The brutal words hit Elora like an unsuspecting blow.
Self-consciously, her hands lifted to the cold collar around her neck and the chafed skin beneath it. She had always hated it, not only for the message it gave everyone who saw her—an overt symbol of her continued captivity—but because of how it made her feel: completely shut off from the thing that made her who she was, an Ashen.
Without the collar, however, the people of Irongate would find her too dangerous to let her go walking around. It was the only reason she’d been permitted to leave her hailstone-imbued prison cell. So as much as she hated it, she was more grateful tobe allowed to roam the castle, to feel the sun on her skin, to smell the flowers.
Kestrel stared down at the rabbit. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I—I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s fine. You’re fine.” Elora straightened where she sat, the silken fabric of her silver gown lifting from her spine and allowing air to cool her back. “To answer your question, yes. My shackles are a necessary key to my freedom. They are the only reason I am permitted to walk the grounds and live a relatively normal existence again.”
That was the truth.
At least, it was the truth Elora had told herself and would continue telling herself, otherwise she feared she would go mad.
She felt Kestrel’s gaze burning into the side of her face for the duration of the long silence that followed. When the lost princess finally withdrew her attention, it was to tend to the rabbit in her lap. She picked it up and gently placed it on the fountain’s ledge beside her. Now that Elora had a better view of the dagger, she noted the ornate hilt with the head of an animal carved into it—a wolf or a fox maybe. Kestrel shoved the dagger into a corded belt around her waist before plunging her bloodstained hands into the crystal-clear waters and washing away the red.
“And are you?”
The question caught Elora off guard. “Am I what?”
Kestrel continued rinsing, splashing the water up her forearms, careless of how drenched her tunic was becoming. “Are you free?”
It was not a question anyone would’ve ever asked outright. It was an unspoken rule to pretend. To turn a blind eye. And everyone within the Irongate walls had been happy to oblige. Even Elora played her part and pretended that the smallamount of freedom she’d been granted was anything but another version of a cage.
For just three simple words, they were earth-shattering. Already, they were unraveling the very small amount of certainty she had about her miserable existence.
And if it were anyone else, Elora would tell them what she was supposed to say: that she was grateful to the queen for the opportunities she had been provided. She would claim the queen had saved her. She would lie and tell her how excited she was to soon become a bride and a future queen to a powerful throne.
But here they were. Two forsaken princesses. Alone together in an enemy territory.
“No,” Elora said, surprised by her own honesty. “I am not yet free. But I hope someday I will be.”
A heady quiet surrounded them before Kestrel finally said, “I hope you will be too. You deserve that much. Everyone does.”
Elora wasn’t foolish enough to believe that Kestrel was only talking about her. Surely, she was referring to Darius Graeme, how he deserved freedom as well. Elora couldn’t stomach having him brought into such a space where she had just been so brutally vulnerable. It made her bristle. Made her question everything, every word that had come out of the princess’ mouth.
Here, Elora thought she was the one manipulating the princess. Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps it was Kestrel manipulating Elora the entire time. Making her believe that she was some innocent, trustworthy doe-eyed girl who couldn’t do anything as conniving as use people for her own gains.
Who had Elora been fooling? Someone spends enough time around manipulative royals, and they can adapt quite quickly. She knew she had.
Finishing with her washing, Kestrel slumped back onto the edge of the fountain, facing the castle.
Elora had been about to excuse herself, to retreat to the safety of her room where no one could play their dubious mind tricks on her anymore, but Kestrel stopped her with a sigh.
“I don’t know what to do.”
It wasn’t the sort of question the queen would want Elora to leave lingering. “About what?”
“About the magic. I want to learn how to use it, but I can’t just—” She gestured to the rabbit beside her. “I can’t dothis.”
And just like that, Elora wondered again if she had been wrong. If Kestrel truly was a girl without a single malicious bone in her body. If this was the outcome of someone being kept away from all the tyranny and bloodshed and manipulations for all their lives, if that meant they got to grow up not knowing how to play mind games. How to lie. How to sense when they were being played.
It would be Kestrel’s greatest blessing, but also her gravest mistake.
It left her vulnerable.
And once again, Elora felt herself relating to the young woman in ways she never thought possible. Because long ago, Elora had been vulnerable too. It’s how she had been caught. Out on a mission to attempt to spread peace and kindness, to assure the people of Grimtol that they had no reason to fear the Ashen. And King Everard had acted like he wanted to hear her out, like he had any interest in peace.
“Then don’t,” Elora heard herself saying, words that the queen would reprimand her for later. But in this moment, she didn’t care. “Don’t trust anyone you’re not ready to. Don’tdoanything that feels wrong. Forge your own way. Figure out a different path. There are many types of magic in this world—mine for example requiresno sacrifice.”
