Chapter 6
It looked like a ritual condemnation—the prince delivering the formal touch of death.
But as the rod pressed into my tunic, Julian's left hand moved.
His sleeve was wide, trimmed in heavy silver fox. With a movement so smooth, so impossibly fast it belonged to a street cutpurse rather than a royal prince, his fingers slipped inside the open collar of my rough wool shirt.
Something small, stiff, and tightly folded was shoved deep into the lining of my leather vest, tucked beneath the inner seam where no casual pat-down would find it.
The heat of his fingers scorched my bare skin for half a second. Then his thumb dug violently into my collarbone—a sharp, bruising pressure, warning me to keep my expression entirely blank.
"Your blood belongs to the empire," Julian said, his voice dropping into a register that only I could hear beneath the acoustic echo of the hall. "Die quietly, dog."
I held his gaze. In the depth of those slate-grey eyes, beneath the frozen mask of the High Marshal, burned a terrifying, feverish intensity. A silent scream.
I didn't blink. I didn't reach for the parchment tucked against my ribs. I merely leaned forward, pressing my chest harder against the silver rod, and spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the toe of his pristine, polished boot.
"Burn in hell, prince," I snarled.
The hall erupted.
Courtiers shrieked in outrage. Alden stepped down two steps, his voice barking like an iron hound. "Guards! Drag that filth back to the dark! Double the irons!"
Julian didn't flinch from the spit on his boot. He withdrew the silver rod with slow, deliberate grace, turned his back on me without a word, and walked back up the marble stairs toward the vacant throne. He didn't look back once.
Varek and two other guards slammed into me, driving their fists into my back, wrenching my chain so violently that the skin on my wrists tore open anew. They dragged me backward down the aisle, the room spinning in a kaleidoscope of jeering faces, glittering jewels, and the stench of burning lavender.
As the heavy cedar doors slammed shut, cutting off the roaring crowd, the cold shadows of the dungeon swallowed me once more.
***
They tossed me into the cell like a sack of grain.
The heavy iron door slammed shut, the deadbolts sliding home with three distinct, heavy clunks. Outside, Varek cursed loudly, spit on the stone, and ordered the watch to refuse me water until the night bells.
I lay in the damp straw for a long time, listening until their heavy footsteps faded entirely up the spiral stairs.
Only then did I sit up.
Every muscle in my back screamed from the beating, but I ignored the pain, pulling my knees toward my chest. With clumsy, shackled fingers, I worked my hand down into the inner seam of my vest.
My fingertips brushed the stiff edges of vellum.
I pulled it out carefully. It was a single piece of heavy parchment, folded down to the size of a playing card and sealed with a dab of unpressed wax. I broke the wax with my thumb and unfolded it against my thigh, leaning toward the faint amber light of the brazier.
It wasn't a pardon. It wasn't a love letter.
It was an architectural schematic.
Drawn in Julian’s unmistakable, precise hand, the ink still smelling faintly of copper and oak gall, was a detailed layout of the keep's subterranean foundations.
Every patrol route was marked with tiny Roman numerals. The guard rotations were noted in the margins: *Third bell: Watch shifts at the Water Gate. Four men, armed with arbalests, blind angle near the old cistern.*
Near the bottom of the page, where the ancient stone met the river cliffs, Julian had drawn a heavy red 'X' over an abandoned drainage sluice beneath the kitchens. Next to it, written in his tiny, elegant script: *Iron grate rusted through. Leads directly to the lower wharf. A skiff is moored beneath the willow weir.*
My breath stalled in my chest.
He had given me an escape route.
Not just a vague idea, but a complete, meticulously calculated path out of the capital. He had mapped every sentry, every blind spot, every rusted grate between this cell and freedom.
*Why?*
The contradiction hit me like ice water.
Last night, he had fallen apart in my arms. He had kissed me until he was breathless, begging me to stay put, pleading with me to wait out the three days, swearing that he had a plan, that escaping would only get me killed by Alden's crossbowmen.
Yet today, under the very nose of the High Council, he had risked his life and his crown to slip me the keys to his own fortress.
He didn't want me to wait for his plan. He didn't *have* a plan to save himself.
He was giving me a way out because he knew he was already dead.
The realization settled in my gut like lead. The arrogant, foolish, magnificent bastard wasn't playing some brilliant game of court intrigue. He was clearing the board so I wouldn't be caught in the collapse when Alden finally pulled the temple down around his ears.
I crumpled the parchment into my fist, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw ached.
"You absolute idiot," I muttered to the empty stone walls. "Did you really think I'd row away while you choke on Alden's poison?"
I smoothed the parchment out, memorizing every line, every turn of the spiral corridors, every guard station. I traced the route from my cell to the Water Gate, committing the distances to memory until I could run it blindfolded. Then, holding the vellum by one corner, I held it over the coals of the brazier.
The parchment curled, turned black, and vanished into a ribbon of grey ash.
I crushed the remnants beneath the heel of my boot, scattering the dust into the straw.
If I was leaving this citadel, I wasn't leaving through a drainage pipe like a rat. And I sure as hell wasn't leaving alone.
***
The fourth hour after midnight arrived with the slow, freezing quiet of a tomb.
The young guard outside had indeed drunk the spiced wine; I could hear his heavy, rhythmic snoring through the oak planks, deep and uninterrupted. The palace above was dead, drowned in the heavy, suffocating silence of a fortress bracing for an execution.
Then came the oiled whisper of the lock.
The door swung inward by an inch. A slender silhouette slipped through the gap, closing the panel behind him with practiced, soundless efficiency.
Julian.
He wore no velvet tonight. No silver coronet, no ermine mantle, no rice powder masking the hollows of his cheeks. He was dressed in a simple, dark wool tunic, muddy riding boots, and a heavy cloak that smelled faintly of river mist and cold sweat.
He looked haggard. The pale skin around his eyes was bruised with exhaustion, and his hands, when he pushed back his hood, were trembling so violently he had to tuck them into his sleeves to hide it.
"You burned it," Julian whispered, his eyes immediately dropping to the grey smudge of ash beside the brazier.
