A week on, dull and uneventful, the princess had wrestled with the idea of calling for war. For some reason, as she tapped a pen on her desk, she had the words of that archduke from before drilled into her memory. You've become a tyrant.
Had she? Surely not, she assumed. She wasn't her mother, she wasn't her father—they had been tyrants, not her. Magic in her veins made her different, didn't it? After so long, she had to be better than them. Nothing in her screamed that she was similar to anything she'd seen, Miro had told her so. She was better than them.
Right?
The princess turned her attention back to the letter she was attempting to write. A pamphlet she was asked to pen following whispered threats towards Ryverin. But with each damn line, she found herself crossing it out. No words in her could convey what she wanted to say. It frustrated her to an end she despised. After what felt like hours of staring at a messied page, she decided to just make it up.
To My People:
As the Mistress of the Crown, please, cling to me. Give me your fears, give me all your worry. From the city of Lasair to the villages dotting Briste Bay, look to your Lightbringer, your Daughter of Stars. You are not alone. We are not alone. The fearless and mighty wolves of Eagla will protect you, always. Your True North lies within the golden wolf of Dorcha.
Threats, while frightening, are nothing more than words, and your Crown is a master of such. A threat upon my kingdom, upon my children, is a threat upon my own heart, and I would rather be bled in the streets of all my enemies than allow a single child of Ryverin to shudder in fear.
So cling to me, my children. When the waters run red with the blood of those who wrong you, my people will remain unharmed, and we will dance in the red rains of the final victory. Our enemies will feel the wrath of the Wilt, and all that oppose us will feel the fire of Elaina Soulreaper. There is no greater sin against the God Sisters than to threaten the home of their Chosen Daughter, to disrespect the mighty power of the Wilt and Her gifts.
As long as a wolf howls in Ryverin's name, the poison of the Wilt will claim our enemies. So let them come for us. Not even the goddesses themselves will strike us down, lest they strike me if I'm wrong.
Yours, true and eternal,
Elaina Dorcha, Crown Princess of Ryverin.
That would work, she decided. She would live with whatever came from that. Wilt keep her, maybe it would lead to her really being captured and bled in the streets. So be it—provocation was a war cry, and she'd follow her people into the underworld if they were dragged away from her.
Her only semblance of loyalty to her parents, and of course it meant she could be murdered. She was the shepherd of the flock, and she'd gladly lead her sheep to the altar if it meant she would get the power she'd bled and died and been brought back for.
As she handed the pamphlet to her page, Bristle looked at her like he was waiting for a command. He saw it—discontent etched across her face, the hard line of her brows and the troubled squint. "Bristle," she finally whispered, all thought leaving her mind. "Send the dogs with Adrian's elites. When they head out for the diplomats to replace Garneria, tell my Guard Captain that if anyone puts up a fight, steal their weapons and have the dogs bring me their heads."
"Any requests, madam?"
"'I will not be moved.'"
The...sheer violence that stole her from her words frightened her. She was almost afraid of herself. A trust that she'd always had in her own judgment feathered and flickered like it was ready to die out on her, and as Bristle left with her orders, she had to repress a shudder. Adrian wouldn't like what she'd demanded, that much she knew, but she couldn't take it back. She wasn't going to let herself look so weak.
Bring me their heads.
If only the goddesses knew what was really raging inside her.
If only she knew what was really raging inside her.
True and eternal.
She thought back to Arlero—if she could save the man she was so desperate for, either from the gallows or from himself. It was unfair, she knew. But, goddesses damn her, she loved him. She feared she always would. No matter how much time passed, no matter how ugly and horrific reality was when compared to her beautiful dream, she'd fallen for him all those years ago. Her father had purposely set her near Adrian in an attempt to breed battle strength and royal blood, and instead his only heir had gravitated toward the boy she'd seen in the market.
She should've known how hard it would be to keep him tied to her and the palace; Arlero had spent so long being bought and sold around that he told her once he didn't remember what it felt like to stay in one place more than a year. He'd sold his own soul—all he knew was bartering or thievery. He'd stolen her and tried to make her barter to have that part of herself back. And she'd let him; she'd wanted him to take and take until he had all of her he could handle. She'd certainly held on to everything she could take from him. The princess was willing to bed a demon if it meant she would have her chosen king lay beside her until the goddesses claimed her again.
Still, something stirred. A voice in her head telling her that she only wanted Arlero because her parents had despised him so. If they hadn't hated him—she didn't know if she would've felt the same way.
Surely, she hoped that there would always be a part of her that loved her outlaw regardless of what could happen between them. Even when they'd met as children—that same spark between them was still there.
