The Prince Who Ran

Chapter Two: Ash And Clay

Chapter Two: Ash and Clay

Caelan didn’t expect to stay longer than a few days.

Just long enough to repay Garrin’s kindness. To gather strength. To maybe earn a silver or two and move on to somewhere even farther from destiny.

But the village of Durn’s Hollow had a way of pulling people in.

The road that cut through it was cracked and uneven. The houses leaned with age. The well in the square always needed repair, and the fields to the west had yielded less and less each season. But the people… they smiled. They laughed. They sang in the evenings and argued at the baker’s stall and danced during the quarter-moon gatherings in the barn.

Caelan had never known life like this—honest, loud, simple. It confused him. It softened him.

And then there was Lyra.

◇

He first saw her two days after he started helping Garrin with the wood-chopping and fence repairs. She arrived at the cottage’s edge on a chestnut mare, a quiver slung over her back and a bow at her side. Her hair was dark, almost black, braided down her spine. She wore trousers stained with dirt and boots that had seen a dozen winters.

She looked like a storm given shape.

“Garrin,” she called, swinging down. “You still alive in there?”

“I’m dying slower than you hoped,” Garrin grunted, stepping out from behind the shed.

Lyra grinned, then spotted Caelan stacking wood.

“Who’s this?”

“Stray I picked up off the road. Calls himself Cale.”

“Stray, huh?” She turned her gaze on Caelan, eyes sharp. “You don’t look like you’ve spent many days starving.”

“I have now,” Caelan said dryly.

She tilted her head, as if deciding whether to be amused or suspicious.

“You from the south?”

“Something like that.”

“You run from something?”

Caelan paused. “Don’t we all?”

That earned a small, thoughtful smile. “Fair enough.”

She dropped a brace of rabbits onto Garrin’s table and turned back to her horse. “I’ll see you both at the bow trials. Day after tomorrow.”

“Only if you stop shooting the fletching off my targets,” Garrin called after her.

“I make no promises,” she shouted back, already mounting again.

Caelan watched her ride off in silence. Something in him stirred—a flicker of interest, of challenge, of danger. He wasn’t sure whether he liked it.

◇

That night, Garrin spoke little over stew, but before Caelan could turn in, the old man lit a second lantern and motioned toward the back shed.

“You’ve got more in you than chopping wood.”

Caelan hesitated. “I don’t follow.”

“I see the way you hold your shoulders. Trained. And when you watch people, you watch their hands first—like a swordsman.”

Caelan stiffened. “You’re imagining things.”

“Am I?” Garrin opened the shed doors.

Inside were staves, straw dummies, battered shields, and wooden training swords.

“I train the village boys for the trials every year. One or two end up decent. The rest break their fingers or cry when they fall. But you…”

“I’m not interested.”

“You owe me, boy. For stew and bed and not asking questions about who you were before.”

Caelan clenched his jaw.

“You’re not training to become a knight,” Garrin said gently. “You’re training to become someone who doesn’t flinch when life comes at you fast.”

Caelan said nothing.

But he stepped inside.

◇

The days that followed blurred.

Morning chores gave way to grueling drills—sword forms, balance, endurance, striking with precision. Garrin taught with few words and hard hands. He corrected posture with smacks to the back and growled every time Caelan winced at his own hesitation.

But Caelan didn’t complain. He was used to harsh tutors. He welcomed the pain. It meant he was doing something. Choosing something.

And every few days, Lyra would return.

Sometimes she practiced archery with the others, hitting center marks with a casual cruelty. Sometimes she merely watched. But when she did, her gaze often found Caelan.

She never asked about his past again. Instead, she asked him strange questions:

“What’s the worst lie you’ve ever told?”
“Do you think fear makes us cruel?”
“Would you rather be loved by everyone or truly known by one person?”

He answered honestly. Carefully. Sometimes not at all. But he liked her questions. He liked that she asked.

And one afternoon, while helping her gather branches in the woods, she said, “You’re not just running, are you?”

Caelan looked up.

“I think you’re waiting. For something.”

He didn’t answer. But he didn’t deny it either.

◇

Then, one evening, as the village prepared for the upcoming trials, a traveler arrived.

He wore a fine cloak, dusty from the road but unmistakably noble. He bore no sigil, but Caelan recognized the posture of someone used to power.

Garrin noticed too. “That one’s not here for trade,” he muttered.

Caelan watched from behind the blacksmith’s stall as the man questioned locals. Harmless inquiries. Asking about people who passed through. About boys of a certain age. About strangers.

His heart hammered in his chest.

They were looking for him.

Later that night, Caelan considered running again. Packing his things. Vanishing once more. But something stopped him.

Lyra.

Garrin.

The way the villagers had welcomed him into their lives, no questions asked. The way the young boys who trained with him now called him “brother” when they got their forms right.

And the way he no longer felt like a shadow of a prince.

He had become someone else.

Someone real.

◇

The next morning, Caelan made a decision.

He stood in the center of the training ring, sweat on his brow, wooden sword in hand. The boys circled around, panting. Garrin watched from the fence. Lyra leaned against a post, arms crossed.

“I’m entering the trials,” Caelan said aloud.

The ring went silent.

Garrin raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“I am.”

Lyra’s expression shifted—half-smile, half-worry.

“You don’t owe me anymore,” Garrin said.

“I know,” Caelan said quietly. “But I owe me.”

Garrin nodded once.

The boys whooped and clapped him on the back.

Lyra smiled, something fierce and beautiful in her eyes.

And Caelan—no longer Prince Caelan of Elaren, just Cale, the runaway with a sword—stepped into the first true chapter of the life he had chosen for himself.

Unaware that the fate he had fled was already circling back, dressed in war and sealed in blood.