Read Chapter 15: The Hunted Healer

The healer’s robes flickered white at the far end of the corridor, a ghost slipping between shadow and torchlight. Kael did not call out. Calling out would bring guards, and guards would ask why a captain of the watch had his blade drawn inside the royal wing.

He ran.

His boots barely whispered against the marble as he closed the distance. The healer glanced back—once—and her face tightened with something between fear and fury. She did not slow. She knew these halls the way a spider knows its web, turning left at a tapestry of the old kings, ducking through a servant’s door that should have been locked.

Kael followed, swallowing the urge to shout for her to stop.

The passage narrowed. Stone walls pressed in from both sides, rough and unfinished, and the air grew cold with the breath of the crypts below. The healer’s footsteps echoed ahead, quicker now, desperate. She was heading down.

Damn.

If she reached the crypt level, she’d vanish into the maze of tunnels they’d barely escaped an hour ago.

“Enough,” Kael growled, and threw himself forward.

He caught the hem of her robe at the last stair. She stumbled, one hand catching the wall to keep from falling, and then she turned to face him with the bone needle still in her fist—the same needle she’d driven into Anya’s palm.

Kael raised his blade. “Drop it.”

“You’ll kill me in the palace corridors?” The healer’s voice was thin, but steady. “That’s a hanging offense, captain.”

“I’ve already drawn steel inside the royal wing. What’s one more corpse?”

She laughed—a brittle, broken sound. “You’re more like him than you know.”

Kael’s jaw tightened. “Who hired you?”

The healer’s eyes darted past his shoulder, checking the corridor behind him for pursuers that hadn’t come. Anya was still upstairs, recovering her strength, her hand wrapped in linen stained with her own blood.

“You think you’re protecting her,” the healer said softly. “You’re not. You’re helping her walk into a trap.”

“Who hired you?”

“Someone who wanted the princess weak.” The healer’s fingers tightened around the needle. “Someone who knew exactly what the curse would do to her, and wanted her too tired, too confused, too desperate to ask the right questions. The blood-rite was never a test. It was a tether. I was binding her tighter to the forgetting, so she’d never find the truth.”

Kael’s hand steadied on his sword. “The King.”

The healer’s mouth twisted. “The commander serves the King, but not the truth. Think, captain. Who benefits from a princess who cannot remember? Who benefits from a queen’s death that was never properly investigated?” She took a step back, toward the darkness below. “I was paid to keep her weak. I was not paid to die for it. Let me go, and I’ll disappear. You’ll never see me again.”

Kael’s grip tightened. He had a dozen reasons to run her through—the blood on Anya’s hand, the new mark beneath her skin, the way the black veins pulsed in response to a sigil Anya never asked for. But killing her here would answer nothing. And the healer was right about one thing. He was already on thin ice.

“Where did you come from?” he asked. “Who brought you to court?”

The healer’s lips parted, ready to answer—

The bolt took her in the shoulder.

It came from the shadows behind her, from the mouth of a side passage Kael hadn’t seen. The healer gasped, her body jerking forward as the crossbow quarrel punched through her robe and buried itself in the stone wall behind her, pinning her like a moth. The bone needle clattered from her fingers and skittered down the stairs.

Kael spun, blade up, but the passage was empty. Whoever had fired was gone.

“No—no, please—” The healer’s hands clawed at the bolt, but the angle was wrong. She hung there, sagging against the wall, blood soaking her white robes in a spreading bloom of crimson.

Kael sheathed his sword and climbed toward her. He reached for the bolt, but she caught his wrist with surprising strength, her eyes wide and glassy.

“It was never about the curse,” she rasped. “The curse is just the lock. She’s looking for the key.”

“Who?”

“Your princess.” Blood bubbled at the corner of the healer’s mouth. “All her life, she’s been reaching for something she can’t remember. The ring—the ring is only half a seal. The other half was buried with the queen. And if the princess brings them together—if she opens what her mother closed—then the forgetting will break.” Her fingers tightened almost painfully. “But so will everything else.”

Kael pulled her hand loose. “What does that mean? What’s on the other side of that door?”

The healer’s head lolled. “Ask her brother. Marius knows. He was there the night the queen died. He was the one who—” A wet cough cut her off. Blood spilled over her chin. “He was the one who told me to keep her weak. He paid me. He paid me to make sure she never remembered.”

Kael stared.

Marius. Prince Marius, the King’s second son, the one who smiled at every banquet and clapped Kael on the shoulder like an old friend. Prince Marius, who had argued so gently against Anya’s midnight vigil, who had suggested she take more rest, who had offered to manage the court petitions in her absence.

The healer’s eyes fluttered. “He said it was mercy. He said she’d suffer less if she never knew.”

The shadows stirred at the end of the corridor.

Kael heard it—the soft scrape of a boot on stone, the whisper of a bowstring being drawn again. He dropped the healer’s wrist and rose, putting himself between her and the dark. But no second bolt came. Instead, a voice drifted from the passage, low and familiar.

“Leave her. She’s served her purpose.”

Commander Voss stepped into the torchlight, his crossbow lowered, his face unreadable. Behind him, two soldiers waited with swords half-drawn.

“She was hired to weaken the princess,” Kael said. He kept his hand near his blade. “Did you know?”

“I knew she was a tool.” Voss’s eyes dropped to the healer, who had gone still, her chest barely rising. “I did not know whose hand was on the handle. Now I do.”

“Marius.”

Voss said nothing.

“The heir to the throne,” Kael pressed. “Your future king. And you’re going to stand there and pretend you didn’t hear her?”

“I heard her.” Voss raised his crossbow slightly, not aiming at Kael, but not lowering it either. “And I heard you draw steel in the royal wing. We can sort out one charge at a time, captain. Start walking.”

Kael’s gaze flicked to the healer. Her breathing had stopped.

“She’s dead.”

“Then she can’t testify.” Voss’s expression didn’t change. “Walk.”

Kael walked.

His mind was a storm. Marius. The healer’s confession. The half-seal buried with the queen. And Anya upstairs, still unaware, still planning to confront her father with nothing but the ring and a diary entry that made no sense without context. He was supposed to get her above ground before midnight. He was supposed to keep her safe.

But safe was a word that had lost its meaning.

They emerged into the main corridor, and Voss’s hand landed heavy on Kael’s shoulder. “You’re a good soldier,” Voss said quietly. “Don’t let loyalty cost you everything.”

Kael stopped. He turned, letting Voss see the cold fury in his eyes. “Who taught you to serve a lie?”

Voss’s jaw tightened. For a moment—just a moment—something flickered in his face. Then the mask was back.

“Go to the Princess. Convince her not to see her father tonight.” Voss’s voice dropped. “For her own good.”

“And if I can’t?”

Voss’s fingers tightened on his crossbow. “Then you’ll both find out what the King is willing to do to keep a secret.”

He released Kael’s shoulder and stepped past him, his soldiers falling into step. Kael stood alone in the corridor, the healer’s last words ringing in his skull.

Marius paid her. Marius wanted Anya weak.

And Anya believed her brother loved her.

Kael turned and ran back toward the princess’s chambers, praying he wasn’t already too late.