For consistency's sake, Elaina attempted to make herself scarce after royally fucking up. She was afraid. Afraid of herself, afraid of what she'd done, afraid of what that did to her relationship with her Guard Captain.
It felt so juvenile to run and hide—a queen was supposed to face her problems head-on with an iron will and endless strength, and yet the Crown Princess had to run away and hide in a stable as though she was still a scared little girl running from the cruelty of her father. But she still felt safe in there. Safe with the horses and the hunting dogs and the barn cats and roosting hens.
Her heart and her body went straight for Anam, who nickered to her from his stall. The stubborn little buckskin lifted his head over the stall door as she approached—the ease that settled over her felt something close to peace with sow. "My brave little spirit," Elaina murmured, taking the horse's cheeks and resting her chin on the ledge of his stall door. Her thumb stroked over his fur, searching those dark eyes for a fault that wasn't there. Even he had a soul—she saw it from those eyes. The soulseer's steed had more soul than she herself.
But that seemed fair. Anam seemed to have more life to him than she did as well. So happy when she took him to pasture, so at ease with their slow walks through the forest and streams. The princess wished she could feel the same as he did; not a care in the world, never worrying for when he would be fed or groomed, never once having to worry about his own image or how he was standing or what a kingdom he didn't understand thought of his sire. "You're lucky, my boy," she whispered. "You get a carrot just for being cute." His ears perked up at that—stubborn habit, the bastard stallion reached for a treat. "You don't even like carrots, brat." Still, she laughed at him. At his pure curiosity. And gave him a peppermint instead. "You're getting fat, little boy. Little chunky boy." The princess cooed—cooed at the horse, like she was speaking to an infant someone had held up to her, planting a kiss on his nose and moving her hands up to rub his ears. "My boy."
"Figured you'd be here," came a voice from behind her. She knew Anam felt the skip of her heart at that voice—even though he'd always despised Arlero.
"I thought you said you wouldn't come to the palace," she muttered. "You're upsetting Anam." Her attention immediately went to trying to calm her hotheaded horse again.
Arlero wasn't fazed by the subtle pawing at the ground. Hooves scraped across concrete floors and Anam's ears pinned further back the closer the thief came to the princess. "He's still an ass, I see." He grumbled out something affirming to the horse and attempted to pat him on the neck via reaching around Elaina—Anam had none of it, teeth bared for a strike the second Arlero's fingers came near him.
"He knows how I feel about you right now," was all Elaina offered him in return. Her back stayed turned to him, openly ignoring his advances. She knew what it did to him—she did it deliberately because of it.
"C'mon, darling," he whispered, hand dropping from Anam to her waist. "I thought you'd be happy to see me?"
She bit down on her lip and shouldered him off. "Well, I'm not. Did you get my letter?"
"So, you changed your mind about wanting me to come with you?"
Gods above, he was more headstrong than she was. Some days, she could've reaped him for it. Could've reclaimed all the heart and soul she'd put into the both of them. "You'll never change, Arlo. I know that. I can't have you stuck between worlds. It won't be fair on either of us." Her words, short and cruel, she knew would hit him deep. He hated her assumptions, he hated her doubts in him—she knew with everything in her that he would fight back against what he said.
"I won't be stuck. I'll be with you, and when they need me—then I'll be with them." He turned her around to face him, pulling her chin up to look at him. Those dark eyes were clouded—hunger simmered behind the near-black hues. "You know I'd die for you, Elaina." The way he said her name...damn him.
She still couldn't help but notice the edge in his voice. The nickname she used for him—he hadn't returned it. Something else was bothering him. "Tell me what's on your mind, lover." Her right hand reached up and gently brushed his bangs out of his tired face. The magic in her blood thrummed—touching him, the soulseer feeling the rage that clawed at him, it was almost too much for her sow to calm. There was a moment, as she pulled him close, that he seemed like he wanted to run away from her. His eyes suddenly wouldn't meet hers. Her thumb brushed his cheek until he looked back at her.
"I—Adrian will kill me if he knows I'm here, won't he?" She heard the tremble in his voice. Felt the spike in his heart.
