Chapter 30 #2
I took it, chewing slowly, because my stomach hurt just from the idea of food. Tears stung my eyes again, not from sorrow, but from the sheer relief of something warm and real.
Evadne’s fingers moved carefully as she opened a small cloth bundle of bandages. Clean ones. White. Unstained.
She pulled out a vial of ointment, and the scent of herbs floated up.
“I don’t have a Vitascribe,” she said quietly as she began to dab at the cut on my jaw. Her hands were delicate, but her touch was steady. “I couldn’t get a healer down here without questions.”
“No,” I rasped, swallowing another bite of bread. “It’s fine.”
Evadne’s eyes flicked up to mine. “It isn’t.”
I swallowed hard. The bread sat heavy in my stomach like a stone, but it was a stone I welcomed. It meant I was still alive. It meant I was still here.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I said.
Evadne’s hands paused for half a breath, then resumed, gently pressing ointment along my bruised cheek.
“The trial,” she whispered.
My stomach twisted. “When?”
Evadne’s mouth tightened. “Six days. Maybe less.”
I exhaled a laugh that sounded like someone dying. “Wonderful. I was worried I’d have to endure this for the rest of the month.”
Evadne flinched. “Elara…”
“What? I like knowing when I’ll die. It’s comforting.”
Her throat bobbed. She blinked hard, eyes glossy.
“They moved it up,” she said, voice quieter now. “They were going to wait. They wanted more preparation. More… theater.”
My skin crawled at that word, because it was exactly what it was. Marisella didn’t want justice. She wanted an audience.
Evadne continued, “They were afraid the Dragon King would interrupt it if they delayed too long. But with Therynne missing…” She swallowed. “They want to show strength. They want to make an example before chaos spreads.”
My pulse kicked.
“Therynne really disappeared?” I asked, and I hated that the relief in my chest felt like guilt.
Evadne nodded. “No one knows where she went. Her chamber was emptied. Her books are gone. Even her notes.”
A quiet, fierce gratitude filled my lungs.
Thank the ancestors.
Thank the ancestors she got out.
I didn’t say it out loud. I couldn’t. Saying it would make it real, and real things could be taken.
Instead, I swallowed and asked, “What else?”
Evadne’s hands moved to my wrists, gently wrapping cloth around the raw grooves from my chains. Her fingers trembled slightly as she worked.
“The castle is in chaos,” she said. “King Ciaran is… unraveling. He thinks Therynne was taken. Or that she fled to Valen. He keeps shouting about loyalty, about betrayal. He accused Isolde again.”
“Of course he did,” I muttered.
Evadne’s eyes flicked to mine, startled by my tone, then softened. “He isn’t sleeping. He’s made the wives stay close. Lyra is furious. Vivienne is acting like she doesn’t care, but she’s… watching everyone. Selene is praying constantly.”
I swallowed. “And Icespire?”
Evadne’s face darkened.
“The boundary is being reinforced,” she said. “Stronger than ever. My brother is performing the death rites on nobles every day. Hundreds. They’re bringing bodies in wagons. People from the outer villages, even some from Hamburg.” Her voice shook. “Every day there are more.”
My skin went cold.
“Lucien,” I whispered.
Evadne nodded, her mouth pressing into a thin line. “He’s proud of it. He thinks it makes him powerful. He thinks it makes him important.”
I took a slow breath. “And your father?”
Evadne’s hands stilled.
Something flickered across her expression, fear and sadness woven together.
“The king is becoming more unstable,” she whispered. “Winter is worse than it has ever been. People are freezing in their sleep. Entire homes found with bodies inside, frozen solid, faces locked in terror.”
My stomach turned.
“That isn’t normal,” Evadne said softly. “Even for us.”
She looked down, voice dropping even lower. “I think it’s the drugs. Lunara’s Breath.”
My eyes narrowed. “The ones Queen Marisella gives him.”
Evadne nodded once. “She’s been feeding him more. Stronger doses. She says it keeps him calm, but I think…” Her breath trembled. “I think it’s poisoning him. I think it’s unraveling his mind. And if he loses control…”
She didn’t finish.
She didn’t have to.
If the King of Icespire lost control fully, if Queen Marisella stopped containing him or could no longer contain him, winter would swallow everything.
Evadne’s voice shook. “Something is coming.”
I stared at her, throat tight.
She didn’t have magic. Not like us. Not like Aeliana. Not like Lucien.
But she was paying attention.
And paying attention, in a kingdom built on denial, was its own form of bravery.
“I wish I could help you more,” Evadne whispered.
The words cracked something in me.
I blinked hard. My vision blurred again.
“I was so lonely,” I said, and my voice broke on the last word like a snapped string. “I thought… I thought I was going to die down here and no one would even notice.”
Evadne’s face crumpled. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to my knee like she was praying to me instead of the ancestors.
“I noticed,” she whispered. “I always noticed.”
My throat burned.
I didn’t know what to do with that kind of tenderness anymore. I didn’t know how to hold it without it slipping through my fingers.
“Sit with me,” I rasped, desperate and humiliated by it. “Just for a moment. Please.”
Evadne lifted her head and wiped her face again. “Of course.”
She shifted closer, sitting on the stone beside me like she didn’t care that it was filthy. Like she didn’t care that she was a princess and this was beneath her.
And ancestors help me, I wanted to sob again.
Instead I whispered, “I miss her.”
Evadne went still.
“Aeliana,” I said, voice thin. “I miss her so much it hurts.”
Evadne’s eyes filled again. She swallowed hard. “I wish I were her,” she whispered. “She would know what to do. She would know how to survive this. She would know how to fight Mother. How to fight Lucien. How to…” Her voice cracked. “How to save you.”
I closed my eyes.
Because I wished it too.