Frost sparkled like crystals on the fine spring grass. It was early morning and the sun had barely risen above the rooftops. There was still a chill in the air that nibbled Catania's fingertips.

The streets of Melzor were empty at such a time, and Catania skipped and hummed happily. She was heading for the farmyard to see Padaquin, the farmer’s son. He was handsome and charming and older, so she made the trip as often as she could. But such escapades she had to keep a secret, because if her father found out, Padaquin would likely be killed.

Catania was eighteen years old, and Padaquin twenty-two. His age was what attracted Catania to him most, she thought. Or perhaps it was his chiselled muscles and gruff voice. Or maybe his green eyes. Whatever it was, his company made her happy. It was such a pleasant change from being in the presence of her father.

“Good morning,” she said shyly from the doorway of the barn.

Padaquin looked up from the cow he was milking. “Back again?” he said. “You must be trying to get me in trouble.”

“I’m not,” she said quickly. “I just wanted to see you.”

Padaquin smiled despite himself, and Catania took that as her cue to enter.

“Have you been here long?” she asked.

“Couple of hours,” Padaquin answered, back to milking.

“Can I help you with anything?”

“You can feed the chickens,” he suggested.

Catania stepped carefully across the barn and sprinkled a handful of grain into the chicken coop. Then she tiptoed back.

Padaquin laughed. “Task completed like a palace girl.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re far too worried about getting your shoes dirty,” he teased.

“If I go home covered in muck then my father will know where I’ve been,” she argued. “And I doubt that would end well for you.”

Padaquin’s eyes twinkled like gemstones, like they always did when he made her mad. Catching sight of them made her heart flutter.

“So where does he think you are today?” Padaquin asked.

“He doesn’t think I’m anywhere,” Catania replied. “He’s with his Dragons. Probably hatching a cunning plan of some sort.”

“Time that would be better spent providing for the people in his city.”

“You don’t think he provides for his people?” Catania asked.

“He lives comfortably in his palace while my father and I have barely enough coin to buy grain for the chickens.”

“You wouldn’t leave Melzor though, would you? So it can’t be that bad.”

“I would leave if I had the money,” Padaquin answered seriously.

“Well I have money,” Catania said, surprising herself with what she was insinuating.

Padaquin looked quizzically at her. “Are you suggesting we run away together?”

Catania blushed a deep red. “What if I am?”

“I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because if you disappeared then every soldier in Pharia would be sent to search for you,” Padaquin said. “We would always be looking over our shoulder.”

“But you would consider it?”

Padaquin fixed her with a serious glare and then turned his back to feed the pigs.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, a huge smile spreading across her face.

*

Oracus stood over Catania and Alticon's dead bodies, their blood merging and beginning to flow through the rubble. It was another ache in Oracus’s heart that could be added to all the others, seeing his mother dead. But at least she was at peace now, and no longer being tormented by the secrets she was keeping.

Oracus wiped the tears from his cheeks when the damaged ceiling above him creaked. If he could have stayed alone with the bodies a while longer, he would have, but he needed to get them out before the room caved under the weight of the mountain.

“How do you think the people of Tallarin will react to this?” a voice asked from the doorway.

Oracus looked up to see Quent watching him. He sighed gratefully. “I never thought I’d be glad to see you,” he said. “Help me get these bodies out before the ceiling collapses.”

Quent shook his head and smiled. “I don’t think I can help you with that.”

“If you don’t then their bodies will be buried here,” Oracus protested.

“That’s a shame,” Quent said. “But if I die trying to get them out, nobody will know what really happened here. And I think it’s important the surviving people of Tallarin know you killed their Princess!”

“No, Quent, I had to,” Oracus said. “Did you not see Jowra controlling her?”

“What I saw was Princess Catania pleading for her life, and instead of sparing her, you shot her with an arrow. And poor Alticon was just collateral damage.”

“You can’t be serious?” Oracus said in desperation.

“If you live beyond today, you could deny it. But would they believe me or the Vassath Rider who is powerful enough to destroy half the palace?”

Oracus stood with his mouth open. If he hadn’t been in pain or stuck behind a mound of debris, he would have killed Quent with his bare hands.

“I did try to stop you, but you were far too strong for me,” he continued, tapping the doorframe nonchalantly with a finger. “Somehow, I managed to escape, but there was no way of me recovering Catania or Alticon’s bodies.”

“You liar!” Oracus shouted. He grabbed his bow, but before he could nock an arrow to the string, Quent was gone.

