Since the day she escaped—Aeryn had been reborn.
Not as a noble daughter.
She was Aeron now. A common-born orphan from a burned-out village, seeking employment as a palace guard. The name fit better than her own ever had.
The disguise wasn't perfect. She'd bound her chest and dirtied her face with soot. Her voice was low from nights spent whispering in empty corridors. Her posture... that took work. Shoulders back. Chin low. Just enough confidence to pass, but not enough to stand out.
She'd paid off a drunk stablehand for a borrowed uniform. The insignia was worn. That helped. Too clean would look suspicious.
The outer guard never questioned her. They barely looked up.
But as she waited near the outer training fields for the right moment to speak to someone official, memories pressed close.
It had been eight years since she met him.
She had been ten—wild, barefoot, forever sneaking away from her governess to spy on the soldiers practicing near the Merrow estate. The clang of blades had always pulled her in like a hymn. She'd hide behind hedges or crouch behind barrels just to watch.
And one day, there he was.
A boy—seventeen, lean but strong, bleeding from a cut across his temple, clothes torn as if he had run miles through thorns. She had been hiding behind a rose hedge when he stumbled into the back garden.
He saw her. She froze.
He raised a finger to his lips.
She nodded.
Without thinking, she led him to the old tool shed behind the servants' quarters. He collapsed on the straw floor, breathing ragged.
That night, she smuggled him bread and a flask of water.
He never gave her a name. She only ever called him "Little Master"—a title she invented on the second day, when he helped her swing a wooden practice sword properly.
"You're holding it like a broom," he said, adjusting her grip.
She glared. "I've never held a sword."
"Then now's your first day."
And so it went. Hidden lessons in the garden at dawn or midnight. He taught her not just how to swing—but how to watch. How to breathe. How to use balance, not strength. She practiced with sticks, with wooden blades, sometimes with real ones when he deemed her ready.
They trained in secret for two full years. No one ever found out. He said little about himself, only that he was hiding. She never asked why.
Then, one spring morning, he vanished.
No goodbye. No note.
Just the echo of his words: "A sword is not just a weapon. It's a vow. Only draw it when you're ready to live with the cut."
She had never forgotten.
---
Now, eight years later, she stood again at the edge of something dangerous.
The inner yard was colder, quieter. Three men sparred under torchlight. A fourth stood at the edge—arms crossed, eyes sharp beneath a deep hood.
That one watched everything.
She stepped forward and announced, "I'm here to apply for the open guard rotation. Name's Aeron."
No one moved.
Until the hooded man turned and said simply, "Follow me."
She did.
Through a narrow door, down a short flight of stone steps. They stopped in a candlelit chamber with a worn sparring mat and a table covered in scrolls. The walls sweated with damp, like the room had been long forgotten.
"Draw your weapon," he said.