Early morning in the palace was like wading into a bottomless, cold ocean: beautiful at a distance, merciless inside. Every movement broke into waves that carried her farther from shore.

Lily rose when the corridor chimed with the first rhythm of servants’ steps. She laid her palm on the cold windowsill, listened to the silence, and opened the door.

“Excuse me… where’s the east courtyard?” she asked the first guard.

“Down, right, then right again,” he said listlessly. “And keep your hands off the gilt. Shows fingerprints at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

Corridors stretched like rivers, slick as ice. Her footsteps rang too loud; every echo said: you don’t belong.

Reliefs of winged figures scored the walls. Stone eyes followed without mercy. The palace spoke of beings who barely touched ground, yet were everywhere.

“Don’t touch the walls,” a maid murmured as she passed.

“I only wanted to feel...”

“No.”

“All right.” She dropped her hands. “What’s your name?”

“Meren.”

“Meren… where can I stand so I’m not in the way?”

“Wherever the floor isn’t shining.”

Lily frowned in confusion. Meren let out an exasperated sigh - "Their feet don't wear out the floor like ours. They don't walk with all of their weight down."

Lily blinked, remembering how she'd seen Ilari 'walk' - a combination of wing and leg movements that kept them always slightly afloat.

But Eirran had walked like a man. - the thought came out of nowhere.

She remembered his strange, clumsy walk as he came to the village, his wings folded, the weight full on his feet.

He hasn't walked like that ever since they've arrived at the palace.

The thought caused a sudden pang of loss she couldn't name, so she bit her lip instead.

---

Near late morning, a knot of Ilari girls glided past. One veered sharply to avoid brushing her, raking Lily from head to toe with a glance. Contempt flashed, quick and clean. The others leaned together, whispered, and laughed, brittle as crystal.

“Good day,” Lily muttered anyway.

“Keep it for your own kind,” one said, cool as law.

“Why?” slipped out of her.

“We said: distance.”

It was too neat, like a rule written into their breath.

On the steps lay a chipped feather. Lily bent, picked it up, closed her fist. It rustled as if breathing.

“Give me that,” came Meren’s sharp voice.

“I just… found it.”

“Feathers don’t stay on the ground.”

“Why?”

“Because nothing unclean may touch what Ellevath had blessed.” From her apron she drew a dish blackened with ash. “What falls away, we burn. Wings are the path. Feathers are the memory of the path.”

Two Ilari watched from above. “She touched it,” one reported.

“The touch is done,” Meren replied evenly. “Hand it over and nothing will be remembered.”

Lily placed the feather into the dish. The rim gleamed once, then dulled.

“Thank you,” she whispered, not sure to whom.

“In future: don’t touch,” Meren said, moving on.

“If I do something wrong, tell me,” Lily called.

“First rule,” Meren said without turning. “Watch and keep quiet.”

---

Later, Evan slipped in, leaning on a doorway. “Noticed they hardly blink?”

“I have. Hard not to stare.”

“Don’t. They take it as a challenge.” He pressed dried fruit into her palm. “Eat. Stick to my shadow in the halls.”

---

At noon the sun revealed a nacreous sheen on her skin. She rubbed sand on top of her hand, desperate to dull it.

“Stop that,” said Tana the cook, handing her salve. “You’ll tear your skin. Use this. And don’t clog my drains.”

“Thank you,” Lily murmured.

---

By afternoon she hid behind heavy drapes, listening.

“Schedule’s shifting tonight,” one Ilari voice said.

“Because of her?”

“Because of a guest. Move her out of the main wing.”

The court ladies’ laughter was brittle, cold.

“The prince keeps the family of mudborn paesants. Maybe a half-breed child.”

“Eilleah, they call her.”

“Do you think she’s his?”

“The Temple won’t like it.”

“Keep her out of sight. He'll get tired of his charity, everyone does eventually.” She heard a crystal giggle.

---

Toward evening, when bridges cast long shadows, Lily opened the little chest in her room. On top lay the dress; someone had set the book on it. On the windowsill, beside the ash bowl, stood the silver bird -brought in without a sound. Gifts from Eirran that had arrived over the past few days, sent by servants.

She didn’t want to look at them.

It was as if the palace itself were trying to decide who she would be, and rejecting her answer.

