It didn’t add up. “Then why didn’t she send for Jesstin and me herself? Why am I only finding this out because I decided to come see you? What would have happened if I hadn’t?”
“Should we continue conversing about it or fix it?” His blinks were slow and restrained, like she was the unreasonable one. It took her back years, to when she was hardly fifteen and he was talking about children, marriage. Telling her what her future would be, making plans without even considering her feelings. Jesstin throwing her inaction back in her face was one of the hardest things anyone had ever said to her, but he was right. She may have had no control over the behavior of others, but she had natural weapons, and it was her choice to use them or not. Instead, she’d withdrawn and let bad things happen while she’d gone somewhere else in her mind. She’d been free of Fabrien hardly more than a week, and already her chaos had stirred up a half-dozen times, but Taven had rightly nailed the reason. Jesstin.
Taven thought she was too oblivious to see how contrived his concern was, which was her fault too, because she’d acted insensible for years, anxious to maintain some sort of evenness to an unsteady life. As long as no one was yelling or seething or pouting, she could breathe. Her world could be spinning wildly off its axis, but she could breathe.
“What does Lexsea want for this favor?”
“She didn’t name one.”
“That doesn’t concern you?”
“Does it matter? Is there a price too high?”
There was not, but something was off. Estelar had never mentioned his daughter could help, that there was a way that didn’t involve death or another bond. And Lexsea was a snake; the question was, what kind?
“She likes him,” Taven said swiftly. “Jesstin. She fancies him. It’s why she’s willing to do it. She bargained with her father, and he agreed.”
“You just told me Estelar was going to have Jesstin killed.”
Taven held his hands out with an exasperated groan. “He will if we waste more time debating it. His goodwill won’t last. Shall we make use of it, or regret later that we failed to?”
“What about Jesstin? Doesn’t he need to be present for this to work?”
“Only to create one, but not to break one.”
Could anyone there be trusted?
Taven was hiding something, but it was Estelar who had ordered Jesstin’s death. She already knew Jesstin wouldn’t run. He’d do something reckless instead. But if she could talk to Estelar, she could negotiate a way to end this. If he really needed her, he had no choice.
With doubt and defeat in her heart, she trudged toward the sept with Taven. He occasionally glanced down at her, like a father ensuring his child was keeping up. It felt like a dream, the jarring lumens and the foggy dusk leaving a thin sheen of condensation on the backs of her hands.
The farther they walked, the more she felt the aches and tingles of separation from Jesstin, but she could endure pain. Her limits had been tested many times; this was nothing in comparison. He’d feel it too, if he weren’t sleeping. It might get bad enough to wake him.
The sept was quiet, only a few workers moving from task to task in the courtyard. Taven said something to an esguard, who nodded for them to go in. Another rushed past them.
Inside was just as empty, giving the deep halls an eerie, cavernous air.
“Estelar is in his study, Ellie. They’re letting him know we’re here.”
Her boots echoed on the wrought-iron grates, the sound bouncing along the walls before returning to her. She timed her steps with her heart, boom, boom, boom, counting the same on the fingers of her right hand, hidden from Taven. It was a small deception but one that came so naturally. She’d done this with everyone, always, compartmentalizing herself and revealing only those fragments they wouldn’t fuss over or be irritated with or, worse, hurt her for. Elloven had many personas, one for every person she knew or had known.
Except Jesstin.
The first person she’d shown her true self to couldn’t stand what he’d seen unless they were protected by a dream world.
The sentry outside Estelar’s office held the door wide. The other waited for them to enter before bowing and leaving.
“My Aelloven! And... Taven.” Estelar’s broad grin greeted them, his arms following with an enveloping hug that only hours ago would have stirred within her the desire for paternal warmth. “You’re not resting before evening meal?”
“No, we...” Elloven looked at Taven but shook her head at herself. No, she wouldn’t—couldn’t—let him speak for her. “I understand you’ve graciously offered Lexsea’s help in breaking my Vinculo Sagrado with Jesstin. I also understand you’d prefer him dead. I’m asking you, as your niece, to spare him.”
Estelar seemed surprised but not as much as he should have been. “You’ve misunderstood some of what you speak of.”
“What parts?”
“Ellie,” Taven said in caution.
“No.” Elloven stepped forward. “It’s my fault we’re bonded at all, and I’ll bear the blame, and the guilt, but his death would be a crime. He’s done nothing wrong. Taven told me you’d kill him for it, but it’s unnecessary, as now we all know there’s a much cleaner and safer way to end this bond, even if you did fail to mention it before.”
