The heavy oak door of her bedchamber shut with a definitive, echoing thud, followed immediately by the grating sound of an iron bolt sliding into place from the outside.
Locked in. Again.
Anya threw off the heavy white fox-fur cloak, tossing it onto her unmade bed with a scowl. "Future leader," she muttered to the empty stone room. "Future chief. Future prisoner of the high tower."
She walked over to the narrow slit of a window, looking down at the courtyard. The festival banners were being torn down in a hurry. The warmth of the celebration was entirely gone, replaced by the rigid, mechanical movements of guards patrolling the perimeter with drawn steel. The golden falcon's body was already gone, scrubbed away, leaving only a dark, irregular stain on the snow that looked almost black under the pale blue moonlight.
Anya pulled the silver key from her sleeve.
In the dim light of her room, the key didn't look like ordinary silver. It had an eerie, pearlescent sheen, and the runes etched along its shaft seemed to shift if she looked at them sideways. When she held it close to her ear, she could hear a faint, low hum like the vibration of a distant hive of bees.
Find the Frozen Forest... before he finds you.
Her mother’s voice had been so clear. Not a memory. Not a hallucination. It had felt like someone whispering directly into her mind from right behind her shoulder.
"Alright, Mother," Anya whispered, her thumb tracing a sharp rune on the key’s bow. "Let's see what the old man is so terrified of."
Anya didn't bother trying the door. She knew the guards outside were her father's personal elite; they wouldn't open it for a plea or a bribe. But they also expected her to act like a proper chief’s daughter. They forgot she spent her afternoons climbing the outer walls with Kael just to see if they could steal apples from the high orchards.
She moved to the corner of her room, lifting a loose floorboard beneath her washbasin. Tucked away inside was a small leather pouch containing a set of iron i a gift from Kale after she’d lost a bet about who could break into the armory first.
"Tactical genius, remember?" she murmured to herself.
She slipped out of her room through a narrow, disused servant's passage that wound through the interior of the stone walls. It was dark, smelling of dust and old mortar, but it led straight down to the lower levels of the Great Hall specifically, to the private sanctuary of the High Shaman, where her father held his most private councils.
As she neared the iron grate that looked down into the sanctuary, the sound of furious, muffled voices drifted up through the shadows.
Anya pressed her face close to the grate, holding her breath.
Below, the room was lit by a single, massive bronze brazier. Chief Mikhail was pacing the floor, his heavy boots slamming against the stone. Standing near the hearth was High Shaman Joram, an ancient man whose robes were adorned with raven feathers.
"You cannot hide this, Mikhail," Joram was saying, his voice a dry, papery hiss. "The omen was witnessed by the entire village. A golden falcon? Speaking with the voice of the dead Queen? The seals are failing. The prophecy is waking up, whether you like it or not."
"The prophecy is a myth used to frighten children into staying close to the hearth!" Mikhail roared, slamming his fist onto a heavy wooden table. "I built this peace with my own hands. I bled for twenty years to keep the shadow beyond the Frozen Forest. I will not let a dying bird ruin everything I've built."
"It is not the bird that threatens your peace, Chief," Joram replied calmly, tossing a handful of dried herbs into the brazier. The smoke flared an eerie violet color. "It is the girl. The key belongs to the lost kingdom. The prophecy states that only the blood of the Falcon Queen can turn it. Anya is eighteen. She is ready."
"She is a child!" Mikhail snapped, his voice cracking with a sudden, raw emotion that made Anya freeze behind the grate. "She looks exactly like Irina, Joram. Every time I look at her, I see her mother. If she goes into that forest... if she tries to play the hero... the Shadow King will tear her apart just like he did her mother."
Anya’s heart stopped.
The Shadow King? Her father had always told her that her mother died of a winter fever when Anya was three. He had told the whole village that.
"You lied to her," Joram said, mirroring Anya's thoughts. "You told her Irina died of sickness. You hid her heritage. You cannot protect her from her own blood, Mikhail. If the Shadow King breaches the Gate, the Falcon Clan will fall first."
"Then we strengthen the guards," Mikhail said coldly. "We lock the silver key in the deep vaults. And Anya stays in her tower until this winter passes. She will never know."
Behind the grate, Anya's shock turned into a hot, white-hot fury.
She will never know.
She reached into her sleeve, her fingers wrapping around the cold, humming silver key. She didn't just feel angry; she felt betrayed. Her entire life the training, the expectations, the grief for a mother she thought had wasted away in a bed was a lie. A cage built by a father who was too cowardly to face the truth.
Anya backed away from the grate quietly, her boots making no sound in the dark passage. She didn't go back to her room. She hurried down the passage toward the lower cellar exit that led into the outer woods.
If her father wanted to keep her in a cage, he was going to need a much stronger lock.