The first rule of going out in disguise is this: If you feel ridiculous, you're probably doing it right.
"You are not cutting my hair," I said.
The maid froze, scissors hovering perilously close to my curls.
Axel lounged in the doorway of my dressing room, arms crossed, trying and failing to hide his amusement.
"Relax," he said. "No one is cutting anything. We're just…rearranging."
"Rearrange your own head," I snapped.
The maid gulped and took a prudent step back.
"I only meant to tuck it under the scarf, Your Highness," she murmured. "If anyone recognized your hair—"
"They shouldn't be looking that closely," I muttered.
Axel pushed off the doorframe and came to stand behind me, meeting my eyes in the mirror.
The girl staring back at me did not look like a princess.
My curls were half-plaited, half-loose, about to be hidden beneath a faded headscarf. The maid had dusted my skin with a light layer of powder to dull the usual palace glow and added a faint smear of soot at my jawline.
I wore a plain brown dress, the kind that could belong to any merchant's daughter in Iris. The fabric was coarse but sturdy. No embroidery. No pearls. No gold.
No tiara.
My mother's necklace was tucked safely away in a small pouch under my bodice, against my skin.
Yours, she'd said that morning when I told her what we were planning. Your name. Your heart. Your will. Don't leave them behind just because you change your dress.
"Turn," Axel said softly.
I did.
He took the scarf from the maid's trembling hands and stepped closer, the faint smell of smoke and soap curling around me.
"May I?" he asked.
I nodded, trying not to look as nervous as I suddenly felt.
He gathered my hair with surprising gentleness, tucking curls up and back, fingers sure from years of tying his own bandages and bootstraps. The scarf slipped over my head; he tied it at the nape of my neck, then loosened a few strands at my temples.
When he stepped back, the girl in the mirror was someone else.
Still me. Still my eyes, my mouth.
But softer. Plainer. Easier to overlook.
It hurt, how relieving that felt.
"You look…" Axel began, then stopped, searching for the right word.
"If you say 'common,' I will drown you in the nearest fountain," I warned.
His mouth twitched.
"I was going to say 'dangerous,'" he said. "No one is going to see you coming."
That, I could live with.
"And you?" I asked.
His disguise was less dramatic.
Gone were the dark, perfectly tailored coats, the subtle silver embroidery. Instead he wore a rough linen shirt, a faded leather vest, and trousers tucked into scuffed boots. His hair was mussed on purpose for once, rather than by wind or battle. A faint line of soot darkened his jaw, softening the sharpness.
He looked like any other young man in the city.
Almost.
There was still something in the way he held himself—the straightness of his spine, the quiet awareness in his eyes—that would give him away if anyone knew what to look for.
I stepped closer and reached up without thinking.
"Hold still," I murmured.
His breath hitched.
I smudged the soot at his jaw a little more, then drew a light streak along his cheekbone with my thumb.
"Too pretty," I said. "You look like a noble slumming it for a story to tell at parties. Here." I dabbed another smear near his temple. "Now you look like you've actually carried firewood in your life."
He caught my wrist lightly as I pulled back.
"Have I ever told you," he said, "that you have a deeply concerning talent for insult disguised as affection?"
"Only every day," I replied.
He smiled, letting my hand go.
Olivia appeared in the doorway then, skirts hitched up slightly to avoid tripping over them, breathless as if she'd run the whole way.
"You're both insane," she said by way of greeting. "Mother will murder you if she finds out."
"She won't," Axel said smoothly.
"And if she does?" Olivia pressed.
"Then I'll tell her it was my idea," I said.
"That won't help," Olivia said. "She already expects you to do reckless things. She still occasionally expects him to behave." She jabbed a thumb at Axel.
"That's her mistake," I muttered.
Olivia ignored me and shoved a small pouch into my hands.
"Coin," she said. "Real, not palace-stamped. From the city coffers. Enough to buy things without making people wonder why you're throwing gold around like flower petals."
I tucked it into the hidden pocket at my hip.
"And this," she added, producing two thin metal disks on leather cords.
I frowned. "What are these?"
"Charms," she said. "My kind of charms." Her lips twitched despite the tension. "If something goes wrong, snap them. Hard. The spell will flare. The guard captains will know where you are."
Axel took one and turned it over in his fingers.
"Does my mother know you can do this?" he asked.
Olivia's smile turned sharp. "She knows I can do a lot of things," she said. "She doesn't know I practice them when she's not looking."
