She was damn lucky her people liked her more than they'd liked her parents; Arlero had only been able to make it halfway between Lasair and Briste Bay before his breathing had become too labored to push much farther, but the inn owner in the village of Ciel had been more than welcoming to the disgraced princess and her companion. So, there she sat: scrubbing the blood out of her rings while assuring the inn owner's wife that she wanted no special treatment. Elaina was cordial, making idle chit-chat with the woman and her children—going so far as holding one of them as the exhausted mother sat down to rest, and was sure to learn every name she was given. The father of the house, Marta, did his best to help Arlero's breathing—taking every piece of advice that the tired mother gave him to "help that poor boy". Elaina had laughed at that remark.
"My lady," the mother—Terese—finally said, pulling Elaina's attention from the baby she was bouncing on her lap. "If I may ask, who is your companion to you?" Her face showed the concern of a mother worried for her child, and Elaina felt a twinge of guilt in her heart.
"Arlero is... He's a dear friend of mine, miss. We've known each other for many years." Keep it short, keep it polite. It was better that way. Even though she did see Arlo wince at what she said. Quickly, before she could linger on how his eyes narrowed and he could try to reach out to her, she turned her attention to the toddler on her lap. "And who might this be?"
Terese smiled—mildly surprised by her wanting to avoid the subject, Elaina assumed, but still leaned forward to brush her baby's cheek. "All respect to you, princess—her name is Solas. After—"
"Me?" Something like—like pride swelled in her chest at that. There was something so distant about being who she was, something that kept her from really seeing what she appeared to be to the people she was raised hidden from. The child on her lap reached for its mother and pulled her own attention back to the issue at hand. Terese, noticing the shock gripping Elaina, smiled again as she planted a kiss on the child's head. Solas.
"Our own goddess-given child. A daughter from the stars, like her namesake."
From the corner of her eye, Elaina caught Arlero's sad eyes on her. Part of her attempted to ignore him, to save face in front of her people, but everything in that moment—she was entirely drained. Her journey, her powers, her emotions, everything had taken all the energy she had. "Terese, forgive me," she murmured, setting her rings down on the table, "can you show me where I'll be sleeping?"
Without so much a breath of insult or defeat, the innkeeper's wife stood from her stool and beckoned Elaina to follow, children following their mother to the heel. There was that twang of guilt in her heart again, watching how Terese doted on them and how they followed her like puppies.
Speaking of puppy— Elaina heard Arlero's off-beat footsteps at the other end of the hall, keeping himself at a commendable distance but still making sure she was in his sight. Bastard.
She was quick to wipe the scowl from her face by the time Terese turned to her and opened a bedroom door. "It's not much, but it's warm and safe."
"Then it's the best in the world, den mother," Elaina returned sweetly, dipping her head to the tired woman. "Thank you—please, rest."
"Is that an order from the queen, my lady?" Terese said, grinning. Elaina couldn't hide the laugh that escaped her.
"As a matter of fact, it is," she said. "Goodnight, mistress."
"And to you, Lightbringer."
As Elaina closed the door, she could hear Terese guiding Arlero to his room, even though the princess was sure they all knew where they would find him in the morning. Paranoia told her to lock her door, but common sense knew anyone after her would break it down.
For a moment, as she sat down on the creaking bed, she missed Adrian. She missed the safety of her guard, the stability of her daily routine, the friends she always had near her. Arlero meant more to her than she knew was healthy, yes, but he wasn't enough. Unbuckling her boots, she supposed part of her curse would be that eternal hunger. Nothing would ever be enough. Not people, or money, or power—none of it would ever be enough to satisfy her.
The curse. She tugged her sleeves up and glanced down at her arms—in a moment of fleeting panic, she was worried the rose vine scars had vanished and left her with nothing, but there they were. She took a breath, watching the petals on either arm fade and bloom and wilt and fade again. All she had to show for her years of misery and sickness to gain power enough to rule the world. Some damn rose petals and thorns that pricked her like needles.
