Chapter 11 #2
The same words she had spoken to Kynra. The same words that had echoed in her mind ever since.
They’d dragged her in like a criminal, barely giving her time to think, let alone form a plan.
Whatever she might have meant to say had shattered somewhere between the guards’ hands on her arms and the cold stone of this chamber.
She wasn’t arguing policy or catering to their pride like she had planned—she was saying only what felt true.
Perhaps that was all she had left: to make them understand, even if it changed nothing. Even if it ended with her death.
Elara forced herself to look around the room, to truly see each face.
The accusations were plain enough—the barely restrained hatred, the thinly veiled disgust. But beneath that, more subtly, she glimpsed confusion flickering behind narrowed eyes, saw doubt threading quietly through carefully guarded expressions.
It was faint, perhaps—fragile enough to break beneath a single wrong word—but it was there.
Her gaze settled firmly back on Eamon. “If you choose to kill me,” she said softly, “then do so with open eyes.”
His eyes flashed, a brief storm. Before she could read it, movement stirred at the edge of her vision.
A figure pushed away from the far wall of the uppermost tier.
Elara hadn’t noticed her until she moved.
Kynra stepped forward, hair braided into clean, severe lines, armor glinting like morning frost. She moved like judgment itself, as though something sacred and wrathful had taken form.
Elara forced herself to meet her gaze. It was a mistake. There was no conflict in Kynra’s eyes. Only disdain. Cold, ancient, and absolute. Kynra turned from her without a word to face the Concord.
“Do not be deceived by this salachar daonna.” Her lip curled slightly on the word.
“Do not mistake her trembling for humility, nor her scars for penance. She speaks of suffering as though her pain could ever mirror what was done to us.” Her gaze swept the gathering, not pleading, but invoking.
“She would have you believe she sees us—as kin, as equals. But she cannot. Her kind never have. They looked upon us and saw power to harvest, beauty to bind. They did not see life. They saw a resource. An advantage. A threat to extinguish or a tool to wield.”
She took a single step forward. “These humans she now defends—she claims they are unaware. Innocent. But ignorance is no shield from guilt. It is a choice. And while they chose not to see, they built empires upon our bones. Our blood watered their fields. Our Draoth lit their cities. Our dead were ground into mortar and fed to their machines.”
Kynra turned to Eamon, regal and rigid as stone.
“So tell me, my lord, by what measure should this one be spared? What place does mercy hold, when the earth still mourns what was taken from us? We allow one human into our realm—half-blood or no—and we invite calamity to follow. Our laws were not written in doubt. Any Sídhe who encounters a human is bound to spill their blood. No mercy for Sídhe-slayers. No mercy for the legacy her ancestors left in their wake.”
Her gaze hardened. “Why should this generation be absolved of the last?” Her eyes cut to Elara one final time.
“She speaks of gates and whispers sweet vengeance, but haven’t we learned yet what words from mortal tongues are worth?
” Her lips curled slightly. “How many shattered oaths will it take before the Turlaith remember that survival doesn’t have to be cruelty? ”
The Concord rippled behind her like a field of tall grass before a fire—hissing, snapping, shifting with growing heat.
And then the shouting started.
“There is no mercy for what she is!”
“The trees recoil! Can you not feel it? The forest rejects her!”
“The old laws are clear! No mercy for the spawn of ruin!”
“A curse!”
“Poison!”
Each word struck Elara like a hurled stone, embedding in flesh and memory, staining her skin.
She stood rigid, hands clenched into fists, fingernails biting into her palms. Blood welled as something twisted deep inside her.
Shame. Fury. Grief. A tangled knot pulling tighter until breathing became impossible.
Then a voice, low and unmistakable, rolled over the rising panic like a wave crashing into fire.
“If you call her a curse,” it boomed, “then I will carry it.”
Reynnar pushed off the door, staggered once, then caught himself, shoulders squaring. His eyes were bloodshot, unfocused for a heartbeat too long before they found her. When they did, something fierce burned through the haze.
She blinked. Slowly. Like coming up from underwater.
“If you call her poison, then let it run through me.” He held her gaze, and it was like the room vanished.
Like it had always been the two of them standing in the wreckage, finding pieces of themselves in the ash.
“She is not yours to define. I know what she is. I know what she’s not. I choose her anyway.”
His words didn’t land in her ears—they carved straight through her ribs, curling around her heart. She stared at him, wide-eyed, pulse pounding, throat burning from holding back whatever this was trying to become inside her.
“If the Turlaith will not see reason,” he said, turning to Eamon, “then I must invoke my right. I claim her. I take her under my sovereignty.”
Elara flinched as the crowd exploded—an uproar of fury and disbelief, of shouted protests and venomous curses.
The noise crashed into her from all sides.
She closed her eyes. Sovereignty? A loophole, perhaps.
One he had not been desperate enough to invoke the last time they had stood before these Sídhe—but now…
Reluctantly, she lifted her gaze to him, bracing herself for whatever she might find there. Regret, perhaps. Strain. Some flicker of doubt.
There was none.
His expression was utterly calm. As though their hatred meant nothing, their refusal to acknowledge her story irrelevant—as though he had already made his choice before they ever returned to this realm, consequences be damned.
I know what she is. I know what she’s not. I choose her anyway.
The words rang in her bones. Settled in her skin.
Her breath caught in her throat as she held his gaze, and in that single, devastating look was everything she’d spent days—weeks, if she was honest—avoiding.
He cared for her. Deeply. He always had, in his own stubborn way.
But this went beyond friendship, beyond camaraderie—this was something overwhelming, something that gripped her heart like a fist and left her breathless and terrified.
It’s only the Cara influencing him, a quiet, vicious voice whispered in the back of her mind, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.
Reynnar’s eyes narrowed in immediate concern.
She’d never been able to hide from him—not really—and the understanding she saw flicker across his expression was almost worse than the realization itself.
Before she could pull away, before she could gather herself or shield whatever her face had betrayed, a sound split the air.
Quick. Sudden. The sickening snap of a bowstring.
Elara never saw the arrow.
She only felt it. Felt him. His rage, his terror, his heartbeat tearing through her veins as death screamed toward her heart.