Chapter 78: Chapter 79: The due truth

Elara’s POV

The light had changed, evening now, the room dimmer, a candle lit by someone at some point, when the door finally opened and Lena walked through.

I was on my feet before I registered moving.

“Where have you been?”

She stopped. She looked tired, I noticed distantly, tired and slightly pale, her hair less neat than usual, something careful about her expression. She was still wearing the same dress from this morning, but it was rumpled now, like she’d been sitting somewhere uncomfortable for a long time.

“I’m sorry,” she started. “I didn’t know–”

“Where were you?” My voice cracked on the last word and I didn’t care, didn’t care how it sounded, how it looked. “I came back and there was, there was a note, and blood on my bed and I screamed and there were guards everywhere and I asked for you, I asked for you immediately, and no one could tell me where you were, no one could find you–”

Her face went pale. “Blood? What do you mean blood?”

“There was a kerchief on my bed.” The words came out too fast, tumbling over each other. “Soaked in blood. Someone was in my chambers, Lena. In the middle of the afternoon. Past the guards. Past everyone. And I came back and you weren’t there and I didn’t know–” I stopped, breathing hard.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was quieter now. “I’m so sorry, Elara.”

“I needed you.” The words came out wrong, too naked, too much. I couldn’t stop them. “I needed you and you weren’t here and I didn’t, I didn’t know where you were or if something had happened to you or if they’d, if whoever got in had–”

My voice broke completely.

I hadn’t cried in front of anyone in weeks. Had held it together through council meetings and political maneuvering and a kingdom pulling at the seams. Had been calm and composed and strategic and strong while everything around me threatened to collapse. Had smiled at Corvus and nodded at Petrov and made decisions that could save or destroy thousands of lives.

The tears came now, sudden and total, and I couldn’t have stopped them if I’d tried.

“Elara–” Lena crossed the room in three steps and then her arms were around me, and I felt her trembling too, or maybe that was me, maybe we were both shaking, and I pressed my face against her shoulder and cried in earnest, the way I’d needed to cry for days without being able to.

“I’m here,” she said, low and rough. “I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I was so scared.” I could barely get the words out. “I’m not, I’m not usually, I know how to hold it together, I know how to be calm, but–” I choked on a sob. “Where were you?”

She held me tighter. “I snuck out, I know I shouldn’t have left without telling anyone, but I had this craving, this ridiculous craving for red apples. The kitchen only had the green. The good ones from the southern orchards are red. And I knew if I asked the head maid, she’d give me that look, you know the one, like I’m being difficult and demanding and she’d probably make some comment about how the queen’s handmaiden thinks she’s too good for regular fruit.”

I laughed despite myself, a wet, shaky sound. “She does give that look.”

“She does.” Lena’s voice was soft. “So I just… slipped out. Thought I’d be gone for ten minutes. Grab an apple, come back, no one would even notice.” She pulled back slightly, just enough to look at my face. “I was busy eating apples and didn’t know anything was wrong until a guard found me when I got back and told me to get to you immediately. I ran the whole way.”

“You were gone for hours.” I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand.

“I know.” She shook her head. “I dozed off under one of the trees.” She squeezed my arms. “I’m sorry. I should have been here. I should have been here.”

I looked at her for a long moment. The explanation made sense. Lena and the head maid had never gotten along. And Lena did have a stubborn streak when it came to being told what to do. And the palace was chaos, I’d heard it myself, the rushing feet and shouting voices.

“I’m just glad you’re okay.” My voice was steadier now. “When I couldn’t find you, when no one knew where you were, I thought–”

“I know.” Her arms tightened around me again. “I know. I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.”

We stayed like that for a long moment. Long enough that my breathing started to even out. Long enough that the shaking began to ease. Long enough that I felt the warmth of her body against mine and remembered that I wasn’t alone, that I’d never really been alone, that Lena had always been here and always would be.

Long enough that I felt the guilt rise up through everything else, slow and certain.

I’d pushed her away for long.

I pulled back slowly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “About this morning. I’ve been handling everything badly lately. You deserved better than–”

“We don’t have to do this right now.”

“I want to.” I held her gaze. “I’ve been keeping you at a distance and I know it and I haven’t explained it properly and that’s not, that’s not how I treat people I care about. It’s not how I want to treat you.”

She looked at me for a long moment. Something moved behind her eyes, something complicated and tired that I couldn’t quite read.

“Okay,” she said softly.

“Okay,” I echoed.

I sat on the edge of the unfamiliar bed. She sat beside me. For a moment we were quiet, the candle between us and the corridor sounds muffled beyond the door. The chaos was still out there, still searching for answers, but in here, for this moment, there was just us.

Then Lena said: “The note. What exactly did it say?”

“YOU WILL PAY. NOT IN GOLD. IN KIND.” It wasn’t signed, so I don’t know who sent it. But I’m suspecting the voice, they are the only problem I’ve had recently and the ones against my ruling.”

Her jaw tightened. “Do the guards know how someone got in?”

“No.” I exhaled heavily. “Lord Corvus is investigating. The guards saw nothing. No one saw anything. It’s like whoever did it just… walked through walls.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I know it’s not possible.” My voice came out sharper than I intended. “I know that. But it’s what happened. Someone was in my chambers, Lena. In the middle of the afternoon, with guards on every floor. Someone walked in and left that on my bed and walked back out and no one saw a thing.”

Silence again.

I stared at the candle flame, watching it flicker and dance. The room was quiet now, the corridor sounds fading as the palace settled into evening. Soon it would be night. Soon I’d have to decide whether to stay in this unfamiliar room or risk going back to the one where someone had left me a threat soaked in blood.

I became aware, gradually, of something I’d been sitting with for days now. Something I’d been folding smaller and smaller inside myself, pressing it flat, refusing to let it take shape, because once I said it out loud it would become real and I was not ready for it to be real.

But I was so tired.

Tired of holding things alone. Tired of keeping the shape of myself carefully contained. I’d just told her I didn’t want to keep pushing her away, and I’d meant it, and there was only so long you could mean something and still refuse to act on it.

“Lena.” My voice came out smaller than I intended. “I need to tell you something.”

She looked at me.

“I’ve been–” I stopped. Started again. “I’ve been noticing things. About myself. Things that don’t add up to anything good, or, or anything simple.” I pressed my lips together. “The exhaustion. The mornings. The way certain smells have been making me sick. The way I can’t keep food down. The way my body feels different, wrong somehow, but not wrong in a bad way, just, different.”

I stopped again.

Lena had gone very still.

“I think–” The words caught in my throat. I made myself say them. “I think I might be pregnant.”

The silence that followed was the loudest thing I’d heard all day.

Lena stared at me. Her face had done something complicated, shock, I thought, and something else underneath it that moved too quickly for me to name.

“Almost certain,” I added, because the look on her face asked the question. “I haven’t, I haven’t said it out loud before now. I haven’t let myself say it. But I’ve known, I think. For a little while. I’ve known and I’ve just been–” I laughed, short and a little wild. “Refusing to know-”

“Elara.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yes.” I pressed my hand flat to my stomach, the gesture I’d been making privately for days, the one I thought no one had seen. “I know. I’m pregnant.”

We sat in the flickering candlelight, in an unfamiliar room, with blood on my pillow two corridors away and a threat I couldn’t trace and a kingdom that needed me steady-

And for once, I didn’t try to hold any of it together.

I just let Lena see it.

All of it.

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