“I’m still angry at you,” I said.
“I know.”
“When this is over, we’re having a very long conversation about trust and honesty and not playing with people’s lives.”
“I look forward to it.” He actually smiled slightly. “It’ll mean we survived.”
“It’ll mean Elle survived,” I corrected.
Eltrien’s expression softened. “You’re doing the right thing. The strategic thing. The thing that gives you both the best chance.”
“I know.” I looked up at the stars. “Doesn’t make it any easier.”
He started to walk away, then paused. “For what it’s worth, I think she can do it. This Elle—your Elle—she’s different in ways I can’t quite articulate. Stronger. More stubborn. More willing to break the rules.”
“She’s perfect,” I said simply.
“Yes.” Eltrien looked back at me, and his expression was sad and knowing. “Let’s make sure she stays that way. Alive and whole and perfect. This timeline. Not the next one.”
He left me alone in my circle of death, standing under stars that were just beginning to appear. Somewhere beyond those stars, hundreds of miles away, Elle was waking in pain. Facing another day of torture. Another day of holding on.
“Hold on,”I sent through the muffled bond, knowing she probably couldn’t hear but saying it anyway.“I’m coming.”
Different. This iteration would be different.
It had to be.
Because I couldn’t survive watching her die again.
29
Elle
The days blurred together after that first dream with Kaelren.
Day after day, Auradelle tested me. Tuned me. Each session was different—resonance chambers where he hunted for my “core frequency,” calibration rituals, tests whose purposes I stopped trying to understand. I just endured.
Between sessions, there was Mora.
The servant girl who’d been assigned to care for me had become something more than a keeper—perhaps not quite a friend, but the closest thing I had to one in this nightmare. She was young, maybe twenty, with mouse-brown hair perpetually escaping its severe bun and gray eyes that had seen far too much for someone her age. Forgettable prettiness that helped servants survive in dangerous courts, but there was a steadiness to her, a quiet strength that reminded me of nurses who worked in war zones—someone who’d seen too much but kept going anyway.
She brought food I could barely eat, helped me bathe when my hands shook too badly to manage alone, and cleaned the welts and burns that appeared after each “tuning.” She never said much during the torture sessions’ immediate aftermath, letting me have silence when words would have shattered what little composure I had left. But in the quiet moments, she filled the windowless hours with stories about her grandmother, about the time before the rot when the realm was whole.
She’d even taught me curse words in the old tongue. My favorite translated roughly to, “your face looks like a rotted asshole,” which seemed particularly appropriate given the circumstances.
“How long?” I asked her one morning—or afternoon, time had lost all meaning in my time at the Heartspire. My voice was raw, rasping from yesterday’s screaming.
“Four more days until the convergence,” Mora said quietly, helping me sit up. Her hands were gentle as she assessed the new welts across my shoulders. “Lord Auradelle says you’re exceeding his expectations.”
I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
Four days. The number settled in my chest like a stone. Somewhere beyond these walls, Kaelren was fighting his own battle against corruption, pushing through hostile territory to reach me. We’d managed to connect in the dream space once since that first night—brief, desperate, filled with more strategy than tenderness. But in the nights since I’d felt nothing. Just emptiness where our bond should be.
“Different robe today,” Mora said, holding up white silk with silver threading. Not the crimson from yesterday’s resonance testing, not the gold from the day before’s frequency calibration. White. The color of endings, or beginnings. I couldn’t tell which anymore.
“What’s different about today’s session?” I asked as she helped me stand. My legs trembled, still weak from yesterday’s ordeal.
“I don’t know exactly.” She began fastening the robe, her fingers working quickly. “But the testing chambers have been sealed since dawn. Even the servants aren’t allowed near them.” Her gray eyes met mine, and I saw real fear there. “The girl before you—the one who lasted longest—she made it through two days of testing before she broke.”
