Page 111 of Crown of Light and Ashes
The guards pause at the stall next to mine.
"This one's saddled already," one observes. "Who's riding tonight?"
"Elder Varis requested a mount for an evening patrol," the other replies after a moment's consideration. "Must be this one."
"Varis hasn't ridden in a century," the first guard scoffs. "His ancient bones would shatter at the first gallop."
They laugh, moving past my stall without a second glance, continuing their inspection toward the far end of the stable. I release a breath I haven't realized I was holding, giving the steed another berry in silent thanks.
The moment the guards exit the opposite end of the stable, I mount swiftly, guiding the shadow steed toward the small side gate used for night patrols. It remains unguarded—a critical oversight I noted weeks ago but never mentioned. Now, that security weakness will be my salvation.
As I approach the gate, a figure steps out from behind a pillar. My hand flies to my dagger, heart racing—
"Going somewhere, my lady?"
The stable boy who's been "sleeping" on the hay bale stands blocking my path, his young face solemn in the moonlight.
"Return to your post, boy," I command, injecting authority I don't feel into my voice. "I ride on the Shadow Lord's business."
He studies me, head tilted slightly. "Strange. Lord Kaan just sent word that you were to remain in the palace tonight. For your safety."
My fingers tighten on the reins. I could overpower him easily—he's barely thirteen, scrawny and unarmed. But violence against a child, even to save my own? I can't bring myself to draw my weapon.
"You misunderstood," I say, softening my voice. "I am to meet Lord Kaan at the boundary shrine. A private ceremony before tomorrow's public one."
Doubt flickers across his face. "Then why wouldn't he escort you himself?"
"Court politics," I sigh, as if burdened by tedious aristocratic obligations. "The council demanded his attendance at tonight's strategy meeting. I'm to prepare the shrine with proper offerings before he arrives."
The boy hesitates, clearly torn between his duty and my evident authority as the Shadow Lady. I reach into my cloak, removing a small gold coin, a week's wages for someone of his station.
"Lord Kaan would be displeased if I were delayed," I add, letting the coin catch the moonlight. "However, your dedication to security deserves recognition."
His eyes fix on the gleaming metal, resolve wavering visibly. After a moment, he steps aside, extending his palm.
"For your discretion," I murmur, placing the coin in his hand and adding a second beside it. "Not a word until dawn, understood?"
He nods, closing his fingers around the small fortune. "May your journey be swift, my lady."
I nudge the shadow steed forward, maintaining a sedate pace until I pass through the gate. Only then do I lean forward, urging the creature to its full, terrifying speed.
"Run," I whisper against its mane as the palace falls away behind us. "Run as if the darkness itself pursues us."
Because it will be, soon enough.
The wind tears at my cloak as I urge the shadow steed faster, the beast's hooves pounding a desperate rhythm against the frozen earth. Behind me, the imposing silhouette of the Shadow Court palace grows smaller with each passing mile, yet I cannot shake the fear that tendrils of darkness might still reach out, might still find me, might still drag me back to the monster I once thought could be redeemed.
I was such a fool.
The sudden realization of Kaan's true nature, his shock and panic when faced with my possible pregnancy, replays in my mind with merciless clarity. That momentary flash of panic before his shadows whipped into a frenzy, the same darkness that consumed Isil when she carried his child.
My hand moves instinctively to my stomach, a fierce protectiveness surging through me. This child—my child—will not share Isil's fate. I will not be another tragic entry in some future lover's stolen journal.
The outer territories unfold before me, a landscape caught between shadow and light, belonging fully to neither. Twisted trees with silver-barked trunks reach toward a perpetually twilight sky, their bare branches forming skeletal patterns against the deep purple horizon, glistening with frost in the eternal winter that grips these borderlands. This liminal space, this boundary between realms, has always been home to those who don't belong—outcasts, wanderers, those fleeing something or someone.
Now I am one of them.
I don't tell Banu where I'm going. I can't risk it—Kaan can sense her magic, might extract the information from her if pressed. Better she knows nothing. Better I disappear completely, become a ghost story to the Shadow Court: the Light Lady who vanished into thenight, another cautionary tale of what happens when light dares to love shadow.
