"Welcome to the Underworld, Daughter of Stars," Molerin purred. Elaina, distressingly aware of the pain in her chest, choked down a breath. Too afraid to open her eyes, she swallowed.
"I'm dead?"
Molerin laughed. "Not quite."
Finally, the princess opened her eyes and sat up. Her eyes darted around. "This looks like—"
"Your father's wing? That's how this works. Your own personal plot in eternal misery. The rest of the soulless have something similar."
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she hated that Molerin was right. She quickly squeezed her eyes shut again—she didn't want to see anything that resembled her father. "Where's Arlo?" She dragged her eyes back to Molerin, who raised her brow.
"Don't worry about him just yet. You and I have some business to attend to."
"What, so you can know what I'm afraid of and torture me with it forever?"
The goddess laughed. "I already know all I need to know about you. My sister and her flower pot saw to that."
The Wilt. Elaina swallowed. Molerin continued, "I want to make a deal. What would you do, if you could do it all over again?"
Elaina's jaw went slack. "I'd never have left to find you. I'd string Casta up by his innards and let the wolves take him." She's careful to rein in the spite. "I would've never given them the chance to rip me apart."
Molerin sat back on Ifreann's throne with snake-like stillness. "My fire served you well. I like the fight in you." She leaned forward, towering over Elaina. "What if I told you I can send you back? On one condition, of course."
"There's always a catch with you Sisters," Elaina growled. Still, considering it—maybe she could have her pretty dream. "I'd give anything to go back to my people." Molerin smirked.
"I'll send you back, before all this happened, on the condition that you reap my lovely elder sister before your life is due to end."
For a moment, Elaina didn't notice the ache in her chest. A chance to start over. A clean slate. "How long will that be?"
That smirk widened into a devilish grin. With a wink, a snap, the smell of smoke and the scorch of fire on her skin, the goddess vanished—
And Elaina woke up. In her own bed. Her bed. In her chambers. The grand balcony windows were open, the sheer satin curtains billowed in the morning breeze. She brought her comforter up over her head and burrowed into her pillows and hoped she wasn't dreaming.
A soft knock at the door brought her out of her prayers. "My lady?" a familiar voice called, taking their own liberty to waltz into her chambers. "The meeting with Garneria is today. The archduke will be here by noon; Captain Fenryr suggested that I come wake you myself."
Fenryr? "Adrian?" She pulled her covers back down. "He sent for me?" Before she could really process even the room around her, her heart melted at the sight of Nyla preparing her outfit for the day.
Nyla sneered playfully. "A little above his station, don't you think? I believe he may've been a nanny in another life." If she noticed how unsteady Elaina was on her feet, the Fae girl didn't notice as she helped the princess into her daywear. "Have you given any thought to your suitors, my lady?"
Elaina could've laughed. "Suitors," she snorted. "I don't plan on sharing my rule with anyone. Once coronation comes around, I'll claim the whole continent."
"Few queens are more revered than those married to their kingdoms, my lady."
Elaina huffed out a breath as Nyla weaved the lacing up on her gown. "What's a queen to a High Lady?"
Her handmaid paused. "Opheria hasn't had a High Lady in generations, princess."
Elaina grinned. "Exactly," she said. "Father always said it couldn't be done—"
"So of course, you made it your mission to prove him wrong."
"You're catching on."
She'd never been one for idle chatter, so Nyla rolled her eyes and went about making the princess presentable to her court. Elaina was grateful for the silence as she sat at her vanity, taking in the face she'd forgotten. Her year in the desert erased, her eyes back to the same iron grey, Molerin's fire nowhere to be seen—or felt. Sat in front of her were two vases of flowers—one lively, one wilting. At her left, the lively bunch, at her right, the wilted. She smirked. Closing her eyes and taking a slow breath, she raised her palms to the petals and opened the mental tomb that enclosed reap and sow. Both ripped through her, both drained her energy until they found their own form of balance— until she was able to use them in tandem, one taking energy from the other. Warmth filled her chest: balance. She opened her eyes to both bouquets equally thriving, and Nyla looked pleased with herself. Elaina raised a brow.
"I thought it would've taken you longer."
Elaina was the one to roll her eyes then, but found herself staring into the mirror again. It had been so long since she'd even thought about cosmetics, let alone had them applied—at least, in her mind. For Nyla, for the world, it had just been the morning before that Elaina had gone through these same notions. The kohl around her eyes and through her brows, the color on her lips—she could've wept. Her gaze flickered to Nyla, who was currently trying to arrange Elaina's unruly ebony curls. "Nyla," she said. The Fae girl glanced up for a moment, raised her brows, and stuck a pin in her mouth before going back to her work. "Do you...like...working for me?" Nyla's hands paused again.
