Chapter 38
Elira
Vael hated my little makeover.
Good.
His disgust was currently written across my skin in welts and cuts.
The beating hadn’t been that bad. I’d had worse in the pit. But this wasn’t about pain. It was punishment. A reminder.
He didn’t want to mar me permanently—not yet.
Maybe that just meant I needed to try harder.
I ran my hands over my newly cropped hair.
I liked it.
It was like cutting off the weight of every hand that had ever tried to touch me.
I felt lighter. Fiercer.
And it meant I wouldn’t be in Vael’s bed tonight.
Small favours.
Instead, I was in a windowless room. It was small and cramped and I struggled to control my breathing. The way it closed around me reminded me of the elevators at Shade Tower—tight, inescapable. My breath scraped my throat just trying to stay even.
I couldn’t lie down, so I crouched, closed my eyes and I hummed to myself until sleep took me.
And I dreamed.
The dream started the same way it always did.
I was following a small mouse through the west wing.
I knew where it was going. I always did.
To my father’s study.
To the muffled voices behind the heavy door.
Why do you keep bringing me here?
I didn’t say it aloud. I never did.
But the question still got an answer.
Remember.
Remember what? What is it?
Remember!
I saw the door. I heard the voices—closer now.
My father’s voice, tight with fear.
“If they find her, they’ll use her—”
“They can’t know she’s the one—”
The door slammed shut again.
I let out a frustrated scream. “Stop this! Whatever this is—I don’t know what happened here! What am I supposed to remember?”
The mouse froze. And when I looked up, I saw her.
A little girl.
She turned to me slowly, like she’d always known I was following.
She looked past me, and I followed her gaze.
Down the corridor stood a boy.
Still. Silent.
Black hair. Pale skin.
His eyes… green. Deep, shattered emerald.
Thorne?
He stared like he didn’t know how he’d gotten there either.
Then he turned and ran.
Without thinking, I chased him.
“Wait! Stop!”
We burst through a door and—
Suddenly, we were outside. In a village I didn’t recognise.
Sunlight filtered through bare trees. Smoke curled from chimneys. Laughter echoed faintly from somewhere out of sight—too far to reach. Too far to touch.
Up ahead, the boy had stopped.
He was sitting beside a girl with golden-blonde hair. She was crying—quiet, miserable sobs, her fists clenched in her lap. Her dress was torn. Her knees were scraped. I didn’t need to ask what had happened.
I heard voices before I saw the crowd.
Rough. Angry. Scared.
A group of villagers stood at the edge of the square, shouting cruel things I couldn’t quite make out—but I felt them like bruises.
Monster. Demon. Wrong.
The boy—Thorne—stood suddenly, positioning himself between the crowd and the little girl. He was younger here, smaller, but he didn’t hesitate. Not for a second.
His power shimmered through the air like heat on stone—unformed but raw, instinctive.
The jeers faltered.
And then the villagers saw something.
I didn’t know what—only that it wasn’t real.
They stumbled back, faces draining of colour. A few screamed. Some turned and ran.
Beside him, the girl sniffled. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course I did.”
He knelt beside her, brushing her hair away from her face with hands too gentle for someone so young.
“They were wrong about you, Allie. You’re not a monster.”
He wrapped his little arms around her, holding her close.
“I’ll always look out for you, Allie. Always, no matter what. I’ll keep you safe. I promise.”
“I love you, big brother,” she said, wiping her tears.
“I love you more. All the way to the moon, Allie Belly.”
I didn’t breathe.
Didn’t speak.
They couldn’t see me. Couldn’t hear me.
I was just… watching.
**
The dream shifted beneath my feet. The scene changed.
They were older now. Sitting at a small table in a quiet cabin, eating a simple meal of bread and soup.
I could hear a woman humming as she cooked at the stove.
I couldn’t see her face, but that song—
It felt familiar.
Thorne poked his tongue out at Allie. She giggled behind their father’s back.
Then she sent a small illusion—a rabbit, white and soft—hopping across the table toward Thorne’s plate.
It made him laugh.
