The Gilded Lie

The mud-slathered horse skidded to a halt at the ridge's edge, and you swung down before the beast could settle, boots sinking into the wet loam. Below, the caravan snaked through the valley—torchlight flickering against the dying dusk, the royal standard hanging limp on its pole. Commander Veyra's silhouette was unmistakable at the head, her cloak cut sharp against the orange gloom.

You'd spent three days perfecting the limp, the weary slump of a prince who had walked his kingdom's ruin. The mud on your face was a lie, but so was the fear in your eyes. That one, you'd practiced in a cracked mirror for a decade.

"Your Highness." A scout reined in beside you, breath ghosting in the cold. "The commander requests you join the vanguard. She says the ground ahead is uncertain."

Uncertain. Veyra's word for I don't trust you.

You let your shoulders sag, let the exhaustion read as noble suffering. "Tell her I'm coming." The scout wheeled away. You looked down at the valley, at the kingdom's last hope crawling toward a place that would hunt the truth from your chest.

And you smiled—thin, private, the real one you wore when the lies were at their most beautiful.