Her momentary panic faded into exhaustion again as she stripped her riding clothes to her chemise—goddesses save her, the courtiers would die if they caught wind of her undressing herself and not finding some lavish and stupidly expensive gown to sleep in once and throw away. Damn them all. Damn them all to kingdom come and back again—damn their money and their security, damn their happiness. She hoped they all burned with her kingdom when Casta finally decided to destroy what was left of her. Settling back into the covers and wrapping them around her as tight as her weakened arms could muster, Elaina buried her face in her pillow—and cried.
The inn was quiet when she heard the rap on her door. Sneaking a dagger from her boot, she clutched it to her chest—like that would save her if some magical rat had come to kill her, or a sword—she tugged the door open and—
"You could've stabbed me!" Arlero whispered, prying the knife from her trembling fingers—silently asking to come in as he did it, but didn't advance on her until she'd stepped away from the door frame. Before he could say whatever had compelled him to come find her, Elaina all but threw herself at him and buried her face in his chest. "Darling?" Gently, he moved towards the bed and pulled her into his lap. Had it been any other night after any other day, she would've been disgusted by it—disgraced for it, but she needed him then. She needed him to hold her and stay near her and shut up for a few minutes so she could think. "What is it, Eylra," he asked, nudging her cheek until she looked up at him. So much for silence.
Glancing up at him, fully aware of how helpless and pitiful she had to look dressed like a street kid with eyes red from crying, she brought a hand up to his neck and kissed him. Deep, slow, needy, she moved from being cradled by him to straddling him, her knees on the bed behind him. His surprise melted away with a groan as he said, "I thought you said we couldn't be together anymore?"
Her heart broke at remembering how badly she'd hurt the both of them—him especially. They'd been young and stupid when they'd first fallen in love—not unlike they were now—but that didn't change how she felt for him or him for her. No matter what, they always found the painful road back to each other. She kissed him again, draping her arms over his shoulders. "I said a lot of shit that was true—and completely meaningless to me."
"You want me?"
"I want you."
Arlero held her against him firm enough to turn her onto her back and lay her against the mattress, kissing at her neck and growling all those damn Moranth runes against her skin until she was begging him not to stop speaking in the language he had refused to teach her years ago. Her fingers knotted in his hair, her leg hiked around his hip, he brought his lips back to hers and the goddesses themselves couldn't separate them then.
***
As prideful as she was, she wasn't ashamed of how many times she had imagined a morning exactly like that—the two of them tangled up in each other and nothing in the world existing but them. It almost seemed unfair to need to separate herself from him to function.
Sitting up, Elaina ran a hand through her mussed curls as she stared down at the outlaw in her bed. Dear friends, eh? She brushed her fingers over his cheek and tossed the covers back over him as she stepped onto the hearth-warmed wood floor. Losing herself in early light and rustic decor, she tugged Arlero's undershirt from where it had been abandoned on the footboard and slipped it over her head and breathed deep, praying with her whole soul that she'd remember those quiet moments when she was old and alone in her own little cabin in the country.
"So much for goodbyes, right, darling?" She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice, and swore at him for scaring her. Still, he continued, "I suppose we usually end up together again, do we not?"
"Has there ever been a time where you've come limping back like a wounded dog and I haven't given my heart to you all over again?" She retorted, cocking a brow. He winked. "Scoundrel," she sneered. It was almost natural to crawl back into bed with him, nuzzling her way into his neck and kissing where she could as his arms wrapped around her. Calloused palms ran over her hips and he dragged his teeth along her jaw—she tried not to think about the previous week, letting his sweet nothings and warm body lull her back to sleep. Adrian would wait on her, if he knew what was good for him.
"Elaina," Arlero began; she hummed, snuggling against him more. "This might be a weird question." She hummed again and hid her face in his pillow. "If—We're...together, right?"