"Not as long as you behave yourself," she teased. Her best effort at trying to make him smile, even if it was fruitless. "No one will hurt you here, Arlero. I promise you." Nudging Anam's nose out of its protective place between them, she laced her fingers behind her outlaw's neck and pulled him close to her. "What's wrong, my love." Her lips brushed his—her heart stung at damn-near manipulating him, her powers letting her know what he needed, and it worked.
"I'm afraid, princess. I don't want to run any longer, but I can't get away from it. I don't...know anything else."
Those words echoed in her heart. I'm afraid. In all her years of knowing him, everything she'd learned of him and all that she knew he'd gone through, she'd never heard those words leave him. She lingered on them for far too long. I'm afraid. "Stay with me, Arlero. Stay here—you're safe behind the walls. You can show your skills to Adrian, I'll sign you into the guard, it'll be work—honest work. And you'll never have to go back." A desperation claimed her, almost feeling foreign, as she moved both her hands to his cheeks, and the primal fear in his soul moved to her magic. His panic and fear became hers.
"I'm a wanted man, darling. Your father wants me on a pike. What'll that say about your captain if he hires a criminal?"
"No one will know the difference once you're in a uniform. You can stay by me—be my personal guard. You'll never have to leave the palace if that's what you choose. You'll be protected here." She knew how pitiful she had to look, her forehead pressed to his and her eyes desperately searching his soul for some semblance of conceding to what she begged for him to believe.
There was a moment where the fear in her dangerous lover seemed to change. "You would do that for me?" Barely a whisper, a terrified breath, like he was afraid what she offered would disappear.
"To help you, my soul," she murmured, pressing a kiss to his lips, "I would reap the goddesses themselves."
***
She hadn't exactly thought through her offering of Arlero a position as something that could be classified as a "bad idea". Granted, she hadn't exactly been thinking when she'd said it; all she'd wanted was for his pain to stop, even if momentary. She loved him too desperately to let him be as afraid as he was.
Seeing him there, laying in her bed, the scars on his back bathed in the early morning sunlight, it seemed easy to try him as a consort. Maybe with a trim, a change of clothes, and a regular bath, someone in her court could see him as just another one of her courtiers. Just another man of influence.
But she knew that wouldn't be enough for him. She knew her damned mate—she knew the life he was expected to die with. The princess couldn't remember all the nights she'd prayed that things would be different when they'd first met. When she'd introduced him to her parents—his king and queen—she could've expected to be stoned to death, just first judging the rage they held for the man she saw as innocent. Never, in her years trying to save him, had she ever asked why they'd hated him so vehemently. A naive part of her assumed they hated him because he was with her and they wouldn't get any sort of compensation in trying to sell her to him. Goddesses damn any man without royal blood who tried to steal her from her tower.
She brushed his hair back from his face, trying to ignore the rapid beating of her heart when he turned to nuzzle into her hand. She would deal with Casta's piss-fit later. I can hear him now—"Think of your father, Lightbringer. Little Star, he would say, how could you betray us so? Think of your family with that—that criminal in the castle!" That, admittedly, got a scoff out of her.
There was that part of her that knew Arlero shouldn't be there. Not from a law-and-order standing, but a moral code. She had left him—he'd left her, too. He wouldn't change and she knew it. But she wanted him to. She wanted more mornings like that one; mornings where she could wake up to him in bed beside her and have him walk her where she went and finally not have to be on her own ruling that throne of roses. She hated having to deal with it all alone. Sure, she had Adrian, and she would always be grateful for him being by her side, but Arlero knew everything Adrian didn't. She trusted her thief with everything in her. If dying from her magic would save his life, she would die happily. When her father had banished him and hung wanted posters on every corner, she'd sworn she would never love again. Never would another man or woman have her heart as wholly as Arlero did. But she knew that wasn't the way it was supposed to be—even if she wasn't going to do a damn thing to change how she felt about him and what she would do for him.
She was tracing the lines of scars on his back when he finally made some hint that he was awake. Out of habit, the hand on his back made its way up to his cheek again. "Please," he begged, opening one eye to see her, "tell me I'm not dreaming."
