Chapter 15 #2
Elora’s weight pressed against his hips, her chest heaving with each breath.
Leaves and vines clung to her body, which was doing things to his concentration that he didn’t have time for.
He dragged his eyes up to her face. The Elora he knew had kept herself covered even while bathing in the river with no one around.
Not that he was looking. He wanted to pull his coat off and wrap it around her.
“Elora?” His voice broke on her name. “You’re—”
He started to rise, every instinct screaming to make sure she was real, but she shoved him back down, palm pressing into his chest.
“When,” she hissed, “did you become a Snatcher?”
He blinked up at her, disbelief stinging sharper than her grip. “What?”
“Don’t lie to me.” Her eyes flared brighter, pupils slitting for a heartbeat. “You’re riding with their wagons. Their symbols. You’re wearing them.”
Rell’s breath caught. “It’s not what it looks like.” He kept his tone steady, hands raised in surrender. “Elora, listen to me. We intercepted them. The Snatchers are dead. Those kids—” he nodded toward the road “—they’re safe. We’re getting them to The Hive.”
Her brow furrowed into deep valleys, eyes narrowing to amber slits as her lips pulled back just enough to reveal the edge of canines still not fully retracted.
“You know me,” he pressed. “You know I’d gut every Snatcher left in Adruimor if I could. You know that.”
The rise and fall of her chest steadied. Her jaw unclenched, then tightened again. The golden light behind her irises pulsed once, bright as a forge fire, then dim as banked coals.
Even if she was mad—even if she wasn’t fully human anymore—she was here. Alive. His relief warred with the cold dread spreading through his chest. What had they done to her? What had she become?
Elora eased off him.
Rell stayed where he was for a moment, catching his breath, listening to the forest try to remember its own quiet. The brilliance potion’s glow was already dimming, the light thinning into a pale shimmer over frost.
She stood just beyond its reach, the shimmer brushing over her bare legs, the gold in her eyes dimming to something almost familiar again.
He sat up slow. His hands found the dirt beside him and he pressed his fingers into it, needing something solid. He didn’t trust what he was seeing. Couldn’t. This wild, impossible girl standing there breathing hard, wrapped in leaves and fury like something out of a fever dream.
He had about a hundred things he wanted to say. What happened to you? I’m sorry about Kilfaire. I’m sorry about the winter before that. I’m sorry about all of it.
He wanted to pull her close and feel her heartbeat and know she was real. He didn’t.
He just watched.
Elora’s hands twitched at her sides like she wanted to reach out too but couldn’t decide if she should. Or maybe he was just being hopeful.
The potion’s light guttered out completely, swallowing the clearing in shadow. Only the misted gold from the patterns on her back kept her from vanishing.
When she turned away, he thought she was just catching her breath, until he saw the way her spine arched, the twitch beneath her skin, the telltale shimmer of shifting.
“Don’t,” he said, standing fast.
He reached her in two strides and caught her arm, then immediately loosened his grip, just enough to keep her from disappearing back into the dark.
Her muscles went tense, the warmth of her skin startling after the cold of her transformation.
“Elora,” he breathed, softer this time. “Please. Don’t go yet.”
She didn’t look at him.
For a second, he thought she’d slip away anyway, that she’d vanish into the woods and leave him with ghosts again.
Elora turned back toward him, her arm slipping free of his grasp.
Her pupils dilated slightly as her gaze traveled from his mud-slick coat to the crossbow hanging half-cocked at his side, lingering on the dirt still clinging to his jaw.
The corner of her mouth twitched—not quite a smile, but something that made his chest tighten all the same.
Then she blinked, her throat working once, and fixed her eyes on a point beyond his shoulder.
“I only stopped because I saw the wagons,” she said finally.
Her voice had changed—lower, rougher, carrying a rasp that hadn’t been there before.
But still distinctly her. “Thought I’d get a bit of practice with my new abilities.
” She shrugged, bending to grab something from the brush. A satchel, dark leather.
He took a step closer. “And after that?”
Elora glanced up, eyes catching faint light. “Then I keep going. To my real target.”
He knew the answer before he asked, but he asked anyway. “And who’s that?”
She slung the satchel over her shoulder and didn’t look at him when she said it. “Thorn.”
The name fell into the space between them and neither of them moved.
Rell gave a short, humorless laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
She turned then, and the conviction in her face silenced him. Her expression held the certainty of someone who had already crossed every line, already burned every bridge. The gold in her eyes looked less like a transformation and more like conviction.
“Gods, you are serious.”
Rell exhaled hard through his nose, raking a hand through his hair. “Elora, listen to me. You need a plan. This isn’t just about revenge; it’s about survival. You can’t let your anger drive you into a trap.”
“You think I don’t know what I’m doing?”
He stepped closer, the dry leaves crunching beneath his boots.
His fingertips tingled with the nearness of her, close enough now that he could catch the scent of pine sap and rain beneath it.
“I get that you’re stronger now, but charging in without a strategy could cost you everything. You need to be smart about it.”
“I have a plan.” The words came out strong, but her fingers trembled slightly where they gripped the satchel strap.
Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and a thin sheen of sweat glistened at her temples despite the chill.
She swayed almost imperceptibly, catching herself with a wider stance— the kind of stubborn balance that comes just before collapse.
His fingers twitched at his sides as she swayed. “Grayhollow’s a three-hour walk. Hot food. Actual beds.” He paused. “And faces you might recognize.”
Her nostrils flared slightly. “Whose faces?”
“People who made it out. From The Institute.”
Something flickered behind her eyes—a spark of the old Elora. “Who?”
He ran a hand through his hair, glancing away. “You know me with names.”
Her brown cloak hung forgotten in her grip.
Rell took it from her, the fabric rough against his calloused palms. As he lifted it toward her shoulders, her muscles coiled like a spring.
She remained still, letting him settle the weight across her back.
Her fingers found the edges, pulling them close.
No words passed between them, just the whisper of fabric and shallow breath.
“Come with me,” he said quietly. “See for yourself.”
Elora’s gaze drifted to the eastern road, where dawn would eventually break. Where the Empire waited. Where Thorn breathed, still unpunished. Her exhale came slow, shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch.
“Fine,” she said. “Eat. Rest. Then I’m gone.”
Rell smiled faintly, relief catching somewhere in his chest. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I figured.”