He reached for her, slow, as though she might break. When his fingers brushed her cheek, the darkness rose—liquid, weightless, alive.
It wrapped around her shoulders first, like silk drawn over bare skin, then climbed higher, slick and warm, pulsing faintly with her heartbeat. She gasped. It wasn't cold at all. It was heat—wild, sentient heat that shivered against her flesh, sending ripples of sensation down her spine.
"Breathe," Rakhal murmured, and his voice threaded through the dark. "They'll take your scent. They'll learn it."
The darkness tightened, tender and invasive all at once. The world blurred—her hands, her cloak, even her breath vanishing into a shifting veil. She felt herself dissolve, skin and light and self, until only sensation remained: his nearness, his breath brushing her ear, the steady thud of his pulse against hers.
They were invisible.
And yet she had never felt so seen, so exposed, soknown.
His power coursed through her body, vibrating deep in her bones, waking nerve endings she hadn't known existed. Something in him had changed in those dungeons. The black tendrils clung to him like living armor, answering his unspoken command. Even the air around him seemed to bend, charged with energy that felt both ancient and dangerous.
He was no longer just the quiet, solemn prince who had once spoken of ending the war. There was something feral in him now—something that had tasted the abyss and survived it.
And still, beneath it all, she saw the man she remembered. The one who had spared her. The one who had wanted peace.
Please, she thought,let that still be true.
Rakhal's hand brushed her waist, fingers splaying against the curve of her hip. "Stay close," he said, voice low enough that she felt it rumble through her body. "The veil won't hold if you drift from me."
He drew her against him—no hesitation, no ceremony—until the hard planes of his chest pressed against her back. The darkness closed tighter, cocooning them both. Heat bloomed where they touched, spreading outward until she couldn't tell if it was the shadows warming her or her own rising desire. The world folded around them, the noise of the city warping to a distant hum.
They moved.
Through courtyards slick with rain, past the stables where the scent of smoke and horse blood hung thick. Soldiers hurriedin small, frightened knots. Orders barked in the distance. The great bells of Maidan tolled unevenly, calling the city to arms.
Everywhere she looked—through the thin veil of Rakhal's power—the kingdom she had sworn to protect was unravelling. Barricades blocked the alleys. Torches flared against shuttered windows. Citizens peered out, pale and silent, clutching their children close. She saw the fear she had spent years trying to extinguish returned a hundredfold.
All of it because of her. Because of them.
Rakhal's grip on her waist tightened, pulling her more firmly against him. He felt her tremor and bent his head, his lips almost brushing her ear. "Not your doing," he whispered. "This was coming long before us."
The intimacy of his voice, the brush of his breath against her neck sent a shiver through her that had nothing to do with fear. She leaned back into his strength, allowing herself this one moment of weakness, of surrender.
They slipped through the soldiers' ranks unseen. The darkness muffled sound itself, swallowing the clank of armor, the scuff of boots on cobblestone. A strange stillness filled the air around them, almost holy in its precision.
It felt like moving through a dream—one that smelled of iron and smoke, that whispered of hunger and desire and the slow, steady thrum of magic that wanted to be touched.
Every breath she took was him—his scent, his essence, filling her lungs and settling in her blood.
When they reached the outer gates, Eliza froze. A double line of guards stood beneath the torches, pikes gleaming. The great iron gates themselves were chained and bolted, sealed under Thalorin's orders.
"Rakhal," she whispered. "There's no way through?—"
He didn't answer.
Instead, the black tendrils stirred, restless. The air shifted, sharp with static.
"Stay behind me," he said, quiet but absolute.
His arm released her waist, fingers trailing across her stomach in a touch that lingered a heartbeat too long. The loss of contact left her suddenly cold, bereft. He moved forward.
The dark responded like a living thing—pouring outward, spreading across the ground, climbing the walls, reaching for the torches. The flames flickered once, twice—and died.
Panic rippled through the guards. "Light the sconces!" someone shouted. "The gates—keep the gates?—"
Too late.
