Chapter 77: Chapter 78: Finding Lena

Elara’s pov

They gave me a room two corridors away, smaller, with guards posted at every entrance. Someone brought tea I didn’t drink. Someone else brought a shawl I didn’t put on. I sat on the edge of an unfamiliar bed and stared at the wall and listened to the sounds of people moving quickly through the corridor outside, searching, questioning, trying to understand how someone had walked into the queen’s private chambers in the middle of the afternoon and left a dangerous note.

The room was cold. Not in temperature, there was a fire burning in the small heart, but in feeling. It wasn’t my space. Nothing in it was mine. The bed was too hard, the walls were too bare, the window looked out on a part of the palace I didn’t recognize. I felt like a guest in my own home, displaced by someone else’s cruelty.

Footsteps rushed past. Voices called out orders. Doors opened and closed in quick succession. The whole palace seemed to be in motion, hunting for answers that weren’t coming. I could hear the urgency in every sound, the desperation of people who knew they’d failed and were trying desperately to make it right.

I kept thinking about the kerchief.

The door opened and closed several times. Corvus came and went, his face growing more drawn with each visit. He reported that the room had been searched thoroughly and nothing else had been found. No hidden messages. No other threats. Just that one kerchief, that one note, sitting on my bed like a declaration of war.

His face was tight with frustration, the controlled anger of a man who prided himself on security and had just watched it fail completely. “Whoever did this knew what they were doing,” he said quietly. “They knew the guard rotations. They knew when the corridor would be empty. They knew exactly how to get in and out without being seen.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” I told him.

“No,” he agreed. “It shouldn’t.”

Varrus the guard captain came next. He stood at attention just inside the door and reported that no one in the corridor had seen anything unusual. No strange faces. No unfamiliar voices. Nothing. The guards on duty swore they hadn’t left their posts, hadn’t seen anyone enter or exit. They’d been questioned separately and their stories matched perfectly.

“Someone is lying,” Corvus said flatly.

“Or someone is very, very good,” the captain replied.

It was like whoever had done this had simply appeared and disappeared like smoke. Like they’d walked through walls. Like they’d never been there at all, except for the proof sitting on my bed.

A servant came in later, pale and shaking so badly she could barely stand. She swore she hadn’t been in the room since morning. She kept repeating herself, her voice high and frightened. “I swear, Your Majesty, I only came to light the fire and then I left. I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t see anything. I swear, I swear, I swear–”

Corvus had to have someone take her out because she was about to make herself sick with fear. I watched her go and felt a pang of something that might have been sympathy. She was just doing her job, and now her life might be ruined because someone else had done something terrible.

No one could tell me where Lena was.

I asked every time the door opened. Every time someone new came in. “Have you found Lena? Is she all right? Where is she?” And every time, the answer was the same. Not yet. Still searching. No word.

I didn’t scream again. Kept that one inside, pressed flat behind my sternum, because screaming hadn’t helped the first time and it wouldn’t help now. Screaming wouldn’t bring Lena back. Screaming wouldn’t undo the threat or erase the memory of that kerchief on my bed. Screaming would just prove that whoever had done this had gotten what they wanted, proof that I was afraid.

But every time the door opened and it wasn’t her, something tightened further in my chest. A knot that grew tighter and tighter with each passing minute. A fear I couldn’t name and couldn’t push away.

She was supposed to be here.

She was always here.

I stared at the door, willing it to open with her face on the other side. Willing her to walk in with that familiar expression, the one that said I’m here, I’ve got this, you’re not alone. The one that had gotten me through so many moments just like this one..

Lena had been there for all of it. Quiet. Steady. Unshakeable.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours. I’d lost track of time completely. The light through the window shifted from afternoon to early evening. Shadows grew longer. The sounds in the corridor changed, fewer footsteps, quieter voices, the sense that the frantic searching was giving way to something more measured, more organized.

The door opened again. I looked up.

Not Lena. Just another guard, delivering another report I didn’t really hear. Something about the investigation. Something about leads they were following. The words washed over me without meaning, without sticking.

When he left, the silence came back. Heavy. Pressing. The kind of silence that fills a room and makes it hard to breathe.

I thought about this morning. About the way she’d looked at me when I’d said we’ll talk when I return. About the distance in her eyes that I’d pretended not to see, the hurt I’d chosen to ignore because dealing with it would have taken time and energy I didn’t think I had. About the promises I kept making and kept breaking because there was always another crisis, always another meeting, always another reason to put off the conversation I owed her.

After the grain distribution, I’d told myself. After the town hall. After I figure out how to tell her about the pregnancy. After. After. After.

After might be too late.

That was the thing about Lena, she was always here. Through everything. Every crisis, every late night, every moment when the crown felt too heavy and the room felt too small. She’d been my constant, my anchor, the one person who knew me before I was queen and loved me anyway. The one person I’d taken for granted because she’d never given me reason not to.

I’d walked away this morning badly and I knew it, had known it the moment the door closed behind me, had been planning how to fix it the entire time I was standing in the council chamber arguing with Petrov and Corvus. I’d rehearsed the words I would say. The apology I would make. The truth I would finally share.

We’ll talk. I promise. When I return.

I’d returned.

She wasn’t here.

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