Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
ELLIE
“The past speaks loudest through what it chose to preserve.”
Sayings of the Earthvein Sages
The world tilts sideways while the suburban street behind us carries on as normal.
A neighbor shovels snow from his path in slow, steady sweeps.
Someone’s dog barks a few houses down. The mailman walks by whistling some tune that sounds familiar but I don’t know the title of.
All normal things happening around me while my brain tries to process what I’m seeing.
Every detail feels too sharp, every sound too loud, as though my senses have been tuned to a higher setting.
Sacha is completely still beside me, but tension radiates out from his form.
Mrs. Clancy doesn’t speak, head lowered, hands pressed over her heart. A scene I witnessed a thousand times in Meridian after the Veinwardens discovered Sacha was still alive. A scene I haven’t seen once here on Earth.
“Stand. Before we draw an audience.” Sacha’s words are clipped.
Mrs. Clancy lifts her head. “My Lord, please forgive me. I never thought … never dared hope … that you survived. The Authority told us you were dead. They showed us your body, they paraded it through the villages before burning it publicly in Ashenvale.”
“The Authority lied. I was imprisoned, not executed.” His tone is gentler, but still commanding. “Stand. We should go inside.” He holds out a hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Mrs. Clancy places her palm against his, and allows him to help her to her feet.
Her eyes never leave Sacha’s face as she steps back to allow us entry, as if she’s afraid he might vanish if she looks away.
Once we’re in the small hallway, she closes the door and leads us through to the living room.
A floral couch dominates the space, with a collection of ceramic birds arranged on the mantelpiece.
“Please, sit. I’ll make drinks. If you’ll allow it, my Lord, I’ve discovered during my time here that tea makes shocking discoveries easier to process.
” She doesn’t wait for a reply, and disappears back through the door.
A second later, there’s the sound of running water, and the clink of dishes.
Normal sounds that feel a little surreal after what happened on the doorstep.
“This is impossible, right?” I whisper. “There’s no way she can know who you are.”
Sacha lowers himself beside me on the couch, scanning the room. “And yet she does.”
“But how? How can she possibly know you?”
The questions spin through my mind, each one giving birth to a dozen more.
Mrs. Clancy was a staff member at the children’s home.
Someone who worked shifts, filed paperwork, supervised chores.
Nothing about her ever suggested she was anything more than what she appeared to be …
but would I have even noticed? I had no reason to look for more.
Yet I can’t forget the reverence in her voice when she spoke Sacha’s name … how his title rolled off her tongue like it was her natural language … that isn’t something you can fake. The way she knelt, the shock, the disbelief mixed with recognition. She knows exactly who, and what, Sacha is.
She returns before either of us can say anything else, setting a tray on the coffee table, and then takes the chair across from us. For a long moment, no one speaks.
Mrs. Clancy stares at Sacha. Sacha looks back at her.
“You must have questions, my Vareth’el.”
“One or two.” Sacha’s voice holds that dry tone I know so well.
She almost smiles at that, a ghost of expression that transforms her face, and reaches for the teapot. She pours three cups with hands that only shake slightly.
“I don’t even know where to begin.” Her voice is quiet.
“Start with who you really are.” There’s no hesitation in Sacha’s reply. “Because Mrs. Clancy you are not, are you?”
The older woman straightens, and for a moment I see someone else. Not the staff member I remember, but someone accustomed to issuing orders, not receiving them. Someone who is used to being obeyed.
“My name is … Nyassa. In Meridian, I was a Tidevein master serving the Veinwardens in our fight against the Authority. Clancy is just the name I took when I came to this world. When I lost everything else.”
The breath leaves my lungs in a rush.
Nyassa?
She was … is … one of them. Kalliss, Meren, Nyassa, and Vorith. Their names are burned into my mind. The four Veinblood masters who risked everything to save me from Sereven and whatever the Authority had planned for me.
How? How can she be here? They all died … didn’t they?
“You know who I am.” I force the words past frozen lips.
