The Night Crossing
The travel from The King’s Private Study to The Forest Road and the Hunting Lodge consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The tunnel had lain hidden beneath the palace for three centuries, its entrance concealed behind a tapestry of the first king’s coronation. Xavier had not known of its existence until his mother whispered its location into his ear on her deathbed, her fingers cold against his cheek, her breath a rattle of final secrets.
Now, as he pressed the hidden latch and the stone wall swung inward, he understood why she had waited until the end.
The air that escaped carried the smell of bones and iron.
“Stay behind me,” Xavier said, his hand finding Iris’s elbow in the darkness. She flinched at his touch but did not pull away. Jace was pressed against her side, his small fingers tangled in the fabric of her cloak.
“I can carry him,” Xavier offered.
“No.” Iris’s voice was a blade. “You’ve had six years. You don’t get to start tonight.”
The words struck him in the chest. He took them, held them, and said nothing.
Behind them, Owen secured the tapestry back into place, the heavy wool falling silent against the stone. Three of his most trusted men stood with him—men who had served the crown since before Xavier’s father had died, men whose loyalty had been tested by gold and threat and found true.
“The tunnel runs half a mile north,” Xavier said, his voice low. “It opens into the old gamekeeper’s cottage. There’s a carriage waiting in the stable, horses fresh. We ride for the hunting lodge.”
“How many know of this path?” Owen asked.
“The queen. My mother. And now, everyone in this tunnel.”
Owen’s eyes swept the darkness. “Then we move. I’ll take point. Reyes, you stay in the middle with the boy. Your Majesty, you cover the rear.”
Xavier did not argue. He had spent his adult life learning when to give orders and when to take them. This was the latter.
The tunnel floor was uneven, the stones slick with moisture that had seeped through the earth for centuries. Jace’s footsteps echoed beside his mother’s, small and steady, though Xavier could hear the boy’s breath coming faster than it should.
They walked in silence for seven minutes.
Then Jace spoke, his voice carrying in the narrow space. “Mama, are we ghosts now?”
Iris’s step faltered. Xavier saw her hand tighten around Jace’s. “No, baby. We’re just people who need to be quiet.”
“But we’re underground. Like in the stories. The ghosts live under the ground.”
“We’re not ghosts,” Xavier said, his voice softer than he intended. “We’re knights.”
Jace’s head turned, and in the dim light of Owen’s lantern, Xavier saw his son’s face—half curious, half terrified. A face that looked like his own had looked, thirty years ago, when he had first learned that the world was not safe.
“Knights don’t run,” Jace said.
Xavier smiled. It hurt. “The best knights know when to run. A knight who never retreats is a dead knight, and a dead knight can’t protect the people he loves.”
“Who are you protecting?”
The question hung in the air, sharp and pure as a blade.
“You,” Xavier said. “And your mother. The two most important people in the kingdom.”
Jace considered this, his small brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Because you are a hidden treasure,” Xavier said, falling into the rhythm of a story he had told himself as a boy, lying awake in the dark of the palace nursery. “And there are men who would steal you. Men who would use you to hurt the kingdom. So the king—that’s me—must take you somewhere safe. Somewhere no one can find you.”
“Is that why we left the big house?”
“Yes.”
Jace was quiet for a long moment. Then: “Will we come back?”
Xavier’s throat closed. He looked at Iris, her profile sharp in the lantern light, her jaw set like she was holding the world together by sheer will.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I promise you this: wherever we go, I will make it safe. I will make it yours.”
Iris’s step slowed. For a moment, she fell back until she was walking beside him, their shoulders brushing in the narrow tunnel. She did not look at him, but she did not pull away.
“That was a good story,” she said, so quietly he almost missed it.
“It wasn’t a story.”
“I know.”
They walked the rest of the tunnel in silence.
The gamekeeper’s cottage had long since fallen to rot. The roof sagged in the middle, and the door hung from a single hinge, its wood swollen with centuries of rain. But the stable behind it had been rebuilt twenty years ago, when Xavier’s mother had still believed she might one day escape.
The carriage was there, as promised. Four dark horses stood in the stalls, their breath pluming in the cold air. Owen’s men moved with practiced efficiency, harnessing the animals while Iris lifted Jace into the carriage’s padded interior.
“Where are we going?” Jace asked, his voice sleepy now, the adrenaline of the escape beginning to fade.
“North,” Xavier said. “To a place my mother loved. A hunting lodge in the deep woods. It doesn’t appear on any map.”
“Why is it a secret?”
“Because some places need to be kept safe.” Xavier climbed into the carriage, settling across from Iris and Jace. “And because she knew that one day, we might need a place to hide.”
