Chapter 40
Elora
The morning air was cool, heavy with dew. Mist wove low between the trees, curling around boots and bedrolls. The Whispering Woods were still—for once, silent—but Elora felt anything but.
She stood near the dying fire, arms wrapped around herself, her gaze locked on nothing. Not the trail ahead. Not the packed bags. Just a patch of dirt where the embers flickered low.
Rell watched her for a moment before stepping closer. “You’ve been staring at the same spot for ten minutes,” he said gently. “We good to head out?”
Elora didn’t answer. Her fingers tightened around her arms.
Rell softened his voice. “We need to leave if were going to make it into Kilfaire with the morning rush.”
She didn’t move.
He shifted, standing in her line of sight, his hand finding the back of her neck, thumb caressing her cheek. “What’s wrong? You’re almost free, right? Meet up with Tehvan and sail to Al’tera, escape Thorn, escape the empire. Why are you stalling?”
“Am I… almost free? It doesn’t feel like it.”
That surprised him. His brow furrowed. “No?”
Her voice barely carried, a brittle thing in the morning light.
“I… I love him. Tehvan. He raised me, protected me, taught me everything I know. But now that I’ve been away from him, I’m starting to see it all differently.
” Her arms dropped to her sides. “The way he monitored my thoughts, my pulse. The way he decided what was right for me—what I should feel, how I should act. Controlled me and called it protection.”
Rell dropped his hand to rest on her shoulder, but said nothing.
“The more I think about it, the more I believe Thorn. Maybe, I was only ever supposed to be Flora’s replacement.
” Her gaze fell on a distant point again.
But she couldn’t see the woods around her.
All she saw was Thorn’s study, the gurney, the memory potion.
Heard his words. You look identical. Same eyes.
Same freckles. Even the names. You think Tehvan raised you out of kindness?
Out of love? He fostered you because you resembled her.
Rell tilted his head. “Who’s Flora?”
She hesitated. Then, slowly, the words began to spill.
“Tehvan’s real daughter. He never talked about her.” She looked down, voice tightening. “But Thorn did.”
Rell’s expression darkened, but he let her speak.
“He said Tehvan only saved me from the Snatchers because I looked like her. I was a replacement. That everything Tehvan did—raising me, protecting me—was to fill the hole Flora left behind.” Her voice cracked.
“It’s why Thorn… why he did everything that he did to me.
To punish Tehvan for trying to recreate her.
I kept telling myself that Thorn’s wrong.
That Tehvan didn’t save me because I looked like her. But I don’t know anymore.”
“Yet I still love him. He gave me everything. A home. Safety. He made me believe I mattered.” She looked up at Rell then, eyes burning.
“But you… you’ve been protecting me. And I don’t know if I’ve ever felt more free.
Like it’s okay for me figure out who I actually am.
But I feel like I’m betraying him just by saying that. Isn’t that stupid?”
Rell shifted closer, his voice low, steady. “No, Elora. You’re loyal. That’s not a flaw.”
She looked away, but his hand came up, slow and gentle, just grazing the side of her face before tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“But loyalty isn’t the same as freedom,” he continued. “Tehvan might’ve saved your life once, but that doesn’t mean he’s owed the rest of it.”
She didn’t respond, not with words. Just the slight quiver of her chin.
“You’re not betraying him by becoming your own person.”
Her chest ached, the familiar pang of guilt curling inside her.
Tehvan had given her so much. He saved her from the Snatchers.
He taught her alchemy, protected her from Thorn for as long as he could.
But that protection came at a price. A quiet, heavy price that she hadn’t known she’d been paying until Rell showed her what freedom tasted like.
Her arms found their way around his waist. There was a raw need in the way she clung to him, like she might just fall apart if she let go.
She was tired of holding it all together, tired of the uncertainty, of the thoughts that clawed at her every step.
Somehow, in that desperate embrace, the world stopped spinning so fast. She let herself collapse against him.
Rell's arms wrapped around her, catching her, holding her there, as silent and steady as the earth beneath their feet.
Maybe she was still loyal to Tehvan. Maybe she would always love him in that complicated, tangled way.
But she didn’t belong to him.
And she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life seeking the affection he claimed he never intended to hide, yet had kept securely locked away behind his barriers of control.
∞∞∞
The trees were growing sparse now, their trunks standing farther apart. Elora could feel the forest releasing its hold on them, the dense canopy opening to reveal patches of pale sky. They were almost through. Soon, the woods would give way to open countryside, and beyond that—Kilfaire.
