“You’re late,” he said, lighting his cigarette without a care in the world. “Did you at least bring the scrolls?”

The girl emerged from the secret passage and scowled. “I saw you get here just a few minutes back, Casimir,” she hissed, an Elythian accent laced in her voice. From the southern country, then. The man had orange-streaked hair… wasn’t that familiar? “And it’s not my fault that your ‘guards’ wouldn’t let me pass through.”

“Did you bring the scrolls?” Casimir repeated. 

The girl rolled her eyes. “Yes.” She slipped out a few parchments from the bag she was carrying, and handed them discreetly to Casimir. “Where are my talons?”

Casimir checked every scroll before tucking them into the shadows behind him. “I have them, be patient, Lyn.”

She glared. “I’m already risking enough by being here. If you demand more of me, you won’t like the consequences.”

Casimir grinned wickedly. “Ah, but then your father might… accidentally face some dangers.” Lyn’s eyes flashed with anger and… fear.

She growled, “Just give me what’s due.”

He rolled his eyes before taking out countless talons from his pockets. 

The girl in the shadows stifled a gasp at the sheer amount of it. Nonroyals shouldn’t have that many spare talons. Lyn snatched them from him and inspected each one before nodding stiffly and turning away.

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The girl in the shadows had seen enough. She knew where the passages were, how the scrolls kept getting smuggled away from the Aeternal Library, who this people were, and what was being exchanged. Mission completed.

She began to slip out of the room, but then her foot connected with something unseen and it shattered against the floor. The sound rang out in the room’s silence and the smugglers’ heads whipped towards the intruder.

Curse this to Aurelin’s wrath, move! The girl cursed and fled the room. Lyn ran after her, yelling. “Who’s there? Get back here!”

The girl raced through the doors of the abandoned hut and into the forest she knew so well. The tall oak trees blurred and her feet made little sound as they pounded furiously against the mossy floor.

And then something tremendous happened, something that shifted the girl’s world.

Casimir leaped between the trees, fluid and inhumanly precise. But then he flicked his fingers through the air and runes surrounded the girl. Runes of magic. Rune magic that was forbidden in the Kingdom of Luxemere. How- Father banned it years ago! It simply wasn’t possible.

Her eyes widened as flames erupted from the glowing runes on the ground. Walls of fire burst at all sides of her, but she found a split-second opening in one of the slower flames and she jumped through. The fire singed her stealthy clothing and she could feel a burn starting at her thigh, but she pushed past the growing pain. Make it to the palace. That’s it.

The girl lost her pursuers, and could hear their distant shouting of fury but she could see the walls of her home. She ripped off the thread holding her gold medallion with the royal design at her neck, clutching it and shining the light on the hidden wall. The wall promptly split open and closed the moment she rushed through it.

She managed to get to the Healing Pillar and slammed her hand against it, alerting the healers inside. Her vision blurred as she collapsed to the marble floor, the searing pain in her leg spreading and it was too much to bear. Healers surrounded her as she slowly slipped into darkness. 

The last thing she heard was, “Princess Aurora!”