But he wasn't part of the plan. When she'd been born, she was already a tool to make her family a force to be reckoned with. Sold off to the God Sisters at the first offer. Meeting Arlero had put a dent in that plan her mother and father had so carefully constructed. That dent became a gaping wound when he'd asked to marry Elaina. She still remembered the sound of her father's knights drawing their swords—the king rising from his own throne and drawing his own sword and pointing it at her Arlo. Even with the promise Arlero made to Ifreann, to take care of Elaina and to treat her well and to love her wholly, he wasn't what they'd wanted for her. Nothing he did for her would make them let her leave with him, and they wouldn't dare let him live in the palace with the royal family.
The pleading and sobbing she'd done—she hadn't replicated it since that night. Adrian holding her back from putting herself between Ifreann's sword and Arlero's throat—it wasn't fair, she loved him, he was good to her, he wouldn't hurt anyone—she'd watched her lover close his eyes and wait for death and the only thing that had stopped an execution was divine intervention itself in the form of Molerin's powers showing up to save him. Hot, passionate, angry, shattering glass and bending metal and clawing rivets into the stone floor and shredding through cloth like a lioness's kill. The princess finally proving herself a useful tool of battle was all that kept the both of them from a violent death—even if freeing him had meant having herself locked in that tower until they needed something from her.
A princess in her tower—that's what Arlero and Adrian had referred to her as. Always locking herself away, hiding from herself and from everything that threatened her. Something in her mind disliked the idea of being a queen, but the stronger part of her so desperately needed to be in absolute power. She supposed that was the rage instilled in her—when her father had handed her his sword and had let her command an execution, that could've been when it had started. She hadn't known what it was at the time. She hadn't been certain of what it meant, but she did later. When Arlero told her what she'd done. That she'd—that she'd been the hand behind someone's death. Adrian told her it wasn't a big deal, that the person had been a criminal, but it struck her, constantly, that Arlero was a criminal. She could've been sentencing her love to death and would've never known it was him, and all of them would've let her live out her whole life thinking he'd abandoned her.
I'm afraid, princess.
Elaina never asked him what it was that he was afraid of. She'd assumed, but he'd never been specific and she'd never asked. A soulless thief, that was afraid of something he'd never told her. If she had the energy, she would've called it her ultimate betrayal. It hurt her, it hardened her, it startled her to know that there was a secret so great in his heart that he'd sold his own soul to keep her from seeing it. He was hiding things from her. Someone he was supposed to love, someone he had wanted to marry once.
Goddesses damn her, she'd wanted to marry him too. Would've loved ruling beside him and having him near her—
Stop that. It's over.
Her father had been a tyrant. He'd spent his time drawing up battle plans and declaring war on anyone that dared oppose him. Even the Fae kingdoms—strong and powerful as they were—had been subjected to Ifreann's violence. If Elaina had a gentle king beside her, someone like—
In a rage and through tears, a scream escaped her. She couldn't escape him, as desperately as she wanted to. That love for him that stirred her heart awake at night haunted her and her empty bed. Her study felt vacant and lonely without him scaling the palace to join her on her balcony seats. She gritted her teeth to silence herself and wrapped her arms tightly around her waist, knowing not even life and death itself could calm the curse in her blood as reap threatened to take hold of her completely.
Every heir to the Dorcha throne that had walked the fragile earth before her had been free from what she was feeling; the magic—the curse that ate her alive consumed her every waking second, it kept her from finding someone she could spend her life with, it kept her awake at night and had completely devoured what had remained of her soul since the goddesses had taken all of her that could've possibly remained from her years of being deathly ill. It had been impossibly painful and violently long—her sickness and her time with the goddesses in the Wilt. If only she had the willpower to take back what had been stolen from her. But, if she did that, what would that leave her with? Her soul wouldn't be worth the loss of the life she'd grown to lean on—the knowledge and the raw power and the terror she could inflict on anyone that so much as looked at her for too long.
That archduke had been right. She'd become a tyrant.
And she wasn't trying to change it.
***
With reap and sow carefully locked away in her mind, Elaina let Nyla carefully pull the silk gloves from her arms. "The Fae will appreciate seeing your magic, princess," the girl assured her, sensing the Crown Princess's hesitation to show her thorns to anything—living or dead. A jolt of anxiety shot through her suddenly as reap tested the limits she'd set, and her body reacted, however brief, and shuddered.
"I don't want them to see it," said Elaina. Her shoulders felt heavier than usual as that cape of blue velvet was draped over her—she ground her teeth together when her attempt to hide her scarred and inked arms was thwarted by another servant girl swatting her hands away, unable to even find the energy to reprimand her. Nyla was quick to brush her hair from her face and tilt her chin up before Elaina was allowed to put her crown on her mess of curls.
