Cassian's POV
The moment I see her eyes, I know.
Not who she is. Not yet. But I know she's hiding something dangerous.
The healer kneeling in this filthy clinic has the posture of a soldier and the hands of a surgeon. Her face is covered in dirt, but underneath, I see aristocratic bones. High cheekbones. A stubborn chin. Eyes that burn with barely controlled fire.
She's no street healer.
Your name, I say, keeping my voice cold and commanding.
Ara. She doesn't even look up from her work. Just a healer.
Just a healer. The lie is so obvious it's almost insulting.
Look at me.
For a moment, she doesn't move. Then slowly, reluctantly, she lifts her eyes to mine.
The impact hits me like a physical blow.
Her eyes are amber-gold, ringed with dark lashes. Beautiful. Furious. And familiar in a way that makes my chest tight.
I've been searching for eyes like these for five years.
Around us, everyone kneels with their faces pressed to the floor. Everyone except her. She stays on her knees beside her patient, bandages in hand, meeting my gaze without fear.
Stupid. Or brave. Maybe both.
I study her more carefully. Her hands are graceful, moving with precision as she ties off the bandage. Too graceful for someone who learned healing in back alleys. And the way she holds herself straight spine, lifted chin that's court training. I've seen it a thousand times in nobles trying to hide among commoners.
You're formally trained, I say. Where?
The streets teach everything you need. Her voice is cold, dismissive.
She's lying. Everything about her is a lie.
But why?
Darius shifts beside me, hand on his sword. He thinks she's being disrespectful. He wants to teach her a lesson.
I raise my hand, stopping him. This woman is too interesting to hurt. Yet.
This district has a plague, I say, testing her. I need it controlled. You'll report to the palace tomorrow morning. You're my new medic.
I don't work for conquerors. She says it like she's spitting out poison.
The entire room goes rigid. Nobody refuses me. Nobody.
But she just did.
Something dark and dangerous stirs in my chest. Interest. Challenge. The thrill of finding prey that fights back.
You do now. I turn to leave, then pause at the door. And if you run, I'll burn this entire district looking for you.
I walk out before she can respond.
Outside, Darius catches up to me. General, that woman disrespected you. We should
We should do nothing, I interrupt. She's useful.
She's insolent.
She's hiding something. I glance back at the clinic. Through the broken window, I see the healerAra, she called herself speaking urgently to a dark-haired woman. I want her watched. Every move. Report everything.
You think she's connected to the resistance?
I think she's connected to something. I mount my horse. And I'm going to find out what.
As we ride back to the palace, my mind keeps returning to those amber-gold eyes. I've seen them before. In a drawing. A sketch my mother kept until the day she died.
Princess Elara Ashenne.
Could it be her? The lost princess I've been hunting for five years?
No. Impossible. The princess was elegant, educated and soft. This woman is covered in filth, sharp-tongued, rough around the edges.
But the eyes...
Darius, I say quietly. Bring me everything we have on Princess Elara. Every report. Every witness account. Every description.
The dead princess?
The missing princess, I correct. She was never confirmed dead.
Darius looks at me like I've lost my mind. Maybe I have.
But my mother's dying words echo in my head: Find the girl with golden eyes. Save her. Promise me.
I promised. And I've been searching ever since.
Elara's POV
The moment Cassian leaves, my legs go weak.
Lyric catches me before I fall. Are you insane? she hisses. Do you have a death wish?
Probably, I manage to say.
My hands are shaking. Not from fear though I should be terrified. From rage. From being back in the same city as the palace. From seeing the conqueror who now sits on my family's throne.
From the way he looked at me.
Like he was trying to solve a puzzle. Like he almost recognized me.
Impossible. I've changed completely. Five years of dirt and scars and starvation erased the princess I used to be.
But those eyes of his...
Cold. Gray. Ruthless. Yet something flickered in them when he looked at me. Curiosity. Interest.
Danger.
You need to run, Lyric says urgently. Tonight. Before tomorrow morning. Before
I can't. I look at the line of sick people still waiting for help. The plague is getting worse. If I leave, they die.
If you stay, you die!
Then I die. I pick up my supplies and move to the next patient. But I'm not abandoning them.
Lyric wants to argue. I can see it in her face. But she knows me too well. Instead, she helps me treat patients until nightfall.
That night, I stand outside my tiny shack at the edge of Lowtown. The palace sits on the hill above the city, lit by torches. From here, it looks like a beautiful jewel.
