Chapter Eleven
Elysia
Danger isn’t distant or abstract anymore. It’s close, ugly, and lethal. It’s blood on my hands and the memory of a man’s dying breath and the hollow drop of his body hitting the leaves, never to get up again.
The road stretches long and silent beneath the slow-turning wheels of our wagon.
No one speaks.
The only sounds that live in my head are the wet rasp of a dying breath, the scream Thalia made when the bandit lunged, the sickening crunch of metal against bone as Luan split a man’s head open beside the wagon.
Every time I blink, I see it again … the blood on my hands, the dagger in my palm, the vacant stare of the bandit whose life I ended.
I don’t know how I’m still sitting upright.
I haven’t slept since I left my home and my eyes burn with fatigue, but I can’t lie down.
I can’t close my eyes. Every time I try, the memory comes rushing back, vivid and violent.
The nausea coils low in my stomach again and again, curling tighter with each inhale.
Lisbeth’s unconscious body lies beside me in the wagon, her head cushioned on folded fabric from our supplies. The gash at her temple stopped bleeding hours ago, but her skin still holds a pale look that has me on edge. She hasn’t stirred once.
The ache behind my eyes has turned sharp, like shards of glass buried in my skull. I press my fingers against my temples, hoping pressure will drive it all away, but nothing helps.
I can still feel the resistance of his bones, cartilage, and flesh beneath my blade.
I still see the way his mouth opened in shock … not rage, not even pain … just surprise. Like he couldn’t believe it either. Like he wasn’t supposed to die there, by my hand. As if the universe had made a mistake.
Maybe it did, because something inside me died today. Something innocent, something soft.
A low, involuntary sound escapes my throat, somewhere between a sob and a breath I can’t quite finish inhaling. My eyes burn as my vision blurs with unshed tears.
Berrin glances back from his spot at the front of the wagon, but says nothing. He’s been glancing back at me occasionally, as if he wants to comfort me, but always returns his focus back to the road, lips pressed tightly together.
There were two other villages after the ambush, both too small to have a healer. We didn’t stop long, just asked, checked, and kept moving. Hours passed in silence, the world blurring beyond the trees, dusk slipping into night, night slipping into something deeper and colder.
The ache in my joints has settled into something worse, a numbness that comes from more than just a lack of sleep. The kind that comes from witnessing something that will never fully leave you.
I lean my head against the wooden sideboard, closing my eyes just for a breath. Hot streaks of tears trail down my cheeks silently.
I’m not in the wagon anymore, I’m back in the forest. The bandit’s eyes are wide and glassy, staring up at me from a bed of leaves. My hand is still wrapped around the dagger, his blood still warm, the color so dark it looks black under the trees.
Thalia is screaming again. The bandits are shouting. Clashing steel sings.
I jolt upright seconds later, gasping, heart slamming in my chest like it’s trying to escape me entirely. My hands are shaking again and I rub them on my dress, but it’s no use. The blood’s gone, but I can still feel it … It’s soaked into my soul. No amount of water will wash it away.
How does anyone ever forget that?
Lisbeth’s fingers twitch slightly, drawing my attention to her prone form, and a sharp ache settles behind my ribs.
Why her? Why am I carrying the weight of this fear for her well-being when she’s someone who wouldn’t have lifted a finger for me if the roles were reversed?
My mother’s voice rolls through my head. Because that’s who you are.
I swallow hard and reach out to adjust the blanket around Lisbeth’s shoulders. My fingers brush her temple and come away tacky with sweat. She’s still burning up.
The trees close in tighter on either side, and the wind begins to sound like an eerie howl floating through the forest. It’s haunting and mournful.
I don’t know how long we’ve been riding when the wagons finally slow. Berrin says something ahead of us but I don’t hear the words. I only hear the hum of exhaustion droning behind my eardrums.
The wagon creaks to a stop in the square of a small village tucked beneath a ridge. Lanterns flicker in low stone windows, and a few faces peek out from doorways. A man in green healer’s robes steps into the center of the road, flanked by two others carrying wooden stretchers.
They reach for Lisbeth and something feral within me comes to life.
“No!” I lurch forward, clutching her arm, trying to shield her from them with my own body.
The men stop, startled. One even raises his hands back like he’s been burned by touching her.
“You can’t just take her!” I snap, my voice cracked and wild as I stare wide-eyed at them. “She’s going to wake up alone and confused with strangers around her. She needs someone she knows.”
Luan frowns from their side, exhaustion heavy and clear on his weathered face. “You need rest.”
“I’m not sleeping,” I bite back, eyes blazing. “I’m going with her.”
“She doesn’t need you anymore,” he counters, crossing his arms.
“She will,” I growl, heart hammering. “I’m not leaving her.”
The healer glances at me for a long moment, then nods slowly. “Let her stay.”
I exhale shakily as they lift Lisbeth carefully between them and carry her toward the healer’s cottage.
Thalia climbs out of her wagon and stares with wide-open eyes at me before inclining her head in a single nod of acknowledgment, that she knows I need to give my attention to Lisbeth and that it’s okay.