"I know, my lady," she said, "but it's a show of power. They have magic too, remember."
"I remember." Another shudder took her. Her curse tested the limits of her control again.
Nyla put a hand on her shoulder to steady her as she stood from her vanity and took a deep breath. "We're with you every step of the way, mistress."
"Promise?"
"Wilt keep me."
Damn it all. I shouldn't have sent Adrian and the dogs. Gods, I need him here. I don't know this like he does— "Breathe, my princess. You've nothing to be afraid of." Her handmaid kept a gentle hand on her elbow and kept stride with her out of her palace wing, the presence of her keeping Elaina grounded through her own fear.
"Nyla," she mused. "I don't believe I ever caught the name of the woman with you at dinner before—after the Garneria fiasco." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the girl blush with the strain of keeping a grin off her face.
"Cyro," Nyla murmured, almost giddy. "Do you like her, majesty?"
So genuine, so innocent—the sweetness in her bright soul made up for the lack of light in Elaina's own. "If she makes you happy—and doesn't take away from your duties to me, then yes, I adore her." The princess, to her own credit, had a hard time fighting a smile as well.
"Well you let us marry?" Nyla asked.
Elaina blinked, but didn't slow as her fingers delicately found the railing of the staircase. "I haven't been introduced to her, and you want her to move into my palace with you? Surely, you've gone completely mad." Humor...wasn't her strong suit. But she tried—goddesses willing, her handmaid knew her well enough to appreciate her joke.
"I have indeed, my lady. I'll have you meet her when I'm sure she's suited."
"Good girl," Elaina smirked. "When the time comes—with her, or another, mind you—you have my blessing—within reason. I don't want a harem galavanting around my castle like I'm running a boarding house." Her handmaid chuckled at her, but the princess's focus was on the sound of new voices in her throne room. A lilting thrum of accents and new languages—sow leaped to the surface at the prospect of giving life to the tired travelers after a long journey to Lasair.
A Fae king in Ryverin. What was she thinking? What if Adrian came back with new allies—human allies—and Elaina had just isolated her people from the majority of Opheria? A whole damn continent, and she'd had to jump the river for the Fae kingdoms on her side. One day her impulsivity would be the death of her, surely. But as she entered the throne room, nothing but regality and goddess-chosen blood, she knew the Fae could smell what was wrong with her. One look at her silver-grey eyes, and they knew. Any noble that knew about the God Sisters knew the mark of someone that had given all they had to each of them.
Ascending her throne, Nyla keeping close by her right as always, Elaina looked the king up and down, taking in true blood magic; nothing like the curse she'd been given by Miro and her sisters. She'd admit it, he was magnificent. Dashing, her mother may have called him. Sandy blond, built, confident, flawless. She couldn't help imagining what he must've looked like in his own kingdom, to his own people, if this was how he presented himself to a potential ally. She was wary of him, though. All her teachings and all of Miro's knowledge hadn't left her stupid—the dark eyes that scanned over her for every weakness seemed to bleed a hunger that she hoped she'd never have to understand. Her mind ran rampant with potential scenarios, what she'd have to do if he turned on her, but the cold air in the room disappeared when he smiled at her—warm and inviting, and he bowed to her.
"Lady Dorcha," he purred, that same lilted accent she'd heard from before hitting her again. Those dark brows deceived his respectful gesture, as one of them cocked up like he was fighting a smirk. "On behalf of the kingdom of Amare, I would like to thank you for considering us for alignment."
Elaina was careful to hide her laugh as a cough. "Sorry," she choked, "which one are you, may I ask?" She watched carefully as those hungry eyes narrowed on her, and she challenged him by raising her own brows. Nyla sucked in a breath—she felt it too. The air stilled, the curtains seemed to stall midflight and fall limp against the picture windows around them, clouds darkened the sky. So, you think you can startle me, do you?
"You think you're smart?" the king spat. A hand trembled at his side; Elaina tilted her head as the storm outside continued to brew above them and human blood ran cold.
"Miro herself blessed me, so, yes. I believe I am."
"That wasn't what I asked you."
Oh, gods forgive her, she was enjoying herself. There was no hiding her small laughter at the pitiful excuse to intimidate her—and especially with powers she herself had already demonstrated control over. For the most part, anyhow. "Brayar," she stood from her throne and stepped towards him, heels clicking on the stone beneath her as she approached what she perceived to be nothing more than a child having a tantrum. "I appreciate you traveling all this way to meet with me, your highness. Truly, I am grateful for your audience. You'll have to forgive me if I seemed disrespectful—it's the custom of my people. I only meant to lighten the mood." Behind her, Nyla snickered. Lying through her teeth had usually gotten her her way before—she blamed Molerin for that trait, and she would take that blame to her own grave.