Elaina could've snorted as she pulled her face up to meet his confused gaze. Talk about a wounded dog—he's more like a puppy, looking at me like that. She set her hand on his cheek and ran her thumb over his bottom lip. "We can't seem to stay away from each other; time to stop defying the stars," she said quietly. "Why is that a weird question?"
He wouldn't meet her gaze. "That—that wasn't the weird question."
"Then...?"
He groaned and threw his arm over his eyes. "I'm a grown man," he mumbled—more to himself than her, but she still laughed and planted a quick kiss to his lips. "Don't—don't judge me for asking this, yeah? I don't—I don't know how Miro's stupid 'soulless eternal' rules work." She'd be lying if she said she wasn't getting worried, and pulled his arm down so she could see where his eyes were. See what his soul—that small, blazing fragment that he had left—could tell her, if anything. "So, if we're together, like this, more often," he fixed his eyes on the ceiling and swore under his breath. "I—I love you, you know I do—but I do not think us having a kid in all this is safe—"
Just to watch him squirm, the cruel mistress played dumb. "What're you saying, lover?"
"Oh, Maven drown me—contraceptives, Eylra. I can barely keep myself alive—a baby is—" Her laughing shut him up—her wheezing, broken laughter, entirely at his expense. "How funny. You're adorable when you play bitch, you know that?"
She recovered herself, sneered, and kissed his nose. "I know." She didn't stop grinning until she'd made him laugh with her. Still, the seriousness of his question made her fumble a little. "Do you want the serious answer, or the ignorant sinner's answer?"
"I think I would prefer the latter, if we're being honest, but the former is the truth, knowing you."
The princess had never imagined what this conversation would be like. Whenever she thought about it, she and Arlero were separated—gods above, her reign would've really been put into question if she'd put it in a letter and that letter had gotten out. She wasn't sure how she would go about telling him what the price of a hand-picked warrior heir had really cost her parents—and what their quest to get her there had cost her. "I...don't think they'll be necessary." He raised his brows, encouraging her to tell him the whole truth. "My bloodline for their magic. Ifreann traded Miro my fertility for her...gifts," she spat the word. "You can thank him for making your life easier—or infinitely miserable. Whichever you see it." Bitterness seeped into her tone, her eyes, her core. She'd never thought of the consequences of what she'd been through before, but the older she got, even at her age, she worried about her legacy. And the more nights she spent with Arlero sharing her bed, she wondered what the future in the castle would've been like for the two of them. If she was healthy and pregnant, if he had a chance to be a better father than either of them had, if she could be the mother she'd prayed for, if she could somehow be a soul-stealing bitch queen with children clinging to her legs. The thought wasn't unbearable—and it crushed her.
She knew how desperately Arlero had wanted children when they were younger. He said he'd wanted to start early—keep things safer, make it easier for her. She watched the pain flash across his face, and the anger that followed. Gently, he brought his hands up to cup her face, thumbs trying to smooth away the dark circles forming beneath her eyes. "We'll find a way to fix things, Elaina. I've sold my soul before—I'm not afraid to do it again. Not if it makes you happy." She caught his eyes dip down and immediately expected him to do something sinful to balance the bittersweet mood, but his fingers slid down the chain draping her neck and grasping the ring at the end of it. "You didn't have to keep it," he said. In response, she tugged his hand away and pulled the chain over her head and handed the ring back to him. "Figures—"
She covered his mouth with her hand, smirking as she said, "You called me your wife. In your last letter. Show me." She pressed her hand to his chest and waited, expectant glances between her hand and his face.
"I'm an idiot."
"It's okay, lover. I'm smart enough for the both of us."
His scoff turned into a full laugh as he gently took her left hand and slid the ring on her finger—the exact same way he'd done it when they were young and stupid and fawning over each other. An excited grin stretched across his face as he watched reap flinch away from such a loving gesture, and stretched even more as it nearly retreated when he brought her hand up to his lips and kissed each finger on the hand that at one time had been tensing to take his life. "My wife."