Elaina cracked a wicked grin, pressing her right hand to her heart. "Goddesses save me and Wilt keep me, my love." A promise. Promise of her sincerity. The prayer of her people. The prayer she'd recited when she'd promised to—
The noise he made at her words could've moved her to tears as his arm slung around her neck and pulled her to his chest. No matter how deep in the shit they managed to get, she would never be able to convince herself that the man she'd fallen for wasn't as mad for her as she was for him. She felt him shaking against her as they pulled each other tighter, pieces of her heart cracking each time she thought about the likelihood of things actually turning out like the fairy tale they had wanted. But it's a pretty dream.
Such a pretty dream, she wasn't quite sure where a dream ended and reality began. It pained her to pull away from him. "Duty calls, my prince," she murmured, pressing a kiss to his skin. "I have to go play royal for the day."
His face buried in her mess of curls, all he did for a moment was hug her tighter. "I wish I could go with you."
Elaina pulled herself to arms length. "I know you do. But I have to tell Adrian about all this, and you being there will only fuel his fire—then you won't stand a chance. Let me talk to him, and when everything is calm, I'll send Nyla or Bristle for you, okay?"
"Can I pick Bristle? Nyla never liked me. She always said I wasn't happy enough for you."
She hated that he could make her giggle like a child, but knew how right he was. Her page would be much more...willing to go fetch her lover without much attitude and back-handed compliments. A kiss on his nose, and she untangled herself from the mess of sheets with one more stroke across his cheek. "I'll send Bristle to fetch you when I've spoken to Adrian," she promised. Her magic thrummed with the violent beating of her heart as a reaction to him holding her hands until distance had completely separated them. Elaina, to the chagrin of Arlero, called for Nyla to help her dress. Her handmaid made no move to hide her disgust at the sight of "that criminal" in the princess's bed.
"Nyla, dear," Elaina whispered, trying not to stumble as the smaller girl tugged her to a bathchamber—maybe to save her virtue, "please don't put up a fuss. This is a...difficult situation."
To her shock, Nyla's brow furrowed, and she bit back. "My lady, with all due respect, that man in this palace brings no feeling of comfort, regardless of the situation. You are my princess, but your father—"
"My father is not here, Nyla. Please, just—just this once, until I can get it worked out. He doesn't have anywhere else to go."
"So put him in the dungeons—that's where Adrian will send him, anyhow. Three hot meals a day, and a cot to sleep on. More than he deserves, but exactly where he belongs." A trace of bitterness in the fae-born girl's tone had Elaina clenching her fist to keep the bubbling rage and defiance from spilling over. She'd seen her mother slap servants for less; for a moment, she almost allowed herself that violence against her favorite hand. Reap's power lapped at the fire mounting in her, the rage in her body letting that damn enchanting part of her magic take root in her left hand. All the work she did, everything she kept at bay to keep that magic from taking over—Nyla saw her hand shaking, saw that powerful jaw clench. "Apologies, my lady. I—stepped out of my place."
"Yes," Elaina seethed, "you did. Don't let it happen again." The little maid dipped her head and quickly scurried into the closet to fetch whatever outfit the Crown Princess needed to be seen in for that day, and Elaina took the moment of peace and privacy to try and bring herself down. Thorns pricked at her left hand and she quickly moved to clasp her right hand over where the vines moved. Ivy like snakes coiled around her wrist and climbed her arm—she felt the magic in her right arm trying to wither and die, and part of her feared that feeling. Reap was finally beating out sow, she'd be lost to the dark, she wouldn't be able to save herself from Miro, there wasn't a possibility that she would be able to live any sort of life outside of war—she felt the skin on the knuckles of her right hand split and bleed from her grip around her left wrist.
"Princess," Nyla said, a gasp gripping her as she returned to her lady and dropped the gown at their feet. Elaina couldn't see her, all she could do was grip her arm and bite her cheek, her blood roared again—no, no, no. "My lady, what's wrong?"
"Arlero," she gritted her teeth, "go get Arlero." When Nyla hesitated, Elaina snatched her by the stay of her gown. "Go get Arlero before I kill us both."