Around them, the storm stopped. The world returned to its axis, everything seemed as it once had. That warm smile returned to Brayar's face, and he made the bold move to clap the princess on the shoulder—had he been anyone else, she would've cut the hand off herself, but she needed that hand on her side. "Of course, Lady. Forgive me, if you will. We aren't used to your peoples'...jokes."
She didn't like the way he said that word, but she wouldn't dare tell him that until she had him on his knees. "Join us for dinner, won't you?"
Somewhere in the midst of the laughing and trading of war stories, the princess had had more than her fill of wine. Hellfire, they all had. Brayar had, at some point, attempted to remark on Elaina's blackened scars, but the comment had been lost when Nyla had pulled on her own Fae blood to impress the people that had betrayed her. A simple little spark, but for a girl to look so human and still bear so much Fae blood was so enthralling that the king had forgotten about her cursed marks. Uproarious laughter and a kingdom's share of a mess filled her dining hall—damn the flirtatious king for being so damn funny, damn his consort for being such a great storyteller, and damn her own staff above all for bringing them so much liquor.
"You—You're funny as shit, Claid—you know that, right? I really hope you do."
"Well," Brayar's consort slurred his words and continued to drink—how admirable. "Thank you for the compliment, mistress. I do like to believe I'm more sword than staff." Another burst of loud laughter shook the room at that, and Elaina even found herself banging on the table in her fit. It took all she had not to call for another round of drinks, knowing that she would be aching and bitching and cursing her own name in the morning for the ones she'd had already. Even the spread of food was too much—the amount of pork and bread alone they'd choked down could've fed a family for a month, and she and the Fae and their courtiers were eating and drinking their fill. She hadn't even once thought of her magic, or Arlero, or her parents. None of them mattered then. High and happy and drunk and senseless and laughing with a king she would eventually fight for an empire with.
Before she could catch her breath and come up with some sort of retort, the doors to her banquet hall burst open with a force strong enough to silence the lot of them. Nothing was heard but the feverish steps of Casta, and the clanking of armor—
"Adrian? What's going on?" she asked, heart jumping into her throat. Her Guard Captain looked cold and distant, and in her drunken stupor she didn't notice what he carried with him right up until he set it on the table. Right in front of Brayar and Claid, a human head rolled onto a platter—Elaina couldn't jump from the table fast enough as Nyla's scream broke the silence. "What—Adrian, what—"
"That," Adrian pointed at the head, low and tense, "is a piece of Bristle that we found on the northern border."
"But I thought—Maven won't let violence near the Dorian Breach, right? How—How'd he—" Gods above, poor Bristle. He'd only been a boy. She didn't even want to look at him as the fear began to sober her—she'd be sick from worry and grief and disgust if she did.
"He wasn't killed there, princess." Taking her arm, Adrian gently led her from the table as one of his men took her page, and maids began to clean up the mess around them. Brayar and his company were taken off to the guest wing, and Adrian finally returned his gaze to her. Tell me, she whispered. He took a long, slow breath, eyes squeezed shut, and took her hand. "With good conscience, I can't let him run free anymore, Elaina. The men your Arlero is running with—they did that to him. He was summoned to retrieve a letter for you from that outlaw, and they slaughtered him. A boy, Elaina. They murdered a child. I know your affections for him, but my position dictates that I can't just let him get away and head back up into Mount Atlas to disappear until that sickness claims him. I'm bringing him in, and you can't stop me."
Those words struck her heart worse than an arrow could have. Her Arlero, accused of murder. He'd never—she knew him. He wouldn't have laid hands on that boy. Surely he couldn't be damned for the crimes of someone else. It wasn't fair to him—it wasn't fair to her. She couldn't lose him so violently. "He'll die if you do that. They all want to see him swing for what my father said."
Adrian gritted his teeth and turned from her—he knew it was so she couldn't see his real intentions brewing in his soul with her damned soulseer's curse. His stance, cold and completely opposite of the friend she loved so dearly, put him at odds with her. He shut her out. "Maybe that's for the best, then. Maybe it's better for everyone if he's finally hanged."
She snapped. "You wouldn't dare." Her own words concealed a promise that she knew she wouldn't be able to keep—not on Adrian. Not when he heard the heaviness in her voice, or felt the shaking in her body before he'd let go of her hand.
With a final sigh and a slow unsheathing of his sword, her friend glared at her from the corner of his eye and muttered a simple, "Watch me." The letter Bristle had died to retrieve was shoved against her chest, and Adrian left her there with her misery, drunk and alone.
