His throne,her war

Run,Bleed,Survive

The world was on fire.

Not with flames—but with eyes, with steel, with judgment.

Boots thundered in the distance. The shouts of soldiers ripped through the fog, cruel and certain.

“Kael Varentine has betrayed the Crown!”

“Seize him!”

“On your knees, cur!”

I stood tall.

The name wasn’t mine. The blood soaking through my gloves wasn’t mine. The story—this story—was never meant to be mine.

But I was here.

And I wasn’t going to let it end on someone else’s terms.

The boy who had warned me had vanished into the shadows. I didn’t blame him. Loyalty was a dangerous currency, and I couldn’t afford to spend anyone else’s.

Beneath the armor, my breath hitched. The chest binding was too tight. My muscles ached in ways I didn’t recognize—Kael’s body still unfamiliar. But my heartbeat? That was mine.

Terrified. Fierce.

Alive.

I wasn’t supposed to be here.

I was supposed to be in a classroom, scribbling answers to a history quiz.

I was supposed to die in the hospital, lungs filled with rainwater, a silly girl who never said goodbye.

Instead, I was walking into history with someone else’s name carved across my back.

Into a battle that wasn’t mine.

A death that wasn’t mine.

But the fight? The fight was going to be mine.

“Archers! Ready!”

The command echoed like thunder as I reached the ridge above the forest. My instincts screamed at me to run. But Kael hadn’t run in the book. He had walked into the execution circle with eyes that didn’t flinch.

I didn’t know how he did it.

But I’d learn.

Because right now, if I hesitated, even for a second, they would eat me alive.

I ducked behind a crumbling pillar from the old shrine and gritted my teeth. My hand trembled as I pulled the sword free.

Too heavy.

Too sharp.

Too real.

I wasn’t a swordsman. I wasn’t even athletic. In gym class, I used to fake sprains just to avoid dodgeball.

Now I was supposed to fight a dozen trained knights with nothing but Kael’s broken sword and a prayer?

A sharp whisper of breath escaped my lips.

Then... I heard footsteps. Again.

But this time, not hurried. Not chaotic.

Deliberate.

Calm.

Someone was walking toward me through the trees, like they weren’t afraid.

I rose slowly, blade in hand.

A tall figure emerged, dressed in black and crimson armor, the sigil of the royal crest glinting at his chest. His dark hair was tied back, his eyes unreadable—cold like a blade dipped in poison.

“Prince Kael,” he said with mock respect. “I almost didn’t believe it. That you would crawl from your hole just to die in the open.”

I didn’t recognize him at first. But then it clicked.

General Aldren Vale.

Kael’s former friend.

The man who had betrayed him.

You snake.

I didn’t say it out loud.

Kael wouldn’t.

“I go where I choose,” I said instead, mimicking the way Kael had spoken in the book—clipped, emotionless. A blade rather than a voice.

Aldren tilted his head. “Still so proud. Even now.”

I stayed silent.

He stepped closer. “You’re surrounded, you know. The king’s orders are clear. You die by dusk. What game are you playing at, showing yourself here?”

I tightened my grip on the sword. The blade trembled slightly. He noticed.

And smiled.

That smile made something curl in my chest—rage or fear, I didn’t know. But I swallowed it down.

“I’m not here to play,” I said. “I’m here to end the story.”

A pause.

Then a laugh. “Still dramatic. Still delusional.”

“I’m not the one who stabbed a brother in the back.”

That wiped the smile off his face.

He lunged.

I blocked, barely. The clang of steel rattled my bones. My arms screamed with the effort. I stumbled, fell to one knee.

Aldren raised his blade.

“This is where your story ends, Kael.”

But I wasn’t Kael.

And my story was just beginning.

With everything I had left, I twisted to the side, his blade missing me by inches. I rolled, grabbing the broken hilt of a second sword from the shrine floor.

Two swords.

No training.

No chance.

But I fought anyway.

Because sometimes surviving is the rebellion.

Blood on my tongue. Ash in my lungs. Cuts across my cheek, shoulder, arm.

He was too fast.

Too trained.

But I refused to fall.

“Why—” Aldren snarled, swinging again. “Why won’t you just die already?”

Because I had died once.

And I wasn’t going to let them take this second life from me.

At last, something shifted. He slipped—just an inch. Just enough. I brought the blade down—

And it stopped. Not at his throat. But beside it.

I couldn’t do it.

I wasn’t a killer.

Not yet.

But I could make a promise.

“Tell the capital,” I whispered, voice shaking. “Kael Varentine is not dead. And he’s not playing your game anymore.”

He stared at me in stunned silence.

Then I disappeared into the trees.

Running. Bleeding.

But alive.

She was never meant to be Kael.

But Kael was never truly understood.

Now they would write his legend again—

And they wouldn’t even know it was her holding the pen.My breath was shallow.

The armor weighed on me like a coffin, every dent and c***k pressing into skin that wasn't mine. I could feel Kael’s broken ribs, her splintered shoulder, the dull throb behind her right eye from a blow that should’ve killed her hours ago.

But I stood.

Barely.

The sword trembled in my grip—not from fear, but exhaustion.

Boots pounded behind the fog. I heard the clatter of steel. The hoarse shouts of soldiers drunk on righteousness and revenge.

And my knees finally gave out.

The ground didn’t catch me. Arms did.

Strong. Steady. Wrapped in velvet-red cloth that smelled like snow and blood.

“Get up,” a voice hissed, soft and sharp like a blade unsheathed in the dark. A girl’s voice. Urgent. “We don’t have time.”

My head lolled to the side. I caught a flash of her: ink-black hair tied high with a crimson ribbon, face half-shadowed beneath a wide hood, eyes burning like stars set against obsidian skies.

“Who…” I croaked.

She didn’t answer. She hoisted me upright as arrows sliced through the fog—one grazing her shoulder, but she didn’t flinch.

“Kael Varentine dies today,” she whispered close to my ear. “But not here. And not like this.”

I wanted to ask who she was. How she knew. Why she was helping me.

But I couldn’t speak.

I couldn’t think.

She moved fast. One hand dragging my half-dead body, the other flicking a dagger from her belt and sending it spinning through the air. A scream followed. Someone fell.

“Traitor sighted!”

They were close now—dozens of them, maybe more. The sound of armored feet hitting stone echoed like thunder. I stumbled. She caught me again.

“I don’t have time to explain,” she said, voice breaking for a second before hardening again. “But if you want to live, you’ll move. Now.”

So I did.

I ran—no, limped—through the skeletal remains of what used to be a chapel. Flames licked the walls, smoke thick enough to choke. She pulled me through it all, eyes never straying from the path ahead.

“What’s your name?” I gasped.

“Call me Lys,” she said without turning.

And then—

An arrow struck me. Right in the side.

I collapsed, pain ripping through my ribs like lightning. I screamed. I couldn’t stop it. Not this time.

Lys spun around, grabbed me, and dragged me behind a crumbling pillar. Her hands pressed to the wound.

“You’re lucky,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “It missed the lung.”

Lucky?

I was bleeding out. In a stranger’s body. In a war I didn’t start. Wearing the name of a man history called a monster.

And yet somehow…

I wasn’t afraid.

Not of dying.

Not anymore.

But of being forgotten.

Of her story ending like this—with betrayal and silence.

Lys tore part of her cloak and wrapped it around the wound, tightening until stars danced behind my eyes.

“You’re Kael now,” she whispered, low and urgent. “And Kael doesn’t die until you say so.”

I looked up at her.

And in that moment, I believed her.