Chapter 16
Elora
Rell was right that she was exhausted. Her legs ached.
Not the sharp, clean ache of overworked muscle but something deeper, duller, the kind that lived in the bone and reminded her with every step that she had flown over a mountain range on lungs that had never fully recovered from the altitude.
The thin air at the peaks had compressed everything inside her chest until breathing felt like trying to drink through a pinched straw.
Her wings were gone—folded back, absorbed, whatever the correct word was for the way they vanished when she didn’t need them—but she could still feel the phantom pull of them between her shoulder blades, the deep exhaustion of muscles that had no human equivalent.
The ambush had cost her more than she’d budgeted.
Though Kaela never showed her how to bend darkness to her will, she had sensed the shadows’ presence, felt their weight and texture, and drawn them to herself like the cloak wrapped around her shoulders now.
That part was simple. The effort to keep them in her orbit had finally depleted her last reserves of energy.
She could rest anywhere, she reminded herself. She didn’t need a village. She could find a hollow or a ditch or a stand of trees and sleep for a few hours and then continue south toward The Institute, toward Thorn, toward the thing she’d crossed a mountain range to do.
So why waste this time? Perhaps she just wanted something she knew. One thing in the world that she recognized without having to translate it first. That’s what she told herself.
And he was familiar, even fifty feet in the air, she could smell the scent of leather and sandalwood and something uniquely him. Her body had answered the way it sometimes answered the shift, without asking permission first. Her wings angled downward instinctively, commanding her to investigate.
Now, he walked along side her like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Like she hadn’t dropped out of the sky and put three of his men on their backs. Like the darkness hadn’t answered her the way it did. Like she wasn’t walking beside him with gold in her pupils where there used to be blue.
Elora said nothing. Neither did he, for about thirty seconds, which was longer than she’d ever known Rell to manage silence voluntarily.
“So.” His fingers drummed once against his thigh. “The leaves.” His eyes flicked sideways, catching hers for half a heartbeat. “Bold choice. Very... natural. I wish I could get away with wearing something like that.”
The corner of his mouth twitched upward, and Elora’s mind conjured an unbidden image: Rell’s bare chest adorned only with vines snaking across his skin, a makeshift skirt of leaves hanging low on his hips. Her throat tightened around what might have been a laugh.
“Didn’t want to wait out the winter in a warm jungle?” He kicked a pebble, sending it skittering ahead. “Thorn’s not going anywhere.”
She shook her head, not wanting to fully commit to a conversation.
“What?” His voice softened. “Viliam’s hospitality lacking?”
At the name, her hands clenched, thumbs pressing deep into the flesh of her palms. “Big surprise, he’s as controlling as the rest of them.”
Rell slowed, his boots scuffing to a halt. His fingers grasped her biceps, their warmth seeping through the thin fabric of her cloak. She stopped, but his hand lingered.
“The others? Like Thorn?” His voice dropped low, a promise of violence flickering behind his eyes. “Did he hurt you, Elora?”
Viliam wasn’t Thorn. Wasn’t Gerard or Symond.
Yet his words echoed in her mind: “I forbid it. You will remain here.” Her lip curled at the memory.
As if he had any right, after spiriting her away to stand before his elders, letting them, a fucking tree, and a bird decide her fate.
Die or transform. Become the very thing she’d spent months dreading. Some choice that was.
She didn’t know what to say, so settled for the easy answer. “I’m fine.” She yanked her arm free and pushed past him, boots grinding against the dirt path.
He fell into step beside her, and filled the silence, this time with his own accounts of what he was doing this far north.
“I’m not entirely sure what the queen bee is doing with the kids. A small group of us came north, gathered the townsfolk and convinced them to send their children to The Hive instead of The Institute. Told ‘em to sell them to the Snatchers to get coin then we intercepted.”
“What do you mean convinced them? How?” Elora asked.
Rell shrugged. “Some speech with the apprentices. Couldn’t tell yah, really.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was picking dirt from my nails the whole time.”