I follow close behind the men, my boots dragging and my entire body aching.
Inside, the cottage is warm, the heat instantly seeping into the depths of my bones. The air smells like crushed herbs and something acidic. I glance around and take in the shelves lining the walls, filled with bottles, salves, dried flowers, bundles of root and leaf.
They lay Lisbeth on a cot with a clean wool blanket and remove her ruined cloak before leaving Lisbeth and me alone with the healer. I stand in the corner, arms wrapped around myself. My hands tremble, yet I can’t make it stop.
The healer inspects Lisbeth with practiced care, murmuring to himself as he checks her head, limbs, pulse. He stitches her wound with deft hands and coats it in a thick golden salve with a heavy floral scent.
“She’s lucky,” he mutters. “The blow missed her temple. Another inch or so and the skull thins out there. It could have caused a brain bleed or cracked her skull completely.”
I don’t respond, trying to hold off the images of Luan doing exactly that to a bandit. I just nod vaguely and sink down into a stool nearby, every bone in my body groaning with the weight of the day.
“As is, she might be concussed. We won’t know until she wakes.”
When the wound dressing is secured, the healer rubs a different salve into her temples and lays a fresh compress across her forehead. “She’ll wake when her body’s ready,” he says, voice gentler now. “She’s in no danger. You should sleep.”
He dims the lantern, leaving only the flicker of firelight from the hearth before the door clicks shut behind him.
I sit and watch Lisbeth breathe. That’s all I do for what feels like hours.
My eyelids droop and my chin dips. I jerk awake every time my head slips sideways toward my shoulder.
Then … a twitch in her fingers. A flutter in her lashes.
My heart all but leaps into my throat as she gasps and sits up violently, eyes wild, hands clawing the edge of the cot.
“No!” she screams so violently that her voice cracks.
A wail of unmistakable fear and certainty that death is coming for her. A sound I’m coming to know intimately.
“Shh!” I scramble to her side and grab her hands, trying to get her to focus on my face. “You’re safe. You’re alright. It’s over.”
Her chest heaves as her eyes dart to the walls, to the flickering shadows, to the blanket tangled around her legs. Anywhere but me.
“My guards …” Her voice is cracked and broken as she continues her search. “Where are they?”
“They’re gone,” I answer softly, “but you’re here. You’re safe.”
She yanks one of her hands from mine, moving it to the wound on her head, wincing at the pain. “I … I don’t remember …”
“You hit your head in the wreckage,” I explain gently, settling on the edge of the cot next to her. I focus on dampening a cloth from the basin and dabbing her brow. “You passed out. I pulled you out of the wreckage. You’re safe now.”
For a moment, she just blinks at me, disoriented and vulnerable.
“You’re safe now.” I repeat myself, knowing she needs to keep hearing the words.
Her eyes shine with tears, and for the first time, she looks human, not untouchable and arrogant. Just a girl trying not to break, much like me and Thalia.
“Don’t touch me,” she says faintly, her old fire flickering as I feel her forehead with the back of my hand to check her fever.
A chuckle falls from my lips as my hand falls to my lap. “Don’t worry, it’s not a new hobby of mine.”
That earns me a faint, broken laugh. A weak one, but real, and for a moment, it’s as if she forgets herself and leans into the care.
Then she blinks, eyes sharpening again, the wall rebuilding between us piece by piece. Her expression shifts closer to the Lisbeth I met before—the distant, polished version of herself.
“Well,” she says, eyes narrowing, “I suppose your odds of being chosen have gone up. I’m hardly the face the elven courts will want anymore.”
I huff out a quick breath of air as my eyes widen. “You’d be surprised. The universe seems to favor women with a bit of blood on them lately.”
Where would we all be if I hadn’t bloodied mine by killing that man?
Lisbeth hums, a low sound that might have been amusement.
“I’d hate to lose to you,” she says after a moment, eyes scanning my face. “But if I had to lose to someone … it’d better be someone who’d drag my body to safety.”
My brows lift slightly as the corners of my lips tug up. I huff, “That’s the closest thing to a compliment I’ve heard from you.”
“I’m concussed,” she mutters dryly before pursing her lips. “Don’t expect it again.”
We lapse into silence, but this time it’s slightly companionable.
She shifts, pressing a hand to her bruised ribs and wincing. “You look worse than me somehow.”
“I feel worse than you, I think.”
She squints at me, her brow creasing with her inspection. “Lie down before you fall over.”
“I’m fine,” I argue, dropping the cloth into the fresh water before pushing to my feet.
“You’re swaying.”
“You’re bossy,” I observe, grinning faintly as I lean against the wall.
“You’re half-asleep on your feet.”
“Still less obnoxious than you,” I mumble as my head falls back.
I stare at her out of the corner of my eye and she smiles, likely thinking I can’t see her well.
For once, it doesn’t feel like rivalry between us. It feels like survival.
Her voice fades as she closes her eyes. “Rest, Elysia.”
I grunt at her command and collapse into the chair. She slips into sleep quickly and I’m left awake, wondering if I’ll ever be hardened enough to sleep restfully ever again.
For now, I’m just haunted.