Days passed, and with each passing day Bruce felt himself becoming stronger.
In the warm dark, he grew by measures too small for any eye to see. Fingers that had barely been fingers curled with more strength. Legs that had once only twitched now kicked with purpose. His tiny heart beat harder, steadier, while the second heart—the strange white light inside him—answered whenever he pushed against it.
He did not know when he would be born. He did not know what kind of body waited for him, or what kind of world he had been thrown into.
He only knew that one day he would become whole again, and when that day came, he had to be ready.
But above him, life did not grow. It did not move forward. It only repeated.
The woman who carried him remained where she had been: locked in the highest room of the castle tower, with stone beneath her feet, salt wind at the window, and a thick oak door barred from the other side.
Her name was Lili.
That night, she sat on the edge of the bed with a supper tray beside her, eating slowly because strength was something she could still choose to take. The fire had burned low. Candlelight trembled over the walls. Beyond the narrow window came the smell of cold sea air, wet stone, and distant waves breaking against the cliffs below.
Her hands trembled slightly as she lifted a strip of meat to her mouth.
Not from cold.
Her legs still ached. Her hips hurt. Her backside burned when she shifted too quickly on the bed. Beneath the thin cloth of her nightdress, her waist still remembered the hard shape of Leo's hands, how firmly he had gripped her, how easily he had held her in place when he visited her bed again.
Lili swallowed the meat without tasting it.
The nightdress had slipped low across her chest, loose from where he had pulled and handled it, leaving too much of her pale skin bare to the candlelight. Her round milky white breasts, fuller now due to the child growing inside her, felt sore and heavy beneath the thin white linen. She tugged the cloth higher with a sharp, ashamed motion, then hated herself for feeling shame at all.
She had done nothing wrong. Still, shame clung to her like smoke.
On the tray, the silver plate caught her reflection in a warped, trembling blur. Lili stared down at herself and tried to make her face hard. Fierce. Frightening. She narrowed her eyes. Set her mouth. Lifted her chin the way her brothers had when they meant to look brave.
It did not work.
The girl in the silver plate only looked beautiful.
That was the curse of it.
Her face was heart-shaped and fine-boned, with soft brows, full lips, and a small straight nose that made her anger look almost delicate. Her skin was pale as northern milk, almost luminous in the low light. Her hair, loose around her shoulders and falling down her back, was platinum-blonde, fine as spun winter sun. Among her own people such hair was no wonder. Here in Albion, servants stared at it as though it were treasure.
Her eyes were worse.
Large, violet, clear. In dimness they could be mistaken for deep blue, but in sunlight there was no hiding what they were. They marked her as surely as a brand.
When Lili glared, men did not step back. They looked longer. She hated that most of all.
Beauty had never saved her. It had not made her strong enough to break iron. It had not put a knife in her hand when armed men came ashore. It had not protected her from Leo. Beauty had only made men want. It had made servants whisper. It had made a duke look at her once and decide that she belonged to him.
Lili was not weak. The tower had thinned her, yes. It had stolen some hardness from her limbs and left her too long in soft bedding and locked air. But there was still strength in her back, in her thighs, in the quiet set of her shoulders. Her hands looked slender and delicate until one saw the old scars along the knuckles and fingers.
Those small hands had hauled wet hides. Cut meat from bone. Gathered herbs under snow. Climbed sea cliffs slick with rain and spray. Held frightened reindeer still while she sang them calm.
She knew cold, hunger and work. What she did not know was how to fight men wrapped in iron.
That was why she was here.
A little over three months ago, the ships had come to the northern coast.
Lili still remembered the first sight of them cutting through the gray water of the fjord: three great wooden vessels larger than anything her people had ever built, their dark hulls rising like beasts from the sea, their sails swollen with wind, their oars striking the water in steady rhythm. Banners snapped above them. Shields lined their sides. Steel flashed wherever the pale sun touched them.
Her people had watched from the shore in confusion more than fear.
They were herders. Wanderers. Hunters. They had reindeer, furs, bone charms, old songs, stubborn pride, and little else worth stealing. Their tents stood among snow, stone, smoke, and antler. Their wealth walked on hooves and vanished with the herd. They had no reason to expect war.
Then the strangers came ashore.