“I know you are Elowen. I know the Authority was transporting you to Blackvault under Sereven’s personal supervision. I know we believed you were important enough to risk everything to save. A child whose survival was worth any sacrifice.” Her tone sends a shiver through me.
“And you’ve been here this whole time? Watching me?”
“Watching over you, yes.”
I stare at her, unable to verbalize everything I want to say. All those years growing up in the system, believing I was alone, that no one cared what happened to me. But she was there. The entire time. She was there.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Why didn’t you explain what I was, where I came from?”
“Because you were safe here. You were growing up in a world where Sereven could never reach you, and where the Authority had no power. Telling you the truth would have only endangered that safety. And would you have believed me?”
“But if I’d known I was from Meridian, if I’d known who I really was, I’d have been better prepared.” Tears are burning the backs of my eyes. I blink, forcing them back.
I will not cry.
Sacha touches my leg when I draw breath to speak again, and he leans forward. “Why did the four of you risk everything for a child you’d never met and had no relationship with?”
Nyassa sets down her teacup. “We had someone inside the Authority. She was a maid in the Lirien Spire. She was a … favorite among the guards there. The risk of discovery was high, but she sent word that Sereven was personally involved in transporting a child to Blackvault. Something that was unprecedented. She had seen him with the young girl in Ashenvale once or twice. And Authority soldiers talk when they’re deep in their cups.
She told us what those soldiers shared with her.
How the commanders were using children to contain power stolen from captured Veinbloods, and how you didn’t die like the others.
That you reacted in unexpected ways to the power that they poured into you.
“But there was more. Our source had witnessed something that unsettled her. When Sereven first brought you to Ashenvale, the guards acted … differently around you than the other prisoners. They kept their distance, even when their duties required them to be near. She watched seasoned soldiers—men who had faced Veinblood masters in battle without flinching—keep their distance when they passed your cell, some making furtive signs of protection when they thought no one could see. They spoke in hushed voices, calling you cursed.”
The tea grows cold in my hands as she continues.
“She heard whispers among the Authority commanders. They believed you were more than just a vessel. They thought you could reshape the very foundations of their power. The maid overheard heated arguments between Sereven and his most trusted. Some wanted you destroyed, claiming you were far too dangerous to keep alive. Others insisted you were the key to expanding their control beyond Meridian itself.”
Sacha’s hand finds mine, squeezing my fingers. “Why were they taking her to Blackvault?”
“Ambition. You survived something that killed every other child. They saw an opportunity, and wanted to see if they could repeat it, see if they could recreate whatever made you different. When the information arrived to us, it confirmed Kalliss’s visions.”
“Visions?”
“Yes. Of a child who would either destroy the Authority or be destroyed by them.”
“Sa—Lord Torran spoke to survivors in Stonehaven who knew you, or were at Silvermist Pass, but no one could explain what happened after.”
Pain fills her eyes. “We took you to a safe place, somewhere we’d prepared before rescuing you.
It was warded and hidden. You were broken.
Whatever the Authority did to you left you barely responsive.
You would eat when food was placed before you, drink when water touched your lips, but your eyes …
” She shakes her head. “Your eyes held such emptiness. As though you were looking through the world to somewhere else entirely. Somewhere no one could follow.”
I'm glad I don't remember any of that.
The thought of being that broken, that lost, makes a cold lump settle in my stomach.
How long was I like that? How much of myself did they steal before the masters found me?
“We knew we had to act quickly. Nowhere in Meridian would have been safe.” She pauses.
“We initially thought we could take you to somewhere across the Great Beyond. But the Authority was committing unprecedented resources to recapturing you, and we couldn’t risk being caught with you.
In the end, we decided to send you somewhere they could never follow. ”
“So you chose another world entirely.” Sacha’s voice is soft.
“Yes. Kalliss had discovered ancient writings about traveling to other worlds beneath Blackvault, just before it was taken by the Authority. The ritual required all four elements working together, but it required a vessel that could contain the powers without being destroyed. He believed you were the vessel spoken of in the writings he’d found.
We needed to anchor your spirit, preventing you from being lost between dimensions.
Meren provided that, Vorith created the pathways between worlds. ”
“And you?”