"I'm so proud," I whispered.
"Don't encourage her," Axel muttered.
Olivia sobered.
"Be careful," she said. "Both of you. The market isn't a battlefield, but it isn't a ballroom either. People there are…tired. Hungry. Angry. They're not going to throw roses at your feet just because you exist."
"Good," I said. "I've had enough roses for a lifetime."
Axel nodded. "We won't be long," he promised.
Olivia's eyes darted between us, worry and trust warring in her expression.
"Bring me back something," she said suddenly. "Anything. A story. A sweet. Proof that you saw more than uniforms and walls."
"Deal," I said.
She stepped forward, hugged me quick and tight, then pulled back before either of us could get sentimental.
"Go," she said. "Before I lose my nerve and tell Mother everything."
We slipped out through one of the lesser-used side corridors, avoiding the main halls where gossip liked to collect.
The palace shrank behind us with every step.
By the time we reached the small postern gate near the old stables, my pulse had steadied into something like anticipation.
Two guards stood there, plain-clothed but straight-backed. Adam leaned against the wall nearby, picking at his nails with a knife.
"You're late," he said.
"You're obnoxious," I replied.
He looked us up and down, taking in my scarf, Axel's soot-smudged jaw, the plainness of our clothes.
"Hmm," he said finally. "You look…almost convincingly poor."
"High praise," Axel said.
"Don't get cocky," Adam said. "You still walk like you're ready to give orders to the sky."
He stepped closer and, without warning, reached out to tap Axel's shoulder.
"Drop it," Adam said.
"Drop what?" Axel asked.
"The weight," Adam said. "You look like you've got a crown nailed to your spine. Slump. A little. Look bored. Like you've been hauling crates since dawn, not drafting treaties."
To my surprise, Axel actually tried.
He rolled his shoulders, let them loosen, loosened his jaw.
The change was subtle.
But it helped.
Adam grunted approvingly.
"Better," he said. Then he turned to me. "You, Princess, need to stop glaring at everything like you're about to challenge it to a duel."
"This is just my face," I said.
He sighed dramatically. "Unfortunate."
He reached out as if to poke my cheek; I slapped his hand away.
"I am not clay," I said.
"Tell that to the sculptors," he muttered.
The guards pretended very hard not to smile.
"Enough," Axel said. "We're not going to the market to argue about my posture and Rome's terrifying face."
"On the contrary," Adam said. "That's exactly what you're going to the market for: to see how your posture and her face land with people who don't owe you anything."
He sheathed his knife and stepped back.
"I'll be nearby," he said. "Watching. Not interfering unless I have to."
"Like a particularly annoying guardian angel," I said.
"Exactly," he replied.
The guards opened the postern gate.
Cool air rushed in, carrying the smells of the city. Not the polished, perfumed air of the upper terraces.
Real air.
Smoke. Bread. Sweat. Sea-salt.
I took a breath.
"Ready?" Axel asked quietly.
"No," I said.
We stepped out anyway.
The west market looked different from ground level.
From the balcony, it had been color and motion and distant noise.
Down here, it was all of that and more.
Voices layered over each other—a hundred conversations at once. Children darted through the crush of bodies, laughter high and sharp. Vendors shouted over one another, extolling the virtues of their fish, their fabrics, their spices.
The air was thick with scents: frying dough, fresh herbs, the sharp tang of pickled vegetables. Underneath it all, the damp stone smell of the old well and the faint metallic hint of the gate's iron.
No one looked at us twice.
Not at first.
We were just two more bodies in the crowd.
"Stay close," Axel murmured, leaning in as if he were whispering to his sweetheart.
"I'm not going to wander off to buy a goat," I said.
"You say that now," he replied.
We moved with the flow, letting the crowd pull us toward the heart of the square.
Marla's stall was exactly where Adam had said it would be.
She was rolling dough with ferocious efficiency when we approached, forearms dusted in flour, hair tied back in a scarf not unlike mine.
I doubted she remembered every face she'd seen, but I could almost feel the recognition in the way she glanced at Axel.
Not his identity.
His posture.
Her eyes narrowed.
Then she shrugged, as if deciding we weren't worth the trouble, and slapped a lump of dough onto a board.
"What'll it be?" she said. "If you're just here to stare, go gawk at the nobles by the upper gates. My bread doesn't rise faster for pretty faces."
I liked her instantly.
"Two rolls," I said, sliding a coin across the counter. "And whatever gossip comes free with them."
