2 Elowen
2 Elowen
Elowen True lived high above the ground, her dwelling built atop the most precarious branch of the tallest tree in the isolated
woods she called home. Reaching Elowen required—among other things—traversing a cursed forest, climbing three formidable ladders,
and pledging loyalty to a prickly brushwalker named Morritt. It was a nearly impossible task, getting to Elowen’s front door.
Which meant Elowen never had human visitors.
Just the way she preferred it.
She did, however, have shadow plays. They were stories performed by the best actors in Mythria, conjurated for viewing five
times a week via head magic. Elowen had begun watching them as a child. At thirty, they were the sole thing from her youth
she’d held on to. Her favorite was called Desires of the Night . It followed a family who spent all of their time fighting with one another and romancing their various love interests.
Desires was Elowen’s window into the world she’d left behind. She could immerse herself in the viewing experience without fear of accidentally absorbing any of the emotions. Elowen had been born with a heart magic gift of sensing people’s feelings through close proximity and soaking up their emotions through touch. Elowen hated her powers in general. Emotions were so fickle, for one. People could feel one way and act another, and it seemed to be more of a burden than a benefit to know how often their hearts betrayed their heads. With her shadow plays, however, Elowen never had to physically carry the characters’ disappointments or their failures. She could be completely alone while still witnessing the full range of emotions life had to offer.
And she could interact with other fans using a magical message tapestry without ever having to let them know who she really was.
She was just an anonymous, impassioned Desires of the Night fan to them, not Elowen of the Four, lauded hero of the realm.
As the latest episode of Desires of the Night started to come to an end, the conjuration swelled, dramatic music building for a huge reveal—Elowen’s favorite character,
the long-dead Domynia, had been resurrected!
Elowen shot out of her armchair. “Ghosts alive!” she cheered as tears streamed onto her daygown. “She’s back!”
When the shadow play had first killed off Domynia years ago, Elowen had purchased all of Domynia’s original costumes in order
to cope with the loss. It had cost Elowen a small fortune—all of the farthings she had ever saved in her life, to be exact.
Elowen’s message tapestry pinged constantly, her fellow shadow play fans reacting to the reveal. Right as Elowen set out to
respond, someone knocked on her front door. Her nearly impossible to reach front door.
“Elowen?” a booming voice called out.
When Elowen first moved into the treetops, she’d fashioned several weapons of protection and hidden them around her strange,
cluttered home. Beneath her armchair was a sword made from a stick. Elowen wrapped her hand around it, tamping down any anxieties
she had about interacting with someone face-to-face, much less attacking them. It had been ages since Elowen had a combat
lesson. She used to be a decent fighter.
She used to be so many things.
Elowen found that the longer she had to think, the worse her fears became. The intruder needed to be confronted quickly, so Elowen, gripping her wooden sword, took three long strides to her front door and threw it open.
She did not know whom she expected to find on the other side, but it was certainly not a man with muscles the size of boulders
and eyes the color of precious dumortierite. He was the kind of person others would call strapping, covered in dirt with bleeding
nicks and scrapes all over his face. The damage managed to perfectly showcase the many struggles he’d faced to reach Elowen’s
door. He wore the royal crest on fabric that pulled taut across his bulging pectoral muscles. A guard of Queen Thessia. Seeing
him, Elowen could sense his feeling of triumph. It was no small feat to reach her door, and he surely assumed the hardest
part was over. If she could read minds instead of feel hearts, she’d know what brought him to her home in the first place.
The Festival of the Four, most likely. But no, all Elowen could do was sense how thoroughly pleased he was with himself, and
that did her no good at all.
“Ugh,” Elowen said, all her fear morphing into rather potent frustration. “Please go home.”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” he thundered. His voice had bass notes so rich it actually vibrated the creaky floorboards. “I almost
lost my life reaching you.”
“That sounds like a personal problem.” Elowen moved to close her door.
The guard pressed an impossibly strong hand against it, keeping the entryway open. He peered his gemstone eyes at her, squinting
them into something like a smolder. Elowen knew the expression well. The men on her shadow plays were always smoldering like
this at their love interests. She sensed the man wanted to woo her.
“ You’re my personal problem,” he said.
Ah, yes. He even had the disposition of the shadow play performers. That stormy, defiant energy. This man was practically
designed to make certain people swoon. Not Elowen. No man had ever made her so much as look twice.
Women, on the other hand...
“I am no one’s problem but my own,” Elowen assured him.