To Lili's people, the men of Albion looked less like men than walking fortresses. Helmets, mail, shields, swords, crossbows, horses—iron and steel from head to heel. Every step they took seemed loud with the wealth of a world her tribe had never known.
And at their head was Leo.
Duke Leo Lionheart, though she had not known the name then.
He had seemed unreal beneath the northern sky: taller than any man she had ever seen, more than two meters of broad shoulders and golden hair, blue eyes bright and cold, polished armor shining over a body built for war. He looked like some boast from an old tale, the kind of man singers would have praised if he had not come with soldiers behind him.
Her people stood against them with bone knives, hunting bows, and spears tipped with stone and antler.
It had hardly been a battle.
Her brothers fought. Her father shouted for courage. The men of the tribe rushed forward because there was nothing else to do.
Their blades had scraped uselessly against mail and shield. While Albion steel cut through hide, fur, flesh, and courage alike with ease.
So Lili had torn herself free from her mother's hands and run into the blood and snow, screaming for it to stop. That was when Leo had seen her.
Later, she understood that he had not come north by chance. He had come searching for a woman of the old northern blood. A woman with pale skin, light blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and beauty rare enough to flatter his pride. A woman who might give him the son he had imagined before he ever knew her name.
Golden-haired, deep-eyed, strong of body, noble of face. A child so marked by rare blood and noble seed that every lord in Albion would know him at a glance. A perfect son for a perfect duke. And though she was not what he had originally sought, yet, according to him, she was something far better.
Lili's mouth curled at the thought of him, that stupid man.
Leo had taken her before she could run. He had held her in his arms as if she were some prize he had won from the snow. In exchange for her, his men stopped killing. Her tribe was left alive.
That was the bargain. Although no one asked if she agreed. Still her people were spared, and she was carried across the sea.
On the voyage to Albion, Leo wasted little time claiming what he called his right of conquest.
He was the first man she had ever known, and he made sure she could not forget it. He forced himself into her life, her bed, her body, then spoke afterward as if fate had joined them rather than violence. Since arriving in Albion, he had kept her in this tower and visited whenever he pleased, always patient, always certain, always trying to plant a son inside her.
Now, it seemed, he had succeeded.
Lili pressed one hand to her stomach. The anger that filled her was so sharp it almost steadied her.
She knew little of Albion. She did not know where it lay in the world, only that it was far from home and across a sea she could not cross alone. She did not fully understand their tongue, though she had learned enough words to hate them properly. She did not know what a duke truly was, only that men obeyed Leo when he spoke, and doors opened for him while they locked shut for her.
He gave her comfort, in his way. Warmth, food, clean linen, soft bedding, dresses finer than anything she had ever touched, even jewelry, glass beads, silver cups, a bronze mirror, lion-shaped brooches, such pretty things, southern things. Things meant to make a cage look generous.
To an Albion woman, perhaps the tower room would have seemed plain.
To Lili, raised among hides, smoke, bone, fur, and open sky, it was almost fantastical. But a cage did not stop being a cage because it was beautiful.
And Leo did not stop being her captor because his hands were sometimes gentle. That was what made her hate him more. If he had only been cruel, hatred would have been simple. If he struck her, cursed her, dragged her by the hair, laughed at her pain, then she could have kept her anger clean.
But Leo was not so simple. He was arrogant, infuriating. A great golden beast of a man with a handsome face, a powerful body, and eyes so fiercely blue they seemed almost unnatural. He spoke as though the world had been made to kneel, and worse, the world often did. He was used to being admired. Used to being obeyed. Used to winning.
And with her, he was careful, too careful.
His voice softened when he said her name. Lili. Damn herself for giving it to him. She should have given him nothing. Not her name. Not her tears. Not one word he could hold gently in his mouth and make sound like affection.
He called her beautiful, perfect, beloved. He told her she could leave the tower once she stopped fighting him. Once she understood her place. Once she accepted what he already believed was inevitable.
He told her that one day she would love him back. Lili hated him for that.
She hated him even more because sometimes, traitorous and foolish as her body was, his voice made her flush. Some weak part of her remembered his warmth. His smile. The low rough sound of him near her ear. Some part of her wanted him to look at her gently again, and the wanting made her sick with herself.
No.
Lili set the cup of milk down hard enough that the white surface trembled.
"No," she whispered.
