Page 101 of Of Iron and Moonlight

Elara had never had much. Her family was poor, and whatever coin came their way went to keeping mouths fed or patching the roof. She had never learned to read or write, nor obtained the knowledge that came with either. There had been no time, and no money for lessons when every hand was needed elsewhere.

But what she did have, what was unequivocally hers, was instinct. She knew when a person was worth trusting. When scattered pieces belonged together, and how to fit them into a whole. When something had gone wrong, the way the body knows before the mind follows.

Even before morning slipped toward afternoon, she felt it. By evening, when hunger gnawed at her and Pietre still had not returned, she accepted what her instinct had already told her: her only two threads of safety in the castle were gone, and waiting would do her no good.

Pietre, with far less experience handling her than Njall, had given her the fortunate mercy of leaving her unbound. Once the sun sank and the sky dimmed, she pulled up her hood, drew her cloak close, and stepped into the fae world alone.

She followed the map Pietre had given her in words, recalling the turns he warned were warded and keeping to passages the fortress seemed to forget. Even so, Selenar Castle was a maze of stone and shadow, its corridors folding back on themselves, walls rising so high they seemed intent on closing in. Every breath sounded too loud. Every thud of her boot struck the silence with humiliating clarity. Twice she slipped behind carved pillars shaped like frozen storms. Once she pressed flat beneath a heavy tapestry, breath locked in her chest while guards passed close enough for her to hear the scrape of armor.

At last, she found a pantry tucked beside the kitchens. She snatched a loaf, an apple, and a wedge of cheese, eating as she walked back toward the storeroom, crumbs scattering down her front as hunger overruled any concern for neatness.

Elara was halfway along a passage Pietre said was usually spared of heavy traffic when voices surfaced ahead. The corridor offered nowhere to hide. No alcove. No tapestry. No pillar. And the only other route was the southern wing—a wing warded against humans.

Panic rising, she spotted a door left ajar and slipped through it.

When the footsteps faded, she let out a breath and turned to take in the chamber. The room smelled strange: herbs and smoke layered with a bitter metallic tang. Shelves climbed the walls, crowded with jars, powders, and glimmering liquids. Copper coils twisted between vats where steam curled from hissing joints. Tables lay scattered with parchment weighted by stones.

Her heart lifted in a way it hadn’t in weeks, and curiosity stirred awake, already turning over how one tool might answer another, how separate workings might be coaxed into something new. She stepped farther inside, encouraged by interest. Her fingers brushed the edge of a ledger with drawings before she bent to examine a neat row of gleaming glass instruments.

A throat cleared from the far corner.

She whirled.

An elderly fae watched her from the shadows. His hair, once the color of burnished copper, was streaked with grey. His watchful green eyes, narrow-set and tilted, held a gentleness that felt misplaced in this palace, and an abiding sorrow too.

Elara stumbled back. Her hand struck an instrument on the table, shattering it, and closed on a shard of glass that bit into her palm. She gasped as blood welled bright red.

The fae approached, calm. “Easy,” he said, voice warm with fatigue. “Let me see.”

Elara considered running, but instinct nudged her to stay. She let him take her hand.

His grip was steady. He cradled her palm in one hand and held the other above the wound. A prickling sensation spread through her skin. The pain faded.

The cut sealed to a narrow pink line.

She stared at her hand. “You… you healed me.”

“The most I can do with this on me.” He lifted one foot. A rattle sounded from the iron chain around his ankle. It allowed him to move about the room, but no farther. Where the metal touched his skin, dark green welts and blackened veins showed beneath it.

“Oh.” Elara felt an instant kinship. “Well, thank you.”

He brushed a strand of hair from her face and lifted her chin so her eyes met his. “No color,” he murmured. “That is good.”

She studied him a moment longer, then frowned. “You are not like the others.”

A trace of amusement touched his expression. “And you are not like the others.”

She hesitated, brushing her smooth ear. “I suppose I’m a prisoner here.”

“Then in that, we are alike.” He glanced at his chain. “Bound, though in different ways.”

Elara couldn’t help her smile. “I’m Elara.”

“Kalaetzu,” he replied, dipping his head.

“So why do you look different?” she asked. “I thought all fae had silver or obsidian hair.”

He chuckled. “I am neither Norrelian nor Aurumierran. I am of Tsuchitsa Isle. Our hair burns the color of copper flame, and our eyes are green as jade—like forests caught between the height of spring and the turning of autumn.”