They crossed the palace garden and reached the outer wall before the city closed its gates.
Mara found a servant’s cloak hanging from a laundry cart.
Elias took a dark coat from a guard who had fainted in the garden path.
“You robbed a palace,” he said.
“We borrowed clothes.”
“From an unconscious guard.”
“He wasn’t using them.”
The wall rose before them, white stone veined with gold.
A gate stood open just wide enough for a wagon.
Beyond it, the road descended through a forest of silver-barked trees.
They were halfway through when a voice rang from the gatehouse.
“Stop! By order of the Crown!”
Elias turned.
“We are stopped.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Crossbowmen appeared along the parapet.
The captain stood below them, sword drawn.
Mara recognized Arden from the terrace.
“I’m giving you one chance,” he called.
“Return peacefully, and no one else gets hurt.”
“You’re the one holding the weapons,” Mara answered.
Arden looked at the soldiers, then at the twins.
Something moved behind his expression.
Doubt, perhaps.
It disappeared too quickly to trust.
“Lower your weapons,” he ordered.
The crossbowmen hesitated.
“Captain, the proclamation—”
“I said lower them.”
For a moment, it seemed they might be allowed to leave.
Then the old priest appeared beside Arden.
The sun mask gleamed in the morning light.
“They have broken the invocation seal. They carry a plague of foreign magic. If they escape, Aurel falls.”
The soldiers raised their weapons again.
Elias’s shoulders squared.
Mara felt the old instinct rise between them: protect, strike, end the threat.
She hated how easy it was.
The priest lifted a staff.
Golden bands erupted from the ground and wrapped around Elias’s legs.
Mara felt his pain as the bands tightened.
Her own knees buckled.
The bond seized them both.
Elias tore the bands apart.
Mara reached for the golden magic and found it answering the same command as the summoning chain.
Obey.
Stay.
Serve.
She closed her hand around the light.
The bands shattered.
The force threw the priest backward into the gatehouse wall.
His staff broke.
One soldier fell.
Another dropped his crossbow and ran.
Elias stood between Mara and the soldiers, breathing hard.
“We’re leaving.”
“They saw what we did.”
“Let them.”
Arden had not moved.
“The Crown will tell the city you attacked first.”
“Then tell them the truth,” Mara said.
He looked at the priest, who was already being helped to his feet.
“The truth is whatever survives the telling.”
Mara stepped through the gate.
Elias followed.
Behind them, a bell tolled once.
Then every bell in the city joined it.
By noon, the proclamation reached the roadside villages.
A royal herald rode past on a white horse, reading from a parchment:
“Let all loyal citizens know: two summoned abominations have fled the palace. They are bound by an unnatural link and possess powers dangerous to every living soul. Shelter them and share their guilt.”
People watched from doorways.
Nobody looked directly at the twins.
The herald held up a painted image.
The faces were wrong, but the silver-violet eyes were unmistakable.
The crowd shifted away from them.
A girl watching from a cart hid behind her mother.
A man at the fountain picked up a stone, then hesitated when Mara met his eyes.
She did not blame them.
If someone had told her that two fugitives were cursed and dangerous, she might have kept her distance too.
“We should do something,” Elias said after the herald rode away.
“We will.”
“I meant something now.”
“If we charge into the square and denounce the Crown, they’ll arrest us or get hurt trying.”
“Then we leave.”
“We find out what the Crown is hiding first.”
Elias’s expression said he disliked this plan because it required patience.
He came anyway.
Elias pulled Mara behind the wall of an empty stable.
“We could go back and stop him.”
“We could.”
“We could make sure no one else reads that.”
“We could also prove every word true.”
He leaned his head against the rough boards.
“I don’t want to be good at this.”
Mara pressed her shoulder to his.
“Me neither.”
They had died believing the world was fair enough to reward a decent choice.
They had woken in a place where a king could call them monsters before they had seen the sky.
“What do we do?” Elias asked.
Mara looked toward the west, where the storm-ring darkened the horizon.
“Find out who’s getting hurt.”