She was not his woman, not his toy. Not some pretty northern animal to be locked in a tower and used until she gave him the son he wanted.
She was a free woman.
She had a family. A tribe. A home beneath the northern sky. And by now, they would be safe. They had to be. Her people were nomads. After Leo sailed away, they would have broken camp, taken the herds inland, crossed snow and stone, and vanished into valleys only they knew.
Leo could no longer hold them over her. Only the tower held her now, and it's locked door, iron-clad guards, the height of the tower itself, and most of all the fear she had allowed to sit inside her for too long.
The door was impossible. She knew that without testing it. While the window was madness, and yet, Lili looked toward it as a thin breath of night air slipped through the cracked shutter, cool against her tear-wet cheek, stirring the pale strands of hair at her shoulder.
Madness or not, it was the only real way out.
But even if she climbed down without falling, then what? Guards walked the outer walls. The gatehouse was watched. The courtyard was never empty for long. Beyond the castle lay a foreign town full of people who would know at once that she did not belong.
She could try to be clever. Trick Leo. Pretend softness. Win enough trust to leave the tower.
The thought made her stomach twist. She was not good at lying, and Leo was not a fool. Worse, she did not have time. Soon her belly would swell. Once Leo knew for certain that she carried his child, whatever small freedoms he pretended to offer would vanish for sure.
Lili looked down at the tray and wiped away her tears. Whatever she did, she needed strength first, so she ate.
She tore off a piece of bread, chewed slowly, and tried not to think of the door, the guards, the height of the tower, or the mad little chance waiting beyond the window.
But the thought came anyway.
If she could reach the ground, if she could somehow pass beyond the walls, then perhaps she could disappear. She did not need to understand Albion. She only needed to reach the wilderness where she could hide from Leo.
And then what would that stupid man do?
A small, wicked thought slipped through her sorrow. What if he came tomorrow and found the room empty?
Lili pictured him standing in the doorway, huge and golden and foolish, staring at the untouched bed as if the world had wronged him personally. Would he rage? Would he shout for guards? Would he leap onto that enormous black horse and ride across the hills, calling her name like some love-struck idiot from a song?
The image made her mouth twitch.
Perhaps he would find her at last, muddy, exhausted, and humbled. Perhaps he would fall to one knee before her and beg, "Forgive me, Lili. I was wrong. I shall never lock you away again."
If he asked very nicely, perhaps she might even forgive him.
The thought made her blush so fiercely that she shook her head at once.
"No," she whispered. "No, no. Stupid girl, focus."
And besides that was probably not what would happen. Leo would surely be angry, truly angry this time.
Her little smile died then.
It was all hopeless. The tower was too high, the guards were too many, the world beyond the walls was too strange. Better to eat, survive, and think of something else.
She bit into another strip of meat with more anger than hunger, chased it with milk, and froze.
Suddenly warmth rose from deep inside her belly, and Lili went still.
It was not the food. It spread from within her like bathwater, slow and gentle, washing through her body until her trembling eased. The ache in her lower body faded. Her tight chest loosened. The fear clouding her mind thinned as if clean air had blown through it.
Then she looked down at her hand.
The cup of milk sat steady in her fingers. The little cuts across her knuckles, old marks from her many northern adventures closed before her eyes. Rough calluses softened. Strength returned to her limbs, quiet but certain.
Lili stared, "What…?"
Inside her, Bruce did not understand her words. He only knew the rhythm of her heart, the taste of her fear, the heavy sinking feeling of someone giving up. He wanted to help. That was all.
The light-heart answered before he understood how to command it.
A soft pulse moved from him into her, healing what it touched and carrying the only message he knew how to send.
You are not alone.
Lili's hands went to her belly.
"Baby?" she whispered.
A light breeze slipped through the cracked shutter, stirring her pale hair and making the candleflames tremble. Then the warmth pulsed again.
Her breath caught.
"Was that you?"
Another answer came, small and shy, but real.
For a moment, Lili could only stare at herself. Then the word came without thought, the same first word her own mother had taught her when she was little.
"Mamma," she breathed. "Are you trying to tell Mamma something?"
There was no answer, yet as she glanced now toward the window, it no longer looked impossible. It looked like a real chance.
