Meanwhile, in Estora, Rune woke to the strange absence of her armor. Her head throbbed. She lay inside a glass bed humming with faint waves of energy — Vane asleep uncomfortably in a chair nearby, Percy floating mid-air as his crystal ball fed power into the Estoran healing machine, following the healers' best efforts before she was placed inside it.

She realized, slowly, that the healers had stripped the rest of her armor, leaving her in simple inner clothes — her arms bare for the first time in years. She stared at her own hands. Darker than her usual snow-pale skin, ink-black lines traced up from her fingers, thinning as they climbed toward her shoulders. Her parents had always called it a curse from the creator — a birthmark that, by Silaxen myth, brought only shame and sorrow to a family. Strange, to have it appear in a princess at all. She'd learned to hide it beneath her gloves — not from shame, but because it distracted her during training. She would have worn it proudly otherwise.

The door burst open — Eliot, accidentally waking both Vane and Percy, who tumbled to the floor in surprise.

"Rune Vesper!" Eliot shouted. "Don't move — the machine just sensed you waking. You shouldn't be—" He stopped mid-sentence, eyes catching the ink-dark lines threading up her hands.

"I'm fine, Eliot. I just need my gloves to finish the healing myself." She looked around for them.

"Your hands," Vane breathed, exchanging a look with Percy.

"Oh, this?" Rune glanced at her palm. "Born with it. In Silax, it's called a curse from the creator. Ignore it — now, where are my gloves? I have midnight training to prepare for."

"Are you out of your mind?" The Crown Prince's voice cut through the room, sharp with fury. "Do you have any idea what kind of catastrophe you nearly left on my doorstep? You're a princess of Silax — do you understand what would happen to your kingdom if something happened to you?"

"A third princess," Rune corrected, unmoved, sliding a glove back onto her hand. "As the middle child, nothing that happens to me threatens Silax's people. I lost what little political power I had long before I lost the title. But if something happened to you — Estora could take the Silaxen castle within minutes, not days. Your life matters. Mine doesn't." Her eyes stayed cold on his. "I simply protected the only asset that mattered here. You."

The Prince's expression twisted through a dozen emotions at once. He wanted to argue — wanted to ask what she possibly gained from saving a foreign crown prince — but found himself instead trying to solve the deeper puzzle of her. There was more holding her together than the armor.

"Besides," Rune added, twisting her wrists to summon her armor back into place, "my tech-magic quartz isn't as fragile as it looks. I know it's clunkier than Estoran tech, or my brothers' — Hunter's, Marshall's — but it's enough to help my body heal." Before the Prince could scold her further, she noticed Vane's injured arm. "You shouldn't even be up, with that." Her tone softened — a warmth Vane had never heard from her before. "How does this machine work, if it can heal people?"

"Nothing to worry about, Princess," Vane assured her. "Estoran tech can fix nearly anything. It just needs a couple nights' rest."

Rune's gaze shifted to Eliot. "And your head? I don't know if the shadow's effects are the same for everyone, but you should at least have a headache."

"Wait — that's what that was?" Percy asked. "The thing we all felt after Eliot struck the shadow with your sword?"

"Possibly," Rune said. "I've had a milder version after every shadow I've faced — since the Silaxen crow attack."

"But why would the Estoran army feel it now?" the Prince pressed.

"Our weapons let us fight from a distance," Eliot said. "We'd never been this close to one before. Still — I had a strong headache the first time too. I was nearest to it out of all the knights."

"I wonder if the severity depends on how much you surrender to it," Rune said, half to herself.

"Come again?" Vane asked — he'd learned by now that her thoughts often spilled out unfiltered, and rarely gently.

"When I fought my first shadow alone, it dug into the darkest parts of my thoughts. But I kept making light of whatever it said — like it was trying to dim a light that was already off, just to make me afraid of the dark." She wasn't sure any of it made sense to the others.

Eliot frowned, turning the idea over. The thought that the shadows fed on inner surrender — that the exhaustion afterward was proof of how much of yourself you'd given up to fear — was terrifying. But looking at Rune, he could see it plainly. She hadn't surrendered anything.

The Crown Prince stood in silence. Every political argument he'd prepared felt hollow now. He'd spent his life studying the predictable, greedy logic of high society — but Rune Vesper's mind ran on an entirely different frequency. She wasn't just a rogue princess. She was a survivor who understood the enemy better than all of Estora's intelligence combined.

He cleared his throat, straightening his uniform, his expression serious again. "Eliot — get to the tech bay, pull the data logs from the core." No room for argument in his tone. Then, to Rune — not as an intruder now, but as a commander they desperately needed: "Knight Vesper. Reassemble your armor. I'm calling an emergency briefing in the war room. My father will be present."

Vane sat up sharply. Even Percy stopped fussing with his crystal ball. A direct audience with the King of Estora was no small thing.

"If what you're saying is true," the Prince added, pausing at the door, "then our weapons and our walls won't be enough for what's coming. You'll need to explain everything you've uncovered to the high council. Today." With a nod to Eliot, he turned and strode out, the doors sliding shut behind him.

Moments later, a young noblewoman appeared at the door in her nightdress, a small blanket draped over her shoulders. "Knight Vesper!"

"Velara? What are you doing up this late?" Vane asked. Velara Sienna carried herself with easy confidence, her skin brighter than her brothers' from a life spent indoors, her long hair a rich, shining brown.