***
In the dead chill of the morning, with her head pounding from tears and wine, she clutched the bloodstained letter in her hand and made her way to the balcony in her study—where she'd first snuck that damn outlaw into her bedroom from. Robe tied tight around her waist and footsteps near silent on the cold stone, she locked the door behind her, and as soon as she was sure no one would get in without busting the damn door down, she ran to the full-size windows that led onto the balcony and flung them open with a force that made the glass shudder. That rush of chilly air, cold wind wrapping around her legs and rustling papers, sow making her reach for the wilting rose vines lining the balcony rails, and she cried again. The pain of imagining his death hurt worse than anything she'd felt in the Wilt, anything her father and his tutors had done to her, anything Arlero had ever said to break her heart—the thought of waking up in a world empty of his light tore sobs from her that she couldn't stop to save her life. Were she a peasant girl, she'd be allowed on the gallows with him, she'd be allowed to pull his body close and hold him and pay off the executioner to kill her as well—she sobbed. She let her legs give out and crumpled to the ground on the balcony, she pulled her knees up to her chin, the letter she was afraid to read close to her heart, and she sobbed.
All her years with Adrian, growing with him and confiding in him, loving him like a brother, and he was using the power he'd been given over the law as a tool against her. After all, she was only a princess. He'd been appointed by the king to carry out the law. She couldn't intervene without being damned herself.
If they were going to murder Arlero for a crime she knew—in her heart of hearts, she knew—he didn't commit, she would gladly throw herself on the chopping block beside him. Goddesses be damned. Yes, she'd loved Bristle like she loved everyone in her palace—he was just a boy doing his duty, and she mourned him, but Bristle had tolerated Arlo in his young years. He wouldn't want to see his princess' lover hanged for something he'd never done, would he?
Willing her sobs to subside and her breathing to even again, Elaina wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her gown and crossed her legs. Shaking hands worked carefully around the seal and pulled the bloodstained, tear-soaked, bent letter out of its envelope. If it was the last letter her Arlero would ever write her, she knew the prospect of keeping a level head while reading it was near impossible. Her magic attempting to calm her violent tremors and constant tears drowned out the voices of her diplomats and courtiers and maids outside her door and in the palace wings around her and in the garden below her as she finally found the start of the letter.
My Elaina, my wife under the stars,
I pray this letter finds you well. I know we said our goodbyes, and I won't forget the promise we made all those years ago—that if we ever said that word, that damned 'goodbye', we wouldn't speak again, but I can't let go just yet. There's still so much I needed to say to you.
You don't ever have to reply. I just...I needed to get it out of my head. So I can finally let you go, and you don't have to worry about anything being unsaid. I know how the unknowns with me when we were young kept you up at night so often.
First, you were right. We're different. I won't ever change. I truly can't leave this life—not now. I fear I'll die this way, and I need you to know that nothing coming to me is your fault, darling. You are my mate, my love, the One the Sisters sent to me. I told you that, the night we made love, I told you that you're all that mattered to me. That's still true. But this life, this world—I want nothing more than to slip away in the night and be with you until the world ends, but it's...not so simple. If I tell you, and someone finds out, they'll kill you. And I can't live with the thought of you being hurt because of me. I won't be able to live in a world where you don't wake up. But, you were right. I don't love you like I did when we were young. I'm not the same man, you aren't the same woman. But I'll never stop loving you, Elaina. I won't ever wake up a single morning without you weighing on my heart like you always have. You are my sun and stars.
Second, I'm afraid the night we shared will be our last, dramatic as that may sound. There was a reason for my fear. I'm unsure of how long I have, and whether bounty hunters catch me or Maven comes for me, I need you to know that you made every day the first time I was ill with this sickness livable. I lived for you, my princess. Please, I beg you, don't follow me into the abyss. Lay me to rest in the wildflowers south of the castle—where we first kissed, if memory serves—and let me go.
Let me go, Elaina. For your sake.
Damn it all, I wish I'd been brave enough to marry you. I never loved another as I loved you. I suppose, if you want to think of it like this, for that one night, you were my wife and I your husband, like we'd always wanted.
The ring I gave you—that your mother threw in the fireplace—I'm giving it back to you. Wear it, sell it, chuck it into the ocean, whatever you please, but it leaves me and goes to the one it was always meant for. I kept it near my heart for all these years apart from you, and I hope it...brings you comfort.
I'll always love you, Eylra. My heart, my soul, my eternity, it belongs to you. Take it and rip the stars from the sky.
From the sun, to the stars,
Arlero.
