Chapter Three — The Night's Secret Path
The palace slept beneath a cloak of silence.
By the time the last waltz faded and the nobles drifted to their chambers, Christin was already gone from the ballroom. The laughter and light seemed to fade behind her as she moved through shadowed corridors, her footsteps soft and deliberate.
Her pulse kept time with her resolve. She had planned this for months — the hidden satchel beneath her cloak, the folded map, the coins she'd saved in secret. Every detail rehearsed in the quiet hours when the court's cruelty left her sleepless.
Just reach the gate. Then the forest. Then freedom.
The thought steadied her. Until a voice, low and smooth, cut through the silence.
"Running away, are we?"
Christin froze.
The sound came from the garden shadows — cool, detached, and unmistakably male. She turned slowly, her heart thudding.
King Leroy Donovan stepped from behind a marble column, the moonlight catching his dark attire. He looked the same as he had in the ballroom — composed, distant, eyes the color of storm clouds. Only now, there was no polite smile. No trace of warmth at all.
"Your Majesty," she managed, trying to keep her voice even. "It's late. Shouldn't you be resting?"
"I don't sleep," he said simply. His gaze drifted to the satchel at her side. "Not that it concerns you."
Christin swallowed. "Then why are you here?"
"I might ask you the same." His tone was calm, too calm. "A princess leaving the palace alone, past midnight — it invites all kinds of assumptions."
Her chin lifted. "Let them assume what they like."
He studied her in silence, his face unreadable. "You're brave. Or foolish."
"Both, perhaps," she said softly. "Depending on who you ask."
Leroy took a slow step forward, the faintest ripple of cold brushing the air around him. "You think to flee this place without consequence?"
"I don't belong here," she replied. "I never have."
His expression didn't change, but his eyes flickered — a flash of something she couldn't read. "So you'll abandon your father's name? His protection?"
Her laugh was quiet, bitter. "Protection? He can't even look at me without remembering his sin."
"Then perhaps you're more like him than you realize," he said, voice almost indifferent. "Running from what you are."
Her breath caught, anger and shame colliding in her chest. "You don't know me."
"No," he said coldly. "But I know the look of someone desperate to disappear."
The words stung more than she expected. She turned away, her hand brushing the garden gate's iron latch. "Then you know enough."
Leroy's gaze followed her movement. "The world outside these walls isn't kind to those who walk alone," he said, tone flat — as if stating a fact, not offering concern. "You'd last a week. Two, if fortune favors you."
"I'll take my chances."
He inclined his head slightly. "Then go."
The permission startled her. She looked back at him — but he wasn't taunting her. He truly meant it.
Except… his eyes lingered, just for a moment too long.
She hesitated. "You won't stop me?"
"I don't make a habit of interfering with mortal choices," he said. "Your fate is your own to squander."
Something inside her trembled — frustration, perhaps, or hurt. "Why do you care enough to watch me, then?"
His gaze turned cold again, distant as winter sky. "Curiosity," he said. "Nothing more."
She wanted to believe that. She almost did — until his eyes flicked to the dying rosebush beside her.
Without thinking, she knelt and brushed her fingers across one of the withered blooms. The petals stirred, color returning in soft waves of gold and crimson. Life pulsed beneath her fingertips.
When she looked up, Leroy's expression had changed — subtly, dangerously.
"What did you just do?" he asked, his voice low and sharp.
"I…" She swallowed hard. "I don't know. It just happens sometimes."
He stepped closer, his movement fluid, almost soundless. The faint chill of his presence brushed against her skin. "Humans cannot do that."
"Well, apparently this one can," she whispered. "Satisfied?"
His eyes darkened, the faintest flicker of something unreadable — curiosity, maybe… or recognition. "You should be careful where you display such things. Magic draws attention. And not the kind that ends well."
"Are you threatening me?" she asked.
"If I were," he said calmly, "you'd know."
A tense silence stretched between them. The garden was still — even the night seemed to hold its breath.
Finally, Leroy turned away, his cloak stirring like mist. "Go, if you must. But when the forest turns its eyes on you, don't say you weren't warned."
She hesitated at the gate, her heart heavy. "You really don't care what happens to me?"
He stopped but didn't look back. "Caring," he said quietly, "is a luxury I learned to live without a long time ago."
And with that, he vanished into the shadows, leaving only the echo of his voice — and the cold that lingered long after he was gone.
Christin gripped the gate's iron bars, forcing her trembling fingers to move. "Then neither do I," she whispered — though her heart knew it wasn't true.
She slipped into the night, the moonlight catching on her tear-bright eyes.
Behind her, in the silent garden, the rose she had healed still glowed faintly — a fragile bloom of gold against the darkness.
Leroy watched from the edge of the courtyard, unseen, his expression carved from stone.
"Foolish girl," he murmured to the wind. But his hand — the one that bore the obsidian ring — had clenched just slightly, betraying what his voice would not.