The guard laughed like she meant it to be funny, when in fact she meant it as truth. “Surely you know how difficult it is
to reach your dwelling,” he said. “Many have tried and failed. I am the first to complete this valiant quest.” He pressed
his large hand over his heart, expecting Elowen to be as impressed with him as he was with himself.
She was not. She was annoyed.
“I come with an invitation for you,” he continued. “You have been cordially invited to the wedding of our royal highness,
the honorable Queen Thessia of Mythria.”
Elowen swallowed back her surprise as hot tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Once upon a time, Queen Thessia—then a
princess—had planned to marry Elowen’s older brother, Galwell. Thessia and Galwell were the peak of romantic tragedy. Every
shadow play attempted to recreate their sad story. Thessia was a kidnapped princess in danger. Galwell was the noble hero
who rescued her, then died while attempting to save the realm afterward. On paper, it was perfectly heartbreaking.
In reality, Galwell had been too virtuous to admit he didn’t love Thessia the same way she loved him. Not that it mattered
anymore. He’d been gone ten years, and there was no one in all of Mythria who would be interested to learn that the most famous
tragic love story of all time had actually been a lie. Only Elowen carried the burden of knowing that particular secret.
Even without the personal drama attached, Elowen could not believe Thessia would dare invite her to a wedding . Weddings were about love and community and the promise of the future. Three things Elowen had very intentionally removed
from her life.
“I decline,” Elowen told the guard matter-of-factly.
Frowning, the guard looked down at the shiny, sturdy paper in his hand announcing Queen Thessia’s upcoming nuptials. “Queen
Thessia said securing your attendance was required.”
Elowen closed her eyes, giving herself a moment to think. She wanted to see her brother, and the only place he still lived
was inside her mind. Galwell the Great, once known for having the most impressive, flowing copper hair anyone in Mythria had
ever seen. Elowen’s hair was equally as long and thick, yet Galwell was the one who received all the praise for it. That was
the case for most everything when it had come to the two of them.
If the roles had been reversed—Galwell living while Elowen perished—and Elowen’s former romantic interest had invited Galwell
to a wedding, he would have gone. He probably would have hosted the after-party. But it was Elowen who lived and Galwell who
died. Elowen was not forgiving, even when she should have been. After all, if Thessia hadn’t gotten kidnapped, Galwell wouldn’t
have felt compelled to go on a valiant quest in the first place. He wouldn’t have believed he needed to save the realm.
He would still be alive.
“My no has turned into never ,” Elowen said as she slammed her front door shut.
“If you don’t attend, the queen will cut off your hero’s salary, effective immediately!” the guard yelled from the other side.
“I bid you good day!” Elowen shouted in return, fighting off the rise of panic that swelled inside her. “Best of luck with the brush walker! He will want to collect your fingernails on your way out, if he hasn’t taken them already!”
Elowen pressed her back into her door as her mind raced. In recognition of how they’d saved the realm, the queen had offered
Elowen, Beatrice, and Clare a monthly payment as a gesture of thanks for all they’d done to protect Mythria. Beatrice had
rejected it outright. Clare accepted heartily. Elowen took it with no small amount of shame. She didn’t like being beholden
to the queen, but the money allowed her to live the life of solitude she desired. It was rather expensive to have all her
essentials delivered to her treetop home via carrier birds.
Without that stipend, she had no other viable options. Her parents were well-off, but they refused to support her isolation.
She’d have to live with them again to gain access to their money, which would be fine if they weren’t so social . They threw parties and held gatherings and made up a thousand reasons to invite friends over for random events. Elowen had
barely tolerated it as a child. As a full-grown adult? She’d rather wither to dust.
Just then her small magical tapestry let out a different ping — the sound of someone messaging her privately. You’re the biggest Desires fan on here , the note read. Do you know anyone who makes good replicas of Domynia’s original costumes? I’m desperate to get my hands on them now that
she’s back. I’ll pay anything.
Elowen’s eyes went wide. If she sold her Domynia costumes, she would have more than enough money to sustain herself for at
least a year, if not longer. Best of all, she would be free of her ties to Queen Thessia.
What incredible fortune. Her shadow plays never let her down.
Elowen’s hands shook as she used magic ink to scribe a response. I can do you one better . I can give you the real costumes.
Deal , the other person wrote immediately. Do you happen to be near Featherbint? That’s where I am.
Elowen gasped. Featherbint is very close to me. I could give you the costumes today if you wanted. We can discuss the price there.