"Promise you won't be angry if I answer truthfully, majesty?" Elaina nodded. "I don't. I've grown to love you dearly, my lady, but I hate my post. If I could turn back time, I would've let your father's soldiers kill me. With all due respect, this is not what I wanted to do for the remainder of my days."
Elaina mulled over that for a moment. Her ears perked. A question. "What did you want to do?"
Nyla flashed her fangs in a sly grin. "I wanted to be a knight.
Could you imagine? Me, a mutt, running with the dogs?" She giggled.
Plucking a pin from the vanity counter, she sighed. "I'm duty-bound to Ryverin because of the war, but I would've rather been fighting than preening you."
"Let me guess: you had brothers."
Nyla laughed. "Oh, gods, no. I just thought it would be fun— more fun than being married off to some dolt."
She wished she could focus on the light mood with her favorite handmaid, but there was an unwavering anxiety fluttering in her chest. What had happened? What had she ruined in letting Molerin bring her back? And if the Garnerian archduke was on his way—then Arlero will be coming back from the East soon.
Last she'd seen her lover, dead or alive, was in the dungeon— right below her feet. Casta had gutted him before she'd even entered the city. She swallowed. Nyla set her delicate hands on Elaina's shoulders. "Are you alright, my lady?"
The princess forced a wavering smile. "I'm fine," she assured her. She took a shuddering breath. "Just a little ill. I haven't been sleeping well."
She knew Nyla didn't believe her, but the handmaid knew better than to argue with Elaina. Instead, she mumbled something about fetching a sleeping tonic some time; Elaina took another shaky breath as she stood from the vanity and smoothed her dress out. "Nyla, dear," she called, and her handmaid took pause in the entryway. "Do you know of a mage in Lasair?"
Nyla scoffed. "A mage, in the kingdom of your father? You must be ill." Elaina's cheeks burned. Right. Her father had driven out anyone with magic when she'd been brought back from the Wilt.
"But," Nyla drawled, "there's bound to be one around here somewhere. Maybe not outwardly practicing, but if anyone can find one, it'd be Gen."
"Gen?" Elaina echoed. This time, Nyla was the one blushing.
The princess raised a brow, amused.
"She's a, er, friend. She'd know the in-and-out of anyone hiding from the law. I can ask her to keep an eye open for a mage, if you'd like. Special requests?"
She wanted to sneer at Nyla and her bleeding heart, but she couldn't ignore the hammering of her own. Swallowing, she whispered, "A necromancer." Nyla nodded, very slowly.
"Very well, my lady. A necromancer it is."
A necromancer. Part of her knew there was no explanation for Molerin's blessing, if she could call it such a thing, but she was praying, if she could be brought back from the dead, if she could wind back time to have another chance, maybe she'd be able to learn how to replicate it.
She scoffed. Wistful thinking indeed. The only magic she was capable of wielding was the curse she'd been burdened with. Magic didn't run in her family; her father had expelled anyone outwardly capable of magic purely out of the spite that he was incapable of it himself. She rolled her eyes, sat on the bench at the foot of her bed, and remained lost in her head as Nyla laced the stockings up her legs. Her mind still wandered, worry etched its way into her heart. I don't understand.
Her courtly training forced her to lock those anxieties away when Nyla had finished her work on her outfit and lifted a hand to help the princess stand. It took all her restraint not to react outwardly, to exclaim her remembrance, because of course she would, she'd worn this gown before—two years before, when she'd used reap to snap the neck of her last allied kingdom.
Correcting her mistakes, that was what she'd dubbed the reason she'd been sent back from the Underworld. Surely she'd be able to handle the archduke...differently, this time. Her eyes dragged down her body in the mirror Nyla held in front of her. Sure, the dress was a nightmare of tulle and silk and so much gold, but it bled power. It hugged her waist, her chest, the low cut neckline pulled a smirk from her lips. A silhouette that would bring a courtesan to shame. Nyla raised her brows, cheeky, knowing.
"I thought you'd like this one."
She'd admit, her handmaid knew her very well. The elbow length gloves covered the thorns and leaves and vines on her arms decently, but there was no mistaking the Wiltbreaker's curse as it snaked up her biceps, her shoulders, along her collar, running a mirror but never touching. That neckline just accentuated all the God Sisters had left her with. A show of her strength. She ran a gloved hand over her collar.
"Highness," Adrian's voice called from the hallway outside her chambers. Her blood ran cold. All she saw, all she felt—him gripping her shoulder, nothing behind his eyes, the knife in her chest—she shook her head, waving Nyla's concerned touch off. She fluffed her hair, dipped for Nyla to drop the jeweled circlet onto her head, and took a deep, slow breath. And she prepared herself to stand in the face of the friend that had killed her.
The Adrian waiting to escort her to her throne was not the one that had driven a goddess' dagger into her heart. She was just barely able to control the rampant emotions that flooded her all at once— gods protect her if she outed this new secret with the slew of others to the man that had watched her die without so much as flinching. Adrian extended his arm to her, eyes soft and his gaze polite. "Highness," he greeted gently. Elaina dipped her head, but didn't take his arm, choosing instead to only take her father's scepter from the nameless, faceless guard that offered it to her.
