Chapter 56
Elora
The world shrank to a pinpoint of horror.
Elora’s ears screamed with a piercing whine that drowned all other sound.
The floor seemed to lurch upward, her knees giving way beneath her weight.
Only Rell’s hands clasping her arms kept her from crumpling completely, his grip biting into her skin as the laboratory spun in sickening circles around her.
Tehvan... Thorn was using him even in death. The only part of him that mattered, his brain. Like he was nothing but another specimen. His own brother. Her father.
Memories flashed through her mind—Tehvan’s warm smile as he taught her to read, his gentle hands guiding her as they worked the garden together, his fierce protection when Thorn had first tried to claim her as Institute property.
The man who had raised her, loved her… reduced to this grotesque experiment.
Acid burned the back of her throat. She swallowed once, holding the nausea down. She stood straighter.
That’s what he wants, she thought. He wants to see me break.
And she was breaking—inside. But she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of witnessing her collapse.
“Why?” The single word escaped her lips, barely audible even to herself. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Why would you do this to your own brother?”
The scream building in her throat died unvoiced. The accusations—monster, butcher, demon—remained locked behind her teeth.
Thorn studied her for a long moment, his head tilted slightly as if she were a curious specimen that had reacted unexpectedly to a test. His clinical gaze dissected her composure, searching for cracks.
He gestured toward the preserved brain. “Tehvan told me Flora was alive, and he offered to tell me precisely where to find her, in exchange for your freedom—for both of you to escape the Empire.”
The possibility that Tehvan would risk Florence—his own daughter—just to save her... Elora’s mind reeled at the implications.
“His collateral was a lie,” Thorn continued, circling the table.
“But I couldn’t be completely certain that his declaration was as well.
” His fingers trailed along the edge of the glass cylinder, almost affectionately.
“Memory is a fascinating thing. It continues to live in the brain even when there is no host.”
Elora’s gaze shifted to the wall of shelves behind Thorn. Dozens of small vials lined them meticulously, each labeled with dates and subject matter. Her father’s mind dissected and catalogued like ingredients in an alchemist’s workshop.
“Now that Florence is back,” she forced the words out, “will you finally release what remains of him?”
A low chuckle rumbled from Thorn’s chest. “Oh, I’ve learned quite a bit from my dear brother.” His eyes gleamed with cold fascination. “I’m certain there’s still more to find.”
He stepped toward the wall of vials, selecting one with deliberate care. The glass container glowed faintly with a pearlescent liquid that swirled and shifted as if alive.
“This one is his last few moments.” He carefully put it back down. “I haven’t watched that one yet. I intend to savor it.”
“But this one,” he said, holding a different vial up to the light, “I found this memory particularly interesting. It made Tehvan’s true intentions for you quite clear.” He extended his hand, offering the vial to her. “Would you like to see?”
Elora stared at the vial in Thorn’s outstretched hand.
The liquid inside swirled with Tehvan’s memories—answers to questions that were haunting her.
Once, she would have given anything for those answers.
That desperate need for truth had driven her to follow Florence’s plan and wait for her vengeance.
But now, looking at that vial, she felt only revulsion.
She shook her head. “No.”
Thorn blinked, his hand remaining suspended between them. The surprise on his face was almost satisfying—a crack in his perpetual control.
“No?” he echoed. “You don’t want to know why he actually brought you here?
“I don’t need to know. There’s no point,” she said, her chin lifting in defiance.
Thorn’s lips curved into a cold smile. “No?” He observed, stepping closer. “You already know the truth, you just don’t want confirmation of it.”
The scent of peroxide hit her as he invaded her space. She fought the urge to shrink away, to show any sign of weakness.
“Let me enlighten you anyway,” Thorn continued, placing the vial back on the shelf with deliberate care. “Tehvan brought you to The Institute for one purpose—to taunt me. To flaunt what I couldn’t have.”
His words carved a hole into her gut, her heart, her mind, threatening to hollow out everything she desperately wanted to believe. Tears began forming. Elora locked her jaw so tight her teeth threatened to crack. She would rather die than let a single tear escape.
“He always intended for you to be mine.” Thorn’s voice dropped to a near-whisper. “Not my experiment. My indictment.”
