Elara sprinted through the twisting backstreets of Veilmarket, bare feet slapping against uneven cobblestones slick with morning dew and gods-knew-what-else. Her lungs burned, but she didn't slow. Behind her, shouts echoed—guards, auctioneers, and at least one very annoyed buyer who'd just lost his new "exotic servant."
The broken manacles clinked against her wrists like mocking bracelets. She ducked under a low-hanging awning strung with drying herbs, the sharp scent of sage and bloodroot stinging her nose. Focus. Think like the historians who survived purges—adapt, observe, exploit.
Her new HUD flickered again, unbidden:
[Echo Cultivation Progress]
[Queen Isolde's Fragment – Active (Duration: 4 minutes remaining)]
[Bonus: +15% Agility, +10% Historical Insight]
[Warning: Overdraw risks soul strain. Recommend absorption of new echo soon.]
Four minutes. Great. She needed to lose her pursuers before the echo faded and left her as clumsy as she'd been in her old life dodging campus security after "borrowing" restricted texts.
She skidded around a corner into a narrower alley, crates stacked high on one side, a wall of moldering barrels on the other. Dead end? No— a rusted iron grate half-buried in filth led to what looked like an old sewer access. Better than nothing.
As she dropped to her knees and pried at the grate, heavy boots rounded the corner behind her.
"Stop right there, wench!" A guard, red-faced and sweating, leveled a short spear. Two more flanked him, crossbows raised.
Elara froze, hands still on the grate. Her mind raced through every historical escape she'd read about—poisoned wells, hidden passages, diversions. Nothing useful here. Except...
She glanced up. Above the alley, a narrow wooden walkway connected two overhanging buildings. rickety, but maybe.
With a surge of Isolde's lingering grace, she launched herself sideways, rolling behind a barrel just as a bolt thunked into the wood where her head had been.
"She's fast for a book-rat," one guard snarled.
*Book-rat?* Elara almost laughed. If only they knew.
She scrambled up the stack of crates, wood creaking dangerously. Another bolt whistled past her ear. At the top, she leaped—arms outstretched—toward the walkway. Her fingers caught the edge. Splinters bit into her palms, but she hauled herself up, rolling onto the precarious planks.
Below, the guards cursed and started climbing.
Elara ran along the walkway, heart hammering. It swayed like a drunkard's promise. Halfway across, a section gave way with a crack. She jumped the gap, landed hard on the other side, and kept going—straight through an open window into someone's attic.
Dust and moth-eaten tapestries greeted her. She coughed, eyes watering, and crouched behind a pile of trunks. Footsteps thundered below. They were searching the buildings now.
Then—silence. Too sudden.
A low, amused voice spoke from the shadows near the far wall. "Impressive. Most would have begged for mercy by now."
Elara spun, dagger she'd snatched from a guard's belt during her escape already in hand. The figure stepped into a shaft of dusty light: Thorne. The Dragon Prince. Up close, he was even more imposing—broad shoulders under a dark, travel-worn cloak, hair black as midnight falling just past his jaw, and those eyes... burning amber flecked with crimson, like coals about to ignite. A thin scar curved from the corner of his mouth, giving his smirk a permanent edge of danger.
He leaned casually against a beam, arms crossed, as if he'd been waiting.
"How did you—" Elara started.
"Know where you'd go?" He tilted his head. "You move like someone who studies battlefields instead of living them. Predictable, for a historian."
Her grip tightened on the dagger. "You were watching me at the auction."
"I watch anything interesting." His gaze flicked to the glowing mark on her wrist, now faintly pulsing even as Isolde's echo timer hit zero. **[Echo Expired. Strength -10% until recharge.]** She felt the sudden heaviness in her limbs. "And a servant who breaks imperial chains with queenly grace? Very interesting."
Elara forced herself to stand straighter. "If you're here to drag me back—"
"I'm not." He pushed off the beam, closing the distance slowly. She didn't back away. "The Empire would waste you in the mines or on some lord's bed. I have... better uses for someone who can channel echoes without a throne."
Her pulse spiked. "You know what I am?"
"I know what you're becoming." He stopped just out of arm's reach. Close enough she could smell smoke and storm on him—like a dragon had just flown through rain. "The forgotten thrones are waking. Echoes that haven't stirred in centuries are choosing vessels. You have one. I have... complications."
He lifted a hand. Scales—subtle, iridescent black—shimmered briefly along his forearm before vanishing. "My curse feeds on echoes too. But it hungers. Badly."
Elara's mind whirled. History lesson: Thorne Blackscale, exiled after attempting to claim the Dragon Throne by force. Rumored to have devoured his own family's echoes in a ritual gone wrong. Villain. Monster. Or... the only one crazy enough to challenge the current regime.
"Why help me?" she asked.
"Because alone, you'll die before you reach the capital. Together..." His smirk deepened. "We might actually burn this rotting empire down and build something worth ruling."
A distant horn sounded—imperial hounds. They were closing in.
Elara met his gaze. No fear, just calculation. "I don't trust you."
"Good. Trust gets you killed." He extended a hand—not to grab, but to offer. "But you need an ally who knows the shadows. And I need someone who remembers how thrones actually fall."
She hesitated one heartbeat. Then placed her hand in his. His skin was fever-hot, like holding a banked fire.
The moment they touched, a spark jumped between them—literal, electric. Her HUD flared:
[New Echo Detected: Fragment of Prince Thorne (Locked – Requires Trust or Conquest to Unlock)]
[Hidden Quest Unlocked: Alliance of Ashes]
Thorne's eyes widened fractionally—the first crack in his composure. "Well. That's new."
Outside, boots pounded closer.
"Time to run, historian," he said, pulling her toward a hidden trapdoor in the floorboards. "Unless you'd prefer the mines after all?"
Elara flashed a grim smile. "Lead the way, Prince. But if you betray me—"
"I know." He glanced back, amber eyes gleaming. "You'll write my obituary in exquisite detail."
They dropped into darkness together.
[End of Chapter 2 – To Be Continued...]