"I can carry myself," she growled. How tempting it was to relish in the modicum of hurt that flickered across his face. And how she'd delight in slamming the jeweled wolf's head atop the scepter into Casta's skull the moment he so much as thought to challenge her authority. She curled her fingers around the menacing gold maw. Copied the deep breath Nyla exhaled, closed her eyes, lifted her chin, lifted the hem of her gown with her spare hand, and descended the grand staircase alone.
Behind her, she heard Nyla tell Adrian the same web the princess had told her: she was ill, sleepless, stressed. She ground her teeth, curled her lip, rounded the corner to her throne room and released her gown with a vengeful flourish—and enough ethereal force to rattle the windows. Her court, who'd risen to greet her, held a collective breath as she scanned her eyes across them.
She kept a tab of who sat in front of her as she climbed the few steps up to her father's golden throne: Jezella Cora, princess of Yundre—one of twelve. Elaina had scoffed when they'd met, she was hardly a princess at all with ten older sisters—what claim to the throne would she have? So she'd been sent to Ryverin to build an allegiance between the Dorcha house and her family. Yundre had become excellent allies—and Jezella was quite the diplomat.
And then there was Cirus Darren, rich as the gods themselves—rather, his father was. Cirus, dull as rusted iron, gave her family more money than the city's tithe. He'd be useful in war.
Mickie Fleur was useful for all the wrong reasons. The blind assassin had tried to kill Ifreann once—Elaina had vowed to keep her around ever since. She couldn't contribute much to the treasury, but she was cunning. A different kind of useful in war.
Maclora Zarapan had bought her seat at the table herself, owning half the farmland in Opheria certainly had its perks, in trading and scheming. Elaina kept close tabs on her tax, definitely. The Zarapan family wouldn't notice a few silver added every year or so, not when they had more wealth than the kingdoms of Dylie and Borbatal combined.
Hyrum Battleborn had fought with her father in the Rose War, when the Fae had supposed deposing Opheria's God Sisters and replacing them with their own. She trusted Hyrum more than she'd trusted her own father. Some days more than Adrian.
Adrian. Adrian had tried to convince her to let his friends from his days in Borbatal join her army—like she knew no better than to welcome soldiers from another kingdom within the walls of her palace. Borbatal was an ally, yes, but she knew the Lightchaser Guild well enough to know the warriors Ziro Fenryr raised. Snakes, all of them. Wiry mercenaries. Her family was lucky to find Adrian, but Elaina saw what even he could become if she dared lengthen his leash. Her heart caught in her throat. Her paranoia would be her death—and she doubted Molerin would grant her mercy if she ended up in the Underworld a second time so soon.
"You seem tense," Adrian whispered from his seat beside her, leaning towards her but keeping his face turned to the dignitaries— scanning the room. Elaina massaged her fingers over her temple.
"I am tense. I've a lot on my mind," she said. Adrian perked up. She followed his gaze to the entrance. And tried to hide a groan of annoyance. "Speaking of snakes," she muttered. Casta. Tall, lanky, smug, making his grand entrance, two of her guards in tow. Adrian tried to give her a reassuring pat, but she flinched away from his touch.
"At least he's not wearing that gods-awful green suit this time, eh?" Adrian sneered—she let herself laugh at that one. No, certainly not; Casta looked dressed for a funeral. For someone so young to be so wicked, she'd never understand. Casta was hardly older than the princess or her Guard Captain.
"Aye," Elaina snickered, "'oh, Lightbringer, don't be cruel, it brings out my eyes.' Wilt keep me." Adrian feigned a gag, but both of them snuffed their laughter as Casta approached the throne and bowed to his Crown Princess.
"Lightbringer, Captain Fenryr, what a delight it is to see Lasair again."
His words absolutely reeked of honey and venom, and it took all her energy not to rip off one of her gloves with her teeth and let her left hand devour whatever remained of his soul. "Lord Riverwild, I trust your journey home was well. The Garnerian ambassadors?" Elaina raised her brow and was careful to listen to the names this time as Casta gestured to the couple in garnet and gold—the archduke and duchess of Fuil, Gyn and Lilika Fuilteach. Elaina squinted. "How very...Garnerian, King Helblood to send the heads of his second largest city as ambassadors. He may as well have come himself."
"Are you surprised?" Adrian quipped, straightening his coat as he sat straighter. Elaina scoffed.
"Not in the slightest." Her thumb traced along the careful engraving on her father's scepter. She swallowed as Gyn and Lilika approached her throne, fought the urge to close her eyes and hide. Last time she'd seen Garneria's archduke, his body was being hauled off to the pigs, and Casta had set in motion the beginning of her end. Her breath came quicker, she looked into the eyes of the innocent man she'd killed in another life—her chest heaved with the effort to breathe, gold eyes bore into hers, blind to the horror gripping her, an innocent soul used as a pawn in a game—and she screamed.
