Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
Elara
Damp earth and leaves scent the air inside the greenhouse, like summer trapped under panes. Above me, the morning sun fractures on the glass, turning into dusty beams that warm my back with such intensity that I almost shiver.
Crk. A dead rose head falls to the pooled skirt of my brown linen dress.
I move to the next stem, the curved pruning knife in my palm glinting where specks of dirt didn’t settle yet on the metal. Sometimes, you have to hurt a thing to save it. Cut away the rot and pray the rest remember how to bloom.
Thorns scratch at my wrists in a protest I can respect, so I pause for a second, breathing in the humidity. It’s quiet here. Peaceful.
Strange how the silence inside me matches the room. Also the warmth, a languid unfurling in the center of my chest, like a coal less hidden beneath ash.
It’s a terrifying, fragile thing. Probably best cut clean off like these dead blooms because…how can I harbor warmth for someone who wronged me so many times? Who lied to me? Who threatened my soul and prowls around my brother’s?
And yet…and yet the warmth persists, kindled from how I witnessed a side of Vale he never showed before, capable of warmth, of kindness…perhaps even compassion. Or maybe I just never looked closely before?
Sighing, I prune a stem an inch below where it started to brown, letting the quiet hum around me. No, nipping it in the bud isn’t an option. Not if I want to break this curse once and for all, which requires the opposite.
Nurturing it.
That warmth answers the thought like it has a vote in this matter, spreading deeper. Necessary, it seems to whisper, curling through my ribs with a stubborn little pulse that feels unearned yet refuses to leave.
I have to love Vale.
I have to love Death.
Something I called impossible, but…now I’m not sure anymore.
“Don’t hallucinate virtues in me,” he warned, but the fact is that he has them.
Death might huff a little, but he does honor bargains.
More than once, he showed restraint when he could’ve easily overpowered me.
His humor is dry enough to scrape, and it matches mine so well it annoys me.
When he isn’t busy lying, he’s actually honest in a way that hurts.
And when he deals hurt? Well, the way he does apologize out-skills me by leagues.
I slice through another stem, petals fluttering to the ground as dark red as that heartstring I saw in his chest. Once the curse breaks—once the crown shatters and returns his heartstring—could he love again? Could he kiss me the way he did in the orphanage and feel more than lust? Could he love—
My throat tightens in an unfamiliar way, so I don’t let myself finish that question. For now, it’s—
“Elara…”
At the sound of Vale’s voice, I rise and turn around, a smile pulling at the corners of my mouth unprompted. It dies instantly.
Vale stands beside an iron column, hands clasped behind his back, his body strung so tight the tension radiates across the humid air between us. He shifts his weight from one boot to the other—a restless, jagged movement.
I step toward him, brown linen sticking to my skin as my clasp tightens around the pruning knife. “What’s wrong?”
One hand comes forward, clutching his ocean blue vest, fingers digging into the velvet. He doesn’t look at me. He looks at the floor. At his boots. At a pebble. Anywhere but my face.
“Another broken toy needs mending?” I ask, forcing a light tone I don’t feel, trying to mask the sudden spike of panic in my gut. “Is it your heartstring? Do you—”
“Go to him.”
The words land softly, and still my muscles tense. “What?”
Vale’s jaw tightens. His hand lifts again to his chest, presses once—hard—then drops as if he’s barely steadying himself. “Daron. You must go to him. Now.”
A cold pulse travels through my body, starting at my chest and sliding down my spine to my knees, turning my legs into something too loose to trust.
For a moment I can’t move.
I can only stare at him.
“Why?” I ask, the word stupid and numb. “He’s fine. I saw him earlier. He’s doing much better. Has for days now.”
Vale doesn’t respond.
My fingers clench around the knife until the handle bites into my palm. The sun overhead is suddenly too bright, too hot. Why isn’t he saying anything?
“Daron’s been doing better,” I repeat, louder, as if volume can make it true. “Not cured, I…I know that. But…he’s been awake. Talking. Eating a little. Jesting.”
“Miss Hampshire cannot find your mother. Your brother is…” He shakes his head. A slow, tortured movement. “He’s alone. Elara, he…is waiting.”
“I-I don’t understand why you’re—” The air in the greenhouse thickens, turning me hot, turning me dizzy. “Waiting for what? What is he wait—”
“For me.”
The world halts, suspended in a terrible, airless clarity where the only thing that moves is the blood draining from my face.
“No.” I shake my head, backing away a step. “No. You’re wrong. You’re lying. You’re a liar!”
“Elara…” Vale steps forward, and the movement is cautious, like he’s approaching a wild animal. “Go to Daron. Now.” His gaze finally lifts, his red-rimmed eyes finding mine. “I will follow shortly.”
“You aren’t going anywhere near him!” I shout, the anger flaring hot and bright as I point the knife at him. “Stay away from my brother!”