That would be a complete delight. Let’s meet at the bookshop in an hour! I’ll be the woman seated in the back. I’ll have a
purple hemalia flower on my cloak.
Granting herself no time to consider her actions, Elowen gathered up the costumes and put them inside a large satchel. She
threw on her darkest cloak, pulled up the hood to cover her red hair and fair skin, then shielded her eyes with dark sunshifting
spectacles.
In her humble but correct opinion, everyone else had exaggerated the struggle of reaching her treetop dwelling. It was not
that difficult to enter or to exit. With the proper shoes, a satchel full of trimmed fingernails for Morritt, a steady soundtrack
of hummed tunes to chase off the threat of head magic nightmares, and the spine-tingling adrenaline rush of losing your sole
source of income at the exact same time that your favorite character returned to your favorite shadow play, it was a downright
breeze.
“People are so dramatic,” Elowen muttered as she passed the strapping guard. He was screaming, dangling from a thorn-riddled
vine at the edge of the cursed forest. He would be released soon. The vines never held anyone for long. They weren’t evil,
just mischievous, which made them misunderstood by most. Elowen herself had hardly broken a sweat, and she only had two lingering
nightmares attach themselves to her. No matter. They would keep her other nightmares company.
Featherbint was a tiny village of specialized shops such as a used horseball shoe store and a rare crystal boutique. At high noon, the sun shone directly onto the faded paint that covered every building, emphasizing the years of neglect. The village hadn’t seen an update since Elowen last ventured through years ago.
Glancing through the bookshop’s unwashed window, Elowen saw a woman sitting alone in the back. Her hair—which blocked her
face—was a shade of freshly polished black tourmaline that matched her elegant apparel. The exposed parts of her warm brown
skin had been coated in a shimmery lotion that made her seem to sparkle. There was a purple hemalia flower woven into the
hood of her cloak.
Elowen’s heart started to beat in double time. It had been a long while since she’d gotten anywhere near an attractive woman.
Attractive women were, regrettably, her biggest weakness.
Elowen left on her sunshifting spectacles as she reached for the bookshop’s front door. It was rude to wear them indoors,
but she couldn’t risk someone seeing the birthmark beneath her right eye. Many said it was heart-shaped; in reality, it was
just a tiny blob. It would be recognizable as Elowen’s all the same. And her eyes, blue as her brother’s had been. They’d
show her hand faster than her hair ever would. She’d become Elowen of the Four again. People would shout. They loved to shout at her. Things like “Use your magic and touch me!” or “Can you feel how much I love you?”
It would be disastrous.
A tiny bell chimed when the door opened. The fellow fan’s eyes shot up at the sound. Elowen looked away, overwhelmed by the
intensity of the gaze and the sense that this woman felt... excited? Was that right? It seemed like a level of eagerness
that went beyond what Elowen would expect from even the biggest of Desires fans. Elowen was very glad to have the spectacles on her face. They disguised the heat that crawled to her cheeks. If this attractive woman found Elowen attractive, too? The situation would move beyond disastrous into something far more terminal—it would become charming .
Elowen hated being charmed.
She walked forward with her spectacled eyes fixed on the ceiling, examining the rotting wooden beams that held the bookshop
together.
“What? No greeting for an old friend? I really hoped you’d smile at me. I rather like your smile, and you so rarely offer
it.”
Either the nightmare that had attached itself to Elowen had begun altering her reality, or her lack of sleep was creating
the same effect. The glass of the storefront had obscured Elowen’s ability to see what was now very clear—it was not a fellow
Desires of the Night fan sitting alone in the bookshop. It was another woman entirely. A woman with the world’s most dazzling face, complete with
tiny dimples that pinpricked into the umber of her smooth, perfect cheeks.
“ Vandra ,” Elowen whispered in disbelief, yanking the spectacles off her face. The name fell out before she remembered she’d planned
to never say it again. It had been her own self-inflicted punishment. She was no longer allowed to delight in the way those
syllables tasted. Vandra. Such a perfect name. Delicious and bright. Like biting a cold bramberry on a hot day.
“The one and only,” Vandra responded proudly. She stood up to reveal herself in full, putting her hands on her hips as if
to say, Here I am, take it all in.
A beat of stunned silence passed between the two women. There was no one else in the bookshop, Elowen realized with distant
concern. Where was the bookseller? Where were the other patrons? Had Vandra done something to them?
