Chapter 15: The Long Road

  The palace gates groaned open at dawn, spilling the company out into a city already awake with rumor. Torches guttered in sconces, throwing long shadows across the cobblestones where citizens had gathered to see them off. Whispers rippled through the crowd like wind through dry leaves: the witch princess, the engagement, the Crown Prince’s bride-to-be.

  Selene stood with Cassian before the gates, their parting turned into a stage. They didn’t embrace. They didn’t whisper soft farewells. Instead, Cassian bent to murmur something wry enough to draw the faintest smile from her lips. She touched his arm lightly, fingers grazing fabric, the gesture awkward and new — the mimicry of affection rather than its substance. The city drank in every heartbeat of the act.

  As the gates began to close, Cassian leaned back, catching her eyes. His grin widened, and he winked. The heavy doors slammed shut between them, cutting off the view, leaving Selene alone with Inquisitors who hated her, Saints who distrusted her, and Aelun, whose expression was unreadable.

  The horses shifted restlessly. The Inquisitors mounted, the Saints wordless and statuesque on their steeds, and Aelun swung easily into his saddle. Selene, by contrast, stood at ease, as though unbothered by their eyes.

  “Strange,” Tomas said with a sneer. “We didn’t think to prepare a horse for her.”

  Calder snorted. “Doesn’t matter. Doubt she even knows how to ride. How long will she last, half a mile?”

  Selene chuckled, low and amused, and without another word, a tear opened in the air at her side. Darkness bloomed, edged with violet sparks. From the void slid her staff, humming as if it remembered her touch. She let it float at her side, then swung one leg over with the grace of a dancer, settling sidesaddle.

  “You’ll find,” she said, her voice carrying across the street, “that the only concern worth your breath is keeping up with me.”

  With that, the staff lifted her, robes and hair streaming in the morning light. Gasps rose from the crowd — awe and fear braided together — as she soared above the city rooftops, the staff cutting a trail of light through the sky.

  Aelun chuckled, turning in his saddle to regard the others. “It will be a long journey if you insist on bullying a LeFaye.”

  Darius groaned, setting his jaw. His eyes followed Selene’s fading silhouette. “Let’s move.” He dug in his heels, his horse breaking into a gallop. The rest followed, grim-faced, muttering.

  The forest grew heavier as dusk bled across the sky. Branches knitted so thick overhead that the last light fell in broken shards on the road. The horses grew uneasy, ears flicking at every rustle, every unseen movement in the undergrowth. For hours, the only sound had been hooves and the creak of leather.

  So when they reached the clearing and saw her crouched before the fire — skirts pulled back, humming softly as she turned a spit — it jarred them. To men who’d expected shadow and sorcery, there was something almost indecent about finding her domestic, tending herbs like any woods-woman.

  The Inquisitors slowed their mounts, staring.

  “What kind of princess cooks her own game?” Jareth muttered.

  “Not much of a princess at all,” Kaelen replied, loud enough for her to hear. “A witch in borrowed silk. Royal in nothing but name.”

  Selene only smiled at the rabbit, turning the spit.

  Aelun swung down from his horse with a quiet chuckle, leaving the others bristling. Darius dismounted as well, his voice cutting sharply. “Set up camp,” he barked. The men obeyed, though their eyes lingered with contempt. He walked toward the fire, his hand brushing the hilt of his blade as though he expected deceit.

  “You really shouldn’t be cooking like that in these woods,” he said, his gaze fixed on the fire. “The smell will bring predators down on us.”

  Selene did not look up. “What smell?”

  Darius blinked. He drew a slow breath and found nothing. No smoke-stung tang of fat, no wild aroma of herbs — nothing but the ghost of ash on the wind. He narrowed his eyes, then nodded once, realizing the spell. Whatever else she was, she didn’t need his coddling.

  “Would you like some rabbit?” she asked, casual as though they were guests at her table.

  “I don’t take food from witches.” His tone was flat, iron-hard.

  She shrugged, unconcerned. “Suit yourself. Enjoy your jerky.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Aelun lowered himself to sit cross-legged across the fire from her. “I will take some.”

  Selene’s lips curved in the faintest smile. “It’s ready.”

  They ate in silence until Aelun said softly, “You’ve prepared far more than one person can eat.”

  Selene poked at the fire with a stick, the embers crackling. “The best way to make friends is to share a meal, isn’t it?”

  He tilted his head. “You don’t have many friends, do you?”

  Her smile turned wry. “No. Most either fear me or respect me too much to see me as a person.”

  “Except the Prince?”

  She groaned, tilting her head back. “I don’t even know if he counts. He flirts like it’s second nature. Is that friendship, or something else?”

  From the shadows, voices rose.

  Calder leaned forward, voice thick with scorn. “Look at her. The Emperor calls that a princess?”

  Tomas’s tone was cooler, measured, but no less cutting. “A clever trickster, perhaps. She should have given us the names and location and stayed behind her palace walls.”

