Chapter 40
Elara
Elara dragged the back of her hand across her forehead, using the linen wrap to catch beads of sweat before they stung her eyes.
Alone, she gulped water from a delicate goblet that looked ridiculous in the filthy makeshift training room.
Elara had once felt like she didn’t belong here either, but with her messy hair, sweat-stained clothes, and a newfound confidence in her capabilities, she felt at home.
Dust motes floated around her, sticking to her as she continued hitting the hanging canvas bag.
Each punch articulated her frustration. Thump.
At Caelan’s betrayal. Thump. Thump. At herself for trusting him in the first place.
Thump. Thump. Thump. At her father for putting her family in danger with his schemes.
Elara recalled the last conversation she’d had with the king, when they’d argued about her attending the council meetings. Her knuckles cracked with the force of her final blow. Maybe you were right, Father. Maybe I wasn’t ready for all of this.
Collapsing onto the floor, she lay back and followed the cracks in the painted plaster ceiling with her eyes.
One crack split a woman’s once-serene face into pieces.
I feel shattered too, she thought. Elara and Caelan had spent the last few days putting on brave faces for the court, pretending to be in love once more.
Even knowing about his childhood, she couldn’t shake her bitterness and find it in her heart to forgive him.
She couldn’t even forgive herself for trusting him.
Instead of facing him, she threw herself into her studies.
Her magic lessons had stalled—she’d hit a wall, unable to heal any other plants, and Ursa was unsure how to guide her over it.
Elara continued to focus on her physical training.
However, it only eased her mind for a short time.
Research provided more relief, the comforting solitude of the library calming her as she anticipated their impending nuptials.
Lord Stormrider left Elara and Caelan alone to plan, only offering a few suggestions to make the festivities more politically advantageous.
Elara hadn’t cared when he hinted certain nobles should sit closer to the bride and groom.
When he suggested escorting her down the aisle himself, while the king performed the ceremony, Elara balked.
The thought of an illusion of her father taking part in the wedding made her stomach churn.
Caelan miraculously talked his father out of that idea.
A small mercy from the man who had broken her heart.
Elara stood, dusting herself off, and focused on her next solo drill.
Grabbing a wooden short sword from the rack, she spread her feet apart and began shadow cutting.
A step forward with a diagonal cut, followed by a step back with a mirroring cut to recover.
Then a side step with a matching horizontal cut, followed by a thrust and guard check.
On her last forward step, her foot caught on a loose floorboard.
Her ankle twisted, and a loud snap echoed across the room.
She fell to her hands and knees, hitting the ground hard and gritting her teeth against the pain.
Her face flushed, and tears filled her eyes.
Even though she knew she would heal—although she wasn’t sure what her magic’s exact limitations were—she still felt the pain.
Months of training had desensitized her to most common bruises and cuts—and a few broken fingers—but this was another beast altogether.
She took a few deep breaths as the pain, then adrenaline, rushed through her and quickly yanked her foot to align her ankle properly before healing it.
Searing pain assaulted her senses, providing a welcome blindness to her raw emotions.
Ursa had told her the importance of setting bones and joints before her essence healed them in the wrong position.
With her ankle aligned, Elara pictured the bone fusing, the torn ligaments and tendons tightening, and the swelling subsiding.
In moments, her injury had healed completely.
Drained by pain and magic, Elara slumped over from exhaustion.
She hugged her knees to her chest, and her tears flowed freely, as if the dam holding back her emotions had broken once more. A wave of all the despair she’d suppressed washed over her. Drowning her.
Before, Elara had been driven by her desire to save her family. Now that they were gone, her love for Caelan might have sustained her. But their relationship was tarnished now, like her mother’s old silver jewelry. Heirlooms that would now pass to her. Just like the crown.
And there it was—she would become queen, with or without Caelan by her side. If her love for Caelan wasn’t enough, then her love for her people would have to be.
As she released her pain, renewed purpose bloomed within her.
She and Caelan would work together to defeat Lord Stormrider, and she would take control of the continent.
As a Serathi, she would be no ordinary queen.
She’d serve as a beacon of hope, a reminder of what was possible if the noble families united to find the Well and restore magic.
I won’t let my family’s deaths be in vain. I won’t disappoint you, Father. Not again.
A hand brushed her shoulder, pulling her from her thoughts. Elara peered up at Sera, then unfurled herself.
“Are you all right?” Sera asked.
“What do you think?” Elara snapped back at her. Elara rolled up into a seated position on the floor, and Sera plopped herself down in front of her, crossing her legs. The motion looked at once graceful and ridiculous, given Sera’s floor-length chiffon gown.
“Honestly? No,” Sera said simply. “I’m sorry that I lied to you about your family. I know it doesn’t make a difference, but I want you to know that.”
“Why did you keep lying to me after . . . after we became friends?” Elara nearly choked on the word “friends” and fought back more tears pooling at the edges of her vision. She distracted herself by fiddling with a piece of fabric caught in a nail on the weathered pine floor.
Sera seemed on the verge of crying too—her lower lip and chin quivered, and her eyes were red around the edges.
“I . . . I know it was wrong. To keep a secret like that from you. I can’t make any excuses for that.
But I promised Caelan that I wouldn’t tell you.
He is my oldest friend. I would do anything for him. ”
“Even betray your other friends?” Elara asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes.” Sera didn’t hesitate to answer.
“I can almost respect that. Almost.” Elara sighed, rubbing her still-tender ankle. “How will I ever be able to trust you, Sera?”
“You love him, right? Even after he lied to you?” Sera asked.
I still love him, Elara thought, and her expression must have given her away, as Sera said, “Of course you do. And he loves you. I’m confident he will never lie to you again. He did it to protect you, and he knows now that he was wrong. So, I will never need to lie to you again.”
“And he loves you—he’d never put you in a position like this again,” Elara added.
Elara didn’t like it, but the plain logic, and raw honesty, gave her a strange sense of comfort. She placed her hand in Sera’s and said, “Tell me about you and Caelan growing up together.”
Sera looked down at their interlaced fingers resting in her lap atop a pile of lilac skirts. Her blond hair was pulled back into a tight chignon, but a delicate strand had escaped and hung over her eye, making her look softer, younger.
“You know the scars on Caelan’s hand?” Sera asked. Elara nodded, conjuring the image of the bubbled flesh in her mind. “He was twelve when it happened. His father forced another child to inflict that pain on him.”
Elara grimaced. “Stars . . . I had no idea. That’s horrible.” After learning about Caelan’s mother, and now the depths of his fear for his father, she understood. It didn’t excuse everything he’d done to her—the lies—but she understood.
The two women sat on the dusty floor like that for an hour, Sera recounting more horrors before they were forced to stretch their legs.
They walked, Sera talked, Elara listened.
They settled in Elara’s room, eating together as Sera told Elara more about what it was like for her and Caelan growing up around Lord Stormrider.
Where Caelan had spared her some details—or maybe didn’t know the extent of the abuses he didn’t see—Sera was an open book.
“A few years ago, Caelan’s father gave me this.” Sera clutched the amulet around her neck. “You know what it does?”
Elara nodded. “It allows you to conceal memories, right?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “It took months of practice, torturing his prisoners by twisting their minds. After that, I understood why so many hated my kind.”
“I’m so sorry . . . No one should ever go through that.
” Bile rose in the back of her throat as she heard what Sera had endured.
Lord Stormrider is a monster. It was enough.
Enough for Elara to understand, to forgive the lies, to wrap Sera tightly in her arms and ask her to stay the night in her room so they wouldn’t be alone.