The "OHHH SNAP" I snapped--))

Aram’s eyes had just closed when her words floated through the stale air between them.

“If you're nobility, then I'm a princess.”

His eyes flew open in an instant.

A small jolt ran through him, his pulse quickening, not in alarm, but in startled realization. He didn’t even try to hide it, twisting his head sharply to glance over at her. But she had already turned away, already tucked herself into the bed, her face pointed toward the wall and her cloak laid neatly at the foot like some weary soldier.

He stared for a long moment, unmoving. Then he slowly turned his gaze back to the ceiling, brows drawing together as the implications sank in. Was she joking? Or…

He chewed the inside of his cheek as his mind began spinning quietly, rapidly. “If you're nobility, then I'm a princess.” It could be sarcasm. It could be mockery. Or it could be exactly what it sounded like: a buried confession, said in the same way he had uttered his own, tucked beneath dry words and humor, but heavy with truth.

A recluse princess. There was a rumor, wasn’t there? Whispers he’d caught over the years, drifting between mercenaries and traveling merchants. Some said she was dead. Some said she was locked away after going mad. Others said there were more children, perhaps out of wedlock, but the future queen... Her name… he racked his mind. What was her name?

Anastasia.

His brow furrowed deeper. It couldn’t be coincidence, could it? The name, the poise, the knowledge of court etiquette even when she tried to mask it. The way she flinched from any mention of the royal family like someone who knew too well what they were capable of. The urgency with which she’d fled, and the four bags of gold she’d offered him for protection without a second’s hesitation. That wasn’t desperation; that was life insurance.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, fingers twitching faintly where they rested over his abdomen. If she was a princess -- the princess -- then he had willingly stuck himself in the middle of a crime against the crown. Aiding and abetting royal blood in flight? Treason. An offense worthy of death. There wasn’t a single lawman in the realm who would question a warrant for his head. And she... well, her fate would be worse. That much was all but guaranteed.

He scowled at the ceiling, the torchlight flickering gently against the old stones above him.

The king. That pompous, arrogant, gutless coward of a man. Aram had never met him -- nor did he ever want to -- but the ripple of destruction the man left behind was hard to miss. His decisions had damned houses to extinction, erased bloodlines with ink and steel alike. Aram’s own family had fallen in the wake of those choices, albeit from the king's father rather than the ruler himself. Burren had been sacrificed for optics and power plays, and those trends had continued into the current kingship. His mother never recovered from what came after. And now, perhaps the king’s own daughter had suffered similar betrayal.

If that was the truth… then he couldn’t exactly blame her for running. He ran a hand over his face and sighed. What a mess. And yet, somewhere deep in his chest, a small part of him felt a dark, bitter satisfaction.

If I am helping her, then so be it. Let it be his subtle, quiet vengeance. Not the kind that spilled blood, per se, but the kind that humiliated tyrants and preserved the last remnants of what they had tried to destroy. Perhaps she was the last of her line, just as he was. And if that were the case, then he’d see her through to safety. Not for her crown. But for the simple, grim irony of it all.

Aram didn’t sleep much that night. Every sound made his muscles tense: the low whistle of wind through broken stone, the restless creak of ancient wood, a snort from one of the horses in the stables. His body hovered on the edge of rest, eyes opening and closing every half hour, mind too active to settle.

Before dawn, he gave up entirely. He rose in silence, blanket tucked and folded on the foot of his bed. The fire had dwindled to red embers, barely casting any warmth. He crossed the room without a sound and stopped before the shadowed portraits on the far wall. The sconce on that side had gone cold, but even in the dark, he found the one he always did.

It was a small painting, sloppily done. Not the work of a professional court artist like the rest. It showed a woman in her early twenties with tired but sharp eyes and windswept hair. A man stood next to her, his face blurred as though drawn from memory. The woman's face looked nothing like Aram's own, not really. But the squirming blond baby fighting to get free of her arms had the same spark of feistiness, and he most certainly appeared to be his father's son.

He reached out and brushed his thumb gently over the woman's painted cheek, worn and cracked with age. Aram lingered only a second longer, then turned and stepped out.

The room beside theirs was narrow and stone-walled, not unlike a wine cellar. The smell of ancient dust clung to the walls, but the far end had been converted. A carved vent led directly to a natural hot spring, perfect for filtering heat and steam, making the room ideal for stealthy cooking without revealing their location to the outside world.

