "They know every step we take."
On the fifth day, the rhythm changed.
They found a camp—ashes still warm, footprints still soft. The men fanned out instantly, their movements clean and silent. They'd done this a hundred times before—reading smoke, tracking breath.
"Still fresh," murmured one. "An hour, maybe less."
Arven crouched beside the ashes, pressing a finger to the charred remains of cloth. Silver thread glinted faintly in the soot—the same thread found in the vault's shattered ward.
"They were here," he said. "And close."
A faint whistle echoed—the signal for silence.
From the treeline, Garran pointed down a slope.
Two figures, cloaked, were moving swiftly through the fog, shapes blurred by distance. They didn't run. They glided, as if each step was planned before it landed. Then, before anyone could move, the fog thickened unnaturally, swallowing them whole.
Arven's heart pounded once, steady and sharp. "They're masking their trail again. Move."
The squad descended, fanning through the hollow where the figures had passed. But the mist clung like a wall, humming faintly with residue magic.
The youngest of the group, Taren, swore under his breath. "That's alchemic smoke. Expensive stuff."
"Which means they're funded," Garran muttered. "Not just thieves."
Arven's eyes narrowed. "No. Not thieves. Strategists."
He crouched, brushing a hand against the damp ground. Faint imprints. The stride lengths were different—one heavier, one lighter.
"Same two," he said. "Every witness described them. But there were five in the first report…"
Taren looked up sharply. "You think the rest—?"
"Gone," Arven said quietly. "Killed, maybe. Or discarded. But these two… they're the ones who matter."
By the sixth day, the city of Eldis was only a distant silhouette against the horizon behind them. They had crossed three provinces, interrogated five villages, and followed trails that led to smoke and silence. They had searched for days and kept moving further and further away from the capital.
Their exhaustion showed in their faces, but not in their discipline.
That night, as they rested by a stream, the men gathered around the faint fire, speaking in low tones.
"They're no ordinary smugglers," said Garran. "They're too precise. Each step leaves just enough for us to follow."
Taren nodded grimly. "Like they *want* us close enough to chase, but not to catch."
Arven listened, saying nothing for a long time. The firelight drew hard lines across his face.
"They're not running," he said finally. "They're testing us. Measuring how far the crown will reach to protect the girl."
A heavy silence followed.
"Then what's their end?" Garran asked.
Arven's hand rested on his sword hilt. "If I knew that," he said softly, "they'd already be dead."
---
Morning came sharp and gray on the seventh day, a week almost over.
The trail led them east again—back toward the road leading to the capital. It made no sense. All that distance, only to return to where it began.
The group paused at the mouth of an old well on the far village outskirts. It had been sealed decades ago, but the earth around it was freshly disturbed.
One of the men crouched, brushing aside the dirt. "Captain… someone's been digging here."
Arven leaned close, his breath misting in the cold air. The mark carved into the stone—two crossing lines, faint but familiar—confirmed it.
"The same symbol," he murmured. "The vault's crest."
Garran straightened. "They're moving underground."
The realization hit like a hammer.
All this time—they weren't fleeing into the wilderness. They were *descending.*
"Get the lanterns," Arven ordered. "We go down."
The air below was damp, thick with the smell of stone and mold. Narrow tunnels branched like veins beneath the city. The further they went, the more signs they found—scrapes on walls, footprints in dust, faint burns of magic.
Every few yards, Arven halted to examine the ground — a scuff mark here, a trail of soot there. The signs were faint but deliberate, as though left for him to find.
He realized it only too late.
"They're baiting us," he whispered.
Even as he said it, a voice echoed faintly through the dark — laughter, soft and mocking. The men froze. It came from deeper within, just ahead of the bend.
Arven drew his blade in silence, motioning two of his soldiers to flank the passage. They advanced slowly — until the laughter faded into nothing.
What they found was not the cloaked men, but a crude effigy made of straw and cloth, hanging from the tunnel's ceiling. A symbol carved into its chest glowed faintly with red light — the same sigil they'd seen before, the vault's mark crossed through.
A message.
"You're too late," whispered the echo of the spell as it burned away, leaving only smoke and ash.
Arven exhaled sharply, lowering his sword. Around him, the men swore under their breath.
"They knew we'd come here," Thalen said bitterly. "They wanted us to find this."
"They're mocking us," another spat.
"No," Arven replied. "They're watching us. And they're close."
He crouched beside the ashes, running his thumb across the soot. A faint shimmer caught his eye — a thread of silver dust, the same as in the vault. The same faint mana residue they found in the vault theft.
His mind turned fast. The amount was small, freshly scattered. It hadn't been here long.
"They left minutes before we arrived," he murmured. "Not hours. Minutes."
"Captain," whispered Taren, pausing at a fork. "This tunnel… it's angled upward."
Arven took the lantern, holding it near the stone. "Upward?" he echoed.
"Yes, sir. Toward the inner rings."
The realization struck them all at once.
Arven's eyes lifted slowly. "Back to the capital, toward the palace."
The word hung in the cold air.
"How far are we from the palace?" one asked quietly.
Arven's answer was grim. "Too far. Two days by full ride."
The men exchanged looks — tension winding between them like a drawn bowstring.
"If they reach the city first…"
"They won't," Arven said, though his voice carried the weight of doubt. "Not while we breathe."
He turned to his lieutenant. "Send two men ahead to cut through the northern pass. If they double back, trap them there. The rest, with me. We follow them back."
He drew a slow breath, the flickering light catching the edge of his jaw. His men waited for orders, faces tense but ready.
He said finally. "For now refresh the horses and supplies, rest if you want, at dawn, we move again. If they're heading for the palace, this ends where it began." He stared far into the view knowing they were so far from reaching to the capital.
As the others settled in silence, Arven remained awake, tracing the map by lantern glow. The lines twisted in circles, always back toward the heart of Eldis.
He closed his eyes briefly,
*If this leads to the palace… to her then she was never the prey. She was the lure.*
Then by dawn, as no one slept they moved out on their horses quickly, driven by instinct more than hope. Each bend of the path felt alive with unseen eyes.
Arven paused once, glancing toward the horizon where the palace lights burned faintly against the dark. For a brief moment, the image of Suzan's pale face flickered in his mind — the faint sound of her broken breathing, the way her eyes still held that stubborn spark.
He clenched his fist around the reins. "Hold on," he whispered to the dark. "Just a little longer."
By the time dawn touched the sky again, they were still riding — mud-spattered, sleepless, relentless. Every mile closer to the capital felt heavier, as though the weight of truth itself pressed on their backs.
The hunt had become something else now, it was no longer about finding them.
It was about stopping what came next— not just pursuit, but a mirror.
Every move they made, the cloaked men had already calculated. Every trap they set was already countered. It was a duel of minds, fought in silence and shadow.
But Arven was not the man to yield.
"They can erase their footsteps," he said quietly, almost to himself. "But they can't erase purpose. And that's what we'll follow."
His men said nothing — but their silence carried the same fire