Tears trekked down her cheeks, she screamed, endlessly, screamed until her lungs were empty, took a sharp breath and began again, none of them understood that she was staring at the walking dead, her hands burned, burned like she'd dipped them in the magma river of the Underworld, she pulled the gloves off, all but threw the scepter across the room, held her hands to her neck, doubled over herself, retched, screamed until the windows over her throne shattered and glass splintered down onto her and she was coughing blood. Screamed until she couldn't hear their heartbeats, couldn't see the souls in the liars and traitors and snakes and rats and worthless wretches around her. The thorns on her left arm dug in until she wished she'd bleed, she took a piece of glass into her palm and squeezed, and was still screaming when Adrian finally scooped her up and hurried her out.
Her hysterics had dissolved into sniffles as Ana—her aging nursemaid—cleaned and bandaged her hand. "If you didn't want to meet the diplomats today, majesty, you could've just said so," Ana said, pausing until Elaina weakly smiled up at her. "Honestly, dear, I thought you were over these fits. You haven't had one since Cronus was alive."
Cronus. The golden wolf. Elaina swallowed. "I mostly have them in private," she said. "And they're not fits. I just—"
"You were overwhelmed and were already ill to begin with.
You should've stayed in bed and let Casta handle the diplomacy."
Elaina gritted her teeth and snarled, "He is not their king. I am."
"You're king until you get upset. Like a child. You haven't near enough experience—I don't know what your father was thinking when he left."
He didn't leave. Before she could argue back, there was Nyla, flitting to her side. "My lady," she said curtly, quickly attempting to wipe up the smeared kohl and make her presentable again. Ana gave her former charge a kiss on the forehead and murmured her reassurances as she returned to her regular duties of tending to the palace as head servant, and Nyla grabbed Elaina by the shoulders, stood back to arms length, and frowned. "That was quite a show." She picked a piece of glass out of the princess' curls. Elaina flexed her fingers and glared at her handmaid.
"Because that's what that was. A spectacle."
"Don't be melodramatic, it's unbecoming."
Elaina rolled her eyes and stood on shaking legs as the blood finally rushed from her head again. "The banquet is rescheduled," she snapped. Snatching a cape from the pile of servant laundry, she buckled it, stole a petticoat and tied it around her waist to hide her gown, and pulled the hood of the cape up. "Tell the Garnerian ambassadors that I've moved our meeting to this evening rather than midday. I'll be back before sunset."
"Where are you going?"
The princess pulled some loose fabric up—a mask. "The market."
Her shoes were completely and utterly ruined. She was positive the dress and stockings were stained under the petticoat, though she was too afraid to look. No matter, Ana would fix that like she'd fixed most of the royal family's messes.
All around her, merchants peddled their wares, stolen, farmed, acquired, inherited, hand-made, anything they could think to sell, she was to be enticed to buy. She took a deep breath, breathing in the scent of baked bread and livestock—how much better it was than when she'd last seen her beautiful city, when it had smelled of blood and death and all that accompanied. She could've skipped through the market square and not cared who recognized her. But the mood darkened when she spotted the wanted posters plastered to the church pillar.
Names and faces she hadn't been allowed to know—but there, at the top, the highest bounty King Ifreann Dorcha had ever placed: Arlero Ghrian. Dead or alive. She swallowed, fighting the urge to trace her fingers along the crude portrait of her dangerous lover. A thief in the night, a phantom she'd never see again. She still hadn't uncovered the secrets of the world Molerin had dropped her back into. Was it truly as she left it? Would he be coming back?
Maybe Nyla was right, as the rest of them had been. She needed to move on from her Arlo, she needed to consider the powerful suitors she'd been offered and weigh the options. And face the reality that she may never have her pretty dream, a High Lady with a rebel consort. It would be for the betterment of her kingdom to give herself to a prince or princess or duke or duchess or anyone of status that could save face and make Opheria believe that the Dorcha heir was worthy of following. See me, a marriage would say, I am my father's child. Goddess blessed, Wilt reborn. Bow to me. How disappointed all those self-righteous pricks would be when they found her soulless and barren. A tragedy indeed.
She snorted to herself, shook her head, rolled her eyes, and kept walking.
Admittedly, she'd never known just how many of her subjects were like her; she'd thought that maybe her eyes would give her away, that cloud of grey in her iris that screamed Miro's end of the bargain, but she'd been...shocked to see color mirroring her own as she'd walked the streets, undaunted and mind unoccupied. Her own people, Lasair supposedly the richest city in Ryverin, stooping to trading their souls for some upperhand from Miro. Elaina was careful to keep her arms and hands hidden beneath the cape. She didn't see any other scars in her people spilling the secrets of Miro's gift. There was some solace to be taken in that. None of them suffered like she had. But she'd never see any of them in the next life—none of them would have one, including her.