“Bandor, the ceiling is falling in Catania’s quarters,” Oracus said worriedly in his mind. “Where are you?”

“I’m coming for you,” came the reply. “I’m running up the palace steps.”

The walls were crumbling now and the floor was beginning to lurch dangerously. Oracus felt his heart thumping inside him and he wondered if he could even get himself out, let alone Catania and Alticon.

“I’m going to be buried in here, Bandor. I’m stuck!”

The ceiling creaked again and more rubble fell into the room. Oracus backed away, but a lump of rock caught his head and knocked him to the floor.

“Hurry, Bandor,” were the words that left his lips. “Hurry.”

*

Four years passed by and Catania still skipped through Melzor’s streets to see Padaquin most mornings. She was no longer the naïve girl she had been before, but that didn’t stop her loving the farmer’s boy more than ever.

Their regular trysts on the farmyard were still a risk, but Catania hadn’t once been caught by her father, so naturally she visited the farm more and more. If her father hadn’t noticed her disappearances thus far, he was never going to. He obviously had more pressing issues to concern himself with; like the rebellion.

It was spring again, and frosty too. But Catania didn’t mind the cold, just as she no longer minded the dirt. These days, she helped Padaquin work through the mornings; she milked the cows, fed the pigs and chickens, mucked out the stables – she would often tell Padaquin she was a farmer’s girl with a fine taste in clothes. Padaquin would often roll his eyes.

“Can you remember when we joked about running away from Melzor together?” Catania said as Padaquin rolled a bail of hay into the stable. “Do you think we would have coped on our own?”

“I think we would have been found. You would be back in the palace, most likely, and I would be dead.”

Catania continued brushing the horse she was grooming. “Nobody would find us if we hid in the forest.”

“Maybe,” Padaquin said with a shrug.

Catania turned to face Padaquin and leaned against the horse. “I have something important to tell you,” she said.

Padaquin’s green eyes were instantly on her. “What is it?”

Catania put a delicate hand on her belly and smiled. “We’ve made a little person.”

It took a while for the words to sink in, but when they did, Padaquin’s face lit up like a firework.

“You’re happy?” Catania asked him.

“Of course I’m happy!” he exclaimed. But his ecstasy quickly became an expression of uncertainty. “But what are we going to do?”

Catania looked seriously at him. “What would you say now if I suggested running away?”

It took Padaquin less than a second to answer. “I would say yes.”

“You’d risk your life to be with me?”

“I would do anything for you, Catania,” he said. “And we can’t stay here now. The one thing we can’t keep a secret is a baby.”

Catania ran over to Padaquin and wrapped her arms around him. She laughed, and then she began to cry. “When should we go?” she asked between sobs.

“As soon as it’s safe to,” he answered.

*

“Oracus, wake up. I need help here!”

Oracus heard Bandor’s voice inside his head when he came around, but it was the pain in his wrist that had brought him back to consciousness. When he opened his eyes, he saw the Lion’s metal jaws were clamped tightly around his arm, teeth digging deep into the flesh, as he tried to wrestle him free of the rubble. Oracus wriggled and adjusted, and eventually his legs came loose.

“It’s lucky only your legs were trapped,” Bandor said. “What happened up here?”

“Did you see Quent on your way through the palace?” Oracus asked, ignoring Bandor’s question.

“He was running through the workshop, screaming,” Bandor answered. “Why?”

“Because he’s going to tell everyone I killed Catania.”

Bandor looked at Catania and Alticon’s dead bodies and then glanced around the destroyed room. “Tell me what happened!”

“Jowra was controlling Catania and destroying the palace through her body. He made her kill Alticon and he tried to kill me.”

“So you killed her instead?”

“Bandor, I had no choice,” Oracus insisted. “But Quent saw it all and he’s going to make me sound like the villain.”

“Then we need to go after him!” Bandor ordered.

“I can barely walk. My back and legs hurt so much,” Oracus said.

“Then I’ll carry you, you just need to climb on my–” Bandor paused and his ears twitched towards the door. “There’s someone coming.”

“Someone to help get us out?” Oracus said hopefully.

“Oracus, I don’t think it’s someone who wants to help…”

Oracus was instantly paralysed with fear. He and Bandor stared at the door and waited to be found by their enemy. Whoever this person was, their heavy boots were like an approaching battledrum with every step, distant and quiet at first, but more thunderous with every beat.