"A consort to a fugitive. It's exactly what my parents said would happen," Elaina grumbled, rolling her eyes at the thought. Arlero stole a kiss.
"I'm the consort—consort to the queen of all Opheria." His kisses traveled down her neck and his hands smoothed over her skin again, and the princess had to pull away before either of them had the chance to work each other up again. Especially when goddess-blessed senses and the hearing of a career criminal picked up the sound of footsteps making their way down the hall.
Bless the souls of the innkeeper and his wife. "What's one continent compared to the whole world?" Elaina returned; Arlero moaned and planted a biting kiss on her shoulder.
"You'll damn us all," he purred, gripping her chin and stealing one last kiss before slinking out of the bed, and taking up the space from there to the window in just a few steps. He winked at her as he slipped away, disappearing from view around the side of the building just before a knock rapt at her door.
"My lady? Are you awake?" came Terese's soft call. Elaina cleared her throat before replying and made an active effort to return some order to her disheveled appearance as the woman entered the room. "Oh, good, dear. Are you thirsty?" Terese handed her a glass as she stood—even assisting her in fastening her robe like the princess was completely incapable.
With a wicked grin, Elaina took the glass from her. "Parched."
The little girl clinging to her pant-leg as she and Arlero headed for the door made it all the more painful to make herself leave. Gods, how she would've loved a life like the family that had hosted them. She slipped a jewel-encrusted ring into Marta's hand as she shook it. "For your family," she murmured, dipping her head. She caught Arlero's little smile at her from the corner of her eye as Marta clasped his other hand over hers and shook them once.
"Long may you reign, Crown Princess."
"So long as a wolf still howls, I swear that I'll knock the goddesses from their thrones." She smiled and dropped their grips as Terese reached around her husband for an embrace from the princess.
"Maven keep you, Lightbringer."
"You as well, den mother."
As they were making their way ever slowly towards Briste Bay, the princess quickly found herself missing the luxuries afforded to her title. She complained most of the way to Arlero, like he gave a damn, like he hadn't lived a nomad for most of his life. She was still bumbling and fuming by the time she was hit with the cool ocean breeze of the bay—because, in Arlero's words, "you're a gods damned brat."
She could only enjoy the humor in his voice for a moment, because the second she saw Adrian and his militia, she and reap were on high alert. The magic in her blood coiled around her arm and snaked up her shoulder, mirroring the rage in her stomach with its ghastly temptation. She could scorch them, flay them, choke them until their necks snapped and their lungs collapse—Adrian would receive a special kind of misery for betraying her—
Arlero clasped his hand over hers, pulling her back to the moment. "Breathe, Eylra," he whispered, drawing her close. She watched how his eyes zeroed in on Adrian in the same way she had—like he was planning a traitor's death too. Sow was gentle in calming the both of them, curling languidly around their wrists in a sorry attempt to bring some humanity back to the bonded pair. Elaina loosed a breath.
"Okay," she murmured. "Okay."
Crossing that field towards the guards and the captain that she had known so well, she understood why Ifreann had always remained so bloodthirsty and brutal in his waking moments. She'd never known the rage and hate of a betrayal like that—not like her father had. For a fleeting moment, she wondered if he'd felt like this when she'd said she wanted to marry Arlero. Perhaps part of it had been paternal instinct to protect his pack, or maybe something to do with the nomad not making a decent king, but he'd been betrayed by his daughter, in some way. Maybe he'd felt like she was in love with her thief purely to spite him. She glanced up at Arlero, his jaw tight and brows low, and squeezed his hand. If only, father.
