28 Elowen
28 Elowen
Fate of the realm hanging in the balance or not, Elowen needed to watch Desires of the Night .
It had been on a short hiatus since the big Domynia reveal, and this was the triumphant return. Stealing away into the gaudy
chambers Hugh had rented for their fake bachelor party, Elowen left Beatrice and made herself a fort in her bedchamber. Hugh
himself had gotten very drunk and passed out in the living quarters, which made it quite easy to keep track of the soon-to-be
royal. Perhaps that was fitting for a bachelor party.
Elowen had spent so many years watching Desires from her cozy, cramped treehouse that she couldn’t bear the thought of viewing the shadow play in such an opulent space.
She tied the bedsheets onto the golden pillars that framed the room’s heart-shaped bed, and she built a small hideaway within
the larger room. It wasn’t perfect, but it shielded her in the way she needed, granting her some semblance of seclusion.
With a snap of her fingers, she brought the shadow play to life, scaling the conjuration so that it aligned with her wall
of bedsheets. When Desires was on, Elowen did not have to be Elowen, which was a great relief after the exchange with Vandra at the stackjack table. It was utterly exhausting to be herself. She became instead an unseen member of the family at the heart of the play instead, allowed to laugh, smile, and fight alongside them in whatever way she pleased.
The sight of the living Domynia brought tears to Elowen’s eyes. What a joy to be back in this made-up realm full of wish fulfillment.
No one could ever understand how full Elowen felt there, immersed in a story that wasn’t her own. Elowen had made such a mess
of her actual reality. She’d been difficult, and emotional, and she’d caused harm to a woman she cared about deeply. None
of that mattered to the characters on Desires. Elowen could offer them her whole heart and never once hurt them because of it.
The play picked up at the embrace between Domynia and her lover Alcharis. It was bliss. A perfect reunion made sweeter by
the evident love between the two. Just what Elowen needed.
Suddenly, Domynia’s lover pulled back, their energy shifting. They had questions. How was it that she was alive? How were
they supposed to deal with that? And why had she behaved so poorly before her untimely death?
Elowen gnawed at her lip, concerned. “I’m not sure I like where this is going,” she said.
She used to speak aloud to herself all the time. At the moment, she found herself to be a rather inadequate companion for
the conversation she wished to have. She needed someone else to bounce ideas off of, someone who could challenge her thoughts
or provide clarity.
As the play progressed, Beatrice’s prediction in the wagon started coming true—Alcharis grew more and more upset, struggling
with how to forgive Domynia for the past. Domynia could not come up with adequate responses, only furthering the rift.
“Is this written for me?” Elowen asked. More like accused. It felt a bit too personal.
When Domynia stormed off, unable to continue her painful conversation, the walls of Elowen’s fort—once cozy—became suffocating. Her comfort play no longer provided her comfort. It reminded her instead of all the problems she was avoiding.
Elowen used to find avoidance a comfort in and of itself. Staying out of things relieved her of the responsibility of resolving
conflicts. Now it hurt worse to be silent. She could feel how she was letting Vandra down, and every moment she waited to fix it was another moment wasted.
Elowen stopped the conjuration and threw back the bedsheet. She could not stay here, attempting to live as she used to live.
Why had she convinced herself she wanted to? This way of existing no longer suited her.
She had to find Vandra.
As if called into place by Elowen’s thought, there Vandra stood, already in the chambers. She had a real gift for doing that.
“Oh,” Elowen said, surprised and a little embarrassed. She’d hoped for time to come up with an official plan. She figured
she’d do that while roaming the inn looking for Vandra. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to catch you talking to yourself,” Vandra responded.
“I didn’t even hear you come in.”
“Perhaps someone’s told you once or twice that I’m quite good at being stealthy. It’s sort of my whole deal.”
“That’s right,” Elowen said, faking a dawning realization. “I do think that’s been shared before. I must have had you mixed
up in my mind with the woman who wants to tame all the wild brushwalkers.”
“Funny you should mention it, that’s also me,” Vandra responded. Her arms, once crossed, unfolded.
“Really? I don’t suppose you’re also the woman who puts spicy dollpeppers on her sugared hotcakes?”
“The very same.”
Elowen bit back a smile. They’d never done this before, been playful together. Elowen didn’t know she was capable of it. But
if she’d learned anything since coming down from the trees, it was that she was capable of just about everything she once
thought she could no longer do, and that emboldened her to keep pushing.
“I don’t suppose you’re the woman with the most generous spirit I’ve ever known, are you?” she asked. “If you are, you might
be just the woman I was hoping to see.”
Vandra tapped her finger on her mouth. “Hmm. I have been told on a few occasions that while I have no patience for those who
cause true harm, I can be a bit too forgiving of those I hold close to me, but I’ve worked on that in heart healing. I’m not
sure if that makes me the woman you seek. That woman sounds like a pushover.”
