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Darkness.

A drop falls — and the echo travels far, very far.

— Wake up.

— Run.

— NOW.

Elara opened her eyes.

Light barely filtered through the heavy drapes. The shapes around her were slowly taking form, turning into the familiar — curtains with gold embroidery, the soft, dark-red carpet, carved dark-wood furniture. The same as in the palace chambers. The scent of roses wafted from the dried petals in the silver bowl on the table. He always put roses there. Said she loved them.

She couldn't remember if she ever did.

She didn't sit up immediately. Just lay there, looking at the ceiling — at the thin cracks in the plaster she knew by heart. Eighteen. She had counted them on the nights when sleep wouldn't come.

This was her room. No.

Her cage.

She closed her eyes. Only a blurred shape remained from the dream, filled with sunlight.

/"Light. It was brighter in the garden back then..."/

He was standing behind her. She felt it before his hand came down on her shoulder — lightly, almost gently. A gesture reserved strictly for things already owned.

/"Elara, Elara, where are you..."/ — a voice, thin and frightened. Not his. Someone else's.

She couldn't remember whose.

She opened her eyes again. Silence.

/"Too quiet."/

They never left her alone. Always footsteps, even and methodical, behind the door. Always the maid's voice through the grate at six. Always the smell of the tea she hated, but he said it was good for her.

Now — nothing.

She sat up slowly. First — straighten the spine, shoulders back, chin lifted just slightly. Ready. Years. Years of the same morning. She walked to the wardrobe and opened it.

The dresses hung in perfect order — dark blue, burgundy, grey, yellow, green. Silk with gold embroidery along the hem, too beautiful for a dungeon, too beautiful for her.

/"A princess does not dress like a prisoner,"/ — he had said once, when she asked for something simpler.

She had never asked again.

Her hand brushed over the fabrics and stopped at the green. The same one.

/"This color suits you,"/ — his voice, calm. He always spoke calmly when he wanted her to remember something.

She put on the green one.

/"Why did you do that...?"/

She didn't answer. Just fastened the buttons — all twelve, one by one. Went to the grate in the upper part of the door. Inhaled, to call out... and froze.

The door was open. Not wide — a hand's width, two at most. Without explanation.

The bolt had been slid back, just a fraction. Someone had done it, but hadn't dared open the door further.

Never. Ten years — never.

Elara didn't move. She stared at that strip of darkness in the corridor and felt suffocation tighten around her throat. Not fear, no. Worse. The walls began to press in, and the dark seemed to draw the air out of the room, out of her lungs. Everything inside her grew heavier.

/"Go back."/

Turn around. Lie down. Wait for him to come and explain.

It was warm in there. Food served. There was nothing to decide — only to obey.

Her fingers tightened the fabric of the dress.

/"Fear shows first. Hide it."/

She breathed in. Her heart was wild, blood beating its rhythm in her ears, in her temples, at the tips of her fingers.

She took a step. Forward.

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The corridor met her with cold and the smell of damp stone.

And resin.

She stopped before she understood why.

The wall torches were unlit. The light from her open door reached only a dozen steps ahead. Beyond that — pitch-black. The thin soles of her shoes let the cold of the stone through immediately.

/"Foolish."/

She knew that, but to turn back meant to stop. And stopping meant thinking.

A junction. Right — the way they always came from. Lighter there, the smell of a fireplace, people. Him.

Left — darkness and a cold draft humming somewhere deep below. Sharp, whistling.

/"If you stop moving, you're already dead."/

She turned left.

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The passage narrowed gradually — at first imperceptibly, then the walls started pressing in on her shoulders. She kept her palms against them to stay steady. The stone was wet and rough, scraping her skin, but she didn't stop.

Then the passage ended at a cave-in.

Rock, timber, earth — heaped unevenly, as if it had collapsed long ago, without intent. But air came from somewhere. She felt it on her cheek — a thin thread of cold.

/"What if he finds me here..."/

She began searching with her hands. The top stone. Shifted it — with difficulty, the stone reluctant. A second. The gap widened by the width of a palm.

She pushed through.

