Chapter 36 #2
“I couldn’t do anything,” he whispered. “I was just a kid. But we talked—through the hedge at first. You’d sneak me food. We played guessing games. You told me stories. And then…”
He hesitated, swallowing hard. “Then you started to tell me what he did to you.”
The world blurred.
I shifted away from him, from everything, my arms wrapping around my chest. My voice barely broke free. “What did he do?”
Finn looked away. His face contorted like the words physically hurt.
“Please,” he begged, “don’t make me say it.”
“I need to know,” I whispered. “Please.”
He closed his eyes.
“You told me… he touched you. Sometimes. And you didn’t like it.” His voice broke. “You didn’t understand why. But I did. Even then, I knew.”
“Touched me?” I echoed, horrified. My voice was small. Distant. Like I wasn’t in my own skin anymore.
“Vael’s sick, Elle,” he said, trembling. “He’s been sick for years. But what he felt for you? That obsession—it was twisted. It still is.”
I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, as if I could hold in the pieces of me breaking apart.
“I don’t remember,” I said hoarsely, tears pricking hot behind my eyes.
Finn looked at me with shattered sorrow.
“Good,” he said softly. “I hope you never do.”
“Tell me more. What happened.”
“The years went by,” Finn said quietly. “And I met Liora. She was… different. A mind mage.”
“Like Thorne,” I whispered.
He glanced at me, surprised. “Is he? Then yes. Like him.”
He looked down at his hands. “She started to take the memories from you. Gently. Little by little. Just the worst parts. So, you wouldn’t have to carry them. But she let you keep me. And for a while, it was perfect. We had each other.”
His voice faltered.
“Until he found out about me.”
A heavy silence settled.
“Finn?” I prompted, when he didn’t continue.
His jaw clenched. “I don’t want to talk about what he did to me,” he said, barely above a whisper. “But just know—he kept me alive to control you.”
He swallowed hard, like the words burned coming out.
“At first, he hurt you when you disobeyed. But over time... you stopped reacting. You stopped screaming. Pain didn’t seem to reach you anymore.”
I felt that in my bones—deep and cold.
“So, he changed tactics,” Finn continued. “He started hurting me instead. Because that’s what broke you.”
I have to hurt him again... you're making me do this...
The voice echoed in my mind, warped and distant like a memory under water.
I shuddered, every part of me recoiling from the image. My shadows twitched at my fingertips.
“He said it was your fault,” Finn whispered. “Every bruise. Every broken bone. And you believed him.”
I could barely breathe. My hands trembled in my lap.
“Why didn’t you run?” I asked, voice cracking. “Why didn’t you leave me behind?”
He gave a sad, broken smile. “Because you were the only good thing I had. And because when you saw me—when you threw that first ball back over the hedge—I mattered for the first time in my life.”
“Oh my gods…” I whispered, a chill settling deep in my bones.
“It was just before your sixteenth birthday,” Finn said softly. “There was a comet due to pass over Varrowmere. He called it a sign. Said it meant you were ready to become his wife.”
I felt sick. Not just in my stomach—in my soul.
“The night before the wedding,” Finn continued, his voice barely holding together, “he brought me into your room. Said he wanted to prove a point.”
He looked away. The guilt on his face was unbearable.
“You were… gone. Hollow. Like something inside you had shut down completely. I didn’t recognize you. And I think that was the point.”
I sat frozen. A ringing in my ears drowned out the rest of the world.
He stared at the floor, his voice full of loathing—for himself, for everything.
“You were lying there like a shell. Eyes empty. You had bruises—fresh. Fingerprints. On your arms. Your thighs. And you didn’t even look at me.”
My breath hitched.
“He didn’t rape me…” I said, barely able to force the words out.
Finn shook his head. “No. He told everyone your purity was sacred. His to claim—after marriage.”
He looked up, face pale and wrecked. “But that didn’t stop him from doing other things.”
I didn’t cry.
I didn’t scream.
I just sat there, the silence settling around me like ash.