“Far from it,” Elowen responded. “Her generosity is her greatest attribute, because she understands that joy is the first
thing that other people will try to take from you, and she rarely lets them steal it. Unfortunately, I believe I am someone
who has succeeded in taking it away.”
Vandra plopped down on the tufted chaise beside the heart-shaped bed. “This poor woman you speak of. I do suspect she may
be very wounded indeed. What did you hope to say to her? Perhaps I can pass along the message. If I have the time. I’m very
busy, what with saving the realm and all.” She looked at her charmed nails, examining the pink shade.
“It’s rather personal,” Elowen told her. “Not something I’d go sharing with just anyone.”
“I wonder if that’s part of the problem?” Vandra responded, still assuming the role of a third party to this conversation, and still looking at her nails. “That you won’t share things? With anyone? Ever? At any time?”
Elowen deserved this. She did. She’d tried to build walls around herself, and she’d succeeded. What she hadn’t accounted for
was the fact that she’d also put in some windows along the way, so she could admire everything on the other side. That’s where
Vandra lived, in view but out of reach. Elowen needed to own up to that, or she’d remain alone in a trap of her own design,
losing the only woman she’d ever wanted to let inside.
“Vandra,” she said, dissolving the game they’d started. She had to be herself in this moment. Own it fully. “You’re right.
About all of it. I’ve been so afraid to get hurt that I’ve ended up hurting other people in the process. Namely you. I have
hurt you by withholding my own truths before knowing yours. It’s what I’m used to, figuring out how someone else feels first
so that I never have to say what is in my own heart. You’re the only person who has ever really confused me. No matter what
emotion you’re feeling, I can never figure out what it means, and that terrifies me, because it makes me afraid that I’m wrong
for what I feel.”
The corners of Vandra’s mouth pulled down into a frown. It was a simple kind of sadness, laid bare. Elowen felt it as candidly
as Vandra displayed it. The only way to get through the agony of it was to keep going.
“I’ve been back in the realm for only a little while, but I can now see how little I’ve survived off of for the last decade,” Elowen continued. “I’ve held myself back from so much, terrified to let other people in, because I know what it is to lose someone important. It’s only recently occurred to me that if I’m never honest with you, I’ve already lost you anyway. And I cannot for the life of me understand why I would accept an existence without you when having you around is an option that’s available to me. What a fool I am, letting you walk away without saying what my heart has sung since the very moment you entered my life.”
“And what is that?” Vandra asked, her frown fighting to withstand the tears that welled up in her warm brown eyes.
“That I love you,” Elowen said.
She had never told anyone she loved them before, and it stumbled out with such finality, such certainty, that Elowen couldn’t
help but smile. Ghosts. She loved Vandra. Love! This was why the poets spent ages trying to put this feeling into words, for this feeling had a hundred other
feelings tucked inside it, like a flower that bloomed within itself, new layers beneath every petal.
“I love you,” she repeated, adoring the way it flowed from her lips. “I love the way you wake up, and for only a few moments,
you’re not the Vandra everyone else knows. You’re still tired, and you’re a little suspicious of everything. Then the light
gets into your soul, and I watch the brightness wash away your doubts. I love that you have so much knowledge of Mythria,
and you’re never afraid to share it, even when it challenges what someone else says. I love how you know firsthand that this
realm has some really bad people in it, but you still choose to greet each day with kindness. And it is a choice. You’re not kind because you don’t know better, you’re kind because in spite of the bad people, there is still so
much good here, and you’re committed to experiencing it.”
Elowen ran out of breath. Vandra’s mouth had fallen open, and she moved to say something in return. Elowen held a finger up
as she took a deep inhale. She wasn’t done yet.
“You are a very intentional person, which I also love about you,” she continued, still a bit breathless. This whole love thing was exhilarating. “There is no place you go or job you take that happens on accident. Except, perhaps, for me. I think I am the big gest accident that’s ever happened in your entire life. When you and I first started meeting up, you had no idea I could ever be someone capable of loving you. That wasn’t the point for either of us. Truthfully, I didn’t know that about myself either. But now it seems comical that I’ve gone this long pretending like it might not be possible. Because the love I have for you is constant. It existed long before I noticed it, and I understand now that everything else I feel happens in relation to it. I also understand that you don’t have to feel the same way back. The point in telling you this is not to convince you to feel it in return. It’s to show you that I no longer plan to live my life the way I once did. I plan to be honest with myself and with others, even when it might bring me pain. I plan to let this love keep me brave until the Ghosts take me home.”
Elowen could have kept going, but she chose to stop there, finding it to be as good an ending as any other. She’d said what
she felt, and the hard part now was letting Vandra process it in her own time.