Lili drew in a slow breath. She was a northern girl. She had climbed cliffs slick with rain and sea spray. She had crawled down ravines to free trapped reindeer. She knew stone. She knew wind. She knew how to place her hands and feet where a careless eye saw nothing.
A tower was only another cliff, a crueler one, yes, but stone was stone.
Her palms pressed harder against her belly, and the warmth answered with a gentleness that made her throat tighten. It was confirmation, undeniable now. There was a child inside her. Leo had marked her with his blood after all.
Yet what grew within her did not feel like the son he dreamed of. Not some golden heir to be lifted before lords and shaped into another proud beast of Albion. No, this little one felt gentle. Kind. Bright in a quiet way.
A girl, Lili thought suddenly. Her breath caught, a daughter.
The certainty struck her so deeply that fear followed at once. If she stayed here, what would become of such a child? Would Leo lock her in the tower as another price of his? Would her daughter grow up never knowing the northern sky, never touching the herd, never hearing the songs of her mother's people?
Would the tower swallow them both?
Lili's face hardened.
"No," she said.
This time, the word did not tremble. If she could not cross the sea, then she would run into the forests of Albion. If she could not find her tribe, she would make a life somewhere hidden. A poor life, perhaps. A hard one. But free. Better a cold hollow under trees than silk sheets behind a locked door.
She ate what remained on the tray with sudden purpose: meat, bread, cheese, milk, boiled eggs. Strength first. Fear later.
Then she stood and crossed the room to the oak chest and opened it. Inside lay Leo's gifts: fine gowns, soft veils, silver, glass beads, a bronze lion brooch, pretty things any girl might have wanted to touch, to try, to admire in secret. For one foolish heartbeat, her fingers hovered over them.
Then she drew back.
To take them would be to leave wearing his kindness like a collar, so she took only what she needed.
A white underdress. A dark green overdress. A fitted leather belt with small pouches. A hooded cloak deep enough to hide her hair and swallow her shape. It looked almost like something from a hunter's tale, half servant, half forest shadow. Good enough.
She stripped off the nightdress, dressed quickly, and left the shoes behind. Bare feet would grip stone better. Boots could wait until she reached the ground.
From the supper tray, she took the small knife and tucked it beneath her belt. Not a weapon, not truly, but a tool, just incase.
No maid would come until morning. At dawn, someone would find the bed empty, by then, Lili meant to be gone.
Moving quickly, she dragged a stool to the window. The legs scraped softly over the floor, and she froze, listening for movement.
Yet no footsteps came.
So Lili climbed onto the stool and pushed the shutter wider. The old wood resisted, swollen by salt air, then gave with a low groan.
Moonlight washed over her face. Outside, the castle dropped away beneath her.
The inner courtyard lay far below, broken into patches of torchlight and shadow. Guards moved along the walls in blue tabards, their lanterns bobbing like captive stars. Beyond the outer wall, the coastal town slept under moonlight, on the right side of the road that curved down from the castle hill. She could see roofs, narrow lanes, a few smoking chimneys, and beyond them the black line of water where ships rested in the harbor.
Those ships had brought her here, but they probably would not take her home.
Her gaze shifted. At the gatehouse below, supply wagons stood ready.
Men were loading the last of them by torchlight. She could hear the groan of wheels, the snort of tired horses, the low voices of drivers eager to be done. Soon they would leave through the gate, down the slope toward the town surrounded by wooden walls. Yet the road below split halfway before the small coastal town gates, one path curving into the town, while the other path ran past the fields and toward the dark woods beyond. And beyond those woods, lay the bridge to the mainland.
If she could climb down, cross the yard, hide in one of those wagons, and pass through the gate before anyone noticed, she just might make it.
Lili almost laughed, it was an insane plan, but it was a plan. She leaned farther out and looked down the side of the tower.
Her stomach dropped.
The tower wall curved beneath her, pale stone falling away into darkness. Yet it was not smooth. Age had cracked the mortar, and some of the blocks jutted out farther than others. Old vines had crept up the tower over many years, thin in places, thicker in others, clinging stubbornly to the stone as if they too refused to let go.
There were handholds. Footing, perhaps. Maybe just enough.
Still, her courage faltered. One slip and she would fall. If the fall did not kill her, the sound would bring the guards.
Warmth pulsed inside her again.
Lili closed her eyes.
"You truly think I can do this?" she whispered.