Distantly, she tried to grapple on to some sort of memory from the goddesses—if they'd told her about this, if there was a warning, some way to break the spell of reap really taking over and turning sow into a withering and worthless piece of flesh. She heard her handmaid yelling—it all sounded too far, too muffled, the hand on her back and the pounding of bare feet against marble echoed so dull that it all felt miles off. She tried, she tried to pull herself out enough to find out what was happening, she tried to focus on the warmth of skin through her chemise, anything but the bile that tried to drown her.
"Elyra, darling, breathe—stop holding your breath, Eylra—"
Holding my breath? I'm breathing too much, aren't I? I'm panicking—
Only Arlero was right. She wasn't breathing. She was holding her breath, she was choking on air, she was afraid. And then her stupid, ugly, hateful outlaw lover pulled her tense and curled body into his lap and held her as close as he could manage. She felt that—she heard his heartbeat, rapid and skipping with panic against her ear, she felt calloused hands wrapping around her forearms to pull her tight. The squeezing of her body against his forced her to breathe—her scent mixed with his, fear and blood and sweat and pine and gold and lilac. "Come back to me, darling—"
It seemed to snap into place then. Her magic telling her what she'd done, what she was giving in to. He'd never listened to her before, why in the wilted garden did she think he would listen to her then? He'd gotten what he wanted; he'd been in her bed. He'd seen her vulnerable, he'd seen and felt and had all she could possess—for that moment, she hated that name. Eylra, darling.
Like lightning striking her, balance returned. He was dangerous, they all knew it, and she'd let him back into her life—even after sending the letter that she thought would be the end of their pretty little dream. Her father, damned and foolish and cruel as he was, had been right in trying to keep them apart. Arlero made her careless. He made her lose sight of her duties, of who she was meant to be and the life she was meant to be leading.
When the feeling returned to her body, she pushed herself away from Arlero—out of his lap and onto the floor. He stared at her, desperate and afraid, his hands still frozen and reaching for her as she squeezed her eyes shut and took a breath to steady her breathing again. The magic she'd felt draining from her right hand slowly began to flow back into her blood—so that's what you were telling me, I'm guessing. You don't trust him, either. Opening her eyes, she took in the man in front of her again—really took him in. The wildfire in his dark eyes, the clenching of his jaw, hair in his face and shrouding his expression, muscles formed and toned from his—his profession. Reap saw the power in her beloved outlaw, the raw strength he harbored, while sow saw the danger he posed, even if he looked like a little pine searching for light. Elaina Soulseer stared deep in those sunken umber eyes, searching for the smallest inkling of that spark that should've held his hopes, his values, his fears—his soul, and there was nothing. She'd never noticed before, but sitting there on the marble, staring across to him in the raw throes of a power eating her alive, she saw in her lover what others had long before.
Sow, weak-hearted and gentle, still wanted to keep him. It took up for what her own soul should be and wanted to help the man that had traveled to the ends of the earth just to see her again. She should've been grateful, shouldn't she? Wasn't he trying? Was he willing to try, for their sake? The sake of what they wanted to build?
Or was she the only one that wanted that.
Powers granted by the goddesses themselves seemed to believe so.
"Oh, Arlero," she breathed, reaching out and grazing the fingers of her right hand across his scarred cheek. A glance at Nyla and a nod to the door told her handmaid to leave them until she called again, leaving the princess and her dangerous love alone together, against both their better judgments. "We really were so young then, weren't we." Electricity pulsed into her with each stroke of her thumb against his cheekbone, and she watched his tired eyes soften. He leaned into her hand again; sow flared and recoiled like it hadn't in the quiet moments while they shared her bed. Something in her was trying to keep her away from him, and after searching for his soul and finding nothing, she understood why. "Gods be damned—damn us both, I loved you."
He caught that. Something changed in his eyes. Her right hand could've been engulfed in flames with the heat she felt. "Do you not?"
Her heart ached, something thrummed hollow in her chest, she couldn't look him in the eyes. The sorrow would tear her to pieces if she did. "Not like I did," she dropped her hand from his face and to her lap, "I'm sorry, Arlero. The promise I made—it was foolish to offer you that." Tears, however few, managed to escape her before she could harden herself against the hurt, slipping down her cheeks as she kept her gaze firmly on her fingers fiddling with the hem of her gown. She waited. Waited for him to explode as her father would've. But he didn't.
