13. Elara
Chapter 13
Istood there for much longer than was necessary, staring at that wooden door, listening to the revelry on the other side, smelling the food, wishing that this was some cruel joke, that the doors would open and I'd be invited in.
They never opened. Batian didn’t come. No one came.
For all I knew, Batian didn’t even realize I was gone. It was a small consolation he was having so much fun he didn’t notice my absence.
He deserved the celebration. He deserved not to worry.
Exhaling, I didn’t even bother to pick up my skirts as I trudged back to my room, the silence a painful weight as the Boy followed behind on silent feet.
The second we entered our rooms he went right over to his space, grabbing the wooden swords and holding one out to me. I knew it would help as much as he did, it had so many times before, but this time was different somehow.
This wasn’t her usual punishment or lies or prodding comments. I had literally been shut out of my life.
Like I was a flea-ridden dog.
They showed me the steak, then ripped it away laughing.
The thought winced through me, pain and rage mixing together in a heat that was penetrating down to my bones, trapped behind the numbing shock.
Shock that boiled and stewed.
I walked by the Boy and the swords, shutting the door to my room behind me without saying a word. I didn’t even bother to lock it.
Standing there, in yet another of the ridiculous gowns, I felt more out of place than I ever had. I stood beside my simple bed, looking from the chipped nightstand, to the barred windows, and the small bathing chamber. I stared at all the things I had been left with, that rage still prickling over me as I remembered all that I had. All that had been taken from me.
The massive four-poster bed with the carved posts and matching duvet, the fireplace that would always be lit when I woke up in the morning, food that wasn’t porridge for every meal, windows without bars, a governess, a maid, a bathing chamber that had hot running water that came from the spring in the mountain, stories from my father, dinners with family…
One after another everything raced through my mind, all of that boiling rage and hatred rolling and burning and sitting in my gut like a kettle left on the fire too long. They had taken it all. No, she had taken it all. I wasn’t a princess anymore, and I wasn’t even her daughter. I didn’t know what I was, but this wasn’t it. This lumpy straw mattress and the wool blankets. The cold forgotten fireplace and the bars.
No, the cage.
The cage they had put me in. I had worked around it. I had been content, but it was still a cage.
That rage built, and it built, and then, with a sound I had never made before, I screamed.
I screamed all of that rage and anger out of me. The sound echoed in my ears and bounced off my bare walls, it ripped at my already shredded heart and poured all of that anger, all of that loneliness, all the feelings of a forgotten princess into the air.
It didn’t make the heat leave. It didn’t send the fury away entirely. It was still there, boiling and racing through me, but it felt better somehow. As though the pressure had been left in the pot.
I was still boiling, still angry, but perhaps not as dangerous.
Tears were beginning to drip down my cheeks as I ripped the dress off me, throwing it on the ground in a heap and leaving me standing in the middle of my room in my underpinnings.
Standing there in my Goddess damned cage.
When I was five a traveling zoo had come into town, and Mother had brought the animals into the courtyard for Batian. I had walked through the wagons, circled around cages of animals as they paced in tiny spaces and stared with yellow eyes.
That’s what I did now, I paced in my room like the trapped animal I was. Slowly, my pacing turned to something more familiar, the moves of the warmup I had watched the Plythe in the courtyard do every morning before they sparred. The motions were quick and abrupt and usually accompanied by heroic yelling. But I wasn’t heroic. I screamed and raged. I went through each step, pain lancing out of me in a roar, tears still flowing as I released more of that rage and agony.
I could fight the Boy, sure, but I would probably end up hurting him. This was safer.
I stepped forward, swinging an imaginary sword down before stepping back and slicing to the side. Another step, another swipe.
Forward, lunge, back, parry, side, swipe, forward, hand. I pressed my hand forward as they would, although theirs was a magical move, mine was simply a motion like all the others. No sword, no magic. At least that was a failure I was used to.
I continued the movements, running through them faster and faster. I was nothing more than that animal trapped in the cage, pacing. Faster. Quicker steps, bigger movements. More tears. More rage.
With each swipe, I threw the anger out with a feral fury. With each swing of my imaginary sword I cut at the bars that caged me, I screamed and hacked at the people who laughed. I pushed at all the broken pieces they claimed I had, all the broken pieces I did have. No magic. Sickly. Broken. Weak.