Bruce did not know what she was asking. He only felt her fear rising and answered it the only way he could, sending another gentle wave of warmth through her.
You can do it.
At least, he hoped that was what it felt like.
Lili opened her eyes as the breeze touched her face again. A faint smile pulled at her lips, afraid and defiant all at once.
"All right," she whispered. "I'll try to be brave for you, baby."
Bruce, who had not meant to become a sign from the gods, could only hope signs were allowed to be confused.
Lili laid one hand over her belly. "For freedom," she said softly.
Then she climbed onto the window sill.
The window was narrow, but Lili was small. Stone scraped her shoulder as she turned sideways and eased one leg out, then the other. Cold wind caught her cloak and tugged at it, but she pressed herself close to the frame and breathed slowly until the first wave of panic passed. For a moment, she sat with her legs hanging into the night, half inside the tower and half outside it, no longer safely imprisoned but not yet free.
Below, a wagon creaked. A guard laughed, her time was running out.
Lili gathered her cloak tight, turned onto her stomach, and lowered herself carefully over the outer edge. Her arms took her weight. The stone bit into her palms. For one breathless moment she hung there, chest pressed uncomfortably to the tower wall, legs searching blindly beneath her.
Her right foot found a narrow ledge, then her left.
She exhaled.
Slowly, she shifted one hand down to a vine and tugged. It held.
"Do not fail me now," she breathed.
With the cold wall against her body and the whole dark world waiting below, Lili began to climb.
She moved slowly at first, testing every hold before trusting it. One hand slid down the vine. The other searched the stone for cracks, seams, and proud edges. Her feet followed, feeling for the smallest ledges. She kept her hips close to the wall and her body flat against the curve of the tower.
A torch passed below.
Lili froze at once, cheek and chest pressed to the cold stone, breath caught in her ribs. Firelight washed up the side of the keep and briefly traced the line of her cloak against the wall. For one terrible second, she thought the guard would look up. But the man only yawned, shifted his spear on his shoulder, and continued across the courtyard.
Darkness folded over her again.
Lili waited until his footsteps faded, then lowered herself another handspan. The tower seemed endless beneath her, curving under her palms like the side of some great sleeping beast. The wind worried at her cloak, but she did not let it shake her loose.
Below, the wagons were being loaded. Axles groaned as weight settled into them. Men muttered and complained, tired voices carrying through the courtyard. Someone cursed the hour. Someone else laughed. A sleepy sentry startled when the haft of his spear clonked against his own helmet, and his mates mocked him for it.
Lili glanced down and felt a bitter little sneer touch her mouth despite the danger.
The guards wore iron from crown to calf. Helmets, mail, splint, gauntlets, greaves, shields painted blue with lion heads. Spearheads gleamed in the lantern light, and swords rested at their hips as if such things were ordinary.
The sight still stung.
In her homeland, a single necklace of bright metal was a treasure. Here, men walked around in it like moving fortresses.
Warmth flowed from her belly into her limbs.
The little baby inside her did its quiet work. The burn in her forearms eased. The ache in her fingers softened. Her calves stopped trembling. Where she had expected strength to fail halfway down, it steadied instead. Her focus sharpened until the world became only stone, vine, breath, and the next place to put her foot.
Whatever this child was, hers by life and Leo's only by blood, Lili would keep the baby far from that man's shadow.
Her fingers numbed, then tingled back to life. The farther she went, the thicker the vines became, heavy with late-summer growth. She tested them and felt, strangely, that they answered. Under her grip, the stems tightened like living rope, rough bark biting into her skin while holding her weight cleanly.
Trust rose from somewhere beneath thought.
She committed more of herself to the vines, both hands on the living rope while her feet searched the stone. The plant did not fail her.
The voices below gathered nearer the wagons. The rhythm of loading found its pattern: thud, drag, creak, mutter. In the gatehouse, the captain cleared his throat with the bored impatience of a man who expected dawn to be as dull as midnight.
None of them suspected anything beyond the usual.
Lili felt hope rise in her chest like wine. I am going to make it.
With that thought came faces. Her mother. Her father. Three brothers, two sisters, cousins around the central fire, all of them with hair shining like silver in winter sun and eyes violet and bright. Her people. Her child's people.