"Elaina," he murmured, waiting until she looked back up to him. "You were only trying to help, I suppose." Something like...disappointment lingered in his voice, and that time, she genuinely braced herself for him to go off on her and leave her sobbing and bleeding on that floor. She knew nothing in her body would let her magic fight back. Not against her Arlo.
"But you were right," he said. "We were young. Young and...stupid—stupid is the word I would use. We won't ever go back to that; there isn't any going back to how we used to be. I see that now."
"We've changed, haven't we?" Elaina wanted to reach out and clasp his hand again as she spoke, but her body wouldn't move. He nodded, saddened as he turned his own eyes to the floor.
"I'm sorry, my darling," her body recoiled at him saying that word—she wouldn't understand why, she supposed—"I should leave—the palace, Ryverin, all of this chaos. Let you return to what—what you have to do now, and let myself go back to the only thing I know." When he stood, she took the hand extended to her, and let him walk her to the staircase separating her wing from the rest of the palace. The pain in her chest spread to the rest of her body. She wasn't numb, like she had been writing the letter to him. Not now. Everything felt too intense. She mumbled out something about telling her guards to escort him to whichever border he chose, and a whimpered sob escaped him when the kiss he intended to be a passionate last landed on her cheek as she turned her face away from him. "Goodbye, Elaina."
She couldn't answer him until he was already out of earshot, already too far descended the east staircase for him to hear her quiet mewls muffled with her hand. When he glanced back up from the entrance to her, his lazy two-finger salute of a wave was all he could muster. Her voice echoed in the silent hall as she finally replied to him. "Goodbye, Arlero."
***
"Have you any explanation for a decision that could've had you killed, princess?"
Casta paced the floor in front of her throne like a worried old crone, wringing his hands like he was the one she'd threatened. Elaina sat stone-still, statuesque on that grand golden throne, jaw clenched and a brow raised. "Have you an explanation for forgetting your place below me?" she returned. She was more careful now, more thoughtful in how she let her mind wander, what she let affect her. Reap wasn't going to gain the upper hand again.
Adrian at her right, to his credit, did his best to hide an amused smirk behind his hand. A throne designated to the consort of the head of house, and she'd given it to her Guard Captain. He seemed perfectly at ease with his chin propped in his hand, elbow squarely on the arm of his seat. He glanced over at her for direction. She wasn't as amused as he was.
"My lady," Casta said carefully—that's right. Save yourself, rat. "You were housing a criminal, if I do recall. We can't allow that to go unacknowledged."
Of course—of course he wanted to bring up Arlero. Wasting precious time on a mistake she'd made and corrected. "Forgive me, advisor of my father, but I do believe the kingdom is in my control until the king and queen deem fit to return, is it not? Please," she sneered, "correct me if I'm wrong. My housing of Arlero of Moranth was no concern to anyone but myself. I am of my own will to house a member of my kingdom at my own volition." Elaina kept her own edge to her tone, carefully guarding the ache in her heart over lowering her feelings for Arlero down to politics. She watched Casta screw his eyes shut. Choose your next words very carefully. Coward.
"Elaina, have you consulted your captain on this matter?"
"What I discuss with my royal guard is of no concern of yours, I assure you." There it was. Her bite. She let her fangs sink in, let them sit there for a moment just to watch him bleed. To seal it, she leaned forward—far closer to him than a member of the royal family would deem sociable, and far closer than she liked, and gripped him by his neckerchief to keep him from scurrying out of her sight. "I am not Ifreann. You have no power over the decisions I make, and you will never have power over me. When I need advice, I will seek it from my Queen Mother's gifts." When she did finally release him to slither away—after reap had sapped some of his energy as payment for her annoyance, of course—she did nothing to hide the look of complete disgust on her face as she wiped her palm on the skirt of her gown. "Pathetic."
Adrian looked at her, long and hard, like he was searching for answers. "I'm not explaining anything to you, Adrian," she said quickly, puffing locks of fringe out of her face after they slipped free from the pins. "Casta already said enough."