Beyond, it was narrower, with almost no floor. Her feet slid on something loose; roots pressed into her sides. The darkness became absolute. She moved by touch, the earth growing colder, the air thickening with damp.

/"If I stay — he'll find me..."/

But there was no going back. Her body was wedged in — tight, awkward, forward the only direction. Panic hit without warning, hot and senseless. Her heart lurched.

/"Why did I come out... He'll be angry again. I need to go back."/

But back — nowhere.

/"He'll come soon, see I'm gone, and pull me out of here. I only have to wait."/

...and for a moment that sounded like relief

...and immediately — horror that it had come at all.

/"No. He can't find me."/

The air was going stale. Each breath came harder. Her hands trembled from the strain, but her body was weakening. Her body refused to obey her, freezing before her mind registered the danger. Her thoughts blurred.

/"Move."/

She pressed her eyes shut, forced herself forward, her nails scraping against clay. Her fingers found something softer — earth, not stone. She began to dig. Her nails broke, her palms burned, dirt fell back into her face, into her mouth — bitter, mineral.

Then — a crack. A thin strip, not of dark — of a different dark. Less suffocating.

Her hand broke through.

The opening widened slowly, and she forced her way forward, pushing earth back behind her. A burrow beneath the roots of some old tree. Earth, moss, rotting leaves. Real. Alive. This air displaced the stifling sweetness of roses from her lungs. Real air — wet, cold — filled her at last.

She was out.

Bright light hit her eyes. Grey-white daylight, but after the dark it cut like a blade. She pressed her hand to her face and knelt in the earth for a while, eyes covered.

Slowly she lowered her hand. Too bright. Too — open.

She stood, keeping her posture, but her head swam. She leaned against a tree and closed her eyes. The moment she began to drift toward sleep, the voice cut through again:

— RUN.

Her eyes snapped open. Her breath came faster.

/"Not now... Keep moving."/

Forest. No — a fence, and beyond it the forest. And behind her, vast and cold — a building. The familiar line of the roof. The tower. She didn't think. She turned away from it and walked in the opposite direction.

The ground underfoot was uneven — stones, roots, wet grass. The green silk dress dragged through the mud, snagging on branches. Her face and hands were coated in clay, her hair tangled with grass — nothing left of the old palace polish.

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She heard voices before she saw them.

"...they insist again that you send your knights on a sweep."

A man's voice, level.

"I want to decline this season. You know the forest behind the duchy has seen increased monster activity."

"But if it becomes an imperial decree?"

"Let's return to the residence and discuss it there."

The voices came from behind the trees. Elara pressed herself against a trunk, deeper into shadow. Two men passed. One taller, with dark hair; the other fair-haired, lean. They walked without hurry toward a carriage where a coachman waited.

She could have gone around them.

/"You survive as long as you're useful."/

Elara straightened her shoulders. Wiped her face with her palms — it did nothing, only smeared the dirt further. She put her hands behind her back so they wouldn't see the trembling. And smiled.

"Excuse me!.. Hello! Could you take me to the city?"

Her voice came out steadier than she'd expected. Almost natural.

/"Elara, fear shows first. Hide it."/

Before the men stood a girl in a silk dress with gold embroidery — smeared in earth from head to toe. Moon-silver hair, tangled, threaded with grass. Eyes calm — too calm for how she looked.

One of them looked twice. He bypassed the dress. Ignored the filth. The hair. Just a second's hesitation — then he looked away.

The other had already opened his mouth — Elara saw his shoulders tighten. He was about to tell her to go. She knew that tone. But the one with violet eyes stopped him with a single movement of his hand. And looked at her. Not at the dress, not at the dirt — straight into her eyes.

"Of course," he said composedly. "Here is my carriage. You may get in."

She thanked him and walked past them. She felt his gaze on her back. Elara climbed the metal steps, closed the door, and settled onto the seat. Soft, upholstered in dark blue velvet. The air around her smelled of wood and wax.

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Outside, the two men spoke — quiet and quick.

Alan couldn't believe what he was hearing and was already preparing to object that they could not simply pick up a stray.

"Christopher, can it really be her? Then we need to call the guard!"