The snap of a dry branch echoed like a gunshot through the mist.
Elian and Isadora froze. The warmth of their joined hands vanished as they instinctively recoiled, the distance between them suddenly feeling like a canyon. Elian's hand flew to the hilt of his ceremonial sword—a beautiful, useless thing of silver filigree—while Isadora's eyes flashed a vibrant, unsettling emerald.
"Horses," she whispered, her voice vibrating with the Green Sight. "Four. Heavy armor. They aren't Oakhaven Wardens."
"Aethelgard Knights," Elian cursed under his breath. "My father's 'Iron Shadows.' If they find you here, they won't ask for your name before they draw steel."
The mist began to churn, pushed aside by the sheer bulk of armored chargers. The rhythmic thud-clank of the patrol grew louder. Elian looked at Isadora. In the hierarchy of his world, she was a contagion, a threat to the divine order of the Silver Throne. In the reality of his heart, she was the only thing that made the world feel solid.
"Hide," he commanded, though it felt like a plea.
"I don't take orders from Aethelgard princes," she shot back, but her hands were already weaving through the air, pulling the surrounding moss and ivy upward with a low, humming magic. "But I'm not ready to die in the mud today."
With a sharp tug of her fingers, the foliage rose like a living curtain, swallowing her into the trunk of an ancient, hollowed willow just as the first knight broke through the fog.
The Confrontation
Sir Kaelen, the Captain of the Guard, pulled his horse to a halt. His visor was up, revealing eyes hardened by decades of border skirmishes. He looked at the Prince, then at the disturbed earth.
"Prince Elian," Kaelen said, his voice like grinding stones. "You are far from the library. And your boots are stained with the soil of the Neutral Zone."
"The air is clearer here, Captain," Elian replied, standing tall, his shoulders square despite the pounding in his veins. "I didn't realize the King required a report on my walks."
Kaelen's gaze drifted to the willow tree. The leaves were trembling—not from the wind, but from the raw energy of Isadora's concealment spell. The Captain dismounted, his heavy boots sinking into the peat.
"There is a scent in the air," Kaelen muttered, drawing a dagger. "The smell of crushed hemlock and sorcery. Step aside, Highness. I'll see what's lurking in the rot."
The Stakes are Rising
Isadora is trapped behind a wall of magic that's beginning to flicker, and Kaelen is seconds away from discovering the heir to the throne in the company of a "witch" from the enemy kingdom.