She snorted. "Cheaper to buy the bread without the words, girl."
"Humor me," I said.
She eyed me more closely then, taking in my scarf, my plain dress, my too-straight spine.
"You're not from this quarter," she said.
"No," I admitted. "But I'm trying to learn it."
"Why?" she asked. "People only come here to learn things when they want to sell us something or take what little we have left."
Her gaze flicked briefly toward the gate.
Toward the well.
Towards the polished banners just visible in the distance where palace met city.
"What if I want to give something?" I asked.
She barked a laugh. "Then you're either naive or up to something."
"Both," Axel said before I could stop him.
I elbowed him in the ribs.
Marla's eyes crinkled.
"Well, at least you're honest," she said. "Here."
She shoved two warm rolls into my hands. The dough was still steaming; the smell was divine.
I took a bite.
It might have been the best thing I'd ever tasted.
"I could kiss you," I said around a mouthful.
"Flattering," she replied dryly. "But I'm married. Tell me what you want instead."
"Information," I said.
"Of course you do," she sighed.
Axel leaned in, bracing his forearms casually on the edge of the stall.
"We heard the broken crown left its mark near the west gate weeks ago," he said. "Anyone with half an eye can see tension brewing. But we want to know what you see. Not the guards. Not the nobles. You."
Marla studied him.
"You ask like a man who already knows the answer," she said.
"I know an answer," Axel said. "I want to know if mine matches yours."
She wiped her hands on her apron, gaze drifting over the square.
"The rich still buy from us," she said slowly. "They have to. Their fancy cooks don't like the lower stalls. But they send servants now. Fewer of them come themselves.
They don't want to see how thin the city's cheeks have gotten."
She jerked her chin toward a group of children playing by an empty crate.
"Those should be round," she said. "Those should be full of stolen sweets and bread crusts. Not air."
My stomach twisted.
"And the broken crown?" I asked.
Her lips pressed into a line.
"They're not wrong about everything," she said grudgingly. "Taxes are higher. Work is harder to find. The nobles talk big about peace, but peace doesn't fill bowls."
She met my eyes.
"But bombs don't either," she added sharply. "Scaring people at gates, painting symbols on walls—
that doesn't bake bread. It just makes the guards nervous and the crowns twitchy."
Axel's jaw tightened.
"Then why listen to them?" he asked quietly.
"Because they listen back," she snapped. "Because they stand in this square and talk to us instead of talking at us from balconies. Because when they say the word you, they mean people in the markets, not paintings on the walls."
Her words landed like small stones in my chest.
We talk from balconies.
They talk in squares.
"And the prince?" I asked before I could stop myself. "What do they say about him?"
Marla snorted. "Which one?"
"The Darkstorm prince," I said, forcing my voice to stay even. "The one who married our princess."
"And what about the princess?" Axel added. "What do they say about her?"
Marla's eyes gleamed.
"You two are nosy," she said. "Either that, or you're very bad spies."
"We're just curious," I said.
She rolled her eyes but answered anyway.
"About him?" she said. "Some call him the storm in a silk coat. Say he'll swallow Iris whole and leave us with scraps. Some say he's soft. That he hesitated. That he's playing at peace while his lords count swords."
Axel's fingers curled on the counter.
"And her?" I asked quietly.
Marla's gaze shifted to my face.
"Some call her the garden queen," she said. "Say she cares more about birds and roses than about empty pantries."
Heat crept up my neck.
"And some," Marla went on, "remember the girl who bled on her own stairs and still killed rebels in her halls. They call her the spark."
The word hit me like a slap.
The spark.
Cassian's voice echoed in my memory.
A spark thrown into our storm.
"And you?" Axel asked softly. "What do you call them?"
Marla hesitated.
"I call them a risk," she said. "Either the kind that pays off or the kind that gets us all burned. Too soon to tell."
She leaned forward slightly.
"But I will say this," she added. "If the prince and princess ever come down here without their guards and their crowns and their practiced smiles… If they buy bread with the same hands that sign decrees… People might listen to them before they listen to painted walls."
My heart climbed into my throat.
"Good to know," I said faintly.
Marla snorted. "You two are terrible liars," she said. "Go. Before I decide you're worth charging double."
We moved away, deeper into the square.
Only when we were out of earshot did I let out the breath I'd been holding.
"Well," I said. "That was…educational."
Axel's mouth was a hard line.