Molerin herself could not have rattled the world with as much agony and anguish as ripped through Elaina. Over and over, her eyes darted back over the page, her shaking fingers drifted to the envelope, and—the bastard—the little black diamond ring he'd worked himself ragged to buy her tumbled out, connected to the chain she'd seen around his neck in the market. Tears flowing freely again, she pulled the ring up and held it against her chest, finally finding that agonizing scream that had been locked in her chest for so long.
The next days passed in a blur. Diplomacy was deemed mundane, and simply for the passing of time, she let Amare ally with Ryverin. Without a word, she stamped her family's seal on the pamphlet and sent it off, declaring the Fae her allies. She would deal with the consequences when they came. Her mind was too clouded to focus on anything that mattered to her people—it was all on Adrian and his warpath to Arlero. Her father had given him absolute power, more power than even she had, and she couldn't stop him. She knew she couldn't. She only had her curse and her name to contest him—
A thought struck her.
Molerin. The goddess of storm and fire and blood. Her altar—Elaina was the Daughter of Stars. Sold to the goddesses to inherit absolute power. She would take it.
Securing Arlo's chain around her neck and tucking the letter in her desk, she scrambled to her feet and lunged for the door. There was Nyla, waiting with worried eyes for her mistress to emerge. "Nyla," Elaina hissed, "have Anam ready. I need to take a trip."
"Who's going to take your place?"
"You're my only one, little dove. You hold the line."
And the princess ran.
***
She hated pushing Anam to gallop—she knew how much the hot sands of Garneria had to hurt against his hooves and skin. The wind whipped at her hair and burned her face, but damn her, she would throw herself into the fires of Molerin's own underworld if it meant she could have what she'd been promised. If she could sell a piece of her own mortal life to save another, she would sell it all.
Panicked, desperate, burned, sweating, blistered, and terrified, Elaina slowed Anam to a halt outside of Molerin's Bloodbourne altar. She burned her hands on the red earth as she crawled up the steps to that altar. Her horse nickered behind her when she cried out in pain at touching the flames of Molerin. A blade in the fire glimmered with searing heat and she swallowed. Gripping the handle with a shaking left hand she pulled it from its scolding sheath, took a deep breath, pointed the tip at the crook of her right arm, found the vein running up her arm, and ripped the white-hot knife from her elbow to her wrist. Sow's flowering vines darted away from the wound, and it took all the strength in her body to keep her yelps muffled as she pushed her wounded arm into the flames and prayed for the goddess of fire.
Daughter of Stars, came Molerin's seething voice, everywhere and nowhere. Elaina opened her eyes and stood, the blazing desert of Garneria faded away to Molerin's own dwelling forged of blood and ash. The towering spirals that surrounded her burning altar still stood in front of her, built of brimstone like the other rubble structures in Bloodbourne. There, atop the altar, in a gown of storm grey, sat Molerin, lounged across the stone, her bare feet dipping into the moat of blood-red water around them. "Truly desperate, dear daughter. My sister not enough for you, I presume?" Her cat-like eyes scanned Elaina's every pore, surveying the battered princess like she was going to make an offer, and then those simmering honey eyes met hers, waiting for an answer.
"I'm not strong enough. I need more." The words tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them, and the greed she felt rose to the surface. Molerin, dainty and deadly, stepped from her throne of embers and took Elaina's left hand in her own, holding up her shaking arm and snaking her clawed fingers across the mark she herself had left on the princess's skin. In the iron coffin of magic in her mind, she felt sow cower at the goddess's venomous touch.
"Your greed will be your undoing, young princess, but I admire your ferocity. For a lover, am I correct?"
Knowing Molerin already knew the answer, Elaina chose truth. "Yes."
"You are...afraid? Afraid for him."
"Yes."
Dropping her arm, the Bloodbourne mistress took Elaina's chin in her hand, nails piercing her skin. "Tell me his name, child."
That was the line she couldn't cross. Never, never would she let one of her curse givers know the name of one of her most beloved two. "He doesn't have one."
She'd been right about who her new magic had come from after all. At her refusal, Molerin stepped away from the girl cursed with magic, and without so much as lifting a finger, hoisted her in the air. The moment her toes left the ground, she panicked. Her chest tightened as though someone was squeezing the breath out of her, she clawed at an invisible hand the same way Adrian and Casta had, and just before she could lose herself to the darkness and damn herself as the goddess's slave, she blurted out his name. "Arlero." Crashing to the ground, she coughed, the sound ravaging her throat and nearly forcing her back into the memories of sickness from long ago—from before she'd had her own soul stolen. "His name is Arlero. They're going to kill him and I—I need to kill them before they can get to him. I need your fire, Queen Mother. Reap isn't enough. I want to torch them for hurting me like this."