The ground began to shake with thundering hooves.
I looked up.
Outside the window, like a wave of blood, came the Sentinels.
Their swords were high.
“No!” I tried to yell.
They couldn’t take them. I wouldn’t let them.
Then suddenly, I wasn’t watching from afar.
I was inside him. I was seeing through Thorne’s eyes as he rose, reaching for his blades.
He didn’t see me.
But the girl, Allie, did.
She looked directly at me.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she whispered.
I spun.
In the mirror behind her, Thorne’s reflection stared back at me.
His lips parted.
“Elira?” he breathed.
**
I jolted awake, heart slamming against my ribs.
My cell was dark. Cold. Real.
What the hell was that?
Outside the door—movement. A breath. A shift of weight.
I rose slowly and pressed a hand to the wall.
“Thorne?” I whispered.
The air went still. Then—
A sharp inhale. Like someone had just been pulled from deep water.
Like he’d been dreaming, too.
I stayed there, palm pressed to the cold iron, heart thudding.
He’d felt it. I knew he had.
That breath—it wasn’t just surprise. It was recognition.
“Thorne,” I said again. “Did you… did you see that too?”
He didn’t answer. But I could feel he was listening.
“I was in your head just then, wasn’t I? Why?” I asked. “Did you do something?”
“No.” Soft. Hollow. A denial, or something else—I couldn’t tell.
“You have a sister,” I said, not quite asking. “Allison. Right?”
“Don’t.” His voice cut through the dark like a blade. Not anger. Fear.
“Don’t what?” I asked. “Talk about her? Why not? Does it hurt you to remember someone you loved?”
Silence.
“She seemed kind,” I said after a moment. “She was crying. And you stood in front of her like the world couldn’t touch her. You fought for her.”
I swallowed hard.
“Why won’t you fight for me?”
His breath caught—sharp, unsteady. “You… you’re a traitor,” he said. “You betrayed—”
But he stopped. Like the words had slipped through his fingers.
“A traitor?” I echoed. “To whom? To you? Never, Thorne. Not once. To Vael?” I laughed—low and bitter. “Always.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? I can’t help you, can I? Not unless…” I said. “They’ve put these things in your head. And only you can fight it. Not me. And soon. Before—”
I cut myself off.
“I loved Slade.” My voice cracked.
“The one you let die, remember?”
A tremble rippled through my chest. I couldn’t bring myself to think about him yet. It was still too raw in my chest.
I was clinging to that small, fragile sliver of hope that I was wrong. That somehow my dagger made it to his hand in time.
Because if it didn’t?
I’m already dead.
“I love him. And Phoenix. And Leo.”
My eyes burned.
“And you,” I added, quieter now. “Gods, Thorne. Isn’t that the worst part? I hate you. I loathe you, and still…somehow you still got in. And no matter what you do—I can’t get you out.”
“I keep seeing you in my head, from that night. The way you stood between Vael and I. You held your sword like you would die for me and it was worth it. Do you remember that?”
He didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
“I never felt like I was worth much before. I’ve always believed there was something in me that was less, you know? But for that moment, I felt real. I felt important. For the right reasons. Like someone could love me the way I always wanted.”
I sat with my back to the door, and I was sure—sure—he was doing the same on the other side.
“You know,” I whispered, “I’ve been trapped before. I’ve been angry. I’ve been alone. But this…”
I looked around my cell.
“This is something else.”
I drew my knees up and hugged them close. My body ached. My chest ached more.
“How does this end, Thorne?” I asked. “Do you even care anymore?”
The tears came easily now. Quiet. Exhausted.
“Your town,” I whispered. “The one in your memory. It looked… nice.”
A pause.
“Pretty, even.”
I closed my eyes.
“I wish I was there.”
A breath.
“I wish I could see it.”
Another.
“I wish I was anywhere but here.”
I heard a thud, like he hit his head on the door. Then I heard him clatter up, his breath erratic. He was running.
I swallowed hard, pulling my hand back. My fingers were shaking.
I stayed there, hand hovering just above the metal.
Gone.
