The words hung in the lantern-lit air of the mews, more audacious than any falcon’s flight. “We find our own wind,” he’d said. “And we leap.”

Isolde’s breath caught, the hope in his statement so sharp it was painful. Madness. It was utter madness. “Leap where, Gareth? To our deaths?” The whisper was fragile, a cobweb in the heavy silence. “I am the daughter of an Earl. You are a falconer. The world is made of borders and titles. We would be hunted. We would have nothing.”

“We would have this,” he said, his hands still framing her face, his thumbs stroking the path of her tears. His gaze was not that of a dreamer, but of a man who had already calculated the risks and found them worth taking. “We would have a life that is ours. I have some coin saved. I know the roads less traveled. I can work. Mews, stables, farms… a strong back and skill with animals will earn a meal anywhere. We would head north. To the coast. Find a ship. In the far isles, a man is what he can do, not who his father was.”

She searched his moss-green eyes, seeing the terrifying, beautiful landscape of the future he was painting. A life of hardship and uncertainty. A life where her hands would grow calloused, her gowns replaced by rough wool. A life without servants or security. A life where he was not a servant, but her partner. Her equal.

She thought of Lord Fenwick’s cold, possessive touch. Of his promise to ‘tame’ her. That was a cage of certain misery. This… this was a leap into the dark, but it was a leap towards the sky. The decision settled not in her mind, but in her soul, a deep, resonant chord of certainty.

“Yes,” she breathed, the word a release. “Yes.”

The relief that washed over his face was so profound it stole her breath. He closed the small distance between them, his kiss no longer desperate, but a seal. A vow made in the quiet company of hooded birds.

The next three days were a torment of exquisite suspense. Lord Fenwick remained, a shadow of menace over the castle. He prowled the halls, his arrogance a suffocating fog, his gaze lingering on Isolde with an owner’s appraisal that made her skin crawl. She and Gareth were forced to communicate in the barest of whispers, in fleeting glances across the bustling great hall, their conspiracy a secret fire banked between them.

“The night before he is to depart,” Gareth murmured as he adjusted a jess on a hawk’s leg, his words meant only for her. “The guard will be lax. He leaves at dawn, so his men will be drinking the night away. Meet me at the postern gate by the old wall when the moon is highest.”

At dinner that evening, Isolde sat beside her intended, a ghost at the feast. She moved her food around her plate, the rich scents of roasted swan and spiced wine turning to ash in her mouth. Fenwick placed his hand over hers on the table, his rings cold against her skin.

“You have been quiet, my dear,” he said, his voice a low drawl that slid over her nerves. “Contemplating your duties, I trust. You have a wild streak, little bird. I look forward to teaching you a new song.”

She forced her lips into a pale imitation of a smile, her heart hammering against her ribs. She could feel Gareth’s presence across the hall, standing dutifully with the other high-ranking servants by the wall, his face an impassive mask. But she felt his eyes on her, a silent promise of strength. *I will not be his songbird,* she thought, her resolve hardening into steel. *I am a falcon.*

That night, she moved through her chambers like a thief. She bypassed her silks and velvets, choosing instead her plainest, most durable wool riding dress. She packed a small satchel not with silver-backed brushes, but with a flint and steel, a small knife, and the only piece of jewelry that truly mattered: a simple gold locket from her mother, its value sentimental but also practical. She traded her soft slippers for a pair of sturdy leather boots she’d coaxed from a sympathetic stable boy weeks ago, claiming they were for walking in the mews. Each action was a severing of a thread to her old life.

When the castle was deep in slumber, she pulled a dark cloak over her head and slipped from her room. Every creak of a floorboard, every sigh of the wind sounded like an alarm. She reached the postern gate, her heart a frantic drum. He was there, a shadow detaching from deeper shadows, and her fear subsided, replaced by a wave of pure adrenaline.

He held the reins of two horses, not her father’s proud warhorses, but hardy, shaggy garrons. Bianca was hooded and perched calmly on a makeshift stand strapped to one of the saddles, a living flag of their rebellion. Gareth’s favorite kestrel was secured on the other.

“Ready?” he whispered, his voice steady.

She gave a single, firm nod. He helped her mount, his hands strong and sure at her waist. As she settled into the saddle, she took one last look at the great stone keep. It was not a fortress, but a tomb. Her home. Her prison. A single tear of grief and gratitude escaped, but she wiped it away with a gloved hand. She was not looking back.

They rode through the night, sticking to game trails and the shadowed eaves of the forest. The air was cold and clean, smelling of damp earth and pine. The rhythmic clop of the hooves was a lullaby of escape. For the first time, Isolde felt the immensity of the world beyond her father’s lands, and it was not frightening, but full of breathtaking possibility.

The euphoria of the first day gave way to the raw truth of their new life. By the second night, every muscle in Isolde’s body ached. Her hands were raw from the reins, her face chapped by the wind. They made camp in a hidden dell, the horses cropping gratefully at sparse winter grass.

“Here,” Gareth said, handing her a waterskin before starting on a fire. “You did well today.”

“I mostly just held on,” she admitted, a weary smile touching her lips.

“You did not complain. You did not look back. That is more than well.”