Against her wishes and better judgement, her mind drifted back to Arlo as she paced. The small piece of his soul that he kept as a bargaining chip whenever anyone came to him to claim their debts, even when the cards were dealt and his hand was lost, he'd always played that one close to the chest. She'd admit it, he was smart, smarter than her in some ways. In his own lying, malicious, idiot street rat sort-of-way. And Casta had gotten that piece of his soul, somehow. Ideas raced, filling her brain with all manner of horrors that Arlero would've traded the one piece of himself that he'd managed to keep just to escape from. She didn't want to think about what pain he'd had to be in to let that go—she'd seen him, living, without it, and thought she'd lost him then. She'd never know another peaceful night's rest, not with the image of him—
She gritted her teeth, tried to push those thoughts out of her head, tried to swallow the bile that rose in her throat when she'd tried to take a breath and still felt that dagger in her chest. She stumbled out of the street, hid herself in a dark corner of an empty stall, leaned against the wall, braced her hands on her knees, and didn't make any effort to stop the tears that came to the surface. But she didn't cry, she didn't sob, she didn't let the panic grip her again as it had in the throne room. Never again. She spilled her few tears, waited for the ache in her chest to go away and for her lungs to fill with air instead of blood, wiped her face with the back of her hand, wiped her palms on her petticoat, and prepared to step back into the street.
Nyla had called her melodramatic. And she was right, in some way. A Crown Princess, stalking around the market slums like some animal on the prowl, after having some minor breakdown, was melodramatic. Situations change. Now I do it my way.
The church bell chimed above her. Sunset approached. She sighed. If she thought she could get away with insurrection, she'd strut into the church, sit at a pew, and listen to the sermon. Sure, it wouldn't save her immortal soul at that point—she'd accepted that she'd never see the afterlife—but at least it might be fun. More fun than playing princess and entertaining a party of paupers.
Wilt keep her. If she thought a church service would be a fun activity to waste her time with, she needed the counsel of more than a priest.
Her heels clicked loudly enough that she'd abandoned them before she'd ascended half the staircase to her wing. She wished she could do the same with Nyla and Adrian, flanking her sides, nagging more with each step. She gritted her teeth and kept her eyes forward. Adrian opened the door to her bedchamber, let the ladies in first, and Elaina slammed the door shut in his face before he could move to follow them in.
"You're late," Nyla quipped. Elaina slumped down in her seat, wishing she was dead again. She took one bite of some fruit from the platter in front of her and didn't bother with another. Her handmaid cocked a brow, waiting on some retort, and she shrugged.
"There's nothing to explain, if that's what you're looking for," she said. Nyla groaned, short and sharp, and then looked ready to scream when she saw the state of the bottom third of the princess' dress. Elaina, again, shrugged. She could've laughed when the Fae's eyes looked like they were going to fall from her skull and she stalked to the closet to find a dinner gown. She inhaled, focusing her breathing on waking her mind from the fog it had retreated into.
Downstairs, in the main hall of the castle, someone— presumably a servant—played a Ryverin lullaby on the harpsichord. If she closed her eyes, she could almost see her mother sitting at her bed, humming the same tune to the young princess. Sickly, small, skittish. Ryverin's beloved Queen Mab outwardly doted on her only child, Elaina hardly more than a rack of ribs, as though she didn't plan on feeding the little girl to the Wilt as soon as she was of age.
Elaina gritted her teeth and dragged her consciousness away from the music. Outside. Birds, insects, the chatter of diplomats and the racket of armor and weapons. Hoofbeats on cobblestone. Nyla tapped her shoulder. She didn't bother looking at the gown, she simply stood, let her handmaid dress her, and continued to disconnect her mind from her body. Remove her heart from her curse.
"My lady," Nyla whispered, gently grabbing her hand, "are you sure you're alright?"
Elaina swallowed. "I'm fine," she said. Her heart hammered in her chest, she worked to block out reap's influence over her—take them, kill them, war can set you free—she gritted her teeth. "I'm fine." She waved Nyla off, glancing at the vanity to survey whatever she'd been sewn into for the night: midnight-blue silk, gold trim. Her family's colors. Nyla draped a matching cloak over shoulders—made of velvet instead of silk—and clasped it to her gown. Elaina chewed on her lip and looked to her handmaid for reassurance.
"Radiant as always, my lady."
She took a breath. Closed her eyes and took another. "Alright, let's go see if we can keep war at bay for a few more harvests, shall we?"