“My dearest, it’s not polite to stare with your mouth open,” Vandra said. “If you keep on like that, it might hurt my feelings. I so hate to have my feelings hurt.”
Despite the clear instructions, Elowen continued staring anyway, unable to quiet her shock. The bowed lips. The dark hair
and eyes. The bosom. A heaving one, at that. It was all there. Vandra Ravenfall, the dangerous and delightful assassin, stood
in front of Elowen for the first time in years.
Their shared past roared to life. Stolen kisses between campsites. Nights fumbling in the dark together, touching one another
with feverish urgency, knowing at any moment someone would come looking for Elowen and they’d need to split up. They never
had to speak about what they were to each other, because there was never anything to communicate. They were adversaries who
enjoyed each other in their downtime. When the quest ended, Elowen hadn’t even said goodbye to Vandra. Why would you bid farewell
to someone who wasn’t an official part of your life in the first place?
Dazed, Elowen turned on her heel. “I must be on my way at once,” she announced.
“I’m afraid you won’t be going anywhere without me,” Vandra called out after her. “Certainly not when you look as lovely as
you do.”
The compliment tripped Elowen up. Vandra’s relentless flirtation had always unmoored Elowen, a feeling she distinctly disliked.
It was worse when Vandra touched her, as she did now, putting a hand on Elowen’s shoulder.
Fuck. Elowen hadn’t been touched in so long. It felt tingly and strange and overwhelming. It rooted her in the moment. This was
not the work of nightmares or curses. This was real .
Worse, it felt good. Too good. Elowen had spent a decade convincing herself she enjoyed constant solitude. She believed that she required no other human interaction to have a fulfilling life, and day by day in the trees, she proved herself right. One single touch—full of history and passion—exposed the fragility of her beliefs. She hadn’t really been living. She’d been surviving. Now that she remembered the difference, she had no idea how to recover fast enough to convince Vandra to leave her alone.
“You see, Queen Thessia knew you would be the hardest to get. She tasked me with the distinct honor of bringing you to her
wedding in case her other plan failed. Naturally, it did,” Vandra explained. “I was told I may have to give up my fingernails
to get you, and I’m thrilled to be able to keep them. I quite like the shade of pink I had them charmed. Don’t they look lovely?”
Just then, Vandra pressed her mouth to Elowen’s ear, and the insistent pressure of the contact made Elowen feel all of Vandra’s
desire, hot and urgent. “It’s been quite a long time, hasn’t it? It’s wonderful to see you,” Vandra cooed.
Elowen’s knees nearly gave out. She had to disconnect from their shared touch, or she’d do something unforgivable, like run
her finger across Vandra’s cheek. Or slip her tongue into Vandra’s mouth. Instead she wiggled out from under Vandra’s hand,
freeing herself from Vandra’s desire. She focused all her attention on the cursed forest in the distance. She needed to run.
She hadn’t done it in years, but she had to try. Adrenaline and delirium were surely a great recipe for success. She could
make it happen.
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking of running,” Vandra said. “I’ve just had my boots waxed. I’d hate to get a nightmare stuck
on them when I don’t need to.”
Elowen turned around. “I can’t go with you,” she reasoned, as if that would be enough to stop Vandra from chasing her. To
explain more would be to expose Elowen’s own loneliness. Elowen could admit it to herself, but she could never say it aloud.
Vandra frowned. A rare sight, and done more for effect than an expression of truth. “Aren’t you pleased that I work for the
queen now?”
“I’m insulted,” Elowen said honestly. “I can’t believe my supposedly sovereign ruler would ever hire the likes of someone
such as you.”
Elowen hoped to cut deep, and cut deep she had. A glimpse of real emotion burst forth on Vandra’s carefully trained face.
The quickest shadow of hurt, gone as fast as it came. Truthfully, Elowen hadn’t even meant what she’d said.
Ten years ago, Vandra had been hired by a rather annoying man named Bartholomew, one of Galwell’s childhood nemeses who wanted
to thwart Galwell’s quest. It was a unique job for Vandra. She hadn’t been tasked to kill Galwell, only to inconvenience him
so that Bart could rescue Thessia first and be declared Mythria’s hero instead. Vandra found the Four at every turn, adding
an extra layer of difficulty to their already difficult tasks. Sometimes Vandra succeeded, throwing the Four off the trail
for a day or two. Other times, she failed. Vandra conceded the losses with grace all the same, knowing full well she planned
to meet up with Elowen afterward so Elowen could make some concessions of her own. Bartholomew, for his part, never came anywhere
close to rescuing Thessia, and last Elowen heard, he hadn’t paid Vandra for her services, either. She was certainly a nuisance
to the Four, but she was never a bad person.
