Enemy Kingdom.

The city is nothing like I expected.

For years, I've imagined the enemy kingdom as a place of smoke and ruin. A country built from the same hatred that built our war.

Instead, there are frost flowers. They need delicate care to thrive, but in this city they bloom with natural vitality.

They spill from window boxes and climb the sides of buildings, bright against pale stone. Market stalls crowd the streets beneath colorful awnings, and people weave between them carrying baskets, bundles of cloth, and baskets of bread.

I slow Petalfall without meaning to. "This is the enemy kingdom?" I mutter. Emris glances at me.

"You sound disappointed."

"I sound confused."

"That too." I glare at him. He smiles. This is becoming a dance between us. The city continues around us.

Children run between adults, laughing as they chase one another through the street. A woman leans from an upstairs window to shake out a blanket. Somewhere nearby, someone is playing an instrument I don't recognize. Long coats are sold and a man shouts loudly, advertising his wares.

It isn't normal. My kingdom is full of famine and suffering and sickness. Why are my people suffering when this is the world next to us?

Is this what the war is for? I wonder.

I've spent years hearing stories about these people. Valrian soldiers.

Valrian monsters.

Valrian traitors.

But the people passing us don't look like monsters. They look tired. They look happy. They look like people, I decide I hate that too along with many other things. It's becoming a long list. It would be much easier if they looked like the enemy.

The closer we get to the palace, the quieter the city becomes. The buildings grow larger, the streets wider. The people here seem to know Emris, or at least recognize him. Some nod as we pass.

White stone rises above the city, covered in towers and balconies. Dark vines curl around the outer walls, their leaves moving gently despite the lack of wind. Hooves clop rhythmically along the stone path, nearly synced as Petalfall follows Borne.

At the very top of the central tower flies the same silver emblem I saw on the city gates.

The royal crest. My stomach twists. I've seen that symbol before, not just on banners.

Not in history books. On the battlefield. Burned into letters. Stamped onto orders. On dead bodies at the opposite end of my sword.

The enemy king lives there. The same king whose name I've heard whispered around campfires. The king my commander taught us to hate. That my history taught me to hate, and I'm riding directly toward his front door. My stomach continues to do flips and acrobatics.

Petalfall shifts beneath me, sensing my unease. I run a hand along her neck, trying to settle both of us. The castle gates open, iron wheezing against its gears.

As we cross the threshold, Emris dismounts. I watch him carefully.

He doesn't reach for my reins or tell me what to do. Instead, he walks toward the palace steps, leaving Borne standing behind him.

I look at Petalfall.

Then at him.

"Are you seriously just going to walk away?"

He turns.

"I thought you were capable of following."

"I am." Then, he turns and continues walking. I walk toward the steps with a loud huff. The palace is even more intimidating from the ground.

The white stone isn't completely white. Age has settled into the cracks, and ivy crawls up the walls in thick twisting strands. The windows are enormous, stretching almost from floor to ceiling.

It's beautiful.

I hate that it's beautiful. Another thing for my long list. Everything I've been taught tells me this place should be ugly. That the enemy's home should reflect the evil of its ruler.

Instead, sunlight catches against the windows and scatters across the courtyard in a gorgeous array.

A pair of guards stand at the entrance. They straighten when Emris approaches. One of them looks at him.

Then at me. His expression hardens. I gulp.

His eyes linger on my uniform.

"You brought her here in that? You could have changed her out of that dirty Illarion garment."

Emris's expression goes cold. "You're out of line. I wasn't aware you were in charge of dressing her."

The guard's jaw tightens. "No, sir, I am not. My apologies."

Sir.

I look at Emris. The guard just called him sir, not by his name. With respect. My stomach twists further into the pretzel it's shaping to be

I thought he was some strange servant, or a messenger. Not someone of high enough stature to be called 'sir.'

He hadn't lied about being part of the king's close confidants. The more I discover he's telling the truth the sicker I feel.

We enter the palace doors, the inside's busy like the streets but in a different manner. People move through the halls carrying documents and trays. Servants disappear through doorways. Guards stand at every intersection. It has a serious air and I hold my breath as I continue to follow my stranger of a guide.

I keep close enough to Emris that I don't lose him. Not because I trust him. I have absolutely no idea where I'd go if I did lose him.

We turn down a long corridor. Portraits line the walls, similar to the estate but obviously more maintained.

People who have been dead for centuries, judging me from gilded frames. I slow, the same portrait is hung in this hall, except this time missing the mysterious gentleman from before. Everything besides that is the same, same elegant crown, same stance and background.

It's like the other man had been erased.

I don't ask. I speed back up. Fear settles itself deep in my spine, pitted against my pelvis. Emris suddenly stops, staring at a large door, larger than anyone would need. I nearly walk into him.

For the first time since I've met him, he looks nervous. Actually nervous. I've seen many emotions on his face, but he's had a semblance of calm behind every feeling, in the short time we've been acquainted he's been level headed.