They rounded a corner and Grayhollow emerged from the mist as pink light bled across the horizon’s edge.
Wooden houses huddled together like old men sharing secrets, their chimneys bent at odd angles, exhaling thin ribbons of smoke into the dawn.
Elora’s nostrils flared at the scent—wet ash mingled with something darker, sweeter, like meat left too long in the sun.
From beyond the nearest row of buildings came the persistent groan of a mill wheel fighting against ice.
A memory flickered, Tehvan’s weathered face in lamplight: “Your accent... northern. Perhaps Grayhollow or Cullfield.” Her tongue probed the roof of her mouth, searching for some familiar shape to the village name. Nothing came. The Snatchers’ work on erasing her memories had been thorough.
Wind sliced through her cloak as they entered the village proper.
She clutched the edges closer with stiff fingers.
Her breath clouded before her face in white plumes.
Ahead of her, Rell’s shoulders remained tense, his hand never straying far from the knife at his belt, eyes darting between doorways and shadows.
They passed empty market stalls, their canvas coverings snapping in the wind. She stared at the buildings surrounding the square, their facades oddly familiar—like half-remembered fragments from a dream she couldn’t quite recall.
“You hungry?” Rell asked.
The sudden sound broke her trance. “What?”
He gave a faint smirk over his shoulder. “Hungry. You know, for food? Or do you—” his gaze flicked up and down her, teasing but cautious— “still eat like a human?”
She arched a brow. “Still?”
“Just saying, the Empire doesn’t exactly serve glowing sap and jungle fruit. Closest thing we have is salted meat and boiled roots.”
She almost smiled. “I can manage.”
The village well sat near the center square, framed by eroded stones and a wooden post that leaned slightly from age.
Rell reached for her hand before she realized what he was doing. The touch startled her. She wanted to pull away, but she didn’t. He guided her toward the well, the gesture gentle, almost uncertain. When they reached it, he let go as if remembering himself too late.
He bent to work the rope and pulley, the wooden handle groaning as he turned it. “Here,” he said once the bucket reached the surface. Water sloshed over the edge, clean and impossibly clear. He dipped the ladle, then offered it to her. “You first. You look like you need it more than me.”
Elora almost protested, but her throat burned too much to argue. The cold air had left it dry and raw, the kind of ache that made swallowing feel like grit. She took the ladle and drank.
The water was startlingly pure, no iron, no alchemical tang, just cold, clean life.
Rell spoke again. “Did I ever tell you my full name?”
She lowered the ladle, frowning. “What?”
He leaned against the well’s edge, avoiding her eyes for once. “My name. My real name. Did I ever tell you?”
She shook her head.
He gave a crooked half-smile, the kind that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s Rellius Lockwood.”
He said it awkwardly, like a boy confessing something private. She couldn’t help but stare at him, unsure why the name mattered. Was there significance to knowing it? Did he only share it with certain people? Why now?
The syllables echoed in her mind—Rellius. The sound snagged somewhere inside her, tugging at something just out of reach.
It was familiar. Like she’d heard it once, long ago, through walls of time and haze. But the memory refused to surface.
She blinked, trying to shake it off, and handed him back the ladle. “I’m still just Elora,” she said quietly.
He took the ladle from her, his eyes meeting hers. “But were you always?”
The question landed strange. “What do you mean?”
He tilted his head slightly but didn’t elaborate.
“Obviously not,” she said. “You know that. I told you everything I remember.”
Rell nodded, but the look on his face didn’t ease. If anything, it deepened, something quiet and aching flickering behind his eyes.
Elora glanced down into the water, watching her reflection ripple beside his. Her face looked strange there, older, wilder, golden eyes glinting like the morning sun off the surface.
She wasn’t sure who she was seeing anymore.
Their silence stretched thin, only to shatter as doors creaked open throughout the village and the first voices of morning cut through the dawn air. Market stalls were being restocked, barrels rolled into place, baskets of pale winter fruit arranged with care that felt almost reverent.