The last formal dinner she'd attended, the head of her page had been dropped on the dining table. Bristle. Elaina sucked in a breath through her teeth, careful to keep reap and sow tucked away before her emotions could run as they pleased. A sigh escaped her as she took her place at the head of the table. Maybe this time she wouldn't have to stoop to begging the Fae king Brayar for help—maybe Gyn would maintain his usefulness. The archduke dipped his head to her as she sat, his gaze, like the rest of the court, fixed on how Elaina delicately extended her fingers to grip the corners of the table. She lifted her chin,
"Lady and Lord Fuilteach, my court and I are honored to have your presence this evening. Shall we get right to business, or do you prefer wine?" A wave of her left hand brought servants forward to fill the chalices of her companions, Elaina took a sip from her own, narrowed her eyes, and stared at her honored guests. "Blood and wine flow through her streets so readily, Lady Garnetta rarely scented the difference between either in her cup." She scoffed quietly, sipping again and setting her glass down.
The Garnerian ambassadors stared at their plates, stiff. Elaina fought the urge to curl her lip in victory. "My court may be unfamiliar with your kingdom's legends, dear Lilika. Would you kindly," she hissed the word, "enlighten them. The tale of Lady Garnetta was always a favorite of mine as a girl." Reap slithered to the surface, vying for a chance to drain the life from the frightened woman, but Elaina fought it back into the coffin with fire and grit. Her eyes, however, stayed trained on Lilika. As did the eyes of her courtiers. She gestured out to the table, less an invitation and more an invocation.
Lilika, to her credit, swallowed and looked up, but didn't dare make eye contact with Ryverin's Lightbringer. Hyrum snickered when she struggled to find her words, and Elaina raised a hand to silence him. That made the duchess look at her—grateful. The princess nodded once. "Lady Garnetta—" Lilika swallowed hard. "The Bloody Empress. Opheria's last High Lady. Molerin—taking Garneria as payment—gave her fire. She enslaved my ancestors, slaughtered my people like cattle."
"And the blood?" Hyrum, practically salivating, asked. Elaina shot him a glare.
"She drank it like wine. Some say she bathed in it, like some— Lady Garnetta was a monster." Lilika's eyes finally met Elaina's all the way at the head of the table, and she had to still herself from the shiver that ran up her spine. Burning red eyes. Molerin. She swallowed. "We have no pride for her. She is a stain in my history; some of us choose to believe she'd been nothing but folklore for naughty children."
Elaina put her chin in her hand and rested her elbow on the table. "And you?"
"My blood is forever tainted with hers. The kingdom I bleed for is burdened with her rule forever. Even in death, my people walk in dread."
A hushed silence fell over her court. Jezella, soft-hearted, reached her hand across the table to Lilika, sitting opposite her, and rested it atop hers. Elaina fixed her eyes on Gyn as he spoke, addressing her courtiers like he intended on winning their favor. "We are not a barbaric people. We want to be free of her as desperately as her majesty wishes to be free of Miro's curse." Elaina slammed her fist on the table, cups clattering, candles snuffing themselves, a storm brewing just beyond the palace walls. If she looked over her shoulder she was sure she'd see the black flames she'd once wielded casting a shadow up the wall.
"I died for my gift," she seethed. "The Wilt granted me the power to bend life and death at my own will. I will die a thousand deaths before I free myself from it." Reap's insencent badgering to be free to kill the archduke again pounded in her head—you're a liar, Crown Princess. You hate us. Set me free. Elaina gritted her teeth. What am I saying? "The empress was a fool, but she wasn't stupid. A blessing from the God Sisters is worth dying for, I assure you."
She was just beginning to return to her wine when Lilika asked, "Worth sacrificing a hundred generations? Would you give away Ryverin?" Elaina scoffed more audibly this time.
"My people know I died for them. I am their Lightbringer, their Wiltbreaker, their Daughter of Stars. All I do, I do in the name of my kingdom. I'm sure Lady Garnetta saw things in a similar manner—"
"Then you're just as much a fool as she."
That silence fell over their audience again. Elaina's nostrils flared, her blood boiled, her ears rang, she curled her lip in the beginning of a snarl, lightning struck close enough to illuminate the banquet hall in white. And bright enough to show the slinking shadow of reap gliding down the table towards the archduke and duchess. Gazes turned to Elaina's left hand. No longer clutching the corner of the table, but lifted like she was holding an army line, stalling an execution.
Reap, colored nothing more than a stain on the table, glided like a snake over stone, slid up Lilika's heaving chest, and just before the constrictor could nab its prey, Elaina's fingers curled into a fist, quicker than lightning, strong enough for her knuckles to crack, and reap's manifestation vanished like smoke. "That," she snarled, "is the fool I am. Remember whose palace you were allowed to enter freely. Mistake your place again, and you'll leave as pig fodder." Reap's hate gave her another kind of fire—she didn't choke, didn't gag on the panic and memory of what she'd done the first time she'd met the lord and lady Fuilteach.
