Chapter 9 #2
“Because you would have died in Emberfall,” Isolde said. “There were things at play that you do not understand. I saved you, Elara.”
My chest burned. “You expect me to thank you?”
“No,” she said. “I expect you to stop asking the wrong question.”
“And the right one is what?” I demanded.
She studied me for a long moment, then stepped past me into the center of the yard. She reached for a practice blade and weighed it in her hand as if it were an extension of thought.
“You want answers,” Isolde said. “About Valen. About Ashenveil. About why you’re still breathing.”
She turned back to face me, her weapon lifting.
“Then earn them.”
I scoffed. “By what? Another lesson in survival?”
“By training,” she said. “With me.”
She took her stance with easy precision, balanced and lethal even with a dulled weapon.
“For every strike you land,” Isolde continued, “I’ll answer one question.”
My pulse jumped. “And if I don’t land any?”
Her mouth curved faintly. Not a smile. A promise.
“Then you’ll learn why I was the one who walked you out of Emberfall alive.”
Perfect.
I was going to get my teeth kicked in by a woman who looked like she sharpened her personality on a whetstone.
Chasing rats in the crypt hadn’t prepared me for swordplay, strategy, or psychopaths with excellent posture.
But sure.
Let’s add “humiliating public defeat” to the growing list of ways my life kept finding new rock bottoms.
“It’s nice,” she murmured, “to finally meet each other without lies between us.” Her gaze focused. “Now,” Isolde said, settling into her stance, “let’s see what you do with the truth.”
I lifted my weapon.
Not to attack. To brace.
I held it like something that might be taken from me rather than used, angled defensively, weight back instead of forward.
Isolde noticed immediately.
“You hold your weapon like it’s a question,” she said.
“What I want,” I replied, jaw tight, “is an explanation.”
“Then strike me.”
I moved before I could think better of it.
I stepped in hard, letting frustration carry the swing instead of technique—not that I had any technique to speak of. The blade cut across the space between us in a clumsy arc, too wide, too honest.
Isolde didn’t dodge.
She shifted at the last second, just enough that the strike glanced instead of missed. Wood cracked against her shoulder with a dull, satisfying thud.
Impact jolted up my arms.
For half a heartbeat, she didn’t move.
Then she smiled. Small. Crooked.
“I’ll let you have that one,” she said. “Consider it payment for the first answer.” She rolled her shoulder once, loosening it, eyes already calculating. “Ask.” And this time, when she moved, I knew she wouldn’t wait for permission.
“Why?”
“You think I woke up one day and decided to ruin your life?” Isolde asked. “That I smiled at you, betrayed you, and crawled to Valen because it pleased me?”
“You handed me over,” I said.
“And I’m telling you why it happened. That’s what you wasted a question on, is it not?”
She moved then. Not attacking. Circling. Forcing me to turn with her or expose my back.
“I came to Ashenveil many years ago,” Isolde said, her voice calm enough to be mistaken for indifference. “Not as a bride. Not as an envoy. As payment.”
Wood cracked against wood as she tested my guard, light and effortless.
“My parents believed a beautiful daughter laid at Ashenveil’s feet would spare our village.”
She paused just long enough to let the insult of it settle.
“Valen and I were raised together,” Isolde continued, stepping in. “Trained together. Whatever they meant to make of him, they made of me too.”
She struck.
Fast. precise. I barely caught it in time, the impact rattling up my arms.
“And I became useful,” she added, almost lazily. “A weapon that could smile.”
She shifted her grip.
“Valen doesn’t begin with armies,” she said. “He begins with knowledge. Bloodlines. Fault lines. The things people hide when they think no one is watching.”
Another strike. I blocked. Barely.
“His father died when Valen was still young,” Isolde went on, circling me. “It made him king early, and it made him cruelly practical.”
Her wooden blade clipped mine, hard enough to force me back a step.
“He didn’t inherit a stable kingdom. He inherited threats. So he built a plan instead.”