The sound of his footsteps faded down the corridor, but the feeling he left behind didn’t. It lingered—like smoke, like the afterimage of a dream I couldn’t quite shake.
He’d seen me. Not just in the dream.
Here. Now.
Even if he didn’t understand why.
I curled back into the corner, knees pulled tight, the cold seeping in.
He remembered something.
Or maybe I did.
And that had to mean something.
**
Thorne
Order before mercy.
Truth before feeling.
Duty before desire.
The mantra clung to my consciousness like a thorn, digging deeper with every step across the cold stone floor. I pressed my palm to my forehead—hard—willing the order to return.
Elira is the enemy.
Elira is a traitor.
Order before mercy.
Truth before feeling.
Duty before—
I hope you feel this.
Her voice, sharp and furious, cut through my thoughts—clear as if she stood behind me.
I struck my head. Once. Twice. Again. I knocked a small mirror off my desk. It shattered on the ground, in pieces.
I stared at it, unseeing. My broken reflection assaulted me.
Her hair.
What happened to her hair?
Those long, dark curls—gone.
She’d hacked them off.
You gave me to him.
I saw Allison – her face filled with tears, the blade pricking her throat. Their faces shifted. Elira… Allison.
Elira.
Order before—
“Thorne.”
Vael’s voice slipped through the door just before he did, stepping into the room’s dim light with that snake’s stillness.
He studied me. “How is my beloved?”
I straightened, jaw clenched. “She is quiet, sir.”
Vael tilted his head, lips curling. “Quiet?”
“Quieter than before, at least.”
He stepped closer—slow, deliberate. “That doesn’t sound like her.”
I stayed silent. I didn’t trust my voice to hold.
“She’s proving... difficult, isn’t she?” he mused. “I may require your particular skills before long. I will not be denied my bride again.”
I forced my voice steady. “What of Ashton, sir?”
He blinked, then laughed. “What of him?”
“He’ll come for her now. He knows you broke the deal.”
“I certainly hope so,” Vael sneered. “I’d love to take that obscene tub of lard down a peg.”
Vael wandered to the table, idly lifting a shard of broken mirror from where I’d shattered it. He turned it in his fingers, watching the fractured light play across the surface.
“You know,” he said lightly, “I always admired your discipline. The others fall to their passions so easily—rage, loyalty, lust. But not you.” He glanced up.
“You break slower.”
My spine locked rigid.
“She still matters to you, doesn’t she?” Vael murmured, circling me like a vulture. “I still remember that night you fought me over her. You were so—alive. Full of fire. Loyalty. All that misplaced conviction.”
He stopped behind me. “And now look at you. It’s almost pitiful.”
Flashes of Varrowmere burned behind my eyes—shadows, screams, the moment I’d nearly lost her.
“You almost killed her that night,” I said quietly.
Vael scoffed. “Oh, please. I never would’ve actually done it. She was too valuable. Too… exquisite.”
He moved in closer, voice softening to a whisper. “Still, it’s ironic, isn’t it? That you, Thorne—noble protector, my brother’s prized Shade—were the one who handed her over to me in the end.”
His smile was venom.
“That’s not something anyone is likely to forget. Or forgive.”
My fists clenched before I could stop them.
Vael’s tone turned cruel. “Not to mention what you did to your friend.”
Slade.
His face slammed into my mind—defiant to the last, jaw set even as the order took hold. Even as I made him jump.
I did that.
Order before—
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Shoved the feeling down.
Buried it.
The mantra clawed its way back to the surface, ragged and brittle.
Truth before feeling.
Duty before desire.
But it was too late.
The guilt had already cracked something open.
“Just something to think about, friend.” Vael sneered.
He moved to the door, hand on the handle—then paused.
Turned back.
“Elira will remain in her cell tonight,” he said smoothly. “But tomorrow, I want her cleaned up. Presentable.”
He smiled.
“King Ivan will be joining us for dinner. He has much to discuss—and I want her by my side when he does.”
His gaze lingered on me. Cold. Certain.
“She will be mine yet.”
And then he was gone.