She kissed her teeth, sipped from her wine, and stared down anyone daring to look at her fully. The Last Wolf of Dorcha, reclaiming her place as the head of her pack.
Her attention, finally, turned from violence to diplomacy when Cirus Darren addressed her. She arched a manicured brow, setting down her cup and signaling for the servants to pass out the main course. Pork—Arlero would've laughed, the sick bastard. "Some of us in the farming industry," Cirus glanced at Maclora, "were wondering what you were planning for the Festival of Wares, majesty."
She snorted. She hadn't thought about that damned festival in two years. "I've no plans," she said after a moment. "It was my father's duty to organize. I have no interest in parading the labors of other kingdoms into my streets. It's nothing more than a glorified tithe."
"It brings good business to the market, my lady," Maclora interjected, her commanding voice even louder than Elaina's— unintentional, she was certain. At least, if Maclora knew her place, it better have been. The princess shrugged.
"Then turn it to something for Ryverin. It makes no difference to me whether it happens or not. My people and our allies know our wealth already—no need to parade it about." Not to mention the slaves that are usually dragged in as part of my father's spectacle.
Hyrum added, "Didn't you receive Anam from the Festival of
Wares, Pup?"
Elaina smiled softly, picking at her food. This, she enjoyed. The camaraderie that had formed between herself and her courtiers. "I did, Hyrum. Came in as a wild colt—Father's gift for returning as Wiltbreaker." He gave me a pony for Miro refusing to let me die. Bastard. Hyrum laughed, loudly, jabbing Mickie in the side—who in turn tightened the grip on the knife in her hand.
"That horse was something else, bringin' in from the desert, if you remember. Took a hundred Yundre slaves to get him through the gates. Didn't he kick Captain Fenryr?"
At that, the princess nearly choked on her food, laughing. The memory tugged at her mind: Adrian, trying to show off for Ifreann, walked around Anam, who was still wild from the mountains of the Badlands, patting him occasionally, and the colt had lashed out with a back leg, striking him in such an unfortunate spot that the then-youngsoldier had sank to his knees.
How she'd missed her friends. How neglected they'd been in her previous life. She'd not make the same mistakes again.
***
She was awake long before Nyla came to ready her for the day. Her handmaid found her on the balcony, quickly trying to regain her composure as she heard Nyla's approach. "My lady? Are you alright?"
What do I say? "I don't sleep because I keep dreaming about being murdered" isn't something I can confide in a servant with. She gritted her teeth. "I'm fine. Do we...have time before today's agenda for me to write a letter?"
Nyla furrowed her brow, seeing right through her, no doubt, but dipped her head. "Of course, my lady. Should I leave you be?"
"Please."
As Nyla left to prepare whatever nonsense Elaina was to wear for the day, the princess stalked to her study, took her place at her desk, and with trembling hands smoothed out a sheet of paper. Taking the pen into her right hand and opening the inkwell, she swallowed, not quite sure what she even wanted to say. She'd had a better grasp on her words before two years in the desert. Her eyes still stung as she glanced down at the blank sheet, she sniffed, dipped her pen, licked her lips, and tried to put to paper what she couldn't get out of her head.
My dearest—
Her script was sloppy, shaky, subpar. She scrunched up the paper and took out a new sheet with a huff.
Arlero—you'll not believe me when I tell you, but this is my third chance at life.
Elaina groaned, scratched her nails down her face, trashed another piece of paper.
Arlo,
I've seen you die. Both of us were dead.
She screamed out her annoyance, slamming the pen down on her desk. Leaning back in her seat, she locked her hands behind her head, became frustrated with sitting, stood, and started to pace. Maybe I can get Nyla to write him something.
And then she thought back to her and Arlero in bed that last morning in the palace together—can I have Bristle? Nyla never liked me.
She supposed nothing had changed—Nyla, she assumed, would still hate Arlero, even in this new life.
Fine. She sat back down at her desk, took another slow breath, and picked up the pen again. Just don't think about it so hard. It's Arlo, not a king or queen. He can barely read.
Arlo—
Were this another life, I might've made this formal and elegant, but there's been...some developments in my reign. Some developments that make me wonder if you're even alive to deliver this letter to. Not because I believe you've been killed, but because I believe that Molerin took you from me in this new life, and that, perhaps, in this life, you're already dead. And I pray I'm wrong.
I pray there's an Arlero Ghrian to deliver this letter to. I pray that you're still my Arlo, still the wonderful outlaw I fell so deeply in love with when we were younger. And I hope that you're well.
So much has happened, sweet Arlo. I need you to be here with me while I try to figure all this out on my own—I don't think I can do it on my own, anyhow. And I'm too afraid to try to explain in a letter.
Come to the palace. Don't get killed. I'll explain everything. I just need to see your face again. Yours, true and eternal,
Eylra.
