Chapter 38
Elara
“If he’s not careful, Silas is going to squander any chance he has with Lorian,” Sera said, shaking her head and sipping her coffee.
Caelan chuckled. “Those two have been after each other for a decade. If he hasn’t scared her off by now, I have to say that I think it might work out in the end.” He shrugged, his smug smile parting for a breakfast pastry that left a dusting of powdered sugar on his lips and doublet.
Elara glanced out the leaded glass window, smiling to herself as the steam from her teacup fogged up the frosty glass. The world outside was white, coated with fresh powder of its own, and the trees dripped with crystals. Peaceful.
The calm before the storm, she thought. She would savor it, this moment. Here, drinking tea and telling jokes with her fiancé and her friend. Thalia would love this. The rising hope of their imminent freedom tempered Elara’s heartache over her family’s absence.
Lysandra prowled in, her feline form tense, dark fur standing on end.
Elara abandoned her teacup to scoop her up and sat on a velvet sofa, tucking her legs underneath a blanket and scratching the familiar behind her ears.
Instead of Lysandra’s usual chipper purring, Elara was met with a low hissing.
What’s wrong? Elara asked silently.
Your family is gone.
Elara’s brows knit together in confusion. Yes . . . I know. They’ve been captive for months—
No, they are dead, Elara.
Elara froze, her mind wrapping itself around those three impossible words: “They are dead.”
You’re wrong. Lord Stormrider swore an oath. The wedding . . .
Elara’s eyes flickered to where Caelan and Sera were talking, their faces and hands animated, engrossed in their own conversation and oblivious to the turmoil going on inside Elara’s head.
He knows, Lysandra said, the thought laced with sorrow. Caelan knows. He’s known since the start. She placed a tiny black paw on Elara’s arm, large green eyes shimmering. I’m sorry.
A searing pain ripped through Elara, one half of her heart sinking like a stone and the other choking her from inside her throat.
She rose, sending Lysandra bounding to the floor.
Elara took a sharp step back as the room swayed around her, gripping the edge of the sofa to steady herself, fighting to stay upright.
Grief squeezed her chest, making breathing feel impossible—each inhale was shallow, ragged, and filled with sorrow.
Her skin grew clammy, her face and fingers numb. Her ears filled with a rushing sound, like a storm pelting the roof with hail and wind. Caelan and Sera were speaking to her, frantic and worried, but while their mouths moved, Elara couldn’t hear the words. Caelan reached a hand toward her.
“Don’t touch me!” she hissed, though she hadn’t intended to speak.
The familiar numbness of loss washed over her, but not before tears welled in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.
She said nothing else while Sera and Caelan looked from her to each other, unsure what to do.
Elara became a statue, cold and utterly still save for the tears streaming down her face and the shallow rise and fall of her chest.
Silence reigned, a suffocating blanket of tension heavy in the air, punctuated only by the occasional strained breath. The ground rocked beneath her, and she was grateful for the sofa she held fast to.
Finally, Elara whispered, “You knew.” She pointed at Caelan with a shaky finger. “You knew that my family was dead this entire time?”
Panic flashed across his features.
Good, you should be afraid, she thought.
Sera placed a hand on her shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze and a tiny shake. “I’m so sorry, Elara.”
Elara slowly directed her gaze toward Sera, her eyes the only part of her moving. When they fixed upon Sera’s face, Elara saw the shame and remorse etched into her features. She didn’t care.
“And you . . . You knew too, didn’t you?
” The stare she set upon her so-called friend was bloodthirsty.
“Did you help murder them? Did you torment their minds, or just erase them entirely until they were nothing?” Red coated her vision, her nostrils flared, and the chill that had descended upon her figure turned molten.
“Elara, wait, let me—” Caelan said.
“No. I knew better than to trust you—my enemy’s son. To believe in us. I’ve never met a man who could turn down power for love, and you’re no different. You used me.”
And I let you. Elara turned the full force of her fury to Caelan, giving him a look that caused him to back up. A look that said, Run.
Caelan and Sera backed out of the room with infuriating composure, as if they thought Elara just needed some privacy to process and calm down.
They were wrong. Once the door to her chambers closed and she was alone—though she guessed Caelan wasn’t far and her guards were lurking outside—she let her stone facade crack.
Her face scrunched up, her tears flowing more freely now and her nose dripping.
Her hands balled into fists, her nails cutting into her palms and drawing blood before the moon-shaped slices healed almost instantly.
Elara stalked over to the window and gazed outside once more.
Dawn arrived, painting the sky in shades of pink and gray.
More snow fell softly, coating the courtyard in a cold dust. Any trace of greenery or the bright oranges and yellows of autumn had long since faded, leaving the scenery drained of its life.
I have to get out of here. With that one thought driving her forward, Elara donned a thick coat and wrapped a fur-lined cloak around her shoulders, pulling the hood over her head.
She yanked on wool socks, well-worn boots, and gloves.
Elara pulled her dagger out of the hidden place under a crooked floorboard and strapped it to her ankle.
While Caelan had schooled her in weapons, he hadn’t offered to let her keep any. Just another reminder that she was, in fact, a captive who had gotten too comfortable with her captor. Thankfully, she’d had the mind to sneak the dagger into her room through the tunnel Lysandra had discovered.
Ready to be free of the suffocating room, she ventured outside into the courtyard.
“Stay inside, keep warm,” Elara ordered Felix and Silas.
They looked at each other with eyebrows raised, startled by the command in her tone.
She glared back at them when they didn’t obey her and stalked behind her.
“You can spy on me just as easily from the doorway or windows.” Her definitive words hung in the air as she departed.
Elara wandered the courtyard until she found her destination: the garden.
She sat on a stone bench, the snow crunching under her weight, and inhaled the freezing air.
She pressed her hands against the stone, savoring its solidness as the chill seeped through her gloves.
Maybe this is another vision, she thought.
Maybe I just need to be patient until I wake up.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Elara looked around to discover a speckled snowy owl perched on a nearby branch. She reached out and stroked Lysandra’s soft white feathers.
Sighing after a few more slow, lip-chapping breaths, Elara resigned herself to the inescapable nightmare that was her reality.
Mama. With her sweet lullabies and ridiculous tea parties.
Papa. With his crinkle-eyed smiles and scary bedtime stories.
Thalia. Never again would Elara tease her baby sister about holding the reins wrong while out riding, laughing all the while.
Dead. Gone. Her family was lost to her. She cried until her eyelids swelled shut and her lips tasted of salt.
Elara’s kingdom was under the control of a monster. And Caelan. He’d lied to her—she’d trusted him, and he’d betrayed her. She might have expected this from Sera, the monster’s servant, but not him.
I loved him, she thought. I gave him everything. And he took it all away.