Her attention turned back to Adrian, hand on his sword and eyes locked on his princess. The only person he had ever genuinely had to answer to, and he'd abandoned her. Her breath shook at the memory. He was going to let me die. "Bastard," she spat as soon as she knew they were in earshot—just to watch him flinch. She would've kept advancing, would've walked closer and closer until he could feel her breath on his face and see the fire in her eyes that she'd nearly been assassinated over, but Arlero stopped, and his weight stopped her with him. "What is it?"
"He can't cross," said Adrian. "He's a fugitive. Briste Bay is part of my command."
Arlero bared his teeth. "If I get any closer, they'll shoot me." He jerked his head towards the three mounted guards behind Adrian, crossbows already locked on the outlaw's chest.
Elaina took a step back towards him and took a quick survey of her surroundings. Sure enough, there was the line marking the border between the Barrens and Ryverin; Arlero was only safe from his bounty in land that wasn't part of her father's reach, and the Barrens didn't belong to a soul. "Then he'll come to me." She snarled out the command to her former Guard Captain like she was calling a disobedient dog, and waited. The wind whipped at her bare skin and stung her eyes and she clenched her jaw, waiting for the stand-off to reach a precipice, and when Adrian didn't make a move towards her, she made him move. Reap moved quickly, a snake through the grass, and gripped his soul with the same strength and hate she felt in her core, and she let it suck him dry and expose his soul as he was dragged towards her through the shells and pebbles and sand. She stepped back again so reap could drop him over the border with her and her thief, out of reach of the army she'd gifted him.
"Speak," she growled, dropping her right hand from Arlero's. Her face scanned that of her old friend's, eyes immediately falling on the gash across his nose and cheek. Deep and jagged and a mark of what he'd done to her. "If you don't," she hissed, crouching to dig her nails into his chin, "I'll give you more than a scratch."
He tested her, eyes soft, like he didn't understand her anger. "We're friends, Ellie."
"We were family," she snapped, shoving him back into the dirt. "I loved you like a brother; look what that got me." She gestured to the greying bruise on her cheek and the knicks that covered it from Casta striking her the day before. "We were so good to you. Just some little kid that got dropped on the doorstep. You had everything you could've wanted, and you betrayed us—and you still have the gall to wear my family crest—my family."
It took all her strength to keep from bleeding him dry there in the grass, out of the command of his army and in the land owned by the earth. Even more strength to keep her tears at bay as the hurt became too much. "Why, Adrian. That's all I want. I just want to know why. I don't care what happened, I don't care what you got out of it, I just want to know why you did what you did."
Staring down at him, his soul completely open to her, she could've easily gotten the answers she wanted from that brave and stupid soul of his. It was the only way she'd find the truth—even she knew that. Humans lie, especially when they're cornered. He would say anything he thought she wanted to hear.
The soul swirling through his chest and surrounding his heart thrummed with pain and fear as she stood over him. Blues and silvers meshed and bled and looked as hurt as she felt. Miro's gifts battled in her heart, in her blood, reap and sow tangled in the mess of her mind as one tried to win out over the other. "Please, Adrian," she whispered. She heard Arlero's sharp intake of breath at the sound of her voice breaking, but she silently thanked him for keeping his distance from her and Adrian.
"There were whispers, princess. That you and—him—had run away together."
She could've screamed, could've stabbed him, but just dragged her hands down her face. "Who?" She returned. "Who told you that?"
Adrian swallowed, and in a tiny voice, unable to meet her eyes, whispered, "Casta."
If Arlero thought she was a brat, it was confirmed in that moment. The only way she could release her own frustration and get out what she was feeling without hurting anyone was to scream—screech—and she did. A bratty, mewling scream escaped her—she was sure not to stomp her feet. "Casta?" she squeaked, not biting back the bitter and angry laugh. It was so absurd— "You're an idiot. A gods damned fool. You damned us all over something a rat told you?"
"He seemed honest," was all he could say.