“Come on,” he said. “We were getting food, remember?”
Elora nodded.
The fruit stall caught her eye first. Apples, firm and bright, piled high beside bushels of plums still dusted with frost. They looked fresher than anything she’d ever seen at The Institute. It didn’t make sense.
The Empire’s wards were fed well, at least compared to commoners. The Institute prided itself on “optimal growth.” Yet these villagers—poor, forgotten, far from the capital—had fruit that looked touched by spring.
It didn’t make sense.
Alchemy, she thought immediately. That had to be it.
But how? The northern villages were supposed to be regulated, cut off from alchemical access entirely.
Tehvan had told her that the Empire deliberately poisoned the soil, sent sickness through the crops, kept people desperate.
They’d starve just enough to sell their children to the Snatchers for coin and salvation.
Her hand reached toward a plum, cold and perfect in the morning air—
“Come on,” he called her over before she could grab the fruit. “Try something that actually tastes like food.”
She blinked, confused, and followed as he led her toward a meat stall. The vendor behind it was old, maybe mid-fifties, his beard had gone gray at the edges. He wore a patched coat and the kind of smile that wasn’t really a smile at all.
Rell greeted him with a smile reserved for people you’d rather punch than speak to. “Morning, Eamon.”
The man nodded. “Morning to you, boy. Rough night?”
Rell’s jaw flexed. “Could say that.” He leaned his forearms on the counter. “You get what you needed with the coin?”
Her gaze flicked between them.
The man’s eyes creased. “Aye, I did. Enough to last through spring.”
“Good,” Rell said. “That makes… what, the fourth?”
Eamon scratched his beard, counting on his fingers. “Fifth, I reckon.”
Something inside her snapped.
She jerked her arm, trying to free herself from Rell’s hold, but his grip tightened just firm enough to say that he wasn’t letting go.
“Five!?” she snarled. The one he sold last night would be safe with The Hive, but the other four—
Her blood boiled.
The surrounding air shifted. She could feel it, the animal part of her rising, pupils narrowing, muscles tightening under her skin. A low sound escaped her throat before she could stop it—a growl, deep and quiet but unmistakably inhuman.
Eamon froze, eyes finally settling on her for the first time.
“Well, I’ll be,” he muttered. “Didn’t notice you there, girl. Those eyes…” He gave a short laugh, uneasy. “You one of the Empire’s little projects?”
Her claws wanted to answer for her.
Instead, she took a step closer, voice trembling from restraint. “Do you even remember their names?”
The man blinked, confused. “Names?”
“The children,” she hissed. “The ones you sold.”
His expression didn’t change. “Course I do. Always remember what’s mine to trade.”
He said it so easily, as if it were nothing. As if it were normal.
“Go on then,” she said coldly. “Name them.”
Eamon scratched his temple, thinking. “Well, the last one was Lira. Before her was… Meala? Kira before that.”
Elora’s lungs seized mid-breath at the name. Her vision blurred at the edges, like looking through frosted glass. A flash—a child’s cries, “Papa, please!”—vanished before she could grasp it.
He kept going. “Then there was Amilia—”
Elora’s breath caught. “What?”
“Amilia,” he repeated, shrugging.
Elora shook her head. The name Kira lingered in her mind, a dull echo she couldn’t shake.
“Tell me about Kira,” she said, her voice level but cold.
Eamon looked up, blinking. “Kira?”
“Yes. What did she look like?”
He shrugged, turning a strip of meat over. “Brown hair. Sky-blue eyes. Freckles all across her face. Wild little thing, that one. Always talking back and getting into trouble. Wasn’t sad to see her go.”
Elora’s nails bit into the wooden counter.
She felt the faint vibration of something primal stirring beneath her skin—an ache, a pulse, a warning.
This man spoke about selling his children as though they were misbehaving livestock. And yet, the one he’d called wild—the one he’d been glad to lose—pulled at something deep inside her chest.