That man has gone somewhere else and before me is a small frightened child, with tight worry lines and a frown wide.

"What's in there?" I ask, and with a small shuddering breath he sighs "The king." Every muscle in my body goes rigid.

Emris reaches for the handle. I catch his wrist.

He looks down at my hand, the anxious look gone from his face as quick as it came. Then, from my hand he looks at me, a puzzled expression on his face.

I don't know.

I don't know what I expected by grabbing him. Maybe reassurance. Maybe an explanation. Instead, I whisper desperately, "Why would he want me?"

Emris's expression softens. It softens the sharp, perfect features and once more, he looks slightly human. Only slightly. "I don't know the depth of it," he says.

"You're lying." I whisper again, fear restricting me from raising my voice. I'm a capable and experienced fighter, but not even I can defeat a king. Or even defend myself from the wrath of one.

"I wish I was." He gently pulls his wrist from my grasp. Then he opens the door.

I don't know what I expected.

Something grand, perhaps. A throne room drenched in gold, armed guards lining the walls, the king seated above everyone else as though the entire world exists beneath him.

Instead, there's silence. Heartbreaking silence, the kind that washes over you when there's nothing left of what you love.

A vast room stretches beyond the doorway, illuminated by tall windows along the far wall. Light spills across dark wooden floors and catches against stacks of papers scattered across an enormous desk.

My breath catches somewhere in my throat.

I have seen this man before. But never like this.

His face has been painted in history books and printed on military notices. His name has been spoken with disgust around campfires and spat between soldiers during long marches.

But none of those images prepared me for the person standing in front of me.

He looks— Human.

Utterly, devastatingly, human.

I despise that thought immediately. He turns toward us. His gaze lands on Emris first.

Then me. It doesn't move.

I feel suddenly exposed beneath it, as though the uniform I've worn for years has become transparent and he can see every thought I've tried to bury beneath it.

Emris steps forward.

"My king."

The king doesn't respond. I resist the urge to retreat, to step backward and dart out far away from the palace. I know that is far from logical.

I've stood across from armed soldiers without flinching.

I've charged into battle knowing there was a chance I wouldn't return.

I've watched people twice my size hit the ground and kept moving.

"You're an Illarion soldier." It's not a question, of course it isn't. I answer anyway.

"Yes." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. His gaze drops to the insignia on my chest.

His gaze shifts to Emris.

"You didn't tell her."

Emris's jaw tightens. "She wasn't ready, she's blinded by her lands lies." I swallow.

"Wasn't ready for what?"

I turn toward him. Then back to the king.

Neither answers, what little patience I had snaps. You keep doing that." Emris looks at me. "Doing what?"

"Talking around me." The king suddenly laughs, a hearty laugh, like he hasn't heard anything remotely funny in a long time. The sound catches me completely off guard. I stare at him.

He covers his mouth briefly, though the smile remains. "You seem to find this amusing."

"Not at all."

His expression sobers, but something about his eyes has changed. There is a strange warmth there now, something I don't know what to do with. "Can someone please explain what is happening?"

The kings expression is suddenly serious, all previous laughter gone, I once more feel the nervous pit.

"You're right."

He walks away from the window and toward the desk. He doesn't sit behind it. Instead, he rests his hands against the edge, looking at me from across the room.

"You deserve an explanation."

He seems to consider his words carefully.

"You were born here, and stolen." My pulse quickens beyond what I thought was possible.

"We don't know why you, specifically, or exactly how." Now, I'm gasping for air in short bursts. Emris shifts beside me.

I look at him.

"You knew."

He doesn't answer. He looks away.

"You're a full blooded Valarian." A document is pulled from a stack and slid toward me, my vision is fuzzy around the edges but I know that it's my birth certificate. My name.

I stumble toward the desk, what else do you do when everything is a lie?

I think of a terrible question, and a tail of a memory that just barely escapes me. "My...." I stop, I can't finish the thought or question.

"Your parents were slain,"

I laugh once, but there is no humor in it.

"You're the enemy king. Forgive me if I don't immediately believe everything you say."

"You shouldn't." That answer stops me. He doesn't defend himself.

He doesn't demand my trust. He only stares, letting the information slip through the cracks of my mind and seep into the heart.

"You shouldn't believe me because I am the king. You shouldn't believe me because Emris brought you here. You shouldn't believe me because of anything you've been told."

He pauses.

"You should believe what you can prove."

He sifts through the array of papers then, pulls out a thick leather binder. It smells like mothballs and tears. "Open it."

I don't move.

"What's inside?"

"Your family history." My chest still heaves with anxious breaths. My fingers hover above the binder before I finally force myself to open it.

My kingdom's insignia is stamped into the first page, bright red wax spread and cracked through the fibers of the paper. Behind it is a list.

My eyes skim across the words until one catches my attention.

