Chapter 18 #2
“He murdered Tehvan. He destroyed everything I was. Everything I could’ve been. He did that. And he is going to pay for it.” The words shook through her. “That is what I want. Don’t you understand that?”
She wrenched herself from his grasp, startled when his fingers released without resistance.
“Sunsh— Elora,” Rell whispered, voice low, raw, breaking with her. “I do understand. But I can’t let you go alone.”
With her claws receding into fingertips, the storm inside her calmed just enough to finally register his words.
She stared at him, her breathing uneven, tear tracks burning on her skin. “Why?” The question escaped her like a breath.
Rell’s eyes widened, immediately darting away.
“What does it matter to you? Our contract ended. You’ve fulfilled your obligation.” Her voice fractured before hardening again. “Why do you care if I go after him? If I don’t come back?”
His expression contorted as if he had seen a ghost. He was the one now trapped with questions he didn’t want to answer.
He retreated a step, their positions suddenly reversed.
His chest rose with a difficult breath, gaze skittering to the walls, the floor, the ceiling—anywhere safe from her scrutiny. “Because—” His throat worked visibly. “Because the thought of losing you again terrifies me.”
She froze, mind struggling to make sense of his words.
“Losing me… again?” she echoed.
He looked away.
She tried to make sense of it. “Back in Kilfaire?” she asked.
“When the nightgliders took me?”
Her voice softened unexpectedly. “Rell… I don’t blame you for that. You couldn’t take on four nightgliders. No one could.”
“Right… right of course.” Rell scratched the back of his neck. “But also…” The words were so quiet she almost didn’t hear them.
She moved toward him, each step deliberate until the space between them vanished.
“When, Rell?” The words fell soft but sharp between them. “When exactly did you lose me?”
Every muscle in his body went rigid. This close, she could count each breath he took—quick, irregular, each one a confession his lips wouldn’t make.
He didn’t answer.
He turned sharply toward the wardrobe. “I need to get dressed.”
Her eyes narrowed. The beast inside her stirred again, not from rage this time, but from the sting of hypocrisy.
“Oh,” she said, voice icy. “So, you get to demand answers from me—push me, corner me into talking—but when it’s your turn?”
He pulled the wardrobe door open.
She followed him, steps silent, anger simmering hot beneath her ribs.
She pushed the wardrobe door shut with more force than he used to shut the window on her.
“You wanted to talk,” she said, voice barely audible yet filling the space between them. “You don’t get to retreat now. Not when it’s your turn to answer.”
Rell’s throat worked. “Just Kilfaire. When I lost you in Kilfaire—” A flush creeped up his neck. “I just hadn’t realized how much I started to care for you until you were gone.”
Her chest ached at the thought of him watching her being taken away while he couldn’t do anything.
No. Well his feeling might be true, it was the only time he ‘lost her’.
“You said ‘again’ Rell. So, when?”
Something shifted in his expression, the slight widening of pupils, the twitch at the corner of his mouth. His shoulders, always squared and ready, curved inward. His palm flattened against the wardrobe beside her head.
Rell’s voice dropped to something barely audible, each word seeming to cost him. “I lost you years ago.” His fingers trembled against the wardrobe. “When you were still a child.”
“How?” she breathed.
“I tried to save you.” His voice cracked. “The night you were sold to the Snatchers. I tried.”
Rell turned away, the muscles in his jaw jumping beneath skin stretched taut over bone. “I promised I would.”
“I found out what your father planned. I begged you to leave with me. But…” He exhaled shakily. “You didn’t believe me.”
Elora’s fingers curled into her palms, nails biting crescents into flesh. It was like he was describing a dream. Something make believe because there were no memories that lined up.
Rell’s voice gained momentum, words tumbling out faster now.
“I watched him bring you into the Snatcher camp. I saw them drug you. Saw them lock you in a cage. And I—” His voice faltered. He forced it out anyway. “I thought I could fight them. Get you out. I was fourteen and stupid enough to think bravery was enough.”
All she saw was a void where these memories should be. The woods, the cage, his face as a boy—all of it lay beyond her reach, locked behind doors she had chosen to keep closed.
He looked at her then, his shoulders drawing back as if bracing for impact. “They caught me.” His fingers traced a light scar on his ribs unconsciously.
“I searched for you,” he breathed. “For years. You and my sister both. And when I finally found my sister—”
His hand moved to his face, pressing against his eyes, but not before she caught the tremor in his fingers.
“I never found you. Not even a rumor.” He retreated, shoulders hunching as if to shield himself from her judgment. “I noticed small coincidences back in the woods. But it seemed impossible. Until today…”
Elora’s knees buckled. She grabbed the edge of the dresser, knuckles white, as the floor seemed to tilt beneath her.
One step back, then another. The room blurred at the edges.
Her jaw clenched so tight her teeth might crack.
Each heartbeat hammered against her ribs like someone desperate to escape a locked room.
The sound of her own blood rushing drowned out his next words, leaving only the shape of his mouth moving, his hand reaching toward her.
Her mouth felt like ash as she forced the words out. “I was her, wasn’t I? Kira?” The question hung between them, her own voice sounding distant, as though coming from the bottom of a well.
His eyes never wavered.
“And the man at the stall...” The words splintered in her throat. “My father?”
Rell’s answer required no voice. Just the slow, solemn dip of his chin.
The floor seemed to drop from beneath her feet. She stumbled backward until her legs hit the edge of the bed, sinking down as the walls swayed around her.
“You deliberately brought me here,” she managed, voice barely audible. “Back to him. Back to this place. Hoping something would trigger my memory.”
He moved toward her, his hand half extended. “Not— Not exactly. But I just thought—”
“Stop.”
She lifted her gaze to his, her vision blurring not with the beast’s golden fire, but with the raw, unguarded pain of betrayal.
“So that’s it. That’s why you care.” The words felt like broken glass in her mouth. “Because you failed once. Because I’m your goddamn penance.”
Rell’s face twisted like she’d struck him. “Elora, that’s not—”
“It is!” The scream tore from her chest, feral and uncontrolled, as she advanced on him. “You think protecting me now balances your precious scales. You think saving me erases your failure. That’s why you won’t let me go. That’s why you—”
Her breath shattered into fragments.
“Rell... If what you’re saying is true, then look at me.” She seized his wrists, pulling him closer. “I’m alive. I’m right here.”
Her next words were barely a whisper.
“You don’t have to right wrongs I don’t even remember.”
“Elora—” His voice broke.
“No.” She straightened, shoulders thrown back, chin lifted despite tears burning hot tracks down her face. “I release you. You’re free. Whatever happens to me from here? It isn’t your fault. It isn’t your burden. Not anymore.”
Silence stretched between them like a battlefield—no-man's-land where neither could retreat.
Rell moved close enough that she had to tilt her head back to see him. His expression was pained, conflicted, something raw flickering in his eyes. “Elora, if I only saw Kira when I looked at you, this would be a lot easier.”