Chapter Nineteen
Elysia
The High Priestess’s fingers close around my wrist before I can brace myself.
Her grip is cold, firm, and merciless as she pulls me up the stone platform without so much as a glance back. I stumble up the first step, my boots slipping slightly against the polished floor before I catch myself.
I notice my dream-elf’s hands twitch at his sides, like he is ready to catch me, but maybe it’s a figment of my imagination. My heart aches to see any semblance of the elf who held me as I broke apart in his arms.
I’m close enough now to see the crown clearly. It’s smaller than I imagined. Not ornate or sparkling with jewels. Just metal that’s interwoven bright silver and shadowy steel, shaped into thorny curves and delicate arcs.
My fingers twitch at my sides as she reaches for it and turns toward me. I want to back away and say I’m not ready, but where would I run to that I wouldn’t be found and dragged right back to this temple?
This is happening now, whether I want it or not.
Before I stepped foot into this room, I would have daydreamed about running to find the elf from my sleeping world, thinking up a scenario where he swept me into his familiar arms and hid me from my fate.
That’s neither here nor there any longer. That elf is just a figment of dreams that will never come true now. Add it to the list of beautiful things that this twisted world has destroyed.
“Bow your head,” she instructs, taking me from my thoughts.
I hesitate just for a breath and then I lower my chin.
“The Goddess has chosen.”
Cool metal touches my forehead, and I brace for something more. A jolt, a burn, a rush of magic, but all I feel is the weight of the crown settling against me.
“Welcome to our world, Queen Elysia,” the High Priestess says before taking a step back from me. “Your formal joining ceremony will take place once your choice has been made, tying you to our people and the Goddess forever.”
I have so many questions swirling, but one comes to the tip of my tongue as I raise my head up. “What choice do I have to make?”
The thought of being free to choose anything in this world feels as foreign as the magic pulsating through the tree like a system of veins.
Movement catches my eye to the right and I turn to find him stepping forward. The elf from my dreams, the stranger with beautiful lavender eyes and a name I still don’t know. He folds his arms behind his back, expression unreadable as he faces me directly.
Unlike the two kings with their long hair, his silver hair is cut short all around, but with a bit more length on the top.
“You must choose between the kings,” he says, voice flat, like he’s reciting from a scroll.
“You will choose which court your soul belongs to and that court will rise in power throughout your reign, alongside your village. Your choice binds our fates together, providing a balance in the power we hold over humans, as is the will of our goddess.”
He might as well have said I control the moon. It makes no sense.
“But … I don’t know enough about either court to make a choice,” I argue, clenching my hands lightly at my side.
“It is law. Divine law. The one thing that has kept peace since the Blood War’s end.”
A flicker of pain passes across his face, like he’s been wounded.
He lifts his chin, a flare of anger in his voice. “You’ll be given time with King Sorryn of the Dromin and King Zayvin of the Nithrin.”
I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong and why he sounds so far away, when just days ago he held me together.
The Dromin King steps forward, white hair and golden eyes gleaming. His smile is easy and open. He bows at the waist, fluid and elegant.
“Forgive Rhune,” he says gently, and just like that, I have a name.
Rhune.
“He forgets how overwhelming this must be for you.”
Sorryn’s presence is a minor balm to my frazzled nerves.
His eyes gleam with warmth and the way he speaks is slow, thoughtful, like he actually cares how his words will be taken by me.
“You’ll come to the Dromin side first since you are from beneath our lands.
We’ll give you time to adjust and to understand who we are and our history. ”
I nod, forcing myself to swallow despite my throat feeling dry as sand.
My gaze shifts to Zayvin. He doesn’t step forward and he doesn’t speak. His eyes stay fixed on me, sharp and unreadable. Not cruel … just guarded, a look he shares with Rhune.
“Is it always this way?” I ask, looking between the four elves here. “Is there always one queen and two kings to choose between?”
I know there is likely a reason for the elves to keep so much of their world a secret from us, but why this?
The High Priestess steps in, voice smooth and full of pre-planned explanations.
“Traditionally, the kings are twins,” she answers, “born of a human queen. The Goddess splits them, one for the Dromin and one for the Nithrin.”
She pauses, eyes flicking to Rhune. A trickle of unease runs down my spine.
Why is he here if he isn’t a king?
“This time … there were three born.”
The breath leaves my lungs and my eyes flick to him as the High Priestess continues. “Rhune bears both courts’ powers within him. They’re weak, but there.”
Suddenly, everything slots into place. His blend of features between Sorryn and Zayvin. His question to me when he’d saved me from the valgys: “How do you know I’m Dromin?”
I turn fully now, staring at him with hope in my heart. “Then you are a king as well?”
His eyes drift to the ground, unable to hold my gaze.
“In order to honor our goddess’s will, yes, you must spend time with each king,” the High Priestess interjects, and I drag my focus back to her.