Elaina sighed, folded the sheet of paper, slipped it into an envelope, and sealed it with her family's stamp. Their crest, that howling wolf against a blazing sun, stared up at her, almost as though it didn't believe her either. Maybe she'd get lucky and Nyla would just look at her like she was insane for asking to send a letter to a dead man. If not, maybe she'd be lucky enough to send some contact to her dangerous love. That, she was fine with.
Her father's gaudy clock chimed from its shell above the palace's front gate. Elaina cocked a brow, staring at her guests and trying to mask her annoyance as boredom. Between herself, her Guard Captain, and the Garnerian ambassadors, there lay a treatise. The archduke and duchess of Fuil murmured amongst themselves, discussing the terms of her proposal like they had agency.
Her majesty sipped on a glass of wine from a bottle older than her by a century, slowly licking her lips when she caught Lilika staring at her. She set the glass down. "Do you know what happens when pups are too weak to run with the pack?" she asked; Adrian eyed her, hands balled into fists. Not giving the ambassadors a chance to answer, she snarled, "They're killed." Adrian hissed her name, and she flexed her left hand. Don't say a word, she silently warned. He, smartly, flattened his palms on the table and sat back. Submission.
"Crown Princess," Gyn began. Elaina raised both brows, an invitation. "Garneria are a kingdom of warriors. Are you a warrior?"
If you only knew. She scoffed, sipping her wine again. She ought to save some of the bottle for Arlo—he'd always liked faerie wine, if she was remembering correctly. When she was finished with her glass, she set it off to the side to be collected by a servant, and with a low growl said, "You've no idea the warrior I am. A normal man, seeing what I have, would've drank himself into a stupor just to sleep at night."
That wasn't enough. She saw it in their eyes, in the way their lips fought to curl around their fang-bearing teeth, in how they bristled at being handed quills to sign her treatise. So she gave them more. "Being chosen by the God Sisters wasn't a of a personal gain, I'd like you both to know that." She folded her hands in front of her and stared Lilika in the eye—her only adversary. "I was bred specifically to be sacrificed to Miro. My mother was chosen by Miro, my father was chosen by Miro, they all made a pact to create a demon in my mother's womb: me. I was born deathly ill, killed by the Wilt inside the wiltingpot, and reborn in Miro's garden as Wiltbreaker at the cost of my bloodline's future and my own immortal soul. My gifts, as I said last night, are anything but. And you have been misled by the world as to who I am."
Her eyes were cold and hard, she felt Adrian shiver beside her, his fingers twitching like he wanted to break his protocol and grab her unwarranted. She slid her hands out to her sides to grip the corners of the table as she had during the banquet the night prior. Gyn was near trembling in fear, but Lilika met her gaze, unwavering.
"I am Lightbringer. I am the Daughter of Stars. I was bred, born, killed, and rebirthed by the God Sisters, cursed by each of them to wield their almighty powers in their names. And I refused. So they killed me again. Slowly. And my cruelty to you, as you've perceived it, is not even a fraction of what I've suffered at their hands in the name of Opheria. So help me, Goddesses of the storm, the tide, and the earth, as long as a wolf is howling in my name, I will not bend to any man. You will bend to me."
Gaze still firmly locked on Lilika, Elaina lifted her chin, and
Lilika bowed her head, submitting to the Soulseer. Reap, in its greed, wanted to peer into the Garnerians's souls, but she kept it locked away. She'd no need to know their secrets anyhow. "I believe we're at an agreement then, yes?" Gyn looked frantically between the princess and his wife, whose head was still bowed, and quickly nodded, snatching the treatise again. Elaina stood from the table. "Good. My guards will escort you to your carriage and see you returned safely to Fuilteach, you've my word." She curtsied, dipped her head, and waved for Adrian and his men to take them off as she stalked from the banquet hall.
Adrian was quick to catch up to her, grabbing her wrist when he'd finally strode into arm's reach. "Can we talk?" he asked. Elaina scoffed, rolled her eyes, and continued her walk to the throne room. Her Guard Captain wasn't having it. He dug in his heels until they stopped. She spun to face him, a cursed dying on her lips—she caught the figure behind him, and even though her brain registered Adrian speaking, her whole focus was him, lounging against the bannister at the top of the staircase, smirking. She pushed Adrian's face and subsequently his body aside with her right hand, and he stopped talking, his eyes following hers up to the figure on the stairs—who waved gingerly at the only man in the kingdom who could get away with having him beheaded. Before he could call for her guards, before he could even draw his sword, Elaina waved them all off.
Don't let me be dreaming.
He came down the stairs like a dream, no grace or flounce but full of arrogance and the sure-footedness of a cougar, wolfish grin to boot. He extended his arms like a god and she swore in that moment she could've dropped dead and been happy.
"How the fuck did you get in?" Adrian's voice cracked with petulant annoyance, and Elaina laughed, tears trekking her face, and through her sobs answered for him—"the balcony was open."
And Arlero winked.