"Soft," he muttered. "Hesitated."
"She wasn't wrong," I said.
He shot me a look.
I shrugged. "You did hesitate. You told me you did."
"That doesn't mean I want it repeated in bread stalls," he snapped.
"Would you rather they call you the storm in a silk coat?" I asked. "Personally, I think that one's worse."
He huffed a reluctant laugh.
"You're taking this well," he said.
"Did you miss the part where they think I only care about birds?" I replied. "I nearly choked on my roll."
"You do care about birds," he pointed out.
"Yes," I said. "And people. And rebels. And spies. Apparently I have to start yelling more about pantries while I hum in the gardens."
We wove through the crowd again.
Children ran past, shrieking with laughter as they chased each other. A boy no older than ten bumped into me, muttered a quick apology, and darted away.
Instinctively, I checked my belt.
Everything was still there.
He wasn't a thief.
Just a boy.
"Careful," Axel murmured. "You're glaring again."
"I'm thinking," I said.
"That's even scarier," he replied.
The old well loomed ahead of us now.
Up close, it looked even more out of place.
The chain across its mouth gleamed too bright. The stone around it was too clean. No chalk marks. No wax. Just that faint, half-smoothed scratch Adam had described.
The broken crown, erased but not gone.
Someone had tied a single scrap of cloth to one of the posts—a dull red ribbon, frayed at the end.
A child's wish, maybe.
Or something more.
We slowed without speaking.
"We shouldn't hover," Axel said under his breath. "We'll draw attention."
"Too late," I said.
People were already watching us.
Not many.
But enough.
A woman with a basket paused mid-step, eyes flicking between the well and our faces.
An older man by the fountain frowned, as if trying to place us.
A girl with a bundle of kindling on her shoulder glanced up once, then again.
You wanted to see how it felt, I reminded myself. To be looked at without a crown.
It felt…raw.
Someone jostled my shoulder.
"Sorry," a voice said.
I turned.
A hooded figure brushed past, head down, steps light.
For a second, all I saw was the edge of a dark cloak, the curve of a jaw, a flash of pale skin.
Then she was gone into the crowd.
My heart stuttered.
"Did you—" I began.
"See her?" Axel finished.
We looked at each other.
"Liora," I said.
He nodded once.
"She wanted us to see her," he said quietly. "No one moves like that by accident."
Anger flared, hot and bright.
"We should follow," I said.
"No," Axel said immediately.
I snapped my head toward him.
"No?"
"Not like this," he said. "Not here. She knows every rotten board, every loose stone in this quarter. She could lose us in three turns and lead us straight into whatever trap she's set. We're not here to chase her. We're here to see what she's looking at."
"What if what she's looking at is us?" I hissed.
"Then she already has," he said.
I hated that he was right.
I hated more that I'd trained myself to listen when he was.
"Fine," I said through my teeth. "Then we stand here and look at a very clean well instead."
"Subtle," he said.
We drifted a few steps away, pretending to study a nearby stall while keeping the well in our periphery.
I forced myself to focus on the people instead.
The woman with the basket.
The old man by the fountain.
The girl with the kindling.
Their clothes were neat but worn. Their shoes patched. Their eyes quick, taking everything in.
Most of them didn't look at the well at all.
That scared me more than if they had.
"See that?" Axel murmured.
He nodded toward a cart near the edge of the square.
Two men were unloading sacks—grain, by the look of it. The sacks were plain, unmarked.
But the men's coats were too fine for ordinary laborers. Not rich enough to be nobles, but better cut than most merchants here could afford.
"That's them," I whispered.
"The noble who pays double," he said. "The coin Marla mentioned."
A small, wiry boy appeared at their side, said something, and was waved off with a coin.
He ran straight to the fishmonger's stall.
Marla had been right.
Everyone was paying for something.
Food.
Silence.
Secrets.
"If they're buying loyalty with bread," I said quietly, "we're going to lose long before anyone throws a bomb."
Axel's jaw clenched.
"Then we buy it back," he said.
"With what?" I asked. "Pretty speeches and policies that take years to matter? They're hungry now."
"With honesty," he said slowly. "With being here. With knowing their names. With not letting the only people who ever ask them questions be men with pretty lies and knives behind their backs."
I stared at him.
"For someone raised in a storm," I said, "you're very fond of slow rain."
He huffed a laugh.
"It's the only thing that actually soaks in," he said.
He was right.
Again.
Infuriating man.
"Then we start now," I said.
