CHAPTER 479: BENEATH THE MOONLIGHT

Netser waited until the last of the patients were settled and the women began leaving the infirmary one by one. Their baskets were lighter now, their footsteps weary from the day’s work.

She came last.

Her hair was freed from its knot, cascading gently down her shoulders. Her gait was measured and cautious. To anyone else, she was another helper tending the wounded. But to Netser, every movement sang with familiarity—the proud set of her shoulders, the defiance hidden even in her silence.

He pressed himself deeper into the shadow of the archway, every muscle taut. His heart hammered with a rhythm he had not felt in years. When she passed beneath the spill of moonlight, he stepped out.

"Shaya."

The name slipped from him like a prayer.

She froze. For a heartbeat, she did not turn, only tightened her grip on the empty basket in her hands. Then, slowly, she lifted her head. Her eyes—those same unyielding eyes he remembered from the balcony—met his.

"Netser... What are you doing here?"

He stared at her, drinking in the proof of her existence as though he feared she might vanish if he blinked.

"You’re alive," he said hoarsely. "All this time, you’ve been alive, and you never..." His words faltered, his throat tight. "Why? Why disappear?" He knew the answer, but still he wanted to hear it from her.

Her lips curved—not into a smile, but into something harder, a wry edge sharpened by years. "You know why. I refused to be sold like livestock. My father would not hear me, so I left"

"You vanished," Netser said, his voice rough. "They scoured every road and every harbor. You left with no word, no trace. Do you know what it did to those who—" He stopped himself, jaw clenching. To me.

Her gaze softened for just a flicker, then cooled again. "Better silence than chains, Netser. If you knew what they meant to do with me, you would not ask."

"I know," he muttered, bitterness gnawing at him. "The marriage. The prince." He stepped closer, his eyes searching hers. "But to appear in Northem’s palace and with Westalis’ envoys sniffing at your trail? Do you want to be hunted all over again?"

She lifted her chin, defiant even in the shadows. "I am not hiding. Not this time."

Netser’s chest tightened. The fire he remembered had not dimmed—it burned fiercer, if anything.

"Rolan saw you," he warned, his tone harsher than he meant. "He spoke your name aloud. If he can, others will. You cannot remain in the open."

Her expression flickered, just for a breath, at the name. Then she steadied, her voice cool. "Then let them speak. I am not afraid of Westalis, nor of their princes."

"Perhaps you should be." Netser’s hand curled into a fist at his side. "You don’t understand what I’ve seen, what they’ve done. If they knew you were here, Shaya—" He stopped, breath catching, as though saying it aloud would summon the danger itself.

Her eyes softened again, just a little. "And yet here I stand. Alive. Like you."

The space between them stretched taut, heavy with the weight of four lost years. Netser wanted to shake her, to demand answers, to curse her for her silence—and yet, beneath it all, relief swelled in him like a tide. She was here. She had survived.

"Shaya," he said again, softer this time. A plea, almost.

A strand of her hair shifted in the night wind. "We cannot talk here," she murmured, glancing toward the torchlit paths. "Not where ears might listen. Meet me tomorrow, at dawn, in the old gardens. You’ll have your answers then."

Before he could speak, she turned, her figure dissolving into shadow as she disappeared down a side passage, swift as smoke.

Netser stood alone, his pulse still racing, the echo of her presence heavy in the night.

She was alive, and he just spoke to her.

...

The envoys of Westalis moved briskly through the torchlit corridors toward the palace gates, their cloaks whispering across the polished stone. Servants bowed as they passed, though none missed the stiffness in their steps. The silver-bearded envoy strode at the lead, his jaw tight, his pride still raw from the council chamber.

At his side, Rolan trailed, distracted, his thoughts circling like back to his meeting with Netser. His father’s voice washed over him in clipped instructions—what to report, how to spin defeat into diplomacy—but Rolan barely heard.

His mind was back at that corner. Back at the impact of flesh and armor. Back at the eyes that burned like coals in a dying fire.

Netser Rimim was alive.

It was impossible. He had heard the stories: everyone in his family were slaughtered in one of those quiet purges the court never spoke of, but everyone understood. Netser’s name had been whispered once or twice after that—always in the past tense, always as a warning of what befell those who crossed the wrong powers.

And yet... Rolan had seen him. Flesh, blood, fury incarnate.

The memory of Netser’s words coiled around his chest, suffocating: Tell him I survived. Tell him I will make certain he pays for every life he stole.

Rolan’s hands trembled as he gripped the folds of his cloak tighter, willing his father not to notice. If Netser was alive, then secrets had not been buried—secrets dangerous enough to overturn alliances. His uncle’s shadow loomed larger in his thoughts, a man who smiled with kindness while weaving webs of blood.

But it was not only Netser that gnawed at him.

It was the name.

Lady Shaya.

He was certain it was her. The shape of her eyes, the way she carried herself even under plain clothes—he could not mistake her. And Netser’s reaction... that flash of recognition and the desperate denial.

He nearly stumbled on the steps leading out into the courtyard, his breath uneven. Three ghosts, walking again in Northem. A prince at the negotiating table, a phantom duke’s daughter in the shadows, and a survivor burning with vengeance.

"Rolan!" His father’s voice snapped him from his thoughts. Lord Nalor’s silver beard glinted in the torchlight as he fixed his son with a look sharp enough to cut. "You’ve been staring into the air like a fool since we left the chamber. What has you so rattled?"

Rolan swallowed hard. The truth pressed against his teeth, begging release. But even as the urge surged in him, he remembered Netser’s eyes again, cold as steel: You saw nothing. You know nothing.

If he spoke now, in front of the others, his father would act. And if Netser’s warning was true, it might not be Netser alone who would bleed.

"I..." He forced his voice steady. "I was only thinking of Prince Reuben’s words. They stung, that’s all."

Lord Nalor’s gave a grunt, satisfied enough to move on, though his gaze lingered with a trace of suspicion. "Then remember them. We will not suffer humiliation twice."

The envoys pressed on toward their inn, but Rolan’s steps lagged, heavy with secrets.

He could not tell his father. Not yet. But neither could he forget.