The cold was different inside the palace.
Outside, it bit like teeth, sharp and feral, a thing you learned to respect. But here, within these towering, silken walls, it whispered instead—quiet, creeping, always watching. Not wind, not frost. A cold born of absence.
The absence of warmth.
Of trust.
Of safety.
I opened my eyes to the sound of soft bells chiming somewhere far off. Morning. I'd barely slept, and what little rest I found had been stolen by the memory of blood on my hands and the weight of my father's terms carved into my chest like runes.
Serve me, and I'll save her.
That's what he said.
Not in those exact words, of course. He dressed it in velvet and threat. Spoke of loyalty and legacy. But I knew the truth beneath it. I was a weapon he intended to use. A symbol he could parade. And in exchange, he would search for a cure for my mother's endless sleep.
If I said no, he'd let her rot in silence.
So I said yes.
I sat up slowly, my muscles aching from more than just the wounds of battle. The bed beneath me was too soft. The room too quiet. The marble walls felt like prison bars. My armor lay beside me, polished. Cleaned. Not by my hands.
They were already stripping pieces of me away.
But not all.
I stood, dressed in dark riding leathers—not the silks they'd set out for me. Strapped my sword across my back. Left the crown-shaped pin they'd left on the table untouched. Let them wait for my obedience. Let them starve for it.
---
By the time I emerged into the inner courtyard, the sky had turned to a cold shade of gold. Winter sunlight broke across the tiles like fractured glass. Servants bowed as I passed. Some out of fear. Others out of confusion. A few—just a few—with something almost like reverence.
At the edge of the courtyard stood General Crane.
Of course.
He didn't bow. He barely nodded. But his eyes met mine with something rare.
Respect.
"Your first command awaits," he said.
I said nothing, just followed him down a path that wound through corridors I didn't recognize—how could I? I'd never lived here. Never walked these halls as a child. I had no memories to stitch together, no nostalgia to guide me. Only cold stone, and colder duty.
Finally, we reached the war room.
A long stone table stretched across the center, draped in maps and black banners. Around it stood a handful of commanders, all older, all draped in colors of the crown. And all very still when I entered.
Their eyes drank me in—white-haired, scar-eyed, seventeen and already a legend wrapped in rumor. They didn't know if they should salute or kneel.
I did neither.
Crane cleared his throat. "You'll lead a mission south. A rebel outpost near the Forest of Mira. They've refused taxation for three seasons and begun raiding the supply routes. His Majesty wants them handled."
"Handled?" I asked, my voice like iron sliding across bone.
"Pacified," said another officer—a man I didn't know, with silver armor and arrogance to match. "Your father wants their leader captured alive, if possible."
"And if not?"
The room paused.
Crane didn't.
"If not," he said, "then you make an example."
---
The ride south began before noon.
I didn't take an escort of royal guards. I chose my own: a dozen soldiers who had fought beside me in the Siege of Sevila. They didn't wear crests. They didn't ask questions. They didn't bow. They followed.
Among them was a woman named Yrael, scarred and calm-eyed, who rode beside me with the ease of an old blade.
"I thought you were a myth," she said.
I glanced at her. "And now?"
She shrugged. "Now I think you're something worse. Something real."
I didn't smile. But something in my chest loosened.
---
The journey was short, uneventful.
Too uneventful.
By the time we reached the Forest of Mira, my skin itched with the silence. The village sat nestled at the edge of the trees, half-hidden in frost and shadow. It wasn't large. Maybe twenty houses. Smoke curling from crooked chimneys. Too peaceful for rebels.
We didn't charge.
We walked in.
The people didn't run.
They stared.
An old man met us at the well, arms crossed, lips thin.
"We have no food to spare," he said.
"I'm not here to take it," I replied.
"Then why are you here?"
I looked at him—really looked. His eyes were hard, not cruel. Behind him, children peeked from shuttered windows. A woman clutched a kettle with shaking hands.
This wasn't a rebel camp.
It was a place abandoned.
Used.
Then blamed.
Crane's words echoed in my head.
Make an example.
I turned to my soldiers. "No steel."
They obeyed.
We spent the day helping them unload stores, patch roofs, tend the wounded. Yrael took up a hammer. Two others helped split firewood. I stood beside the well for hours, just watching.
When the sun began to dip, the old man returned.
"You didn't kill anyone," he said, suspicious.
"I'm not here to play the king's games," I replied.
He studied me for a long time. "Then what are you here for?"
I thought of my mother.
Still as death. Breathing, but only just.
I thought of the girl I was in the mountains, alone in blood and snow.
"I'm here to stop pretending I'm something I'm not."
"And what are you?"
I met his gaze, calm and unblinking. "A girl with nothing left to lose."
---
We rode back the next morning.
The villagers waved.
Some even smiled.
When we returned to the palace, Crane didn't question the lack of prisoners. The silver-armored officer scowled but said nothing.
And in my chamber that night, for the first time since the blood oath, I allowed myself to breathe.
Not because I was free.
But because I had chosen something.
A path.
A rebellion not of blades, but of choices.
And they would see it.
All of them.