Dangerous, on the other hand? She’d always been that.
“Talent is talent, my darling,” Vandra told her, settling right back into her natural cheerful state. “She asked me to do whatever is necessary to get you to the wedding, so long as it didn’t involve violence. Which was irrelevant, of course, because I don’t do violence anymore. Much has changed since last we saw one another.” She leaned in, cupping her manicured hand beside her mouth as if telling a secret. “That should intrigue you, by the way. I am not the woman you once knew.”
Her breath, so close, pricked up the hairs on Elowen’s neck.
Vandra was indeed different from how Elowen remembered her to be. Ten years could do that to anyone, but this went beyond
what Elowen would have expected, had she known she’d see Vandra again. She’d always been a bubbly, self-assured person with
a flair for spontaneity. The self-assuredness still existed, but the rest of her energy had settled.
She seemed... steady. Her emotions didn’t bounce around as quickly as they once had, and her attention remained fixed on
Elowen without wavering. It did intrigue Elowen. More than she wished it would.
“Queen Thessia wanted me to use my mind to gather you,” Vandra continued. “So I developed a scheme far wiser than anyone else
could ever dare dream up. All it required was advanced knowledge of the subject. The subject being you.” She took a weighty
pause. “No one else in Queendom knows you like I do.”
“You don’t know me at all,” Elowen hissed out instantly, fighting to ignore every romantic feeling Vandra threw her way. Just
because Vandra no longer worked as an assassin did not mean she’d given up on using her distinct charm to manipulate others.
After all, killing bad people was only one small part of her previous occupation. Most of her work involved luring the bad
people out, earning their trust only to betray them in the end. Now Vandra was using that gift to get Elowen to attend the
wedding, and that hurt.
“Thessia would’ve sent me to get you in the first place,” Vandra explained, ignoring Elowen’s comment. “But too many men volunteered for the job. The one who reached your dwelling? His name is Carl. When he sent an urgent conjuration saying you rejected the invitation, I knew it was my time to shine. You see, I’ve been following you on the Desires of the Night tapestries for years. I knew if I could just lure you out of your little treetop, I could get you to the wedding...”
“You’ve been watching my activity on the message tapestries for years? That’s a violation of my privacy,” Elowen snapped,
desperate to sound tough when all she really felt was vulnerable. She had worked so hard to stay hidden. She didn’t use her
real name on the tapestries. In fact, she’d concocted an alter ego with an entirely different life. Vandra finding her anyway
really was a feat. Elowen would have been impressed, if she wasn’t so exposed. And she would have been flattered, if she wasn’t so terrified
of letting Vandra get closer to her. Why had Vandra bothered to keep an eye on Elowen at all? They’d both cut each other off
with no contact.
“Of course I’ve been reading your messages,” Vandra said. “You’re right to think I don’t know you anymore. But you can’t deny
that we once knew each other quite intimately . And I’m being honest when I say I might just want to know you again.”
It was Elowen’s turn to ignore the comment. There was no need for Vandra to lay it on this thick. “Is your plan to kidnap
me against my will?”
“It would be lovely if you’d consent to it,” Vandra replied. “It would make things so much easier for us both, as this is
ultimately in the name of a joyful affair. I love weddings myself. And you and I both know you don’t have any other options.
You need the monthly salary.”
Elowen looked down at her sack of Domynia costumes, now useless. “Let’s get on with it, then,” she said, outmaneuvered. “Go
ahead and take me.”
Vandra let out a gasp of delight. “You’re really letting me kidnap you?”
“I am,” Elowen replied. She was not the hero Mythria believed her to be, and frankly, she never had been. That had always
been Galwell. Elowen was just a tagalong sibling who followed her brother everywhere, even straight into a realm-saving quest.
When she was younger, she’d been less aware of her own limitations. She was willing to try things even when she wasn’t sure
she’d be successful at them. That was no longer the case. Elowen possessed no ability to outsmart a woman as cunning as Vandra.
Not without sufficient preparation. She had walked herself right into a trap, and in that moment, she had neither the time
nor the energy to come up with a way out of it.
Beaming, Vandra threw Elowen over her shoulder, a move that resulted in Elowen staring directly at Vandra’s perfectly full
rear end. What a view.
What a situation.