Chapter 19: Getting Lost

The candle flickered, casting long, skeletal shadows against the pale cerulean walls that felt like reaching fingers. I moved like a ghost through the corridors, the silk of my gown hissing softly against the floor—a sound that seemed deafening in the oppressive silence of the high wing. My eyes traced the gilded frames of rulers who had died long before my mission began, their painted stares judging the intruder in their halls. This place was a masterpiece of stone and velvet—a staggering display of wealth that made Silvermere’s keep look like a roadside garrison in comparison.

I slipped into the armory, the air growing sharp and metallic with the scent of cold steel and whetstone oil. My breath hitched in my throat. The blades were massive, etched with glowing runes that caught the candlelight in glints of silver and violent violet.

"Ultarion doesn’t have steel this heavy," I whispered to the shadows, my thumb hovering just an inch over the edge of a broadsword. It hummed with a faint, kinetic energy that made the hair on my arms stand up. I needed more than just "fine steel" to bring back to the King, though. I needed a secret, a fatal weakness, or a relic that would buy my permanent passage home.

"What are you doing here?"

The voice cut through the silence like a blade through parchment.

My grip tightened on the heavy silver candlestick—I was half a second away from using it as a blunt-force weapon—before I forced my shoulders to drop and my heart to slow. I turned slowly to find Zion, his broad-shouldered silhouette perfectly framed by the arched stone doorway. He wasn't wearing his royal mantle, just a dark linen shirt that looked soft in the dim light.

"You're awake," I said, my voice steady despite the frantic, rhythmic hammer of my pulse. "It’s three in the morning, Your Highness."

"I couldn't sleep," he replied, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that vibrated in the small, enclosed space. He took a slow step into the light, his deep-set eyes searching my face with a terrifying clarity. "And you, Diana? Why are you wandering the dark with a single flame for company?"

Lie. Now. Before he sees the map you've been mentaly drawing.

"I thought I heard a mouse," I said, the falsehood tasting like copper on my tongue. "I’ve always been a light sleeper. Back home, a noise in the night usually means a leak in the roof or a fox in the stores."

He didn’t answer immediately. He simply walked toward me, his boots clicking rhythmically against the stone floor. With every step he took, the room felt smaller, the air thicker and charged with that magnetic tension that always seemed to follow him. I stood my ground, praying he couldn't see the frantic beat of the vein in my neck.

"I got lost," I added, the half-truth slipping out when the silence grew too heavy to bear.

He stopped inches from me, looking down with a slow, cheeky tug at the corner of his mouth that made him look less like a tyrant and more like the man from my dreams. "You were admiring my swords. Most girls would be in the library or the larders. You chose the steel."

I let out a breath that was part-shiver, part-sigh. "I’ve never seen a collection this... formidable. It’s hard not to stare at something so powerful."

"I take a certain pride in it," he murmured, his gaze softening as he looked from the blades back to me. "They are the teeth of Fortundra."

"As you should."

"Are you ever going to tell me where you learned to judge a blade like that?" he asked, his voice dropping an octave.

I looked at him.

"Where you’re actually from? Because no nomad speaks of steel with such... professional reverence."

Never. I’d have to kill you if I did, and I’m starting to think I’d rather die myself.

I felt a sharp pang of guilt at the thought, but I masked it with a feline, teasing grin. "I could tell you, Zion. But then I’d have to kill you to keep the secret."

He laughed, a rich sound that echoed off the shields on the wall, though his eyes remained fixed on mine—intense, searching, and dangerously close. "As frustrating as it is not to truly know you... I think I prefer the mystery. It keeps me on my toes."

You wouldn't. Not if you knew what I’m here to steal. Not if you knew I was the knife at your throat.

I tilted my head, letting the candlelight dance in my eyes as I looked up at him. I let my gaze drop to his lips for a fraction of a second—just enough to be intentional, just enough to feel the spark of that "clean" yet heavy tension—before meeting his stare again. The moonlight spilled through the high, narrow windows, silvering his hair and making the armory feel like a dreamscape where the rules of war didn't apply.

"Diana?" he breathed, his hand twitching as if he wanted to reach out.

"Yes?" I whispered. My movement was a fraction too sharp; a sudden exhale from my lips caught the flame, and the candle was extinguished.

Darkness crashed in, absolute and heavy, lit only by the pale blue shafts of the moon. I could feel the heat radiating off his body, the scent of pine and cold air wrapping around me. He leaned in closer, his voice barely a thread of sound in the dark. "I..."

"What is it?" I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it might burst.

"Since you're so hopelessly lost," he said, his tone shifting back to that playful, infuriatingly charming lilt, "perhaps I should walk you back to your room before you find something even more dangerous than a broadsword?"

I blinked, the tension breaking just enough for me to breathe again. "You think I can't find my own way, Zion?"

"I think the castle is large, and I'd hate for you to end up in the dungeons by mistake. It would be a waste of a perfectly good dinner guest." He offered his arm in the dark.

"Fine," I conceded, nodding slowly as I placed my hand on the soft fabric of his sleeve. "Lead the way, then."