Caden’s POV
I moved before the guard finished shouting my name.
The market surged around me, voices rising, bodies shifting, panic spreading like fire through dry grass. I ducked behind a cart, shoved past a woman clutching bread, and pulled my hood low as boots thundered closer.
My heart slammed against my ribs, sharp and furious, not with fear of capture but with the shock of being seen.
Not as a prince.
As a boy.
I slipped into a narrow alley, breath coming fast, and pressed myself against the stone wall. I waited, counting breaths the way Master Rook taught me when I was younger and angrier and desperate for control.
One. Two. Three.
When no one followed, I moved again.
I didn’t know why I ran toward the river instead of back to the passage. Instinct, maybe. Or stubbornness. Or that girl.
Mud-girl. The word tasted wrong now.
Only when the palace walls rose ahead of me did my breath slow. I circled wide, entered through a lesser gate, and slipped back into the hidden passage before the guards doubled their search.
The stone door closed behind me with a quiet finality.
Inside the palace, everything felt too bright.
Servants rushed past, tense and whispering. Someone dropped a tray.
“Caden!”
I turned to see my father striding toward me, robes snapping with his steps. King Darius’s face was thunderous, his jaw tight with restrained fury.
“Where were you?” he demanded.
“I was training,” I said smoothly.
“At night?” he snapped. “Without guards?”
“I don’t need guards.”
“That is not your decision,” he barked. “You vanished from the palace. Do you have any idea what that implies?”
“That you failed to notice,” I replied before I could stop myself.
The slap never came. Instead, his eyes went cold.
“You will not speak to me that way,” he said. “Ever.”
Silence stretched. Courtiers hovered at a distance, pretending not to listen.
“You are not a common boy,” Darius continued. “You are the heir. You do not wander. You do not vanish. You do not invite chaos.”
“I didn’t invite anything,” I said. “I left.”
“That is the same thing,” he snapped.
Arinelle appeared at his side like she’d been summoned by tension alone. “My king,” she said gently, placing a hand on his arm. “He’s young. Curiosity is natural.”
Darius shook her off. “Curiosity gets princes killed.”
Her eyes flicked to me, sharp and assessing. “Where did you go, Caden?”
I met her gaze and said nothing.
Darius exhaled sharply. “Go to your chambers. You are confined until I decide otherwise.”
I inclined my head, the bare minimum of obedience, and turned away.
In my chambers, the silence pressed in again, thick and suffocating. I paced, replaying the market in my mind: the noise, the dust, the way people looked at me without bowing. And her.
She hadn’t trembled.
She hadn’t lowered her eyes. She’d twisted free of my grip like she’d been trained to do it, like pain was an old companion she didn’t bother fearing.
I slammed my fist into the wall.
A knock sounded.
“Enter,” I said.
Arinelle slipped inside and closed the door behind her. She studied me the way she always did, like I was a blade she’d forged and sharpened herself.
“You lied to your father,” she observed.
“I told him nothing,” I replied.
Her smile widened. “Exactly.”
She circled me slowly. “Something happened out there.”
I stiffened. “Don’t.”
She tilted her head. “A girl?”
Silence.
Her eyes gleamed. “Ah.”
“It was nothing,” I said quickly. “Just a villager who didn’t know her place.”
“And you noticed,” she said. “You never notice villagers.”
“She was loud,” I snapped. “Disrespectful.”
“Interesting,” Arinelle murmured. “Most tremble when you glare.”
“She didn’t,” I said before I could stop myself.
My mother smiled like she’d won a game. “And that bothered you.”
“It shouldn’t have,” I said.
“But it did,” she replied. “Careful, Caden. Attachment is weakness.”
“I’m not attached,” I insisted.
She stepped closer, her voice dropping. “Then forget her.”
I didn’t answer.
Later, alone again, I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, listening to the palace breathe. I told myself she was nothing. A flash of temper in a dirty market. A mouth that ran too fast.
And yet I could still see her standing there, chin lifted, daring me to break her.
No one dared me. I sat up slowly, a thought curling dark and deliberate in my mind. I didn’t need her fear. I needed her name.
“I’ll find out who she is,” I whispered into the quiet, and the words felt like a promise I would keep.