“There was nowhere you could hide from me!” a deep voice growled from outside the door.

Next moment, Gravaz was stooping through the doorway, his huge frame filling what was left of the destroyed room. He carried no weapon and Lapsin wasn’t by his side, but the sight of him still filled Oracus with terror.

“Tallarin has been defeated,” Gravaz said triumphantly. His scarred face twisted into a smile and he rubbed his enormous grey hands together. “Your death is all that remains.”

Oracus watched from the floor as Gravaz climbed slowly over the rubble that separated them. Bandor growled at Oracus’s side but the Ulatori was unfazed by the warning. When he was just feet from Oracus, he removed his eye-patch and unfastened his chestplate to reveal a misty eye and more scarring across his upper torso.

“Look at what you did to me!” Gravaz shouted angrily. Oracus flinched and shuffled backwards. “Stand up so I can kill you properly.”

Bandor took a step forwards to protect Oracus. Gravaz snarled and his one yellow eye glowered at them both.

“I can’t stand,” Oracus said.

“Then I’ll force you to,” Gravaz responded.

Bandor roared in defiance. He leaped at Gravaz to knock him down, but the Ulatori caught the Lion’s head in his hands and threw him across the room. More of the ceiling fell when Bandor landed, and Oracus shielded his eyes from the dust.

“Even your Lavorian cannot save you,” Gravaz said as he grabbed Oracus by the hair and lifted him to his feet.

Oracus screamed in pain, then Gravaz struck him in the stomach and let him fall back to the floor.

“Would you like this to end quickly?” Gravaz asked. “Or very, very slowly?”

Another growl came from where Gravaz had thrown Bandor. The Lavorian climbed free of the debris that had landed on him and he attacked the Ulatori for a second time. Gravaz tried to dodge Bandor, but a claw tore the skin of his arm. When Bandor landed next to Oracus, Gravaz aimed a ball of fire at their feet.

Oracus gasped before the explosion came, and he noticed the look of victory on Gravaz’s face too. The force of the blast lifted Oracus off the ground, and the heat that immersed his skin was intense and agonising. He was thrown backwards through the broken window of Catania’s quarters, and then he was falling towards the ocean far below.

*

Padaquin and Catania left Melzor and travelled across desert towards the safety of the forest. When they reached the trees, they spent several weeks sleeping on piles of leaves and rationing their dwindling supply of food. Then eventually, they found an abandoned village that would provide them with shelter.

The village appeared to have been ravaged by fire. But over the many years that had passed by since, moss and ivy had almost entirely consumed it. There was a sign in the village; Emsbleek, it read. And there was a river nearby too, which provided Padaquin and Catania with fresh water.

For a whole year, the two of them stayed alone in Emsbleek, in a tiny house that had avoided the fire. The house had a bed and a stove, luxuries they had not expected before fleeing Melzor, and it had a roof that sheltered them from the rain too. Padaquin learned to hunt game with a makeshift bow, while Catania would pick fruits from the bushes around the village. And in time, their beautiful baby boy arrived, with blonde hair like Catania’s and emerald green eyes like Padaquin’s. He was a Prince of Melzor, and a handsome young boy too. But he was a Prince who would never take the throne, for his parents were now enemies of the King, particularly his peasant father.

The whole time they were in the forest, they lived in constant fear of being caught. Not a day went by when they didn’t say how much they loved each other. Then eventually, the day they dreaded most finally came.

“They must have seen the smoke of our fire!” Catania gasped as the sound of a horn bellowed from within the trees surrounding Emsbleek. “You need to leave now, Padaquin. And take Oracus with you!”

“There’s no way I’m leaving you here,” Padaquin retorted.

“We don’t have a choice. There’s no other way.”

“If you take Oracus then I’ll be the one to stay behind and get caught.”

“You know that won’t work. He’ll never stop searching for me unless he finds me. I’ll tell him you died, and he never needs to know about Oracus.”

“But he’ll kill you,” Padaquin stated.

“He won’t kill me. He’ll just keep me in the palace until he thinks he can trust me again,” Catania said. “And when he let’s me out, I’ll come and find you.”

There was a rustle of leaves from the bushes nearby that startled them both.

“Go now before they see you,” Catania urged. “Go!”

Padaquin gazed into Catania’s eyes one last time before he left. Then he scooped up Oracus and headed for the trees that would take him further north.

He didn’t know it, but that was the last time Padaquin would see the mother of his son.