My stomach did a violent somersault before I even opened my eyes. The metallic tang of old blood sat heavy on my tongue, and my head felt like someone had driven a rusted nail through my temples.
I reached for the nightstand, my fingers searching for the weight of the circlet I'd worn since I was five. Nothing. Only cold, bare wood.
I bolted upright, and the world tilted. No silk sheets. No velvet canopy. Just a thin, scratchy wool blanket and the smell of damp stone. My heart hammered against my ribs—thump, thump, thump—like a trapped bird. Where is it? Where's the gold?
"It's gone, Rachel."
The voice came from the shadows by the door. Low, rasping, and far too familiar.
I squinted through the dim light. Churchill was leaning against the stone wall, his face a mess of purple bruises and dried crimson. His royal tunic was torn, the crest of Eldros ripped crudely from his chest. He wasn't looking at me; he was staring at a heavy iron key in his hand.
"Gone?" I croaked. My throat felt like I'd swallowed glass. "What do you mean gone? The council... the ceremony was supposed to be this morning."
"The ceremony happened," Churchill said, finally meeting my eyes. His gaze was icy, stripped of the warmth we'd shared in the palace gardens just twenty-four hours ago. "Just not for us. The bells rang an hour ago. Prince Lucien and Princess Isolde have been crowned. The records are already being burned."
Lucien? Isolde? Those were the stable hands' kids. "That's impossible. They can't just—"
"They already did." He stepped closer, the smell of sweat and rain clinging to him. He looked dangerous. Not like the boy who used to hide forbidden sweets in my pockets, but like a man who had already seen the end of the world. "We're dead, Rachel. Officially. The carriage is waiting at the back gate. Not a royal carriage. A butcher's cart."
Dead. The word echoed in my head, bouncing off the ringing in my ears. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. This is it. They're erasing us. We're being flushed out like rats.
"My mother," I gasped, throwing the blanket aside. My legs felt like jelly. "I have to find her. She has the seals, she can—"
"Your mother signed the order."
I froze. "You're lying."
Churchill didn't flinch. He walked over, grabbing my upper arm with a grip that was way too tight. It hurt. "She signed it to keep her head on her shoulders. Everyone did. You go back there now, and you're not an exile anymore. You're a witness. And witnesses get buried."
She gave me up. The thought was a physical blow to the gut. I wanted to scream, to run back to the High Bastion and demand she look me in the eye. But the look on Churchill's face stopped me. He wasn't just scared; he was calculating.
"We have to go. Now," he hissed.
"I'm not going anywhere with you," I snapped, trying to jerk my arm away. I hated how he was handling me, like I was baggage. Like I was a problem he had to solve. "You're just as bad as them. You've probably been planning this."
"Think, you idiot," he growled, pulling me closer until I could feel the heat radiating off his chest. "I'm the only reason you didn't wake up with a slit throat. The cart leaves in five minutes. You stay, you die. You come with me, you might just be hungry for a while."
I looked at the door, then back at him. My mind was a chaotic mess of static. I could run for the palace, try to find one person who still remembered my name. Or I could trust the boy who looked like he'd already killed someone tonight.
Choice. I looked at his bruised knuckles. He'd fought for something.
"Fine," I whispered. "But touch me like that again and I'll kill you myself."
A ghost of a smirk touched his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Good. You're going to need that temper where we're going."
We moved through the servant tunnels, the air getting colder and thicker with the smell of sewage. My lungs burned. Every step felt like I was shedding a layer of my skin. No more Rachel Camila. Just a girl in a dirty shift following a boy with a bloody face.
We reached the butcher's cart. It smelled of raw beef and rot. Churchill pushed me toward the false bottom—a cramped, dark space under the floorboards.
"Get in," he commanded.
"I can't breathe in there, Churchill. It's too small."
"Get. In."
I scrambled into the hole, the wood grain scratching my back. He climbed in after me, his large frame forcing me to curl into a ball. We were chest to chest, his breath hot against my forehead. It was suffocating. I hated him for this. I hated that I needed him to breathe.
The cart jolted forward.
"Churchill?" I whispered into the dark.
"Shut up, Rachel."
"What happens when we get to the Lowlands?"
He was silent for a long time. The sound of the cart wheels over the cobblestones felt like teeth grinding.
"We stop being prey," he finally said.
The cart hit a bump, and I felt something cold press against my hip. I reached down, my fingers brushing against the hilt of a dagger tucked into Churchill's belt. It wasn't a ceremonial blade. It was jagged, practical, and stained.
The dagger wasn't ceremonial. It was stained. And suddenly, I understood why no one had chased us.
As we passed through the final gate, the distant sound of the coronation bells faded, replaced by the silence of the woods. My life as a princess ended with the scent of rotting meat in my nose and the steady, terrifying calm of a man who had already crossed a line I hadn't yet.
The kingdom didn't just take my crown; they took my soul.
Next stop was Thornveil, and I knew I wasn't coming back as the girl I was this morning.
I reached out and gripped Churchill's hand, my nails digging into his skin until he bled.
"Don't ever let me go back," I whispered, the darkness swallowing us whole.
He didn't answer, but he didn't pull away.
The gates of the city slammed shut behind us, echoing like a coffin lid.