She angled her sword toward my chest, as if pointing to the heart of the matter.
“He wanted Emberfall mapped from the inside,” Isolde said. “Its court. Its alliances. Its weaknesses. He wanted to know who would fold, who would fracture, and who would need to be removed before they ever realized they were being hunted.”
Another strike. Lower this time. I blocked.
“I was… suitable,” she said. “Foreign enough to be overlooked. Trained enough to survive court. Valuable enough to be believed.”
Wood slapped as our practice blades crossed.
“I married Ciaran,” she went on, “because Valen needed eyes in his court. I stayed alive because I made myself useful.”
“You lied to everyone.”
Her practice weapon slid along mine, pushing me back a step. “You don’t survive this world by pretending you’re above compromise.”
Anger flared hot and I lunged. She disarmed me. The weapon skidded across the stone. “You lead with rage,” Isolde said quietly.
I bent and picked up my practice blade, chest heaving. “And Maris?”
Isolde didn’t retreat. She stepped into my space, wooden sword snapping up to meet mine with a crack that jarred my arms. “Strike again,” she said evenly, “and I’ll answer.”
I did.
She turned the blow aside with ruthless ease, the wood biting into my palms as she forced me off balance. I stumbled, barely catching myself.
“Maris knew,” Isolde said, adjusting my grip with a tap of her blade. “From the beginning.”
I barely blocked her next strike. “Knew what?”
“That I was loyal to Valen.” A pause. Then, quieter. “And that I loved her.”
I lunged, reckless. She caught the strike, pivoted, and brought her blade down on my shoulder, hard enough to rattle bone. Pain flared down my arm.
“She was never part of Valen’s designs,” Isolde went on, circling me now. Her voice had changed. Less empty. More precise. “She wasn’t placed. She wasn’t used. She was Ciaran’s wife, and that alone made her vulnerable.”
I swung again. She knocked my blade aside and stepped through my guard, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to see her.
“Ciaran would have bled her homeland dry,” Isolde said. “He would have continued to take her family’s healers for the war efforts, their knowledge, their loyalty, and called it an alliance. Valen saw it coming.”
Her grip tightened on the wooden hilt. “We planned to leave,” she said.
“Two months before you arrived, Valen sent word that my usefulness as Ciaran’s wife was finished.
Maris and I made arrangements to disappear.
Somewhere the court couldn’t follow. Somewhere she could heal without belonging to a crown. ”
The words sat heavy in my chest, not because I doubted them, but because I understood them too well.
Kings didn’t steal with knives. They stole with need, with praise, with promises that sounded like honor.
They called it alliance while they emptied you out piece by piece and expected gratitude for the privilege.
I hated that Isolde’s explanation made sense.
And I hated the colder truth beneath it. That Maris had never been a wife to Ciaran, not really. She’d been a resource with a pulse, and everyone in that court had known it. All of his wives served a greater purpose, he’d said.
She held my gaze. “I had already served my time.”
Then, quieter, more precise. “But you came. And Valen wanted me to watch you instead.”
The ground seemed to tilt. I staggered back a step, breath tearing out of me. “Where is she?”
Isolde didn’t hesitate.
“Here,” she said. “Beyond Ciaran’s reach.”
“Is she safe?” I asked. Maris was one of the few that had shown me kindness while I was at Emberfall. Regardless of the betrayal, I didn’t think she deserved to suffer.
Isolde softened for a brief moment. “Yes. Very. She chose this,” Isolde said quietly. “I’m building us a beautiful home. You can see her when your anger cools. Now strike me again, you need to build up your strength.”
I swung again, frustration wrecking my balance. She disarmed me with a twist of her wrist.
Isolde didn’t move to finish it. She stood there, breathing evenly, eyes bright with something that was not regret.
“Pick it up,” she said. “If you’re going to hate me, at least do it standing.”
Her stance settled, lethal and patient.