In all the years Elowen had known her, she’d never seen Vandra stunned. When she attempted to get a sense of Vandra’s emotions,
she found something like a buzzing in place of the feelings—a shuddery, tingly unfamiliarity that mimicked a bug flying too
close to your ear. It was, she realized, her own heart getting in the way.
“Vandra?” Elowen finally said, unable to withstand the charged silence any longer. “Would you like me to leave?”
At that Vandra tumbled into her arms, as if she’d been charmed into stillness and the spell had been lifted. Vandra kissed
Elowen’s neck, her cheeks, her mouth. The tears that had welled in her eyes were spilling onto Elowen’s skin.
“Does this mean you accept?” Elowen asked.
Vandra paused. “You silly, silly woman,” she said, smiling through her tears and hitting Elowen playfully on the shoulder.
Bewildered, Elowen pulled back. “What?”
“You haven’t asked me anything!” Vandra told her.
The buzzing cleared, and Elowen could finally think. She’d said so much. More than she’d ever said to anyone ever, and still
she’d failed to include the most important part of all. “You’re right,” she said. “See? You’re very good at pointing out what
people have missed.”
“Enough!” Vandra interrupted. “Ask me!”
Elowen wrapped her arms around Vandra’s waist. “Vandra Ravenfall, would you like to be my girlfriend?”
“Yes!” Vandra responded, kissing Elowen on the mouth. “I would!”
Elowen showered Vandra in kisses in response. Love was complicated, Elowen knew, but in that moment, there was an exquisite
simplicity to it. She moved to lay Vandra onto the bed, but Vandra stopped her.
“What is it?” Elowen asked, concerned.
“I cannot bed you until we’ve finished the newest Desires ,” Vandra told her. “I need to know what everyone is going to do about Domynia’s return.”
Elowen laughed then, holding Vandra to her chest as she did so. “Of all the things I expected you to say to me right now...”
“I told you before that I was a real fan,” Vandra protested. She readjusted the blanket fort and climbed inside it. “It’s
not my fault you didn’t believe me!”
Elowen climbed in behind her. “I’m sorry for all the times I ever doubted you.” She kissed Vandra’s forehead. “Truly.”
“Is this a good time to tell you I did not recently go through a breakup?” Vandra said.
Elowen scoffed. “You did lie!”
Vandra rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. It was a harmless one, and I am owning up to it now, aren’t I? Everything else has been completely true. I said it because I hoped to make you jealous. You were being so difficult to me, even more than I anticipated, and I needed a way to get through to you. For what it’s worth, it worked. You did engage me more when I said it.”
“I’m glad no one has broken your heart recently,” Elowen responded, kissing Vandra’s nose.
“Only you, my darling,” Vandra said playfully. “We spent ten years apart, and I knew I could live without you, but when I
saw you again, I realized I didn’t want to anymore. I’m glad you’ve finally realized the same thing.”
Elowen laughed. “I’m afraid I realized it about the same time you did. It just took me far too long to do the right thing
about it.”
Elowen snapped her fingers twice to return the conjuration to view. The two women cuddled into each other as they started
the latest shadow play from the beginning again. Elowen found herself much more capable of tolerating the contentious reception
to Domynia’s return. She understood now that painful emotions often needed to be felt in completion to be released. When they
weren’t, they tended to clog up one’s heart, making them bitter. Domynia’s lover had to get it all out. Every last bit. It
was the only way to heal.
Elowen shot upright so fast she ripped the bedsheet ceiling from the post, covering herself with it in the process. “Ghosts!”
she said, scrambling to break free.
“What is it?” Vandra asked. She stood up to lift the bedsheet off Elowen’s head.
“The Sword of Souls is made up of countless trapped souls,” Elowen said.
“Right,” Vandra confirmed.
“And those trapped souls are in pain,” she continued.
“Of course.”
“And pain is an emotion.”
Vandra caressed her cheek. “My love, where is this going?”
Stunned by the use of love , Elowen fumbled to continue her thought.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” Vandra said. “Now is not the time for me to say I love you in return, is it? Forget I mentioned it! You were
on such a roll!”
Elowen kissed Vandra for strength. “That’s fantastic news, thank you. I love you, too, as you know. But back to my point.
I’ve figured out how we can stop Myke from using the pain of the souls inside the sword. If I can get my hands on it before
he uses it, I can absorb all the pain inside it, rendering the weapon unusable.”
Vandra’s eyes sparkled. “My love, that’s brilliant! How did you think of it?”
“Watching Desires ,” Elowen said, delighted.
“Only you could accomplish such a feat,” Vandra told her sincerely.
Elowen grinned. As she evolved, Elowen’s shadow plays did not always comfort her, but they did continue to provide her with
exactly what she needed.