"Don't worry," she breathed into the stone, no louder than wind. "Father, I'm coming, wait for me. Nothing holds me. I am Lili, and the blood of the North runs strong. I'll find my way back."
A pulse answered from the small sun inside her, comfort and resolve mingled together. She took it and let it steel her hands.
Down one hand. Down one foot. Hips in. Breathe.
The yard crept closer. Somewhere, a gull cried in its sleep. Beyond the walls, the sea turned under moonlight. Lili did not look down again. She did not stop.
Then at last, her feet touched earth.
Cool grass gave beneath her toes just as the wagons jolted and drivers called out to get moving. The inner gate groaned. Chains rattled. Two guards stood near the inner castle double doors, under the arch, watching the wagons and the widening black mouth of the gate.
Lili crouched in shadow, cloak drawn close, heart hammering once before she forced it steady.
She was off the tower, nearly free.
Keeping low, she let the shrubs along the yard wall swallow her. Her palm closed around a pebble. She waited until both guards were looking toward the wagons, then she tossed it. It rang off one helmet with a bright little cling.
"Oi," the first guard snapped, turning on the second.
The other man, who had heard the sound but not seen the throw, scowled back as if accused. A heartbeat of hostility hung between them. Then the second guard stooped, picked up the pebble, and flicked it back against his mate's brow-plate in petty revenge.
"You—"
Hands rose. Shoulders squared. For a ridiculous moment, they looked ready to swing at one another.
Lili used it.
She slid from the shrubs into the shadow behind the rearmost wagon, caught the tailboard, and rolled into the bed. The load was light: mostly empty sacks, broken crate-lids, old rope, and scraps the men clearly did not care enough to sort properly. Her weight added nothing the axle noticed. She wormed beneath the burlap, flattened herself, and went still.
The teamsters clucked their tongues. Traces tightened. Wheels lurched.
The wagon line began to move.
Only then did Lili realize she had been holding her breath. Slowly, carefully, she sipped air through her nose and listened as every possible disaster ran through her mind. A spear prodding the sacks. A driver deciding to check the wagon bed. A dog catching her scent. Leo himself riding out of the gate like a storm.
The truth was, she had never fought anyone. Not truly. Only stubborn reindeer that needed a song and a stern talking-to. The idea of striking a man like Leo, big as a bear and wrapped in iron, was laughable. She would break her hand on him before he felt it.
But no spear jabbed the sacks, no dog barked, no alarm rose.
The wagons rattled beneath the portcullis, under the murder-holes, through the second arch, and out into the cobbled lane. The castle fell behind them with a sound like a door closing on a bad dream.
They rolled down the short hill beyond the walls. At a crossroads, the road forked: one path back toward the keep, another toward the town, and a third running straight and pale under moonlight toward the bridge that stitched black water to the mainland forest.
Lili lay beneath the sacks and barely dared to believe what had happened.
I did it.
Her hand moved to her belly. The little warmth inside her had gone quiet, resting perhaps after its work.
"Thank you, little one," she whispered. "From here, Mamma will handle the rest."
The wagons slowed for the turn at the crossroads. Leather creaked. Axles groaned. A driver spat and cursed the hour.
That was her moment.
She rolled to the sideboard, slipped over the tail, and dropped to the road with a soft thup. In two heartbeats, she was in the drainage ditch, pressed flat among reeds while the wheels clattered past. The lantern at the rear of the wagon bobbed farther and farther away until it vanished.
Night exhaled.
Lili rose and listened, but there was nothing. The castle road lay quiet behind her.
Ahead, the straight road ran pale under the moon toward the bridge, its torches small but steady in the distance. To her left, fields spread wide and dark, wheat and rye laid in long stripes of furrow, the rich black earth breathing up the day's warmth. Hedges stitched the land together, thick and friendly to anyone who knew how to move through them.
Barefoot and light on the edges of her feet, Lili slipped into the hedgerow and let the road go. Thorns caught her cloak and released it. Stalks brushed her calves. Somewhere close, a field mouse skittered and went still.
She paused once, crouched, and looked again toward the bridge.
It was still distant and guarded.
Not yet, she decided. Patience now would buy her freedom later.
She gathered her cloak, tied it high at the waist so it would not drag, checked the knife at her belt, and breathed to calm herself.
Then she turned her back on the road and began moving through the fields, keeping low, keeping quiet, as she moved forward.