Princess Aelindra had a letter hidden in her sleeve, and two guards now blocked the only door she had ever loved. The letter came from a farmer. He raised wheat and kept rabbits, and he had asked her, in careful ink, to come live with him. She wanted that life more than the crown. She wanted a quiet cottage, a daughter someday, and mornings that no one scheduled for her. But her father had learned of the letter. This morning he gave the order: the princess stays inside. She walked the servants' corridor and counted the guards. Two at the garden door. Two at the gate beyond. They did not bow. They watched her the way hawks watch a field. "Your Highness must return to her rooms," the taller one said. She returned to her rooms. She did not plan to stay. In a basket by the wash table sat a bundle of folded cloth. A scullery maid had left it, stained and plain, with worn ties and a gathered waist. Aelindra pulled it over her gown. She tucked her blonde hair under a kerchief. In the glass she saw a servant, not a princess. She needed a reason to pass the gate. Then she heard scratching from the corner cage. Two white rabbits pressed their pink noses to the wire. The cook kept them for the spring feast. Servants carried them out to the hutch each morning. Aelindra lifted the rabbits into the basket and covered them with a towel. She bent her shoulders and shuffled toward the door, chin down, like a girl afraid of being late. The garden guards barely looked at her. At the gate, the taller guard raised a hand. "Hold. No one leaves without word." Her heart slammed. She kept her voice flat and tired. "Cook's rabbits, sir. They're to go to the far hutch before they foul the kitchen." She tilted the basket. One rabbit kicked. The towel twitched. The guard frowned at the squirming cloth. He did not want rabbits loose on his watch. "Go on, then. Be quick." She went. She did not run. She walked past the gate, past the wall, past the last place her father's order could hold her. Only when the road bent did she let the kerchief slip and breathe. By dusk she reached the place from the letter. A small cottage stood among the fields, its windows warm and gold, smoke curling from the chimney. Flowers crowded the step. It looked exactly as he had promised. Then she saw the king's banner planted in the yard. Horses stamped near the door. Her father's riders had reached the farmer first. Through the bright window she saw them standing over him. She had escaped the palace. She had walked straight to the one place her father knew to look.