"He wouldn't know honest if it died in his bed—fuck—I—" A loss for words, eyes wild, hands knotted in her curls—Arlero touched her arm, mouthing calm down. "So—let me make sure I—no, I know what you said. You...you fucked the entire kingdom because of something he said, even though I had—Nyla, where's Nyla?" Her heart jolted and she grabbed Adrian by the collar, pulling his back up from the sand. "Where's Nyla?"
He hesitated. "I—I don't know."
"You don't know?" she yelled, slamming him back down. "My handmaid, my lady in waiting, Adrian, where is she?"
"I know who she is—I don't know where she is."
The heat surrounding them rose in her panic and it was then that Arlero stepped in, grabbing her arm and pulling her off Adrian. "Elaina," he hissed, gripping her by the biceps and standing her in front of him, "calm down."
She realized how insane she must've looked in that moment. She certainly felt it. "Arlo, I—" she reached up and held his face as she fought back the tears and the fire in her died. "I don't know what to do."
"And you think I do?" he mused, smirking. She didn't think it was as funny as he seemed to, and she jerked away from him.
"Get out of here, rat," she muttered, staring pointedly at Adrian.
"Rat?" he echoed. "I've never been anything but loyal to you—"
"And you betrayed me."
It was like lightning, how final that sentence seemed. And as if it couldn't be more painful, Adrian quipped back, "you betrayed us, too. Your parents and I. You picked him over us."
Elaina bared her teeth, reap ignited the fire in her blood. "This isn't about Arlero. This is about what you did to me."
"I never pegged you to be so selfish, Elaina," Adrian said. Her anger got the better of her then—it took Arlero calling out to her to pull her from the storm donated by Molerin that was raging in her head.
"Well," she seethed, "maybe you should've thought of that before you turned on me." She let reap take control again, ripping Adrain up by his throat and tossing him back across the border like he didn't weigh a damn thing. "Oh, Adrian," she called, smirking as his men lifted him back to his feet. "You should know better than to underestimate me; you never know what a spoiled princess might do if she doesn't get her way."
As she and Arlero turned to leave, she was certain Adrian mumbled something under his breath—something that, were he anyone else, she would've ripped the soul from his body over. Arlero was nervous as ever, constantly glancing over their shoulders, and when they were finally out of earshot, he grabbed her arm and leaned down to her level. "You realize they can still shoot me right?"
All Elaina offered was a wink.
***
No matter how much she loved the outlaw that had taken up residence in her bed, she would never be able to proudly say that she had allowed him to steal their dinner for them. She was damned ashamed of herself for having to stoop so low—but, then again, her childhood sweetheart had been doing that very thing long before they'd ever met. Arlero nudged a piece of meat—that she literally could not identify—towards her. She grimaced. "Arlo," she mumbled. He glanced up from his place across from her. Hunched over his food, he looked like a starving dog, terrified she was going to swipe whatever morsels he'd gathered off his plate. "Does it make me a fool if I admit that I have...no idea what we're doing?" He tilted his head. Cocked a brow. Maybe my father was right—he's actually a dog. "I mean—I'm not sure what our next move should be. I never thought I would need to think about something like this." Elaina felt so incredibly sorry for him as she watched him midthought, chewing on a cut on his lip from his scuffle in the days before the gallows.
"Well," he began, stretching and pushing the last of his food towards her, "we can either give up on Ryverin, strike out someplace new and start over, or we can test some old connections. I know a few people in the Underground—I'm sure your father has some old bats that would've walked with him into Death, and there's always the fae, that you apparently tried so hard to make a treaty with." He smirked at her with his last comment. "You're the all-knowing Soulseer. You tell me," he sneered. His eyes stayed trained on her as she processed what he said; she could feel the years of calculating stillness and readiness behind those dark, damn-near soulless eyes.
Elaina swallowed. "Right," she laughed nervously. "About that." Arlero raised his brows. An expectation. "Seeing souls, yes. All-knowing...no. Mother spun that yarn and told me to go with it. There is no 'Miro's gifted wisdom'. There's magic I haven't found, and magic I don't have. That's something I...don't actually have." Her gaze fixated on the plate in front of her, she waited for some great catastrophe. For a fight that she'd have to kill her way out of—like she would even be a challenge. There wasn't a bone in her body that would've been willing to hurt the man in front of her.