  Jareth spat into the dirt. His voice was raw, like a sermon half-shouted. “A witch is a witch. No title, no crown, no pretty face changes that.”

  Kaelen smirked, eyes narrow. “Borrowed silk, borrowed throne, borrowed name. Nothing of her own but the stain in her blood.”

  Selene lifted her eyes; she could hear them, they knew she could hear them, but they didn't care. She scoffed at the childish nature of it all. Aelun saw the look on her face and said,

  "I've tried to warn them that it will be a long road for all of us if they continue this way." Selene rolled her eyes and spoke just loud enough for everyone to hear her.

  “It’s not me who has the long road ahead. It’s them. I’m trying to be civil because Sorcerers and Apostates are dangerous. More dangerous than anything these lumps of flesh have seen." Her gaze shifted towards them directly.

  "But if you make it so obvious that you hate me, it only makes it easier for me to abandon you at the first sign of trouble. And escaping will be a simple thing for me. The Emperor will give me new men if you all die. All I’d need is the head of one Sorcerer to prove I can kill them. One is doable on my own.”

  Her words fell into the clearing. The fire popped and hissed, its crackle suddenly too loud. Horses stamped nervously at the edges of the dark, leather creaking as reins tightened. No one moved. The Inquisitors’ hands twitched near hilts, one half-rising as if to lunge. A muttered curse scraped the silence raw. The Saints sat like statues, eyes unreadable, measuring. Even Aelun tilted his head, faint amusement in his gaze, though his fingers tapped idly against his knee as if marking the tension. The silence grew heavy, thick enough to choke, until Darius’s hand slammed down on a shoulder.

  “Stand down.” His voice was stone.

  The Saints approached them, silent until they lowered themselves by the fire. Eryndor broke the quiet with a low grumble. “I’m tired of jerky.”

  Isolde folded her arms. “And I cannot let my student eat witch food without checking it myself.”

  Selene’s brows arched. “This is a surprise.”

  “You don’t seem a monster,” Eryndor said, tearing a strip of rabbit from the bone, “whatever the Sanctum says.”

  “Because the Church thinks witches and Sorcerers are the same,” Selene answered.

  Isolde’s gaze was cool. “Without structure, witches always have the potential to become Sorcerers.”

  “Then explain Apostates,” Selene said sharply.

  “Rare exceptions.”

  “So are Sorcerers,” Selene shot back. “My grandfather’s kingdom is full of witches. The Hallow is full of witches. Both have fewer Sorcerers than these lands, where magic is caged and governed so strictly.”

  Isolde had no answer. Eryndor chewed, muttered: “The Church isn’t perfect. But it tries. And I'm sure those other nations have their own magic troubles to deal with. ” The Inquisitors nearby nodded grimly. “Even Aelun sees the church's worth. Why do you hate it so?”

  Selene sighed, biting into her portion. “I don’t hate the Sanctum of Thorns.”

  The fire crackled, unchallenged, filling the pause with its dry hiss. Around it, men shifted in their cloaks, glancing at one another as though she’d spoken a riddle. Faces tightened, brows furrowed. For years, they had been taught that witches spat nothing but venom at the Church, that hate was as natural to them as breathing. The answer unsettled them, not because it was hostile but because it wasn’t.

  Even Isolde’s lips parted, then closed again, no retort ready. Eryndor frowned, caught between disbelief and curiosity.

  It was Aelun who finally filled the silence, his voice calm as still water. “Things are rarely so simple as love or hate. Conscious beings are complex. To sort them into boxes is folly.”

  Darius shifted against the tree, the firelight catching hard planes of his face. His jaw worked as though grinding down words before they could escape. “Then what do you really think?” His voice was low, flinty — but beneath it something else stirred, a thin thread of curiosity he couldn’t quite strangle.

  Selene studied him across the flames, catching it. For all his fury, he wanted to hear her. He hated that he wanted it, but it was there.

  “The first time we met,” she said, “I told you my feelings.”

  “Tell me again. I’m a slow learner.” Darius answered back.

  She smirked faintly. “And I’m a terrible teacher.” She set down her portion. “But I’ll tell you this: follow my instructions just once against the Ashen Frost. If you all survive, then you can ask me anything you like.”

  The fire popped. The men turned to Darius. His eyes narrowed, weighing. Finally, he said, “Fine. But if you order anything that puts my men at reckless risk, we walk away.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The camp broke back into its usual rhythm, soldiers avoiding Selene’s gaze, though they glanced at her often. Isolde lingered by the fire. “Was this what you wanted?”

  Selene chuckled, stretching her legs. “I’m no mind reader, nor that clever. I’m just an opportunist.”

  She licked her fingers clean of rabbit grease, then glanced over her shoulder into the darkness. “And you should be glad. I think things are about to get far more difficult than I thought.”

  Aelun followed her gaze. The trees stirred in the night breeze, shadows too deep, the forest breathing something vast and unseen.