She watched him work, his movements economical and sure as he coaxed a flame from the kindling. He was a different man out here. The quiet deference he was forced to wear in the castle was gone, replaced by a calm competence. Here, he was the master of his world. He was teaching her to be the master of hers.

He caught her watching him and paused. “Any regrets, my lady?” The title was a slip, a ghost of their old life.

She moved to sit beside him, close enough that their shoulders brushed. She picked up a piece of dry wood, feeling its rough texture. “My only regret is that we did not do this sooner.” She looked up at him, her face smudged with dirt, her hair escaping its braid. “And you must stop calling me that. Here, in this world, I am only Isolde.”

A slow smile spread across his face, lighting his eyes from within. “Isolde,” he repeated, the name a warm sound in the cold night. He pulled a small loaf of hard bread and a piece of dried meat from his pack, and they shared it, their meager meal more satisfying than any feast. That night, they slept huddled together for warmth under a single blanket, the canopy of stars their ceiling. For the first time in her life, Isolde felt truly safe.

They traveled north for four days, pushing themselves and the horses. The further they went, the more the tension in Isolde’s shoulders began to ease. They had done it. They had escaped. On the fifth day, their supplies running low, Gareth decided to risk stopping in a small, nameless village nestled in a river valley.

“It’s market day. I can trade for fresh bread and oats,” he explained. “You wait with the horses at the edge of the woods. Keep your hood low. We won’t be long.”

Isolde agreed, her heart thumping with a low-level anxiety. She watched him walk towards the bustling village square, his stride confident. She stroked Bianca’s smooth, hooded head, murmuring reassurances to the bird and to herself. The minutes stretched on. The sounds of the market—vendors hawking wares, the bleating of sheep—were a strange music.

Then, another sound cut through the noise. The rhythmic beat of approaching hoofbeats. Not a single rider, but several, moving with military precision. A patrol of five men rode into the square. Isolde’s blood ran cold. On their tabards, stark and clear, was the sigil of a snarling black wolf. Lord Fenwick’s crest.

Panic seized her. She instinctively shrank back, pulling the horses deeper into the shadow of the trees. How? How could they be here? Fenwick should have been riding south, back to his own keep. Rage must have driven him. He must have discovered she was gone, guessed she was with the falconer, and sent his own hunters instead of waiting for her father’s slower, more official search. He wanted revenge, not recovery.

She saw them dismount, their leader barking orders. He unfurled a parchment. He was questioning a baker, pointing. They were looking for them.

Her eyes desperately searched the crowd for Gareth. She found him near a tanner’s stall, frozen. He had seen them. Their eyes met across the square, a hundred yards of bustling chaos between them. For a heart-stopping second, neither moved. His face was a mask of grim calculation. He could not get back to her. If he tried, they would both be caught.

Then, he gave her the slightest nod, a command. He subtly gestured with his head to the north, towards the road out of the valley. *Go.* The message was clear.

Before she could even process it, he acted. He turned, grabbed a hanging display of cured hides from the tanner’s stall, and flung it into the path of a skittish mule pulling a cart. The mule brayed in terror and bolted, crashing into a pen of chickens. The square erupted into chaos. Chickens scattered, people shouted, and the patrol, distracted, turned towards the commotion.

It was the chance he was giving her. A sob caught in her throat. He was sacrificing himself.

“Go!” she heard his voice shout, not at her, but as part of the general din. “Stop that mule!”

Tears streamed down her face, but she obeyed. Her body moved even as her heart shattered. She grabbed the reins, her hands clumsy and slick with sweat. She swung herself into the saddle, pulling the lead rope of the second horse. She urged them forward, not back onto the main road, but deeper into the forest, using the noise and confusion as her cover.

She didn’t stop to look back until she reached the crest of the hill overlooking the valley. She slid from the horse, her legs trembling too much to stand. From her vantage point, she could see the scene in the square below. The chaos was subsiding. And she saw him. Two of Fenwick’s men had Gareth, his arms bound cruelly behind his back. He wasn’t fighting. He stood tall, his gaze fixed on the woods where she had vanished.

Isolde watched in silent, helpless horror as they shoved him forward, tying him to one of their horses. He was a prisoner. Her protector. The man who had shown her the sky, now captured because of her.

The patrol turned their horses and began to ride out of the village, heading south. Back towards the territory of Lord Fenwick. Back towards a man whose cruelty was a sport.

She was alone. Utterly and completely alone, with two horses, two birds, and a handful of coins. The cold wind whipped at her cloak, carrying the scent of a freedom that now tasted like ash. The path north was still open. She could run, disappear into the coasts and isles he’d spoken of. She could save herself.

Or she could turn back.

She looked down at her hands, no longer the soft hands of a lady, but the hands of a survivor. She looked at Bianca, a creature of fierce, untamable loyalty. Gareth had leaped for her. Now, it was her turn. Her face, stained with tears and dirt, hardened with a new, terrifying resolve. Her own leap was not over. It was just beginning.

Slowly, deliberately, she gathered the reins, her movements no longer clumsy but filled with grim purpose. She turned the horses, their breath pluming in the cold air. She did not point them north towards the sea. She pointed them south, towards the wolf’s den.