Hard. Cold. Still.
“I think that night pushed Liora too far,” Finn said quietly. “She loved you, you know. I didn’t see it then, not really. But she was always watching. Always looking for a way to free you.”
His voice wavered, but he pushed on.
“That night... the night before the wedding, maidservants were allowed into your chambers to help you prepare. Liora had already been whispering in their ears. Planting seeds. Gaining their trust. Vael wasn’t allowed to see you before the ceremony—superstition, tradition, whatever it was—so he’d be gone for a while. ”
He looked up at me, haunted.
“Liora unlocked my cell. Handed me a map. Told me to take you and run. The maids helped sneak you through the walls, dressed like one of them.”
His voice dropped, rough with memory.
“But you were... gone. You wouldn’t stop crying. Wouldn’t speak. Wouldn’t even look at me. Just kept shaking, like the world had shattered around you.”
He paused, swallowed hard.
“So…” he began.
I finished it for him, my voice barely more than a whisper.
“So you asked Liora to remove my memories.”
Finn nodded, slow and solemn, eyes glassy with unspoken weight. “She said it was the only way to give you a chance at peace.”
My thoughts spun like leaves in a storm. Everything I’d believed, everything I was—reshaped in seconds.
“Then what?” I asked, dazed. “What happened next?”
“Then we ran,” Finn said, his voice steady, too steady.
“Where were we supposed to go?” I pressed. “What did the map say?”
For a moment, something flickered in his expression—too fast for me to name.
He looked away. “I… lost it. In the chaos. I was trying to keep you safe. Everything was a blur.”
I watched him closely, but my head was pounding too hard, my heart too raw to see clearly.
“Right,” I said softly, more to myself than to him.
And I believed him.
Because I needed to.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I asked, my voice low, biting. “Why did you let me live a lie for six years, Finn?”
He looked wounded but not surprised. “I was trying to protect you. Gods, Elira—would you have wanted to remember what he did to you? Would you have chosen to carry that pain?”
“I didn’t get the choice,” I snapped. “You and Liora made it for me.”
“I saved you from that!” he shouted. “From breaking completely. You think you’d be standing here if we hadn’t wiped it away?”
“You didn’t save me,” I said. “You stole from me. My history. My truth. I understand why you did it, but that doesn’t make it right.”
Finn stepped back, his face pale. “So what, then? What do you feel?”
I met his eyes.
“Violated,” I said quietly. “You didn’t just take memories, Finn. You took me. You rewrote who I was. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to move past that.”
“Elle…” he breathed. “I’m sorry, I—”
A knock interrupted him. Jasper stood outside the bars, his expression apologetic but firm.
“Sorry, Elle. I need to move you back. Mother won’t like you being in here.”
“Fine,” I said, clipped and cold.
“Please, Elle, stay—” Finn reached out.
“Back in the corner, Finn,” Jasper cut in with a sigh, already unlocking the door.
I rose as it creaked open, spine straight, face unreadable.
Finn’s hand caught mine.
I didn’t yank away.
I unwound myself from his grip—quiet, deliberate.
And I didn’t look back.
**
I’d been back in my cell for maybe an hour when I first heard it—the muffled roar of voices rising from outside. Distant at first. Then swelling. Cheers. Laughter. Chanting.
Celebration.
I stood and crossed to the bars, gripping them as I called down the corridor.
“Jasper?”
He looked up from his post at the far end, unfazed.
“What’s going on?”
He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Everyone’s celebrating.”
I felt the cold curl of unease slither into my chest. “Why?”
He hesitated—just long enough to confirm what my gut already knew.
“Because,” he said, expression unreadable, “we just nabbed ourselves a lion shifter.”
The air left my lungs.
Jasper nodded toward the arena. “Fights are about to get interesting.”
Behind me, Finn shifted near the grate. “Elle?” His voice was soft, tentative. “Do you think it’s—?”
“Don’t,” I snapped, not taking my eyes off Jasper. My pulse thundered in my ears.
Because I already knew.