Molerin pulled Elaina's head up by her hair. "All you humans are the same. Nothing more than greed and pride; I detest the way my sisters love you so." Blank and empty, the goddess released her and stalked back to her throne of flame. "Soulreaper," she called Elaina with a harsh edge, and the princess glanced at her through hooded eyes, head tilted down in the genuine fear of realizing exactly what she'd done. Molerin smirked. "You aren't here to save that plaything of yours. You've only tricked yourself into believing that to be the case, am I wrong?"
The princess, shocked to her core, stared at the floor, eyes widened and jaw slack. She wrestled with her thoughts, searching for the lie Molerin was telling—and found nothing. There had been a deeper motive. "Yes," she said, ragged. "I...I deceived myself."
Not missing a beat, no move save a scoff of confidence, the goddess growled, "Tell me what you want from me, Soulreaper." Elaina's eyes met hers, reap wrenched its way out of its holding in her mind and clawed to the surface, and Elaina, from that floor of brimstone, mimicked the action. Her dull nails scraped into the ground and she crawled forward, towards the altar-turned-throne, and slammed her left hand into the flames beside Molerin.
"Everything."
***
What a sight she must've been, returning to Lasair on the sunset of the third day of her absence. She rode Anam silently through the streets of her home city, her grey eyes brandished the smoldering embers of a Bloodbourne queen around the irises, trails of sparks followed each step of her horse—her people fell into a fearful quiet as they saw her approach. Parting like the sea, they paved her a path towards the gallows, and she set her sights on the scaffold—on the man calling out to the people in words she couldn't hear, declaring a traitor and a murderer of a man she couldn't look at for fear of breaking. When the crowd fell silent, no longer chanting the cries for the death of the man in the noose, the other man spotted her.
"Rat," she snarled, slinging a leg over Anam's neck and dropping to the ground—her sights entirely fixed on Casta as she handed her horse's reins off to a groom.
"Lady Dorcha," Casta bowed low, attempting to hide a grin she'd already spotted, "how gracious of you to join us for the festivities."
"That's mistress to you, bastard," Elaina spat at him—bared her teeth as she stood alone in front of the scaffold. "As your Crown Princess, I order you to—"
"—And as your king, I order you to remember your place, girl." His grin widened to a sneer when he saw the shock—the terror flash across her face as she hurried to process what she'd heard. Before she could finish thinking, before she could even open her mouth, he continued, "Your absence, so declared by your own Guard Captain—who, of course, noted your unwillingness to hang a murderer for his crimes—was an act of treason, under your father's law. Therefore, the crown has been handed to the next in line on his list of successors—as his advisor, that would be me."
Her heart completely stalled—dropped to her stomach. No... In her terror, her confusion, Casta took advantage to play his final hand. "Since the traitor has returned to pay for her crimes, she may be brought up to the gallows to atone. Guards, if you will."
Snapped out of her shock by hands linking around her forearms, she lurched to the side—or attempted to. "This isn't right!" she yelled, desperately looking around for someone to step in. "I chose someone to hold the palace for me—I was gone to worship—You can't usurp me for visiting the goddesses that chose me." Dragged up the steps and forced to her knees, she spat at Casta when he pulled her head up. "I'll have your head for this," she swore, trying to ignore her own trembling. Before the guards lifted her up to put her in her place next to—him, Casta made a move that had clearly been simmering in him for decades, and slapped her. Hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to bruise—had she a few extra seconds, she would've spat that blood at him too.
Her new powers—flames and darkness that she'd bled and given years for, would be useless unless she could calm herself. Perhaps, were she just a little more brave, she could calm herself—maybe her terror could sow the seeds of some new strain of fire that could at least get her away. One last-ditch attempt at salvation as her hands were bound, she looked around for Adrian; her oldest and dearest friend wouldn't let her be hanged, would he?
She wished the Fae king Brayar was still around nearby—she could declare war and steal her crown back. But, she supposed it was too late for that. They finally pulled Arlero's gag and hood off, and her heart ached at the sight of the bruises and cuts on his sweet face. Distantly, Elaina could only wonder how many of her staff had been killed in the prior days. Wilt keep her, she prayed they were all safe. As safe as they could be with Casta stealing her throne.
"Last words, Lady Dorcha?" She heard the sneer in Casta's voice and felt her blood begin to boil—
"Tell Adrian that he can take his idea for a vacation and hang himself with it."
"Always the clever one. Executioner, when you're ready."