"Darling," he said at last, leaning forward and grasping her hand in his, "If you thought I would believe that you had your noggin blessed by a goddess, you really must take me for a bigger fool than I thought."
She changed her mind. She could've hit him. "I pour my heart out with a truth no one knows but you, and you mock me?"
"Isn't that my usual response?"
"I'm serious," she hissed, crossing her arms as his grin turned into laughter. "I'm glad it's so amusing." She slumped back against a wall, humiliated, but refusing to let him see that. All she offered was a pout as he crawled the dirt towards her.
"It isn't, darling, I promise." He pulled her hands gently from their places across her chest and held them in his own. "It's fucking hilarious."
"You're a pig."
"And you lost your sense of humor with your crown."
There is was. When he'd dig too deep and not realize it until it was too slick to climb back up. That, without a doubt, was the bastard she remembered her parents keeping her away from. When he saw her retreating further into herself, he dropped her hands. "You're too sensitive," he muttered. That one hurt her, too.
"You just don't know when to stop."
"Look, you know—"
"No, you know how I am. I'm not like you. I can't just—just wander from place to place for my entire life. You might be fine with living every day like you're going to be stabbed in the streets, but I'm not. I need structure, order, I need somewhere permanent—"
"You need to be right."
"I need to be r—stop that." She stood up. Almost knocked him from his spot in front of her. The teasing smirk on his face from before was gone, replaced by the same dead stare she knew he carried when he was beginning to isolate himself from her again. "Have your little fit if you want to, but do it alone. Come find me when you decide to stop being so damn cruel to me."
He opened his mouth to retort; they both knew he wasn't the only one at fault, but she'd stepped over him and made her way for the streets before he got the chance.
There were days she hated that bastard. Days where she understood why her mother and father had so viciously despised him. No matter how good they were in a single moment, by the next breath one of them always managed to somehow set the other off. She fiddled with the ring on her finger as she plodded lazily down the sand-dusted streets of some village she didn't even know the name of. Some princess she made, some queen she would've been. Barrens or not, she should've at least been able to get her bearings.
The emptiness inside her threatened to consume her. It ate up her mind—but, hell, it didn't take much to eat her alive anymore. Ferocious, the fearless Crown Princess—"bring me their heads", the soulstealer, the nearly coronated Queen of Ryverin—she scoffed. Some queen.
Maybe her parents had been in the right after all. They'd wanted her to pair off with Adrian and have two mighty, fearless warriors at the helm, childless or no. Maybe with a mortal man to play king, she'd feel a little more like the human she had been before the Wilt.
And then there was Arlero. What he'd sold his soul for—deception. The black where his soul was meant to be, what she'd seen in him, his trying to get her to say all she wanted was to be right...Damn him. She hadn't wanted to even think it, let alone acknowledge the truth about her dangerous mate. Mate. Another scoff. He'd sold his soul to be a decent kleptomaniac, that was all he was. A lying, thieving bastard that had taken everything he wanted from her again.
A question nagged at the back of her mind. Was it really about Arlero?
Maybe he was just bad luck, maybe it was just bad timing that everything had begun to go haywire as soon as she let him back into her life. It wasn't her fault she was in love with him. There was clearly something in him that her heart saw as worth fighting for. In that moment, she wasn't entirely sure what that could possibly be, but surely there had to have been something. Maybe before he'd gotten desperate enough to sell his soul to someone—she wasn't sure who—there had been something about him to love. But there, trudging through the sand with nothing but a disgraced name and blisters and a black diamond ring, she wasn't sure if there was anything about him she did love.