His face tightens as he grinds out, “I cannot.”
“You can! You’re Death! You’re a god!” My voice is a roar, sending a vibration through my skull that trembles my vision. I march toward him, almost piercing my knuckle with the exposed blade as I shove my fists against his chest. “Do something!”
Vale stumbles back under my shove. “Elara, you have to—”
“Change it!” I shove him again, harder. He hits the potting table, tools rattling. “You told me… In the grave, you told me you can change it! So change it. Give him time!”
“I cannot give him more time!” Vale roars, the sound tearing out of his throat, growling with a terrible, immortal power that shakes the glass panes above us. “I already have!”
I freeze, panting, staring at him. “What?”
“When you found me with my hand on his chest, when—” His voice catches, infinite sorrow pooling in his eyes.
“When you found me by his bed.” He inhales, a shuddering, broken sound.
“And then, against my very nature, I did it again a few days ago. Elara, I…” He closes his eyes.
When they open again, they’re glassed over.
“Whatever time I could afford Daron, I wrung out of me under strain. There is no more time left to give.”
There is no more…
A ringing fills my ears, high and sharp. The greenhouse blurs. The roses smear into red and black streaks.
He kept him here.
He’s taking him now.
Daron is dying. Now.
“No. Vale, please…” I beg, pulling at his chest as much as I push and pound, all sense shattering into anxious desperation. “I just need more time! I just need to—” My voice breaks. “I just need to love you! I swear I could!”
The words rip something open in his face, his eyes going vulnerable and defenseless. “Elara,” he chokes out. “It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is…” My breath leaves me in a thin, useless pull, the greenhouse seemingly melting and fading away all at once. “Break the curse. Please, Vale, just…just break it.”
Vale flinches. “I can’t.”
“You made it!” A pound at his chest. Thud. “You can break it!” Another pound at his chest, so hard it trembles the blade of the knife. Thud. “Break the—”
“Stop it. Stop it!” He grips my arms, trying to anchor me as I thrash against him. He shakes me once—sharp, desperate—forcing me to look at him, forcing me to see the terrible finality etched into every line of his face. “Daron will die.”
“No! Let go of me!” Panic, red-hot and blinding, explodes in my skull. It overrides thought. It overrides logic. It leaves only the primal, screaming instinct to save my brother. “I said, let…go!”
I wrench my arms back with a scream, tearing myself from his grip. My right hand lashes out in a blind arc. The curved blade catches—a split second of resistance, and then a smooth, sickening slide.
A fine, heavy mist sprays warm across my face.
I blink, confused, wiping my cheek.
Why are my fingers so slick? Why are they red?
Vale makes a sound—a wet, choked gulp that bubbles in the silence. His eyes blow wide, shock arresting the sorrow in them. He staggers back a step, one hand flying up to his neck as he looks down at his chest, where bright, impossible crimson floods over his white cravat.
A whimper tears from my throat, high and terrified, piercing the fog of my panic as I stumble toward him. “Oh my god…”
He sways, looking at me with those wide, bewildered eyes.
My hand trembles so violently that I nearly drop the knife. Instead, my arm jerks up again, muscles acting while my mind watches from far, far away. The motion is mechanical, precise, not truly mine—hand lunging, tracing the same terrible arc.
Slash.
The blade bites deeper this time.
More red. More ruin.
“Why won’t you just break it?!” My arm pulls back and strikes again. A third cut, tearing through shredded skin, distorting behind my blurred vision. “Break it!”
Vale drops to his knees, hands clutching his throat, only for his fingers to twitch uselessly at his cravat. Red pours down the silk. His breath gurgles wet, ugly, and wrong.
The knife clanks to the ground.
“No…” My legs give out from underneath me. Knees hit stone. “I have to break it.”
Vale sways before me, his weight nearly ripping me sideways as he cups my cheek. Warm. Slick. His bloodshot eyes lock onto mine before they flick upward. Above my brow.
The crown…
“We can break it!” I claw at my forehead. Fingers tangle in the cold metal, finding purchase around a point. With every ounce of strength left in my trembling body, I rip the crown free—tearing it away like a scab—and slam it down onto Vale’s head. “You and I. Just like you said.”
The greenhouse tilts.
And with it, the two of us. Vale collapses sideways to the ground, his palm on my cheek, dragging me with him. We hit the ground with a thud, followed by the clank of metal on stone as the crown rolls out of my vision.
A wave of dizziness crashes over me. Color diffuses. Light shatters. Everything swims behind my tears, distorting how Vale twitches, thrashes, and gags.
And yet, he reaches for me. The motion disappears behind darkness that pushes in from all directions. But I feel it, the way his wet, slippery palm cups my face, thumb swiping over my cheek before he chokes out, “M’so…ree.”