"My little spies told me everything that's been going on with the knights these past ninety hours. I had to come see the Silaxen knight who saved Estora's precious Crown Prince myself."

Rune choked on her potion. "Wait — ninety hours? That's a lot of lost time!" Her voice stayed level even through the panic.

Velara blinked. "Why does that sound like you have something more pressing than preparing to meet the King and the Crown Prince?"

"We still need to run Eliot's tests on the black clouds, predict the next attack, deal with the damage from the throne room, and keep digging for the truth behind the shadows," Rune said, taking a breath. "So — yes. There's a lot to deal with."

"Clearly you and the Crown Prince have more in common with military strategy than with basic conversation," Velara said dryly.

"I do know how to play the proper lady," Rune said, briefly softening her expression into something gentle and demure before dropping it again. "I simply choose not to anymore. Whether I act the princess or the knight, I end up in trouble either way."

"That's not how it works here, whatever Silax's customs are." Velara's tone stayed calm but firm. "You're already close to winning over the King and the Prince, Princess Rune Vesper." Rune almost corrected her — no longer a princess — but something about the way Velara said it caught her off guard. The title never usually sat beside her name without tasting bitter. "I'm not asking you to fit Estoran standards. You've already proven yourself through evidence. Now you need to convince Estora that they need you as an ally."

"She has a point," Eliot added. "In the meantime, I could use the time to fix your armor." His mismatched eyes — one deep like Vane's, one bright blue like his sister's — pleaded behind his glasses. Quartz wasn't easy to repair.

Rune sighed. "Fine. But I'm keeping my gloves." She handed over the rest of the armor. "They're part of the set — good place to start, if there's damage." She pulled a spare pair of plain gloves from a hidden pocket in her inner clothes. "I'd appreciate it if the originals came back to me quickly, Eliot. For defense."

"Why do you even wear them?" Percy asked, curious as ever. "What are you, a nun?"

"My birthmark's distracting during training. And it's a Silaxen custom — modesty, no direct contact with the other gender." She shrugged.

"Really?" Vane said, skeptical. "Your sister Amara was in far more revealing knight's dress the day I first saw her — before your army threw me in a cell, and you threw me off the wall."

"The Queen tried to get all of us to dress more modestly. Eventually she gave up on the others — but I kept getting punished when I didn't. Over time it just became habit. And the gloves became necessary, given the... rule."

By morning, Rune stepped out of the medical bay stripped of her usual armor — and looked no less formidable for it. Velara had outfitted her in a masterclass of Estoran tailoring: a structured, high-collared commander's coat in the exact cream-beige of her natural quartz, tapered sharply at the waist, splitting into an asymmetric half-skirt that left her movement unrestricted. Charcoal trousers, polished boots built for speed rather than palace floors. The collar sat fastened high and tight at her throat — a small, deliberate wall, not unlike the one she carried everywhere else.

Eliot had finished her gloves just in time.

She walked into the war room to find the King of Estora at its center — sharp blue eyes, dark orange hair streaked with white. The Crown Prince rose beside him. "Your Majesty. You've already met Knight Vesper — she saved me during the last attack, placing her own chest armor on me at her own expense. She holds most of what we know about the shadow crisis."

Murmurs spread through the council. An outsider. A rogue Silaxen princess, dressed in an Estoran commander's coat, credited with saving the heir to the throne.

The King said nothing at first, his gaze steady on her — her collar, her armor, her gloves. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the weight of age and empire. "A princess who threw herself into the mud to play knight. And now a knight who throws away her kingdom to protect mine. You're a difficult puzzle to read, Knight Vesper."

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "I'll take that as a compliment, Your Majesty." A pause. "Now, to business." Velara pressed a hand to her face, disbelieving. She really is as blunt as the Prince.

"Years ago, the late Queen of Silax — Ember Rune — discovered that the seven crowns were once united against the shadows before they vanished," Rune began. "Now it seems they may be returning. If they do, the crowns will need each other again to end this for good. Estora holds a Crystal Key — I need to understand it, so I know what I'm looking for when I find my own."

One councilman slammed a fist on the table. "I knew it — you want our sacred Crystal Key!"

"Why would I want to take it?" Rune said, unbothered. "I want to understand what it opens, so I recognize the pattern when I find mine." She paused. "What we know so far — the shadows don't just break bones. They take a mental toll. That suggests Estoran tech might hold part of the answer, alongside Aethria Isles' magic. Maybe these are two pieces of the same puzzle."

Alden cut off another protest before it started. "I don't have to like her to trust her. And she's shown enough evidence that I do."

The King leaned forward. "If Estora opens its archives to you — if we let you study the Key's parameters — what's your next move? Silax hunts you as a fugitive. My court won't shelter a rogue princess without a guarantee you can stop this."

"If Silax even has half the tech Estora does, sure," Rune said with a shrug. "And if it comes to it, I'll surrender myself before I let innocent people get hurt." She said it with the flatness of someone who'd said it before.

Vane choked. "Knowing my father," she went on, "he'd bleed Silax's resources dry trying to catch up, then panic when there's nothing left to rebuild with. Until then — we need to understand this, and reunite the seven crowns." She met the council's eyes, autumn-brown and unflinching — a woman with nothing left to lose, looking only for a reason not to let the whole world burn.

"Then it's decided," the King said, smiling in a way that startled the entire room.