To keep herself from progressing quickly towards a bridge she would only burn before crossing, she put her focus into mulling over his decent suggestions from before. The Underground was a last resort for weak men that wanted someone else to do their dirty work, it was a network of liars and thieves and killers that owed nothing to no one and crept through the streets like a plague. There was a passionate hatred for anyone she encountered that claimed to be in league with that clan of heathens—Arlero being the only exception, considering he'd told her he'd joined to try and get some sort of audience with her father. That certainly hadn't won him any favors with her court, surely.
Then there was his grand idea of running away and acting like she could forget about being a princess to a kingdom that was kingless and in need of her—well, kingless while she'd been Crown Princess. Reap climbed up her arm and wound tight around her, hissing its own hatred of Casta into her mind. I know. We'll get him one day, don't worry, pet. Elaina went so far as to rub her hand up her arm—like that would soothe the magic fighting for freedom.
She'd admit, the idea was tempting. She and Arlero had once planned on running away together, like they'd be allowed to live free on a farm with a few adopted children and a dog. Her heart ached at the thought, at how sweet that life might've been.
And then, her father's associates. She wasn't sure who she preferred less: men that killed men for sport, or men that had sided with Ifreann and his ideas of a totalitarian rule. It would've been a lie to insist that she hadn't thought of ruling the entire continent of Opheria—hell, she'd told Arlero that that was what she wanted, and she'd thought that was all she could've hoped for, but after seeing how quickly her seemingly endless rule had been ripped away from her before, she wasn't sure that was the safest path—for her or her people. But, the people that still worshipped her father were loyal at the very least. Maybe, if she made a strong enough case, or a large enough bribe, she could persuade them to her side. Overthrow Casta from the inside out, just like he'd done to her. A fae here and there wouldn't hurt, either.
Adrian would be a problem. The only kink in her tail was that damned Guard Captain that she loved so dearly. He'd been her closest friend, her truest confidant. There was no telling what Casta knew thanks to her attachment to Adrian. The inside of her palace could've become a slaughterhouse for all she knew. Her meeting with him hadn't been exactly productive, either.
A rational thought, the fae would be her strongest forces. An army within the kingdom was only as strong as the few that still supported King Ifreann, but the fae were on her side. The kingdom of Amare was, at least. A large enough kingdom itself, larger than Ryverin by several thousand, with an army of magic warriors. She couldn't have picked better allies if she'd tried, so long as Brayar was willing to fight for a kingdom he cared little for. Elaina hoped that, somewhere in her drunken stupor from their first meeting, she had made enough of an impression for the fae king to see just how powerful and mighty she could be—sober, of course.
For a second, for just a few frantic heartbeats, her hope was renewed. Then she glanced down at her left hand. At the thorns and wilted roses that climbed her arm. The black ring on her finger seemed to suit it. There's no going back from this. Reap sent the thought through her mind like an arrow, reminding her just how fucked she truly was. What'll it be, Soulreaper? Justice—or revenge.
The hope building in her heart was quickly overshadowed by the hate filling a pit in her stomach. Revenge. She clenched that left hand into a fist so tight her knuckles popped. Her magic, its truth kept secret from her people for so long, was all she had. Of all the names they'd given her, Soulreaper was the one she feared—the one she wanted everyone to fear. The warrior queen that would wipe out armies with a single wave of her hand, born of the goddesses, survivor of the Wilt, the Light of Ryverin. They'd built her up just to watch her be ripped down. She'd reap them all. Every last one of them. Any man that had looked at her, any woman that had scoffed, any courtier that had bought her father's favor; she'd send all of them into the Garden of Miro and set them at her alter and let the Wilt reap all it wanted of them, and then she'd scorch what was left. All her years, all the time she'd spent building an empire, breaking ties and forming new ones, her years of suffering at the hands that were meant to protect her, all of it wasted. Over a rumor. She'd feed all of them to the magic in her blood, the magic that had replaced her soul, the curse her sire and dam had signed her life away to burden her with.