The city had been too much.
Too loud. Too crowded. Too sharp. Every corner looked like a question. Every glance felt like a threat. Even the breeze smelled strange—smoke and spice and something bitter beneath it.
I'd meant to walk just a little. To prove to myself that I could. But the second the shouting started, I bolted. Through the market, down the slope, under a crooked iron gate, and into the hollow where the noise couldn't follow.
That's where I met her.
Selaithe.
She had maya blue hair, cropped short and a little uneven, like she'd cut it herself with a pocket knife. Mauve-purple eyes that watched everything. And freckles scattered across her nose like someone had dusted cinnamon across porcelain.
And her ear—left side—was cut. Only half there. No elven point.
She saw me before I saw her. Didn't move. Didn't smile. Just… noticed. Like she'd been expecting me. Like the universe had warned her a storm was coming and she brought an umbrella just in case.
We spoke. Shared names. Tension thinned. Her words danced like they didn't care about landing wrong. Mine crawled out, half-formed.
And now?
We sat under the stone arch together. Not quite friends. Not quite strangers.
"What about you, Selaithe?" I asked, voice quieter than I meant. "Are you from the city?"
She snorted. "Not really. Kind of. I'm from a village north of here—old, small, full of people who know too much about each other and pretend not to."
I blinked. "So why Tharionne?"
She shrugged, picking at a blade of grass between her fingers. "We moved here when I was three. My mother died. My father thought a bigger place would mean fewer memories. But turns out cities are loud and cruel in different ways."
I looked at her ear before I could stop myself.
She caught me, of course.
"Yeah," she said flatly. "That was the city's way of saying I wasn't welcome."
I opened my mouth, then closed it. There wasn't a right thing to say. Not one that wouldn't sound like pity.
So I just asked, "Does it still hurt?"
She looked surprised. Not at the question, but maybe at the fact I didn't dodge it.
"…Not in the way you think," she said. "The pain's gone. But sometimes, I dream about having two perfect ears. And then I wake up and feel…
Well. You know."
I did.
We sat in silence again. A softer one. Like shared breath.
"I didn't think nobles got scared," she said suddenly.
"I didn't think elves could lie down in the dirt and look relaxed doing it."
She grinned. "I'm not like other elves."
"No kidding."
She flicked a blade of grass at me.
"You're not so bad, Kaelen," she said after a beat. "For a runaway noble with too many secrets."
"You don't know all of them."
"Yet."
There was a glint in her eyes again. Not cruel. Not mocking. Just sharp enough to cut through the fog.
She let the silence hang there for a second longer than was polite, eyes still on me, like she was cataloging everything I wasn't saying.
Then—suddenly—she stood, brushed grass from her knees, and grinned.
"Alright. Time for a challenge."
I blinked up at her. "…What?"
She gestured toward the little clearing just ahead of the hill. "Best flower made from weeds. Ten minutes. Go."
"You're serious?"
"As serious as a one-eared elf girl with nothing better to do on a too-bright afternoon," she said with mock formality. "Now get picking."
I hesitated.
Then… I actually smiled. "Fine. You're on."
We separated like duelists. She darted to the left, crouching low in the grass, yanking handfuls of dandelions and thorny little blooms I didn't recognize. I stuck to safer patches—wild violets, soft leaves, bright yellow tufts that I hoped weren't poisonous.
Ten minutes passed in silence, except for the occasional muttered curse from Selaithe when she grabbed something sharp.
Eventually, we reconvened under the hill, each holding something that could—generously—be called a "flower arrangement."
Selaithe's looked like a spiked wreath with too much color and zero symmetry.
Mine looked like I had been attacked by a gardening accident.
She stared at mine. I stared at hers.
We both burst out laughing.
"I win," she said immediately.
"No way."
"You picked three weeds that don't even go together and tied them with grass string."
"You used actual thorns," I retorted. "It's a weapon."
"A beautiful weapon."
She tucked the prickly ring of wildflowers onto her head like a crown, half-tilted. Then she grabbed mine, crumpled it gently between her palms, and stuffed it into her shirt pocket.
"What are you doing?" I asked, baffled.
"Saving it," she said, matter-of-fact. "You made it. I like things made by hands that shake a little."
I didn't know how to answer that.
Before I could figure it out, something shifted in the distance.
A sound. A voice.
"Kaelen!"
My whole body tensed. I whipped around.
Distant—but getting closer. A man's voice. Sharp. Searching.
Shit.
Selaithe noticed instantly.
"You need to go," she said.
"I didn't think—" I started, but she was already moving.
"Take the left side path. It snakes through the berry hedges. Nobody looks there, because everyone hates thorns."
I hesitated.
She saw it.
"I'm not going to follow," she said gently. "Not yet."
That last part stuck.
I turned and started down the slope, heart pounding. Every snap of a branch made me flinch. Every footstep behind me made me want to cast Veilstep on instinct.
But no one followed.
At the bottom of the hill, I glanced back once.
She was sitting again. Like nothing had happened. Legs crossed. Crown of thorns and weeds still perched on her head like a broken halo.
And she was smiling.
A small, strange, secret smile.
Like she'd found something worth keeping.
By the time I reached the edge of the orchard behind the estate, the sky had turned the color of bruised lavender. Birds rustled sleepily in the trees, and my legs ached like I'd just run from something I couldn't name.
Maybe I had.
I crept in through the gardener's gate, boots muddy, heart still tangled in weeds and thorns. Every creak of wood underfoot made me freeze. Every flicker of shadow made me brace for someone to yell.
But no one did.
Not this time.
I climbed the east staircase slow, avoiding the loud steps. Passed two maids who didn't even glance at me. They never looked past my title. Never saw the dirt under my nails or the twitch in my fingers.
In my room, the candle had long since burned out. The sheets were still crumpled from where I hadn't slept.
I dropped onto the bed fully clothed, back aching, mind buzzing.
Selaithe.
That girl was going to be a problem. The kind that stayed in your thoughts after the room went dark. The kind you didn't know whether to be wary of—or grateful for.
I closed my eyes.
Her voice echoed in the silence like an aftertaste.
"I like things made by hands that shake a little."
I didn't know why that line stuck with me.
Maybe because my hands hadn't stopped shaking in weeks.
But today, I'd met someone who saw that—and didn't flinch.
Didn't pity me.
Didn't run.
The mansion walls pressed in again, as they always did. Cold. High. Heavy with the weight of names and secrets.
But somehow…
They felt a little less suffocating.
For the first time in a long while, I didn't fall asleep thinking of fire or failure.
I thought of a girl on a hill.
And the sound of her laughter, sharp and strange and alive.