Chapter 17: Time to Go
The bathwater had turned a murky brown, swirling with garden mud and seventeen years of dungeon filth. Ria had scrubbed until her skin felt raw and new, pink and shining under the steam. The scent of lavender soap was a foreign country, but not an unpleasant one.
Elara worked the knots from her hair with a patience that felt like a second language. They didn’t speak much. The silence wasn’t empty; it was full of the words they’d already spilled. With each pull of the brush, another tangle gave way. With each pass, Ria felt the ghost of that rough hand from the memory loosen its grip.
“It’s like cord,” Elara murmured, sectioning the damp, heavy mass. “Strong. Your father’s mother had hair like this.”
Ria watched in the speckled mirror as her mother’s clever fingers wove a simple, tight braid. It was a practical thing, a warrior’s plait. It pulled the hair back from her face, revealing the sharp lines of her cheekbones, the startling clarity of her grey eyes. She looked less like a ghost, and more like a blade freshly cleaned.
“There,” Elara said, tying the end with a strip of leather. Her hands rested on Ria’s shoulders for a moment, both of them staring at the reflection. The woman in the glass was a stranger, but she was theirs.
A soft knock at the door. Lyon’s voice, low. “They’re ready. The horses are in the courtyard.”
The Southern capital, seen from the back of a dapple-grey mare, was a gutted animal. The spires that had once pierced the sky were broken teeth. The grand avenues were choked with rubble and the detritus of flight: a single embroidered slipper, a smashed music box, a painted sign for a bakery swinging on one hinge. The smell was complex and foul—acrid gunpowder undercut by the sickly-sweet decay of abandoned fruit stalls, and beneath it all, the metallic whisper of old blood.
Ria breathed through her mouth. The Alpha trotted beside her horse, his head low, his gaze scanning every shadowed doorway. He hadn’t wanted to leave the palace grounds, not with his mate and pup in the kennels. A low whine had built in his chest as they departed. Ria had leaned down, pressing her forehead to his. “Watch over them,” she’d whispered. “We’ll be back.” He’d licked her chin once, sharply, then taken his place at her flank.
Caspian rode ahead with Lyon. The Third Prince looked older than his years, his lean frame tense under a borrowed, homespun cloak. Ash still clung to the ends of his black hair. He kept glancing at the rooftops, his hand never straying far from the pommel of his sword.
“He jumps at sparrows,” Lyon said quietly, falling back to ride beside Ria. His eyes were on Caspian’s back. “Can’t blame him.”
“Do you trust him?” Ria asked. Her voice was still hoarse from disuse, but it was stronger.
“I trust that Theron wants him dead,” Lyon said, his mouth a flat line. “That’s a powerful incentive for him to be honest with us. For now.”
They rode through a market square. A few desperate souls scuttled through the ruins, their faces hollow. A skinny dog with a pronounced limp sniffed at a collapsed stall. As Ria passed, the dog paused, looked up, and met her eyes. It didn’t growl. It just watched her, its head tilted, before turning and limping away. Lyon noticed. He said nothing.
After two hours, the city began to fray at the edges, giving way to scorched fields and burnt-out farmsteads. The Eagle’s Rest wasn’t a town, just a posting house where the old imperial road curved toward the mountain pass. It had been a neutral ground once, a place for messengers and minor officials to swap horses and gossip.
Now it was a blackened shell.
The roof had caved in. The stables were a pyramid of charred beams. The air stank of wet charcoal and something meatier, long since picked clean by crows. They dismounted in the silent yard, the only sound the crunch of their boots on cinders and the uneasy stamp of their horses.
“He made a point,” Caspian said, his voice empty. He kicked a fragment of a plate. “He knew I might run south. He wanted to leave nothing for me.”
Lyon signaled to two of their guards, who began a slow perimeter check. “Search the outbuildings. What’s left of them.”
Ria walked toward the main ruin, the Alpha a silent pressure against her leg. Her heart was a dull drum. This wasn’t a place of answers; it was a monument to annihilation. She stepped over the threshold, into the skeleton of the common room. Blackened tables, shattered mugs. A hearth full of cold ash.
And then she saw it.
Near the back wall, mostly protected by a fallen timber, was a large, iron-bound chest. It was singed but intact. Unnaturally so, amidst all this deliberate destruction.
“Caspian,” she said.
He was at her side in moments. He saw it too. His breath hitched. “That’s… that’s imperial courier’s chest. For sealed dispatches.”
“A trap?” Lyon growled, his sword half-drawn.
“Maybe,” Caspian said. But he was already moving, heaving the timber aside with a grunt. He knelt before the chest. There was no lock. Just a heavy clasp. He looked back at Ria, at Lyon, then lifted the lid.
No explosion. No poisoned dart.
Inside, nestled on a bed of scorched velvet, were stacks of neatly tied letters, a few rolled maps, and a small, polished wooden box.
Caspian lifted the box first. It opened with a click. On a bed of satin lay a single, heavy signet ring, carved with the imperial eagle. His father’s. The one Theron should have taken. Caspian’s jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped. He set it aside, his movements precise.
He picked up the top letter. The seal was broken. He unfolded it, his eyes scanning the elegant script. The color drained from his face.
“What is it?” Lyon demanded.
Caspian didn’t answer. He handed the letter to Ria, his fingers cold.
The writing was efficient, cruel. ...confirm the asset remains compliant in Sector Seven. The ‘warm feeling’ conditioning continues to show degradation under prolonged stress. Recommend the contingency: initiate the Willow Shore protocol before the next lunar cycle. If the asset cannot be controlled, it must be harvested. The successor lines show promise, but are not yet viable…
The words blurred. Sector Seven. That was her cell block. Asset. Harvested. Successor lines.
Her children.
A low, ragged sound escaped her, part gasp, part growl. The Alpha echoed it, a rumble building in his chest.
“Willow Shore,” Caspian whispered, grabbing one of the maps. He unrolled it on the sooty floor, weighting the corners with charred wood. It was a detailed coastal chart. His finger traced south, down past the borders of the empire, to a slender, hook-shaped peninsula jutting into a violent sea. He tapped a small, inked notation. “There. It’s not a town. It’s a private estate. A research holding. My father’s… no, Theron’s. He inherited it years ago.” He looked up, his dark eyes meeting Ria’s. “That’s the contingency. That’s where he’d take anything he needed to preserve.”
The momentum shifted in the room, a physical current. The despair of the ruins evaporated, replaced by a target.
Lyon was already moving. “We ride back. Now. We need ships.”
Ria didn’t move. She was still staring at the word harvested. It echoed in the hollow places the memories had left. She folded the letter carefully, her movements methodical, and tucked it into her tunic, against her skin. The paper felt like a brand.
“He’s cleaning house,” Caspian said, rising, the map in his hands. “Securing his experiments. Getting rid of loose ends.” He looked at Ria. “He doesn’t know you’re out. He thinks you’re still a problem in a different cell. He’ll think your family would keep you locked away. He doesn’t know we’re coming.”
Ria finally looked away from the chest. Her pale eyes held no warmth, only a reflected glint of the cold sea on the chart.
“Good,” she said, and turned her back on the ashes. “Let’s surprise him.”