Chapter 75 – Elias
ELIAS
Two weeks. Two weeks of watching the two most stubborn people in this squad circle each other in silence, and I’d finally had enough.
Watching Quin unravel was like watching someone bleed out slowly, and knowing exactly where the wound was but being unable to stop it. And Azaria? She’d locked herself so far inside her own walls, I wasn’t sure even she could find the way out anymore.
I’m not sure how the rest of the squad put up with it. The tension sat heavy in every room, thicker than a fog in the lower marshes. Kael tried to joke it away. Lirael buried herself in paperwork. Even Kalias, usually unbothered by human nonsense, spent more time as a wolf at Azaria’s side.
Azaria, for her part, kept her head down and her words clipped, never raising her voice, never raising her eyes toward Quin.
All business. Quin moved around us like a shadow, quiet and brittle, half-present at best. Sometimes I’d catch him watching her, and there was something raw there, like he was barely holding together. It didn’t take a genius to see it.
It stopped being tragic about a week ago. Now it was just wearing us all thin.
I’d given them time. I’d tried to nudge, to listen, to let them work it out on their own. They hadn’t. Maybe they wouldn’t. I’d been patient and given them both space to breathe. But tonight was different.
I’d found Quin in the corridor outside the common room, leaning against the wall with one hand pressed flat to his chest, breathing through his teeth.
It wasn’t a wound, not one anyone could see.
But his color was wrong, gray beneath the tan, and his jaw was locked so tight the muscle jumped.
He didn’t say a word when I stopped beside him.
Didn’t need to. I’d grown up reading my brother’s pain long before he learned to hide it.
Lyra had noticed too. She’d caught my eye across the room earlier that evening, a quiet tilt of her head toward Quin’s empty chair.
He’d left before the rest of us again, third night in a row.
She said nothing. Whatever his magic was doing to him, it was getting worse.
And he’d sooner collapse than ask for help.
Two weeks of watching them both bleed out in silence? No. Tonight, I wasn’t giving her room to run.
If neither of them was going to break the silence, I would.
I found her late that evening, alone in her office. She was bent over her desk, with reports scattered everywhere. She didn’t look up when I stepped inside, but I knew she sensed me. She always did.
“Unless this is urgent, Elias, I have work to do.” Her voice was calm, impassive. Cold.
I loved them both. That was the problem. Watching them destroy each other was destroying me.
I ignored her dismissal, stepping farther into the room and closing the door behind me. “It is urgent,” I said simply.
She finally looked up. Her blue eyes narrowed, studying me, like she was trying to read my intent before I even opened my mouth. “Then say it and leave.”
I leaned against the wall, arms crossed, and took in the tight set of her shoulders and the way her jaw clenched. She was holding on by a thread.
“How long are you going to keep pretending you don’t care?” I kept my voice steady, but didn’t soften it.
She stiffened. It was subtle, but I caught it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, Az.”
A flicker of irritation crossed her face. “If you’re here to defend your brother, don’t bother.”
“I’m not here to defend him,” I said, keeping my tone even. “I’m here because watching you two do this to each other is hurting the rest of us too. And I care about you too much to let you keep doing this to yourself.”
Her eyes flashed. “You don’t understand. He took away my right to choose. He lied?—“
“He made a choice, yes,” I cut in. “A bad one. He should’ve told you the moment he understood what was happening. I won’t argue that. But Az…” I paused. “You’ve forgiven worse. So why not this?”
She exhaled sharply, like she was barely hanging onto her temper. “Because I let myself trust him. I let him touch me. And now?” Her voice dropped, raw. “I feel like a fool.”
“You’re not a fool for trusting someone, Az.”
“No?” she laughed, short and bitter. “His magic saw everything I felt. Every weak, pathetic moment I thought was mine. The nights I couldn’t sleep.
The days I could barely hold myself together.
” Her hand curled into a fist on the desk.
“He felt all of it, Elias. Every broken piece I tried so hard to keep hidden.”
There it was. Not anger, but something older, deeper. The wound that lived in the bones.
I watched her—really watched her—and the mask slipped, just for a second. She wasn’t the captain, nor the woman who held a squad together through sheer will. Right now, she was just Azaria, terrified that someone had seen her at her worst and might not want what was left.
“This isn’t about the lie,” I said quietly. “Not all of it.”
Her jaw tightened. She didn’t answer.
“You think you don’t deserve him.”
Azaria didn’t respond.
Because I was right.
I pushed off the wall, stepping closer, lowering my voice. “You think that because of what happened—because of the war, the camps, everything you survived—you’re somehow ruined. That Quin deserves someone who isn’t… tainted.”
Her sharp inhale was all the confirmation I needed.
My chest tightened. Gods, they were both so determined to punish themselves.
“Azaria…” I held her gaze, making sure she heard me.
“You know what my brother feels for you. Don’t pretend you don’t.
And I know him better than anyone—he doesn’t give a damn about your past. He doesn’t think you’re tainted.
He doesn’t think you’re ruined. And the fact that you believe he’d ever see you as anything less than what you are? That’s what’s breaking him.”
Azaria’s throat bobbed, her breath shuddering.
“I don’t know if I can trust him again.”
“Yes, you do,” I said. “You do trust him. That’s why it hurt so much when he lied. If you didn’t trust him, didn’t care about him, you wouldn’t be this angry. You’d have just walked away.”
I saw her eyes shining, but she blinked it away, shaking her head. “I just need more time.”
I exhaled, the weight of it settling heavy in my chest. I wanted to push, wanted to tell her time was running out, that Quin was barely holding on, but I couldn’t force this. She had to choose it herself.
“Fine,” I said softly. “But don’t wait until it’s too late.”
I moved toward the door, but paused before leaving, glancing back at her. “He stepped back because he thought that’s what you wanted. But if you reached for him, Azaria? He wouldn’t hesitate.”
She didn’t respond. Just stared at the desk, jaw tight, eyes shining with tears she wouldn’t let fall.
There was nothing else I could say. The rest was hers to figure out.
I left her alone with her thoughts—the only place left she could run.