Between plans and shadow

The soldier from the stream would not leave my thoughts. Every face in the barracks line, every armored back that passed in the corridor, I scanned for a flash of gray eyes or the slope of black hair. Most soldiers looked at me with the practiced disgust of a people taught to fear a marked thing; some spat, some pretended I didn’t exist. None of them were him.

I sighed and bent back to my sweeping, the broom whispering across the stone. The palace seemed louder than usual—every clink of metal, every distant footfall amplified into accusation. How could one brief meeting with a stranger weigh so much? His image kept surfacing: the pale, steady look that had cut through Eleazar’s certainty like a blade. It felt wrong to care about a man who wore the king’s badge. It felt more wrong to feel the curious tug in my chest whenever I imagined him.

“Hey, Selene.”

Luke’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. He was there before I saw him, leaning on the lintel, his face open and anxious. He glanced at my hands, at the broom, then met my eyes with a look of something like apology.

“Ah—Luke.” I started, more surprised than I meant to be. “Sorry, I—” I trailed off, flushing as if I’d been caught staring into a well.

He tried to rub the back of his neck, a nervous habit I had come to know. “It’s fine. I—” He swallowed. “By the way, have you decided about the escape?”

My chest lurched. I had hoped to keep the soldier in the stream from taking root in my talk with Luke, but the question opened the wound of worry. Before I could answer, the bell for the midday meal clanged, cutting the conversation short.

“Come on,” I said quickly, trying to keep my voice steady. “Let’s eat.” I led him toward the kitchen as if the clatter of plates could muffle what I did not want to say.

We settled in our usual corner, the same cracked bench, the same chipped bowl. The food was thin—gruel thickened with barley, a slab of bread—but we ate because we had to. Around us, the servants moved like practiced shadows; none paused for conversation. Luke ate with the same seriousness he applied to all urgent things, while I picked at my meal. The soldier’s face kept surfacing between spoonfuls: the way he stood, the way his eyes had threaded through Eleazar’s words.

“Selene.” Luke’s voice was low, gentle. He watched me as if he wanted to pry the secret from behind my ribs without breaking me. “What are you thinking about? You look far away.”

I closed my mouth on a lie. “Nothing,” I said too quickly, then added, softer, “Just… thinking.”

“You’re thinking about the escape, aren’t you?” His tone dropped to a whisper, sharp enough that I felt hot under the collar. His fingers brushed mine beneath the table for a heartbeat—small, steady, a lifeline.

I hesitated. He had given me the knife; he had made plans and coaxed me toward a life beyond these walls. He deserved honesty. But there was the soldier. I could not tell Luke that a stranger in the reeds had stirred something in me that was not fear nor the dull, pragmatic longing for safety. How to explain the way a single glance could feel like the first warm day of spring?

“Yes,” I admitted at last, shame shading my voice. “A little.”

Luke’s eyes softened. “Don’t brood. I’ll take care of everything. When the moon slants, we go. I promise.”

His promise was a small, dangerous thing: the kind you could keep in a pocket and take out when the night was long. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to pack my life into the space between his words and step into freedom. But I had learned that promises in the palace were like candles in wind—bright, brief, and easily snuffed.

After the meal, chores pulled me back into the current of palace life. Leonora watched me with the hawk’s patience, her lips pursed as if she measured every inch of my behavior. She had always disliked me, but lately her glances carried something sharper—curiosity sharpened into suspicion. Perhaps she had caught rumors of the priest’s talk or sensed a change in the air. It made me careful as I moved through the corridors, every step a study in silent breathing.