Aram set to work quickly. Flour. Water. Powdered egg. He mixed the lumpy batter, tossing in a few of the dried berries for sweetness. While the pancakes cooked over the modest flame, he chopped bits of preserved jerky and heated them in a small tin pot beside the griddle.

It wasn’t much, but it would do. He glanced once toward the passage that led back to the room, then back to the pan. If she’s who I think she is, he thought grimly, then this is the last quiet morning we’re going to have for a while.

The jar scraped.

That soft, dry sound was just enough to slice through the thick fog of Aram’s thoughts. In the half-second that followed, reflex overtook reason. His eyes snapped toward the noise, his hand moving before his brain had caught up. The flipper he’d been holding -- a long-handled, flat-edged cooking utensil -- left his fingers in a blink, slicing through the air like a thrown dagger.

Crack! The jar shattered against the wall in a burst of glass and dry residue, fragments bouncing across the stone floor.

Aram was already halfway turned toward the sound, knees slightly bent and heart kicking at his ribs. But the adrenaline had nowhere to land -- not once his gaze settled on the source of the noise. Of course it had only been Anastasia. Standing sheepishly just inside the room, her eyes wide, caught halfway between stealth and breakfast.

He blinked. A wave of mortification hit him square in the chest, heavier than the tension had been. Aram scrubbed his face with one hand, exhaling sharp through his nose to mask the flush already creeping up the sides of his neck and staining the tips of his ears pink. “Pardon me,” he muttered. “Good morning.”

With the grace of a man trying very hard not to acknowledge how ridiculous he’d just looked, he walked the few steps across the room and retrieved the flipper with quiet embarrassment, ignoring the scattered glass for now. He returned to the pan, scooped a few pancakes and jerky bits into a wooden bowl, and extended it toward her with little fanfare.

Breakfast was no longer just breakfast; it was damage control.

He doused the small fire, grinding his boot over the embers, and shifted back toward the broken jar, scuffing the worst of the mess into a corner with his heel. The glass tinkled against stone as he pressed the fragments aside. “Could consider a career change to an assassin once you reach the north m,” he muttered beneath his breath, rubbing the back of his neck.

After a moment, he returned to the stove and dished his own portion, the smell of warm flour and berries cutting through the cool damp of the old cellar like sunlight through fog. He cleared his throat as he leaned against the wall, bowl in hand, eyes flicking up to meet hers only briefly.

“Here’s the tentative plan,” he said, his tone shifting into the calm, clinical sort of cadence he used when he wanted to focus on facts instead of… well, emotions. “We’ll load the horses and leave just before first light, here in about an hour. We ride until midday, then rest the horses and eat. After that, we ride until dusk and make camp off the road. Preferably in a hollow or near some woods. Anywhere quiet.”

He paused, chewing a bite of jerky. “I’d suggest we avoid people for the next few days. The first week’s when they’ll be looking hardest. Your pursuers, assuming you have any, will be energized and at their most motivated. And they’ll try the poorest farms and villages first. People like that get desperate when they’re hungry, and they will most easily remember a strange face near their home. A single coin will buy a man’s memory and his silence. After that week or so, though, search parties run ragged and turn to Wanted posters and bounty hunters instead. Those are much easier to deal with.”

His gaze sharpened faintly, mouth pressing into a thin line. “But taverns and roadside outposts, the seedier ones… those’re safer. People don’t ask questions when they know how easily answers get them killed.”

Aram avoided eye contact. While his words were focused and precise, his mind was still replaying broken jars and bent pancake flippers, much to his dismay.

“You keep your head down,” he added. "Don't tell anyone your name, where you're from, or where you're going. Don't mention anything that could be used to track or catch you in your words... Actually, maybe it's best if you don't speak at all. It might be safer for just myself to go into town, should the need arise, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there."

Aram took another bite and let a few heartbeats of silence settle between them, then glanced toward the shelves where the jar had stood. “That was for pickled carrots,” he said, deadpan. “Congratulations. You’ve ruined dinner plans three days from now.”

The joke was as dry as the jar had been -- obviously having never held pickled carrots since its creation -- but his words held the smallest flicker of warmth beneath them. He finished his food in two more bites, then pushed off the wall, stretching his arms overhead until his shoulders cracked. “I’ll pack the saddlebags. There’s a pump near the stables if you want water to wash up.”

His ears were still pink.