I used to live there. In those beautiful rooms with silk curtains and soft beds. I used to walk those marble halls. I used to eat at that long dining table with my family.
Before they tried to kill me.
Before my mother looked me in the eye and sentenced me to death for a murder I didn't commit.
Before my brother testified against me with lies.
Before everything I loved turned to ash.
Now I have to go back.
Not as Princess Elara. As Ara the healer a nobody. A servant.
The thought makes my stomach turn.
But I have no choice. If I run, Cassian will hunt me. He'll burn Lowtown searching. Innocent people will die because of me.
Again.
You don't have to do this, Lyric says quietly beside me.
Yes, I do.
He'll figure out who you are. Men like him always do.
Then I'll deal with it when it happens. I turn away from the palace. Right now, I need to pack.
I don't have much. A change of clothes. Medical supplies. A small knife hidden in my boot.
And buried under the floorboards, wrapped in oilcloth my mother's letters. The proof that she's a traitor. The evidence I found five years ago that got me sentenced to death.
I should burn them. Destroy the evidence.
But something stops me.
Maybe one day, I'll need them. Maybe one day, I'll make her pay for everything she took from me.
I rewrap the letters and hide them again.
Tomorrow, I walk back into hell.
Cassian's POV
Late that night, Darius brings me the files on Princess Elara.
I spread them across my desk. Sketches. Descriptions. Witness reports from the day she escaped execution.
Third child of House Ashenne, I read aloud. Born with rare dual magic fire and healing. Accused of poisoning Crown Prince Damian. Sentenced to death. Escaped before execution. Presumed dead.
Most people think she died in the woods, Darius says. The search parties never found a body.
Because she didn't die. I hold up the sketch my mother drew Princess Elara at a garden party, smiling, wearing a blue gown. She survived. And she's been hiding.
You really think that street healer is her?
I stare at the sketch. Then I remember the healer's face. The bone structure matches. The eyes definitely match.
But there's something else. Something in the way she moved. Confident. Controlled. Like someone trained to fight.
Send word to the palace guards, I say. Tomorrow morning, when the healer arrives, I want her brought directly to my private study. No one else sees her.
You're going to question her?
I'm going to give her a choice. I close the file. Tell me the truth, or face the consequences.
Darius leaves.
I sit alone in the dark, thinking about amber-gold eyes and the promise I made to my dying mother.
Find her. Save her. Destroy the people who hurt her.
If that healer really is Princess Elara, then everything is about to change.
Elara's POV
I don't sleep that night.
I lie on my thin mattress, staring at the ceiling, imagining tomorrow.
Walking through those palace gates. Seeing the halls where I used to play as a child. Smelling the gardens where my father taught me about healing herbs.
Facing the man who conquered everything I loved.
At dawn, I dress in my cleanest rags which isn't saying much. I braid my hair. I rub more dirt on my face to hide my features.
Lyric walks me to the edge of Lowtown.
If you're not back by nightfall, she says, I'm coming for you.
Don't. I hug her tight. If something happens to me, you run. Promise me.
Elara
Promise.
She nods reluctantly.
I turn toward the palace and start walking.
With each step, my heart pounds harder. Memories flood back. My father's laugh. My brother's smile before he betrayed me. My mother's cold eyes as she ordered my death.
The palace gates loom ahead.
Two guards stop me. State your business.
I'm Ara. The healer. General Thornwyld ordered me to report this morning.
They exchange glances. One speaks into a communication device.
A moment later, he says, You're expected. Follow me.
Expected. That word sends chills down my spine.
The guard leads me through the gates, across the courtyard, into the palace itself.
Every stone. Every tapestry. Every painting. I know them all.
We don't go to the medical wing.
Instead, the guard leads me up a private staircase. To the royal residential floors. To a room I know too well.
My father's private study.
The guard knocks once and opens the door.
Inside, General Cassian Thornwyld sits behind my father's desk, waiting.
And on the desk in front of him, laid out like evidence, are three things that make my blood freeze:
A royal crest ring my father's ring, the one I thought was lost.
A medical journal my personal journal, the one I kept hidden.
And a sketch of a young woman in a blue gown, smiling at a garden party.
A sketch of me.
Cassian looks up, his gray eyes pinning me in place.
Hello, Princess Elara, he says quietly. We need to talk.