---

That evening, in the garden’s quietest corner, Lily dug a shallow hole. Evan stood guard.

She folded the dress, wrapped the book, muffled the silver bird in fig leaves until its shine vanished. She laid them down like seeds, covered them with earth, pressed a stone over the mound.

“You sure?” Evan asked.

“I am.”

“You don’t need to like those things, you know.”

“I know. But looking at them feels like they want to own me.”

They didn’t see Eirran in the shadow of a pillar, watching silently. He left before the sun touched the roof.

---

Steps stopped outside her door: first light, then heavier, as if someone settled from air onto stone. He didn’t knock.

“Tomorrow will be a quieter day,” Eirran said through the wood, voice low and cautious. “We haven't had much chance to talk yet. And I think...we need to. Talk. So, if you'd like...the rooftop garden. No protocol up there. No rules.”

Lily laid her forehead to the cool door. “I don’t know yet,” she said, loud enough.

“I understand.” A pause. “I’ll leave you… nothing.”

He hesitated, then thought better of more. The steps moved away...too light for stone again.

She doused the lamp.

“If you’re not sleeping, I’m counting sounds,” Evan said softly from the next room.

“Don’t,” she answered.

A pause. "Are you going to the garden tomorrow?"

"I don't know," she said quietly. "I think I will."

“Okay,” he said. “I’m here.”

“I know.”

---

The rooftop garden sat higher than safety, lower than sky. Stone still held yesterday’s warmth; cherry leaves barely stirred.

Eirran arrived first, wings folded. He had stood on battlefields, but meeting a girl in a linen dress felt more dangerous.

Lily came without hurry. She stopped by the pavilion, measuring distance. He took the first step.

“Thank you for coming.” His throat went dry. “I… want to apologize.”

“For the gifts,” he said. “The dress, the book, the bird. I thought they’d help. I didn’t ask what you needed. That’s on me.”

Lily said nothing, steady as stone.

“I’m sorry for the palace,” he added. “For corridors that push you to the margins. For a city too sharp. I should have known. I didn’t. That’s the difference.”

Her gaze lifted, quiet and heavy. The question was there, unspoken.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he said, almost too fast. “There’s no handbook. I learn slowly. But I want to learn. If you’ll let me.”

“I don’t know… how to address you,” she whispered. The words cut deeper than any accusation.

“In private,” he said carefully, “however you wish. In public...for your sake...call me as the others do. Not because I want it. Because the rules bite the wingless first.”

She tilted her head, fitting it into place. The unspoken still hung between them.

“Will you walk beside me?” she asked softly.

“I will.” His voice steadied. “But I’ll have to choose the moments. When rules break, the weight falls on the nearest wingless. If I could bear it all, I would. But I can’t.”

“Then what is all this for?”

“Because the road that would let us meet doesn’t exist yet. Not on their maps. But there’s always a side path. Narrow, hidden, untidy. I want us to find it. Or build it.”

Lily touched the bench edge. “A side path,” she repeated. “I don’t want to build it alone.”

“You won’t have to.”

Silence stretched, heavy but honest.

“If you’d like today,” he said, “we’ll walk a circuit. No witnesses. If not, I’ll stay until you leave and call that the first stone.”

“A circuit,” she agreed. “Slowly.”

They set off beside a low wall, steps deliberate, quiet. His wings folded, weight firm in his feet. Steps wavered, wings trying to flare, but he stilled them. When she paused, he paused. When she sat, he sat.

“I don’t know what this will be,” he admitted when they returned. “I only know I don’t want it to be what it was.”

She didn’t answer with words. He offered his hand, palm up. She set her fingers on his for a heartbeat. Enough.

“In private,” he said, “call me what your heart says. In public… we’ll choose our moments. I’ll make them when I can. When I can’t, I’ll wait.”

“All right,” she said. And in that word lay caution, acceptance, and something new.

When Eirran left, he didn’t open his wings. He took the stairs like someone who, for the first time, trusted stone to hold. It was harder than he’d thought: not because of the height, but because he felt how much each step would cost.

But in that weight, there was direction.

The side path would not be pretty.

It would have thorns.

So he would go first: clear them one by one. Not to lead, but so her feet would not bleed.

And he knew: thorns weren’t the only things hiding in the path.