Elora sat in front of Rell on the horse, her back pressed against his chest. The rhythmic clopping of hooves broke the stillness, mingling with the soft crunch of fallen leaves beneath them.
The quiet felt heavy, weighted with things unsaid.
Last night lingered between them—impossible to ignore but too delicate to touch directly.
Elora's fingers worried at the edge of her brown cloak, the familiar texture grounding her as her thoughts spiraled.
She could feel Rell's gaze settling on her, burning a hole in the back of her head.
Was he regretting it? The kiss had been impulsive, born from adrenaline and fear and something deeper.
Lust. Desire. But in the cold light of morning, maybe it felt like a mistake.
The thought hollowed out her chest. She had spent so long learning to guard herself, to keep the vulnerable parts locked away.
But with Rell, those defenses crumbled without her permission.
It was dangerous, this growing attachment to someone she would have to leave behind.
Kilfaire meant separation—he had his life with The Hive, and she.
.. she had Tehvan waiting, and whatever uncertain future stretched beyond that.
Maybe it would be easier if he regretted it. If whatever was building between them could be severed cleanly before it grew too deep to extract without bleeding.
"How long have you had that cloak?"
Of all the things she'd expected him to address—last night, her confessions, their approaching separation—her cloak hadn't even been on the list.
"What?" she asked, pulling the worn fabric tighter around herself.
Rell's gray eyes were fixed on the brown wool with an intensity that made her pulse quicken. "Your cloak. How long have you had it?"
The question felt loaded somehow, though she couldn't understand why. Her fingers traced the familiar fabric, feeling the places where it had worn thin, where careful mending had kept it whole.
"Always," she said quietly. "For as long as I can remember."
The words unlocked something in her chest—a flood of memories she rarely allowed herself to examine. "I had it when the Snatchers sold me to Tehvan. I was wearing it then."
Her voice grew smaller, more distant. "Tehvan tried to throw it away.
Said it was dirty, that it reminded me of bad things.
But I..." She shook her head, a rueful smile ghosting across her lips.
"I threw the biggest tantrum. Screamed until my throat was raw, wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep. I think I actually bit him once."
The memory was both vivid and hazy—a child's desperate fury at losing the one constant thing in a world that had repeatedly torn everything away. "He couldn't understand why I wanted to keep something tied to what I'd been through. Honestly, I couldn't explain it either. I just... needed it."
She fell silent, her fingers still working at the threadbare fabric.
The cloak had been her companion through every transformation, every trauma.
It had absorbed her tears, been her blanket when nightmares came, her shield when the world felt too sharp.
It was ratty and worn and probably worthless to anyone else, but it was hers in a way that felt fundamental.
"I still need it," she admitted, so quietly she wasn't sure he'd heard.
Rell was quiet for a long moment, she was sure he’d just dropped the subject. When he spoke again, his voice was careful, measured.
"You know, with your skills... you could probably brew a memory potion. Unblock whatever's locked away from before the Snatchers."
She shot him a sharp look over her shoulder, but he wasn't meeting her eyes anymore, his attention seemingly focused on the path ahead.
"Don’t you want to know?" he continued, almost casually. "Where you came from. Your real name. Your parents."
The words hit her like cold water. Her fingers tightened on the cloak, the familiar fabric suddenly feeling less like comfort and more like armor.
"No," she said quietly. "I don't want to know."
"Really? You're not even curious?"
She'd had this conversation before, with herself, mostly. Late at night when sleep wouldn't come and her mind wandered to dangerous places.
"I've considered it," she admitted finally. "Several times, actually. Tehvan offered to make me one when I was younger. And then when I got to memory potions in my lessons, the idea came back around."
She paused, watching a bird flit between the branches overhead. "But every time I think about it... I remember what I do know. My parents sold me. From somewhere up north. They'd sold some of my siblings before me too." Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "That's it. That's all I know."
Rell was listening intently now, his usual smirk nowhere to be found.
"Those memories wouldn't be happy ones," Elora continued.
"Not like the life I was living then—protected, loved.
And memory potions..." She shook her head.
"They don't just unblock memories. You basically get to live in them for a period of time.
Experience them like they're happening all over again. "
The thought made her stomach clench. "I didn't want that. I had a relatively good life, a happy one. Besides that month of hell with Thorn and his guards." She glanced at Rell, her expression resolute. "What's the point of remembering bad times when you could be living good ones?"
She pulled her cloak tighter, the worn fabric a reminder of survival, of endurance. "This cloak is all I need from that time. It got me through then, and it's gotten me through everything since. The rest..." She shrugged. "The rest can stay buried."