“However, because Rhune is both Nithrin and Dromin, he has no court to rule over or for you to visit. He will serve as your guard in both courts, ensuring we’ve honored the sacred laws for him to spend time with you. ”
Her words ring out clearly, but I only hear the silence that follows. The one growing in Rhune’s eyes as he looks back up at me. The stillness of an elf who’s been told he’s lesser than his entire life.
He has no court, no claim, and now, he has to watch me be courted by his brothers.
It hits me like a punch to the ribs … maybe that’s why he’s pulling away. Why the man who once felt like the calm amongst the storm of my life now looks at me like I’m a danger to him.
A question rises in my throat, trembling on my tongue before I force it out.
I look at the High Priestess and lift my chin. “Is Rhune one of my options, seeing as he is a king despite having no court? He was born alongside the others and from the chosen queen.”
Rhune’s and Zayvin’s heads jerk toward me, a shared look of bewilderment on their faces, but it’s the first I zone in on.
For a moment the guarded anger isn’t lining his rigid body and causing storms to brew in his eyes as he stares at me. For a moment, he looks at me like maybe I do control the moon.
Like no one has ever stood up for his claim.
Zayvin shifts beside Rhune, arms folding across his chest as he casts a sidelong glance at the High Priestess. His voice is low and steady when he finally speaks, surprising me with its smoothness. “Perhaps Rhune should be treated as a choice.”
His words fall into the room like a stone dropped into still water, rippling tension outward from their source.
The High Priestess straightens, flipping a strand of hair over her shoulder. “His powers are too weak to be a choice. Sorryn and Zayvin are masters of their individual powers and that is what matters. This has already been determined by the Elven Council.”
The finality in her tone cuts off any room for debate. Zayvin doesn’t argue, but his gaze lingers on his brother, unreadable.
Beside him, Sorryn lets out a breath and steps forward with easy confidence. He claps a hand onto Rhune’s shoulder, the motion too casual for the weight of the moment.
Rhune recoils back from the touch. It’s subtle … a tension that lines his sharp jaw, a flicker of disgust in his narrowed eyes. He shrugs off the touch with a barely concealed sneer and steps away.
There is clearly no love lost there.
By the time Rhune turns back to me, the mask is back in place. Cold. Impenetrable. The warmth I’d felt from him in dreams is nowhere to be found, still.
He folds his arms behind his back again, spine perfectly straight.
“The High Priestess is right,” he says, and his voice is steady now, stripped of the hurt I thought I’d seen a moment ago.
“You must choose between Sorryn and Zayvin. That’s how it’s always been.
That’s what maintains the delicate balance. ”
I want to interrupt him. I want to ask why that balance doesn’t include him, but something about the way he says it makes me pause. It’s like he barely believes in his own words but is forcing them out.
“You don’t understand what your choice means,” he continues through gritted teeth now, his voice growing quieter but no less intense. “It’s not just ceremonial. It isn’t symbolic.”
His gaze locks with mine, unwavering and hollow.
“The court you choose gains power from our goddess. The blessing doesn’t just happen for your village, but here in our world as well.
Her blessing enhances the elves’ magic and extends their lifespans.
Your choice shapes the tides of our people’s future. ”
A lump lodges in my throat.
“You think that means you shouldn’t be an option?” I ask softly, needing clarity.
His face twists just for a second and then it’s gone. “I think,” he says, voice barely above a whisper, “that you shouldn’t waste that blessing on the King of Nothing.”
A silence falls between us all in the aftermath of his words. It settles over the room like dust, clinging to every breath I take.
I want to speak and to tell him he’s wrong, that he matters to me, but I can’t seem to find the words … not when he won’t meet my eyes anymore.
He turns slightly, just enough to place distance between us again, shoulders squared like a wall has been built where the chance of a different fate used to live between us.
Still I look at him. At the way the light from the tree glints along the edge of his jaw and the way his hands remain clenched behind his back, like he’s holding in all the pieces that could shatter.
I think back to the moment in the dream where I told him I was going to the selection.
The shift in tension between us then, the silence that descended. I was worried then that he thought of being punished if he visited me again.
I didn’t understand it then, but I do now.
He wanted me to survive. He wanted to protect me and guide me. Even if it meant watching from the shadows while someone else stood at my side, if I made it to the other side of the selection.
Even now, with everything stripped away, he’s doing what he believes is best for the courts. He’s willing to give up whatever … this possibly could be between us, to make sure the elves are given the future they deserve.
I see the goodness of his heart in his words and actions, but it hurts more than I want to admit.
I will never be able to choose him. Not because I don’t want to … but because he won’t let me.
Our eyes meet, finally, in the stillness and silence of the room.
In that moment, I swear I feel everything we’ll never be. The quiet ache of could-have-been threads itself through my ribs like a secret only meant for us.
I want to take a step toward him and ask him to fight for us, for me, but the look in his eyes says he already made peace with letting me go, and it breaks a piece of me I didn’t know was still whole.