"So you weren't going to tell me at all?" She heard the hurt in his voice before she saw it cross his face—the valiant soul in him dimmed like it had been doused out. She wanted to keep him from winding up like her Arlero.
"I was planning on it this morning, actually. But it all sort of...fell apart. He's gone now, so it doesn't matter."
"What if someone from the kingdom finds him? Are you going to pay the bounty your father promised?" he asked.
Stupid question. "Of course not," she spat. "That would mean hanging him; as much as the rest of you hate him, I was still engaged to him." She knew how that would irritate him. Chains clinked together in his armor as he tensed at her words.
"Your father would've never let that happen—"
"—And neither would you?"
Silence answered her. She'd wheeled to face him, cheeks burning with her burst of anger, and saw nothing but her beloved Guard Captain dipping his head and keeping his gaze off of her. "You know how I feel, majesty. It's my job to protect you from harm."
Admittedly, she felt more than awful—she felt horrible. "I know. I'm—I'm sorry. I'm just...tired. It's been a hard last few days." Another clank of metal and she felt Adrian's hand on her knee. That...was unexpected. No one but her handmaid was allowed to touch her without her first touching them—this is—this is friendly, isn't it? This is friendly. He's not going to hurt me.
"It's alright, Elaina. It's okay to be overwhelmed."
They sat like that for a second, him letting her bring herself down. "Maybe you should take a break?" he suggested after a moment; she almost laughed in his face.
"And let Casta run the place? I'd wake up one morning in a noose. Lasair would be torched, you and Arlero would be tied to horses—I can't imagine what he would do to my ladies. Not a chance. It's my burden and I'm going to carry it like I was made to."
Still, she would admit that the idea was tempting.
***
Ifreann. That was the first time she'd said her father's name since he'd vanished, and she'd threatened a man with it. It felt fitting, she supposed. Her father had threatened her enough times that she could recycle some of the ones he'd hurled. Part of her wanted to bring herself to look at the portraits of her mother and father that dotted the palace—another part of her wanted to rip them from the walls and torch them in the city square. Whether they came back or not didn't matter to her. She was just another orphan queen, and she would happily live and die with that title. Her heart raced at the thought of coronation, at that brilliant golden crown being taken from her parents' chamber and being placed on her head, the sweeping cape of blue velvet clasped around her neck with her family's crest...she shivered. The power she'd finally have. The power that she needed more than she deserved. She wanted it. She wanted that golden wolf sealed in a golden compass to be on her chest, she wanted that ornate crown on her mop of ebony curls. She deserved that. A bare of her teeth followed her steel eyes up, up, up above the staircase to the portrait of her with her parents.
She hated them. She was free with them gone. No one would ever cage her again. Nobody could lock her back in her tower. Never.
Reap stirred awake, pricking her skin and coiling up her covered arm. Thorns dotted up until she could feel them on her collarbone. Ruin it, the deadly magic whispered, thorned vines etching themselves across her neck. Elaina's eyes stayed locked on the face of her father. Her jaw clenched against the anger bubbling up, warmth surrounded her left hand—ruin them.
She bore into the olive eyes she'd once inherited from her father with a hatred she'd only ever felt when he'd vanished. Her heart fluttered as sow attempted to calm her. Steady, remember, your Arlero can still be saved. He is not as gone as we.
Peace. That brought peace to her mind; Miro's divine knowledge was never wrong. The voice of the goddess echoed in her head and settled around her heart. Elaina thought back to Arlero—seeing him on her floor, clutching her arms, desperately trying to soothe her. It hurt her to see him afraid, it terrified her to see that the soul she'd so violently loved was gone, but there was still that peace. He wasn't as damned as she was. His eyes hadn't turned that awful grey like hers had after the Wilt; maybe he'd only sold it, maybe she could help him get it back. If she saw him again, maybe she would try.
But there was reap again, lingering at the back of her mind. Or you won't. You don't try, just take. Bleed him until you wring him dry—just like all the others. We can have him, too.
How easy it would be to simply give in to what that violent edge begged for. All she'd have to do was just—
Not Arlero.
Adrian, then.
Never—I'd rather die.
It mocked her weakness. You're a coward.
"I know."