Before he could respond, a voice cut through the market noise.
"Hey!"
We both turned.
The curly‑haired girl who'd slipped the note into Adam's sleeve stood a few paces away, hands on her hips, eyes narrowed at us.
"You two are going to get yourselves killed if you keep staring at everything like that," she said.
I blinked.
"Do we know you?" I asked.
"Not yet," she said. "But my uncle does. Or will. Come on."
She jerked her chin toward a narrow alley between two buildings.
Every instinct in me screamed no.
Axel's hand brushed mine lightly.
"Careful," he murmured.
The girl rolled her eyes.
"If I wanted to rob you," she said, "you'd already be lighter. You walk like people who've never had pockets picked in their lives. I'm trying to help you."
"Why?" I asked.
She shrugged one bony shoulder.
"Because you're interesting," she said. "And because you ask the bakers and not just the guards. That's new."
She turned without waiting, disappearing into the alley.
I looked at Axel.
He looked at me.
"Absolutely not," our eyes both said.
"Let's go," our feet decided anyway.
We followed.
The alley was narrow, walls close enough that my shoulders almost brushed them. The smell here was stronger—damp stone, something sour, something sharp and herbal.
"This is how horror stories start," I muttered.
"Don't worry," Axel said. "If this goes badly, we can haunt them."
The girl ducked through a low doorway and we emerged into a cramped courtyard.
Barrels were stacked haphazardly along the walls. A crooked clothesline stretched overhead, hung with shirts in various stages of wear. A cat watched us from a sun-warmed barrel lid, tail flicking.
An older man sat on an upturned crate near the back, mending a net. His hands were rough, his hair shot through with grey, his eyes sharp.
The girl marched straight up to him and jabbed a thumb over her shoulder.
"Uncle," she said. "I brought you your idiots."
He looked up.
Looked at us.
And smiled.
"I was wondering when you two would come down off your balcony," he said.
My blood ran cold.
Axel went perfectly still beside me.
The man set down his net and wiped his hands on his trousers.
"They've been talking about you for weeks," he said. "The garden queen and her storm prince. Thought you'd stop at dances and doves."
He nodded toward the market beyond the wall.
"Didn't think you'd actually come here."
I swallowed.
"We're just merchants," I lied weakly.
He snorted.
"You're terrible at that," he said. "Walk like crowns, talk like crowns, smell like soap that never saw a river." His eyes crinkled. "Relax. I'm not going to shout your names. Half the market already suspects. The other half doesn't care."
Axel stepped forward, every line of him humming with alertness.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The man tipped his head.
"Name's Farron," he said. "I mend nets. I sell fish on good days. I listen on bad ones."
The girl grinned. "Told you," she said. "He knows everything."
I studied him.
"You saw the symbol?" I asked. "On the gate. On the well."
He shrugged.
"I've been here longer than that gate," he said. "I've seen storms come and go. Kings rise and fall. Symbols painted and scrubbed so many times the stone's tired of it. The broken crown isn't new. Just louder."
"You knew Liora," Axel said quietly.
It wasn't a question.
Farron's gaze sharpened.
"She's been sniffing around this quarter since before your wedding," he said. "Pretty girl. Fast hands. Faster tongue. Pays well. Asks the right questions." He tilted his head. "You two ask the right ones too, for all your naivety."
"Then answer one more," I said. "Whose side are you on?"
He smiled, slow and sad.
"The side that doesn't starve," he said. "The side that doesn't get blown apart when your lords and their rebels decide to make a point."
"That's not an answer," Axel said.
"It's the only one that matters down here," Farron replied.
Silence stretched.
The cat yawned.
"I know why you came," Farron said at last. "You want to know if the broken crown has its claws in this quarter. If Liora is feeding them or you. If the next attack will be here."
"Will it?" I asked.
He studied me, as if weighing how much truth I could take.
"They're planting seeds," he said. "Everywhere. Little ones. Whispers. Extra coin. Sacks that arrive in the night and vanish by dawn. They don't need bombs if they can make people believe you lit the fuse."
"And do they?" Axel asked. "Believe that?"
"Some do," Farron said. "Some don't. Most are too tired to care who throws the first spark, as long as someone finally notices they're cold."
My throat tightened.
"Then tell us what to do," I said.
Farron's brows rose. "Princess asking a fishmonger for policy advice," he mused. "Now I've seen everything."
"You know who I am," I said quietly.
