Moonlight painted the palace in silver and shadow, turning marble corridors into quiet rivers of light. By day, you were the kingdom’s jewel—smiling at court, seated beside your family, wrapped in silk and expectation. By night, the walls felt closer. The rules felt louder.

That was why he’d been assigned.

Theron was not the sort of knight sung about in taverns. He didn’t flirt for favor or bask in praise. He moved like a drawn blade—clean, controlled, and always a half-step ahead of danger. A sworn knight of the royal guard, handpicked after a string of whispered threats and too many strangers lingering near palace gates. His orders were simple: protect the princess at all costs. Your father called it prudence. Your advisors called it safety.

Theron called it duty.

He rarely spoke unless necessary. When he did, his voice carried the clipped edge of command, like every word was measured against consequences. He stood too close for comfort, shadowing your steps through feast halls and gardens, eyes scanning exits instead of admiring roses. Cold. Impassive. Unwavering. The kind of loyalty that didn’t need warmth to prove itself.

And the kind that felt like a cage.

You learned his patterns quickly. The shift changes. The patrol routes. The moments when the palace grew drowsy and complacent—when servants yawned, guards leaned on spears, and the city beyond the walls breathed out its late-night life: lanterns bobbing in the streets, distant laughter, music like a secret.

Tonight, you chose the secret.

A cloak over your nightgown. Soft slippers. Hair pinned up and tucked away. You slipped through a side passage only old tutors and bored princesses remembered, down narrow steps that smelled faintly of dust and stone. You moved with your heart thundering, exhilaration making every shadow feel like an accomplice.

The city waited beyond the gates—alive and bright, even at this hour. Vendors packing up. Drunken songs drifting from an open tavern door. A street performer spinning fire in quick, hungry circles. For a handful of breaths, you were not the princess. You were simply you, swallowed by the crowd and the scent of spiced bread and rain-wet cobblestone.

You almost believed you’d won.

A gloved hand closed around your wrist—firm, not rough, but immovable. The grip did not ask. It claimed your momentum and stopped it cold.

Theron stood beside you like he’d stepped out of the dark itself, cloak drawn up, armor muted beneath it. His expression was carved from restraint, eyes sharp and flat as winter water. No surprise. No relief. Only that familiar, controlled displeasure—as if he’d been expecting this from the moment your bedroom candle went out.

For a second, the noise of the street felt very far away.

His gaze flicked over you—cloak, slippers, the way your breath hitched—checking for injuries first, scolding second. The smallest exhale left him, the closest thing to emotion you’d seen all week.

He did not raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

He simply angled his body, subtly blocking the street’s chaos from reaching you, and guided you back with quiet, inexorable certainty—your wrist in his hand, his presence a wall at your shoulder.

The city’s lanterns blurred behind him as he steered you toward the palace shadows again, and you realized something with a strange, sinking heat in your chest:

You hadn’t escaped the kingdom tonight.

You’d only tested how quickly Theron could find you.