—and boil, and boil—
Lightning behind her. In a desperate attempt to save herself and her damned outlaw, Elaina lit the world on fire. Cinders and soot rose around them, and the two would-be hanged criminals dropped to the incinerated grass below. Quickly checking herself and Arlo, Elaina turned back to where Casta had been standing—and could've screamed when she discovered him unharmed. Surely, her fire should've blown him away like it had the men standing near him—it hadn't been on her mind to save anyone but herself and Arlero from the flames. But there the rat stood, his near-black eyes locked on her, and that same damn smile on his face. So that's what they gave you, I see.
Around them, chaos was exploding in the courtyard. Fire spread from the grass and made quick work of the market stalls—and whatever poor souls that were trampled by the stampede of shrieking people. But the princess kept her eyes locked on her new adversary as she stood herself up from the ashes, nothing but flame and darkness surrounding her. Distantly, she heard Arlero call for her. Felt him grab her sleeve and try to pull her away. But she wanted Casta. She wanted to feel the blood of her father's advisor in her hands, down her arms. She wanted to drain the life from him and let reap have all it wanted of that disgusting rat of a man. She wanted to string up his entrails on the pikes lining the walls surrounding her palace, she wanted to flay him alive and serve him to his supporters, she wanted a crown made of his ribs and jewelry of his eyeballs and—
And then there was Adrian, worried, putting himself between them. Right there, right where she couldn't see Casta for a split second, and in the moment it took her to fling her old friend to the side, he was gone. She did scream at that. Rage, hate, agony, she screamed. She turned on Adrian with a fury she'd never felt and gripped him by the throat, going so far as to straddle his waist and get to the ground with him just so reap could feed on his fear. "What did you do?" She shrieked, shaking him violently as tears trekked down her cheeks. Arlero coughed behind her—she just barely heard it, it worried her, but nothing could pull her from her rage in that moment. She screamed out another order, an order to answer her, and all Adrian could do was close his eyes like he was bracing for impact.
"I was just doing my job, princess."
If it weren't for her damned attachment, she would've snapped his neck. But instead of that, she slammed him back on the ground and stood up, trying to ignore the raging wildfire surrounding them now, and held her hand out for him. "Let's go. Both of you—" she glanced back at Arlero, finally, who was struggling to stand—presumably after the beating Adrian had given him. "Get up, Adrian. Before I change my mind and burn you alive." She felt Arlero tug at her sleeve again—saw him glare at Adrian while leaning close to her. Dominance.
"We need to go, Eylra," he urged. Elaina gritted her teeth.
"I need answers."
"And you'll get them," Adrian returned. He didn't take his eyes off Arlero as he stood, and, once again, Elaina could only imagine how the men around her saw her—her, in all her goddess-given fire and fury. "Just...not today. Not right now."
Goddesses save her, Wilt keep her—had she the energy, she would've hoisted him to the pikes. "You were going to let me die." The scent of an oncoming storm mixed with the smoke of the fires dimming in her city, and it took all her power to keep her trembling hand from pulling a pin from her hair and stabbing him with it.
"Never, princess, I—It's a long story."
"Three days. I was gone for three days, Adrian. And now—I've—" Turning away from him to hide the tears in her eyes, she couldn't stop herself from shooting one last dagger towards him. "If I didn't need you for information, I'd do to you exactly what you were going to let them do to me, boy."
A long wave of silence passed between the trio; long enough that the fires had died and the rains of a springtime storm had begun. But, even after Arlero had sheltered himself beneath the remnants of a tin roof from a market stall and left the princess and her guard alone in the rain, Elaina turned her face to the sky and closed her eyes. A few pathetic, pitiful sobs escaped her before she could regain her composure. "You were just doing your job," she whispered, lowering her face and brushing rain-soaked curls out of her eyes. Before Adrian could speak again, she gripped her father's signet ring tightly, and made damn sure it and all the damned diamonds and jewels on the back of her hand made contact with that traitor's cheek when she hit him. Never, in her twenty-two years of living as a princess in that castle had she ever laid a hand on anyone that worked for her family, but at that moment—she could justify the blood she had to flick from her jewelry. Stunned by the impact, Adrian stayed as silent as the dead when she jerked him towards her by the collar. "You will meet me in Briste Bay tomorrow, with a full report on exactly what happened here and why, or I will destroy you, Adrian."
She felt the fire in her blood as she stared at him and knew he had to see it, too. He had to see it in her eyes like the rest of them. When he nodded, she released him to wipe the blood off his face. "Get out of my sight," she snarled.
And just like that, as he bowed to her and left, the fight died in her. She hung her head as the storm steadily eased away and the sun returned; Arlero was back by her side when he was certain she was calm and the rain had stopped. "What now, princess?"
Elaina huffed—a sad excuse for a laugh as she looked at everything she'd caused. "You're the criminal," she said. "You tell me."