"I'd have to be blind not to," he replied.
"Then you know what's at stake," I said. "Not just for me. For everyone. If the broken crown turns this market into a battlefield—"
"Then you're already losing," he finished.
He sighed and leaned back, eyes tracing the laundry above us.
"Here's what you do, girl," he said. "You stop making speeches only in halls where people can't throw vegetables at you. You come here. Not just today. Not in disguise. You stand on that cracked fountain and you say what you said in your Temple, if you meant it."
"You heard that?" I blurted.
"Sound carries," he said. "Walls have ears. So do well‑menders."
I flushed.
"And you," Farron added, flicking his gaze to Axel, "stop letting your mother's lords speak for you. You put your own boots on these stones. You decide which taxes are worth defending and which ones are worth burning."
Axel's jaw worked.
"You make it sound simple," he said.
"It's not," Farron replied. "That's why none of them do it."
"Would it be enough?" I asked. "If we did all that. Would it stop them?"
Farron shook his head slowly.
"No," he said. "But it would make them work harder. And sometimes, Princess, making the wolves work for their meal instead of handing them one is the difference between a ravaged village and a scarred one."
Scarred.
Like the one in my stomach.
"Why tell us this?" Axel asked. "Why not tell Liora instead?"
Farron smiled, small and sharp.
"I already did," he said. "She didn't like the answer."
I swallowed.
"So she chose the other way," I said.
"Seems so," he replied.
The girl shifted her weight, watching us with bright, curious eyes.
"You going to do it?" she asked. "Come back without your masks?"
I looked at Axel.
He looked at me.
"Yes," I said.
The word scared me.
It also felt right.
"Not tomorrow," Axel added. "Not with a rebellion sniffing around every corner. But soon. Before someone else claims this square in our names."
Farron nodded once.
"Then you might have a fighting chance," he said.
A bell rang faintly in the distance.
Afternoon slipping toward evening.
Our borrowed time was running out.
"We should go," Axel said softly. "Before the palace realizes its polite prisoners have escaped."
I nodded.
Farron picked up his net again, like we were just another conversation in a long day of mending.
"Door's that way," he said, jerking his chin. "Try not to get lost on the way out. The market's not ready to lose its new entertainment yet."
The girl grinned and gave us a little salute.
"See you on the fountain, spark," she said.
The nickname hit me like a second heartbeat.
Spark.
I didn't correct her.
We slipped back into the alley, then into the market, then toward the postern gate.
Only when the palace walls closed around us again did I let myself exhale fully.
"Well," Axel said. "That was…"
"A lot," I finished.
We walked in silence for a few paces.
"Do you regret it?" he asked quietly. "Going down there?"
I thought of Marla's bread.
Of the girl's defiant grin.
Of Farron's tired eyes.
Of the way the people had looked at us without knowing who we were—and how, somehow, that had felt heavier than any crown.
"No," I said. "Do you?"
He shook his head.
"Ask me again after we stand on that fountain with no scarves," he said.
I smiled despite the knot in my stomach.
"Deal," I said.
We turned a corner and nearly ran into Adam, who was pacing like a caged lion outside our chambers.
"You were gone too long," he snapped. "I almost had to come drag you out myself."
"Relax," I said. "We made a friend."
"And a promise," Axel added.
Adam narrowed his eyes. "You both look like you learned something you don't want to tell me yet."
"We learned," I said slowly, "that the broken crown isn't the only thing that can claim the market."
"And that if we don't," Axel finished, "someone else will."
Adam studied us for a long moment.
"Fine," he said at last. "But next time you go play at being commoners, I'm coming with you. Someone has to make sure you don't buy cursed apples or get recruited into a street performance."
I snorted. "You just want bread from Marla."
He didn't deny it.
Later, when I was alone in my room again, I untied the scarf and let my curls spill free.
The tiara sat where I'd left it.
I picked it up, feeling the weight of it.
Then I set it back down.
Not because I rejected it.
Because today, for the first time, I'd felt something heavier.
Not the crown.
The gaze of my own people.
The broken crown wanted to make me their symbol of failure.
Maybe it was time to become something else instead.
Not just their spark.
Their fire.
Three days ago, I'd walked under an arch and let the world bind me to a storm.
Today, I had walked into that storm's path with my eyes open.
Tomorrow, I would stand between walls and wells and see who followed.
And if the broken crown wanted to light a fuse,
I would be there.
With Axel at my side.
With my own match in hand.