Rell’s grip on her arms tightened fractionally—a silent reminder of his presence, an anchor in the storm of Thorn’s revelations.
“Hiding Flora wasn’t enough for my brother,” Thorn continued, his gaze drifting to the preserved brain floating in the cylinder.
“No, he wanted to hurt me in the most personal way possible. He found a child—you—who mirrored my niece in appearance and potential and then denied me any access to your education.”
She forgot how to breathe. Black spots obstructed her view of Thorn’s face, twisted with the delightful expression of someone who had been proven right.
Thorn had called her a replacement. A tool. A weapon used against him. And it was true. All of it.
“You could have been just another student,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact, “but him denying me the opportunity to properly teach you was deliberate. It was meant to mirror how I could never teach Flora after he took her from me.” His fingers traced the glass cylinder containing Tehvan’s brain. “I suspected this, of course.”
His pale eyes fixed on her face, searching. “But did you?”
She’d be lying if she said the thought had never crossed her mind since learning Florence was alive. She didn’t answer him.
“If that’s true, then why do you hate me?” Elora asked, her cheeks warming. It was a reasonable question but also one that made her feel terribly small. “Tehvan is dead. You can’t use me as revenge against him anymore. And you have your heir back. Why do I still matter to you?”
Thorn’s eyebrows lifted slightly, as though the question surprised him. He moved away from her toward the preserved brain.
“Yes, my heir has returned,” he said, a sardonic smile twisting his lips. “But then again, Tehvan used you to strip me of my legacy.” His fingers traced along the edge of the examination table. “Or he potentially handed me a far better opportunity.”
The clinical detachment in his voice made her skin crawl. Elora stared at him, waiting for him to continue, dreading what would come next.
“I hadn’t considered it until recently,” Thorn mused, his gaze traveling over her with renewed interest, “but you bearing my offspring can be more than just an experiment in Al’teran magic.
” His eyes gleamed with sudden inspiration.
“You could give me my own heir. One I can raise and shape from birth. One that isn’t compromised by my brother’s deceptive plans, and foolish ideologies. ”
Thorn spoke about children the same way he spoke about alchemy—ingredients measured for outcome, variables refined toward perfection. Not a person. Not a life. A legacy engineered inside her body.
She barked a sound—neither laugh nor gasp. “You’re insane.” Revulsion crawled beneath her skin hard enough she wanted to tear herself out of it.
Thorn’s smile only widened. “On the contrary. I’m perfectly rational.” The harsh lines around his mouth softened fractionally, transforming his face into a predator’s mimicry of compassion. “A child can be molded from the beginning. Especially one with such extraordinary potential.”
“I don’t understand. If you can have your own children why not make an heir after Florence died?
” Elora asked. She’d questioned Tehvan about it once.
He could barely keep a straight face while describing his brother’s unfortunate encounter with a stallion during his youth.
How she’d doubled over laughing then. The recollection felt sickening now, stripped of every trace of humor.
“Because an heir is not something you produce when it is convenient,” he said at last. “It is something you recognize.”
He stepped closer, his voice low, precise. “Flora was already chosen. Publicly. Structurally. She was not a contingency—I built the future around her. An heir cannot simply be replaced when inconvenient. The moment succession becomes reactive; the structure loses authority.”
She pressed further. “But you have Florence back. The future you built around her, it’s all yours again.”
He straightened. “For the first time, the future is not merely inherited. It can be designed.”
“Take her back to her cell. I have work to do.” Thorn dismissed them with a wave of his hand, as if the revelation of his intentions wasn’t shattering Elora’s world.
Each step back stretched into infinity. Elora’s feet dragged forward, while inside her chest a scream built that threatened to shatter her careful mask. Without Rell’s hand at her elbow, she might have crumpled to the floor as they wound through The Institute’s maze of identical corridors.
Guards passed them in the hall, their faces blurring into indistinct shapes as Elora stared straight ahead. The stone walls of The Institute closed in around her, a physical manifestation of the trap she’d willingly walked into.
Back in her cell, Rell placed the cuffs chained to the wall around her wrists. The metal bands snapped shut with a click that echoed in the empty room, her skin tingling where they had pressed.