Owen swung up onto the driver’s seat, the reins settling in his gloved hands. “Your Majesty, there’s a road through the forest, but it’s rough. It’ll take us until dawn.”
“Then we ride until dawn.”
The carriage lurched forward, its wheels groaning as they left the stable and turned onto a track that was barely more than a scar in the earth. The trees closed around them, their branches knitting together overhead, and the world became a tunnel of shadow and frost.
Xavier watched the forest pass. He watched Iris, who had closed her eyes but was not sleeping, her hand resting on Jace’s head as the boy curled against her side. He watched his son’s chest rise and fall, the rhythm of a life that should have been simple, should have been safe.
He had not known about Jace. That was the truth that would haunt him until his dying breath. He had not known, and so he had not protected, and so Iris had spent six years running, hiding, keeping their son alive with nothing but her own ferocity and fear.
“I would have come,” he said, the words breaking the silence before he could stop them.
Iris opened her eyes. “What?”
“When you found out you were pregnant. If I had known. I would have come. I would have married you. I would have—“
“Don’t.” Her voice was flat, exhausted. “You don’t get to imagine a better version of the past. It didn’t happen. We survived. That’s all that matters.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at him then, truly looked, and he saw something shift behind her eyes. Not forgiveness—that would take years, if it came at all. But acknowledgment. Recognition that the man sitting across from her was not the same man who had taken her to bed and then vanished into his duties.
“Tell me about the lodge,” she said.
It was an offering. A small bridge built across the chasm between them.
“It’s a stone building,” he said, grateful for the question. “Two stories, with a great hall and a kitchen. Wood-burning stoves. A well in the courtyard. My mother used to take me there in the winter, when the palace became too much. She would sit by the fire and read, and I would explore the forest, pretending I was a wild thing with no kingdom to inherit.”
“Did you have a name for her? The wild thing?”
“Robin,” he said. “After the bird. Small and fierce and always singing.”
Jace stirred, his eyes fluttering open. “Robin,” he repeated, the word soft on his lips. “I like that name.”
Xavier’s heart cracked open.
“It’s yours,” he said. “If you want it. A secret name for a secret knight.”
Jace smiled, and Xavier felt the world realign.
The hours passed. The carriage creaked and groaned through the forest, the horses picking their way over frozen ruts and exposed roots. Owen’s silhouette remained motionless on the driver’s seat, his head turning methodically to scan the darkness.
Xavier did not sleep. He watched the night, and he listened.
Somewhere behind them, he knew, the Blackthorns were moving. Flynn would have discovered the empty bed by now. Dorian would be pacing the halls, calculating, scheming, searching for the weakness that would bring the king to his knees.
But they would not find it tonight.
The first light of dawn was a pale smear on the horizon when the lodge appeared through the trees. It stood on a rise, its walls of gray stone streaked with frost, its windows dark and waiting. Smoke rose from the chimney—Owen’s scouts had arrived hours ahead, lighting the fires, making the lodge ready.
Xavier felt a weight lift from his chest.
“We’re here,” he said.
Iris looked out the window, and for the first time since he had seen her in the kitchens, the tension in her shoulders eased.
The carriage rolled to a stop in the courtyard. Owen dismounted, his boots crunching on the frozen gravel. He did not smile. His hand rested on the hilt of his knife, and his eyes were fixed on the tree line.
“Your Majesty,” he said, his voice low. “We have a problem.”
Xavier stepped down from the carriage, his boots hitting the ground before his mind had fully processed the words. The cold bit through his cloak, the wind carrying the smell of pine and snow.
“What is it?”
Owen pointed to the ground. The courtyard was covered in a thin layer of frost, and there, crossing the open space, were footprints. They were not fresh—the edges had begun to soften, the frost reforming in the shallow depressions. But they were there.
“Two men,” Owen said. “Came through the eastern approach, circled the lodge, and left. An hour ago, maybe less.”
“Scouts,” Xavier said.
“Or a message. To let us know they found us.”
Iris had emerged from the carriage, Jace wrapped in her arms. The boy was asleep, his face buried in her shoulder, his breath a soft warmth against her neck.
“We can’t stay,” she said.
“There’s nowhere else,” Xavier replied. “The lodge is the only safe ground we have. If they’ve found it, we make our stand here.”
Owen shook his head. “Your Majesty, we don’t have the numbers. Three men against whatever the Blackthorns send—“
“We don’t need to win a war,” Xavier interrupted. “We need to buy time. A day. Two days. Long enough for the northern lords to receive my message and raise their banners.”
“And if the message was intercepted?”
“Then we fight.”
As Xavier carries the sleeping Jace inside, Owen mutters, “They’ve got a tracker. A bloodhound—or a man who works like one. We have until sunrise.” Xavier looks at Iris. “Then I will face them first. You and Jace are all that matter.”