The Prince Who Ran

Chapter Four: The Crown In Ashes

Chapter Four: The Crown in the Ashes

The paper crumpled in Lyra’s fist.

Her fingers trembled as she looked from the wanted poster to Caelan — Cale, the boy who had worked beside her, fought beside her, laughed quietly in the shadows and watched her with too-serious eyes.

“You’re the prince?” Her voice was small, sharp.

The question wasn’t truly a question. It was a wound trying to make sense of its bleeding.

Caelan opened his mouth. Closed it again. The square around them had fallen silent. The bonfires hissed with the cooling wind.

The messenger dismounted slowly, warily. His eyes darted from Garrin to Caelan to the villagers encircling them. No one spoke.

“I—was,” Caelan finally said. “I didn’t want to be.”

Lyra’s jaw clenched. “You lied.”

“No,” he said. “I never told you who I was. That’s different.”

Garrin stepped forward then, his expression unreadable. “What the hell did you do, boy?”

“I left,” Caelan said. “The night my father died.”

He looked around, letting the weight of his words settle. “I was next in line. But I couldn’t—” His voice caught. “I didn’t want to become my father. Or his crown. Or the kind of king who decides who lives or dies from a seat miles away.”

Lyra’s eyes shimmered. “So you left the kingdom leaderless?”

“I thought my brother would take the throne. Or the Council. I thought…” His breath shook. “I thought I didn’t matter. That someone else could do it better.”

The messenger stepped forward, voice urgent. “You’re needed, Your Highness. The nobility is splintering. There are whispers of a pretender claiming the throne in the North. The Council’s fractured. The people—your people—are lost.”

“I’m not their prince anymore,” Caelan said, backing away.

But the crowd was already changing.

Whispers swirled like crows.

“He’s been here for months…”
“He lied to all of us…”
“But he saved Jerrin in the trials…”
“He worked like any of us…”

Garrin lifted his hand.

Silence.

Then he looked at Caelan. Not with rage, or disappointment. But with the bitter weight of an old man who had seen too much.

“You had the chance to disappear. But you stayed. You fought. You trained. You helped rebuild roofs and bury our dead. Whatever else you are, Caelan… You became someone here.”

Caelan didn’t expect the burn in his throat. Or the weight in his chest.

But Lyra’s gaze was harder to meet.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

He took a step toward her. “Because you were the first person to see me without a crown. And I didn’t want to lose that.”

She swallowed, something cracking behind her eyes.

Then, without a word, she turned and walked away.

◇

Caelan sat by the river until the moon had climbed half the sky.

Garrin joined him, eventually. The old man tossed him a flask. “Cider. Don’t look at me like that.”

Caelan took a long drink.

“Will they forgive me?” he asked quietly.

“No.” Garrin said. “Not all. But enough will. Time’s funny like that.”

Caelan nodded slowly.

“They’re not the only ones with choices to make, though,” Garrin added. “The throne hasn’t forgotten you. And it won’t let you forget it.”

“I can’t go back.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Garrin gave a small grunt. “That’s the best time to choose.”

◇

The next morning, the village buzzed with conflict.

Some wanted Caelan gone. Said he was danger. A liar. A fugitive.

Others defended him. Said he’d earned their trust, that a crown didn’t erase the man who fixed fences and fought fairly and grieved quietly by the river.

But none of it mattered when the second rider arrived.

This one didn’t wear the crown’s colors.

This one wore black.

His horse was lathered in sweat, and his face was ghost pale.

“There’s a battalion flying the Boar Sigil,” he gasped, dismounting. “Coming down the West Pass. They’ve taken Fereth’s Watch. Burned it.”

Fereth’s Watch was less than thirty miles from Durn’s Hollow.

A cold silence swept through the crowd.

“They’re not royal forces?” someone asked.

The rider shook his head. “No. Rebels. Flying black and crimson. With the Pretender’s seal.”

“Who is the Pretender?” Caelan asked.

The rider hesitated. Then spoke low:

“Lord Vayne of the Northern Wastes. He’s claimed the throne by blood rite. Claims you abandoned the realm, Your Highness.”

Caelan staggered back, as if struck.

Vayne. A name he had heard only once. A cousin of some distant royal blood. Ambitious. Cruel.

And now, marching.

Garrin growled. “It begins.”

◇

Caelan found Lyra by the stream that night, stringing her bow with tight, angry fingers.

“Go away,” she said without looking up.

“I can’t,” he said. “Not until you hear me.”

“I heard you,” she said bitterly. “You didn’t trust me.”

“I didn’t trust myself.”

Silence.

“I didn’t know how to be both,” he whispered. “Your friend and the son of the man who made widows by decree.”

She looked up then, and her anger faded, bit by bit.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said, almost inaudibly.

“I don’t want to,” he said. “But I think I have to.”

She stood, the bow still in her hand.

“If you go back… they’ll either kill you, or make you into something you hate.”

“Then I’ll choose what kind of king I become.”

Lyra stared at him a long time.

Then, finally, she said: “You don’t have to do it alone.”

His breath caught. “Lyra…”

“I don’t forgive you,” she said.

“But I believe in you.”

And then she stepped forward, leaned in, and kissed him. Not gently. Not like a goodbye.

But like a promise.

◇

That night, Caelan stood atop the village hill with Garrin, Lyra, and the council elders. Below them, Durn’s Hollow glowed in soft lantern light.

“They won’t follow a prince,” Garrin said.

“No,” Caelan said. “But they might follow a man who became one without a throne.”

Lyra stepped up beside him, a hand brushing his.

And in the distance, the flames of war lit the horizon.