They were all lies; they were not who I was. I had to find a way to show her that, to prove that to her.
Forward, lunge, back, parry, side, swipe, forward, hand. I moved faster, all of that burning rage growing and screaming from inside of me as I stepped back and pushed my hand forward and screamed, thrusting all of that magic I did not have into the life I never would.
The life she stole from me.
My bureau exploded.
With a crack like lightning, white fire erupted from my palm, the crackling line of brilliant light cutting through the air and right into the wooden face of my bureau. I barely registered what happened when wood went everywhere and I screamed in fear, my body thrown back and tumbling through the air to land with a crack against the opposite wall. My bones and body ached as I slid down the stone wall, the scent of smoke overpowering as the door flung open as the Boy ran in, sword already drawn.
By the Goddess! One second I was moving, and the next…
I stared unblinkingly at the bureau as the Boy helped me to sit, his hands hot against my arms as he checked for injuries. I wanted to tell him I was fine, but I was still trying to make sense of what I had seen.Of what had happened.
“Did you hear–?” I turned to him in question, only to freeze at the Boy who was next to me. He kneeled there, hands throbbing warmly against my arms, black tunic in place, his cape barely so.
He had clearly come in a rush, and had not gotten everything on. He kneeled beside me, part of his face uncovered.
The Boy… who was not a boy anymore… was right there.
His jaw, strong and covered with stubble was visible, his skin pale and gaunt, the small amounts of hair growing on his face near black. Full, red lips pressed into a line, his strong jaw clenching to reveal a hollow cheek and a bit of his ear.
He shifted back, lips pressing into a line as he tried to reach for the shroud, to pull it lower. I grabbed his hand before he could.
His bare hand. I had registered it before, but now the warmth of his skin was flooding through me as I gripped his hand, staring at the small section of his face. Stared at a jaw line that was perfect and unblemished.
“Wait,” I pleaded, the sound a whisper as he froze. I lifted my free hand toward that strong line of his jaw, to the stubble that had been left a few days. It was so dark, so rough. It made me question if I knew his age at all.
The line of his jaw flexed as I reached up, my fingers fluttering before his cheek as he exhaled, his breath hot and tingly on my palm. I had felt that same exhale before, that had always been in my ear when things were crumbling around me.
The Boy that was always there, was right there. Not a boy. A man.
Heart clenching painfully in my chest, my fingers touched his cheek with a feather-light brush, the heat from his hand that was still entwined with mine flaring as a warm rush of tingles moved down my arm. His skin, soft and yet prickly, flexed under my touch as he leaned in, a soft groan echoing from his throat.
He was there, he was real. For the first time.
My heart rattled in my chest, my pulse a loud drum in my ear as I reached up, ready to pull the whole abhorrent thing off his head and see him completely when I froze.
When he leaned into my hand, his head turned, his ear and neck pulling into view, giving me a clear view of the skin there.
Thick red lines of raised flesh pulled painfully down the side of his neck toward his collarbone, and up toward his ear where a rippled line of brutalized skin ran the length of his ear. Almost as if someone had tried to cut off his ear and failed. Even though the scars were clearly old, it did not look like anything had been treated or allowed to heal properly. The jagged flesh made my teeth clench.
All of that nervous rattling in my heart picked up in a staccato beat as my fingers moved from his cheek toward those scars, all thought of removing the shroud gone.
“Who did this to you?” I whispered, my fingers barely touching along the edge of his ear before he stood, the shroud shifting enough that I saw one green eye focused on me in a panic before he turned and left, cape rippling behind him as he bolted from the room. The door closed with a bang, the click of the lock near a slap in the silence.
Still, I sat there, staring at the door, listening to the breathing of the Boy on the other side. The panic and pain were clear with each of his exhales. After a minute the sound faded to silence, leaving me alone in my room with a destroyed bureau and a heat that was radiating over my body.
I had seen him. Well, I had seen part of him, and the emerald depths of those eyes burned through me as I sat there, still reeling over what had happened.
Not just him, but what I had done.
Turning from the door to the destroyed bureau, I blinked, my hands still warm and tingly from where the Boy had held it, from where the power had exploded out of me.
I had magic.
I had done it completely on my own.