My name.

I stop breathing altogether.

Beneath it is a date, one I recognize immediately.

The day I was brought to the orphanage.

My fingers tremble as I turn the page and find records upon records of my entire life, carefully documented in ink. Dates, locations, observations, things I remember and things I don't.

Questions slip out without me meaning to say them.

"How?"

Then, "Why?"

The questions repeat until they stop sounding like words.

Finally, the king speaks.

"We found the journal on our border. It was recovered from one of your kingdom's soldiers."

Emris continues for the king, "We don't know why," the king says. "Your parents were farmers who lived on the outskirts of our land. They were found dead and had no records of children."

"We didn't know to look for you," Emris adds. "We didn't know you existed at all until this journal."

The page states clearly:

Mission 7022. Parents properly dispatched. Girl in custody. Appears to be in shock. Will update.

I turn the page.

Mission 7022. Girl responding to stimuli but appears to be catatonic. Subject not viable for purpose.

My heart pounds against my ribs. It was good that Emris kept my sword. I want to slit the throat of everyone in this forsaken place.

I force my fingers away from the page, but the paper continues trembling beneath them. "No."

The word comes out so quietly that neither of them responds. I swallow and try again.

"No."

This time, my voice is louder.

"This isn't real. Someone wrote this. Someone could have written anything."

The words blur together as I stare at the page. A girl, a subject, a problem to be disposed of. Whoever wrote those words hadn't seen a person when they looked at me. They had seen something that needed to be moved, observed, and eventually discarded.

Dates, locations. Orders. Brief descriptions of things I remember only as fragments. "How did they know?" The king doesn't answer immediately.

I look up, and force more out "How did they know where I went?"

Emris steps closer to the desk. "The journal doesn't say."

"Then what good is it?" My voice cracks.

I hate that. I hate that they can hear it.

I straighten my back, forcing myself into the posture my commander drilled into me until it became instinct. "Why bring me here? Why tell me?"

"Because we believe whoever wrote that journal knew more than they intended to reveal." My eyes narrow.

"And you think I know something?"

"I think someone went to extraordinary lengths to make sure you didn't." Emris says. He's now next to me, I shift uncomfortably, wiping my face and looking back at the page.

Subject not viable for purpose.

"What purpose?"

The question hangs between us.

Emris looks at the king.

The king looks at him.

There it is again, the hesitation. That awful silence that always comes before they tell me something they think I can't handle. I slam the binder shut.

"What purpose?"

The king exhales slowly.

"We don't know."

I laugh bitterly. "Of course you don't."

I push away from the desk. The room feels too small. This all feels too dramatic, but what do you do when everything you've ever known— or trained to be— all your beliefs and connections are gone? Changed right before your eyes?

The windows suddenly seem impossibly far away. The walls close around me, every inch of the palace becoming another reminder that I don't know where I am or who I am supposed to be.

I walk toward the windows. Below, the courtyard stretches peacefully beneath the afternoon sun. People move through it. My entire world has been ripped apart, and outside the window, someone is carrying a basket of flowers as though nothing has happened.

I press my finger tips against the cold glass. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"

The question isn't directed at either of them.

Maybe it's directed at the orphanage.

At my commander.

At the kingdom.

At the parents I barely remember.

At myself.

Emris answers anyway.

"Because you were a child."

I turn around.

"So everyone decided I was better off not knowing?"

"No."

His voice is quieter.

"Someone decided you were better off not remembering."

My blood runs cold.

"What does that mean?"

Emris's eyes flick toward the king.

The king gives him a barely perceptible nod.

"There are gaps in your records," Emris says.

"I noticed."

"Not normal gaps."

I stare at him.

"What about this is normal?" He hesitates.

"There are years that don't line up."

I shake my head.

"I remember my childhood."

"Do you?"

The question hits harder than it should. I open my mouth and nothing comes out. I remember the orphanage, remember the children, the winter, the smell of bread.

I remember the woman who raised us.

But—

I don't remember arriving, don't remember my parents' faces, don't remember the journey there.

I don't remember the soldier mentioned in the journal. I don't remember being taken.

"No."

The king steps around the desk. He doesn't come too close. "You don't have to remember everything today."

"Today?"

My laugh is sharp. "You think I can just sleep on it after this?"

"No."

At least he's honest. I look at him. For the first time, I notice how tired he looks. As though this secret has been sitting on his shoulders for years. "You've known about me for how long?"

"A short time."

"And you brought me here before you even knew what happened to me?"

"We knew enough to know you were in danger."

"From who?"

The king's expression hardens. "That is what we're trying to find out." somewhere beneath all the confusion, beneath the anger and betrayal, something inside me begins to sharpen. The fear is still there, but it is no longer the only thing I can feel.

There is a question now.

A purpose.

I look down at the closed binder, then back at the king.

"I want to know who decided I didn't have a purpose."