71. Ellowyn
Chapter 71
Ellowyn
D ays passed slowly and all at once.
I fluctuated between the nightmares that plagued my dreams to waking to live in one.
It was hell.
I couldn’t move, I couldn’t feel. I was numb and broken.
The sheets felt like nothing under my hands, the clothes that were taken off me and put back on were simply an encasement.
Food, when I ate, was ash on my tongue.
Not even the garden, when I was allowed outside with an escort, awoke anything inside.
I was as dead as the brother I sentenced to death, as the mountain I burned to ash in the dreamscape.
No one came to visit, not Mistress Lautaro, not the Warlord. Not Mother and Father. Whether they were not allowed or simply chose not to see me, I neither knew nor cared.
“You should eat something, miss,” Pip’s voice echoed from somewhere to my left. I was placed in an armchair by the fire today, posed like a fragile doll.
When I didn’t respond or show any sign of recognition, Pip sighed before leaving the room, closing the door quietly in her wake .
Tears tracked down my face in reckless abandon and I did nothing to stop them. At least I could feel that, even if it was only desperation and abject sadness.
More days passed. I grew more despondent, less communicative, if possible.
What’s the point? Finian is dead. Peytor is in the mines and hates me. Mother and Father won’t see me, they probably hate me too.
No one had come to see me, no healers or servants, even Pip was simply dropping food in my room and leaving. She no longer dressed and bathed me, and I stayed in the same position, dressed in the same clothes, for days at a time.
I was trapped.
A prisoner in my own mind and in my own home.
I didn’t know if I wanted to scream or cry.
I knew I wanted to die, though it felt like I already was dead—every piece that once made me was destroyed that day. I was only a shell.
A knock sounded and my eyes moved from the wall to the door.
The door opened and the Warlord entered. My expression didn’t change, but I could feel the heat of my anger bubbling deep within.
“You’ve had more than enough time to sulk, dear Ellowyn,” he chastised with no preamble.
How dare he?
“You will join me for dinner tonight. Private dining room at six. Do not be late,” he said as his gaze took in my appearance. His nose wrinkled. “And for the love of the gods, take a bath and dress appropriately. You represent me now, and I will not have you looking like . . . this.”
“M-my parents?” My voice rasped and cracked from disuse, my dry lips sticking together. They were the first words I’d uttered in weeks.
“Will not be joining us. They are . . . indisposed,” he deadpanned. I simply stared at him.
Dead. They were dead, then. Like I wished to be.
“Dinner. At six. I’ll send your maid to assist you.” With that, he turned from me and strode out of the room, the door shutting echoed loudly in the quiet space.
Promptly at six, Pip guided me through the halls and down the stairs to, what used to be, my parents’ private dining room.
Is it his now? Is this house his? What else has he taken from us?
Again, I felt that bubble of anger deep within as I thought about the injustices thrust upon my family in such a short amount of time. I basked in it—the only emotion I allowed myself to feel, and my magic whispered to me in kind.
Pip pushed open the dining room door and ushered me inside, half-dragging, half-guiding me to a seat at the table. It was empty apart from the Warlord, who sat at the head in my father’s chair. Only one other setting was present, and it was directly to his left.
The place where my mother usually sat.
The thought had dread coiling around my stomach until I felt like I would be sick.
My feet carried me, acting against my mind’s screams, to the place at the table, and I sat woodenly.
“Thank you for joining me, Ellowyn,” the Warlord said as he took a bite of deviled egg, a tumbler of whiskey in his other hand.
There was nothing on my plate and only water in my goblet.
Pity .
“Due to your inability to look after your well-being and actually eat, your stomach is small right now and you won’t be able to stomach much, if any, food. Especially richer foods. Or alcohol, for that matter. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering the cook to make you a simple broth for now. If you can keep that down, I’ll offer you some bread.” He took another bite of egg, the yellow of it getting caught slightly in his beard.
As if called into the room by his statement alone, a servant appeared with a bowl of steaming broth for me and a plate piled high with roasted duck, vegetables, and potatoes. My stomach growled and rolled at the smell.
The Warlord smiled predatorily. “Eat, Ellowyn. You will need your strength.”
I picked up the spoon on autopilot and directed it into my bowl, then into my mouth. It was hot and flavors exploded across my tongue.
I moaned quietly at the taste, grateful that I could actually taste again .
The Warlord chuckled lightly before digging into his own food, and I was disappointed in myself for showing even that little bit of emotion.
We ate in silence for a while, each of us lost to our own thoughts. He with whatever hellscape he was planning next, and me with prayers that he would choke on a bone and die.
To my utter disappointment, he ate his dinner without dying.
Pity.
Perhaps he was just biding his time, because as soon as I set my spoon back on the table—the bowl of broth only half-consumed and my stomach close to bursting—he set his own utensils down and waved the servants from the room.
“We will be leaving for the capital tomorrow morning. Your servant is packing your belongings as we speak. You will ride in the carriage with me and, when we arrive, you will be given your own rooms in a private wing at my home. There will be no more of this behavior. You will eat. You will bathe. You will regain your strength, and then you will train at the Academy. It’s past time that you learned to control and wield your powers.” He paused and I simply stared at him.
It didn’t matter where I went, I was still a prisoner, both physically to him and mentally to my demons.
“No comment?”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say, my lord,” I replied woodenly.
That was apparently the wrong response, because the Warlord threw his napkin on the table with a huff.
“Alois,” he ground out. “You will call me Alois, and when you don’t, there will be consequences.”
I’m not sure what else he could do that would punish me further than I already had been.
“Alois,” I said just to placate him, and his posture relaxed slightly.
“Your betrothal to Lord d’Eshu,” he spat the name, “is also voided.”
That caused me to start, and I frowned.
“Why? Isn’t it in your best interest to entertain a relationship with the Southern Territories?”
The Warlord smiled darkly.
“I could give a rat’s ass about the Southern Territories. And even less about that lord who calls himself your betrothed. Where is he, hmm? Where has he been while you suffered?”
I was silent at that because it was true. Since our engagement, I had written numerous times with no response—our only interaction was within the dreamscape, and I wasn’t even sure those were real. My parents had also written to him, asking for him to come stay in Hestin for a while, and then again asking him to attend the Warlord’s most recent visit, and they’d received no response to either.
“My dear, that engagement was over before it began. You are mine, anyway,” he stated.
Of course I was his. He forced me to kill Finian, sentenced my brother to the mines, and then reclaimed Hestin—my home—as his. All before he simply made my parents disappear.
And I did nothing to stop any of it.
I had the ability to change the course of Elyria, and I wasted it by not speaking or acting in time. I thought my father’s warning was to keep me quiet, prevent me from acting.
But it was becoming ever clear that my interpretation was a lie.
The Keeper’s warning was so that I would speak out. I would stop these atrocities from occurring.
And I did nothing.
Yes, I was every inch his.
“And, if you want to save what’s left of your traitorous family, you will be mine, permanently.”
I paled, my gut twisting uncomfortably. Peytor may be sentenced to a life in the mines, but he was still alive, and my heart ached to protect him despite how he obviously felt about me.
“What does that mean?” I whispered.
“You, sweet Ellowyn . . .” He leaned forward, his breath fanning my face as a serpentine grin spread on his, his wild eyes dancing. “Will marry me. After all, a king is nothing without a queen.”
I could no longer contain the roiling of my gut.
I leaned over the chair and threw up.