Queen Elara's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Elara slipped from the garden before anyone could call her name again. She crossed into the old stone court that only she still used, a tall, quiet building with narrow windows and a locked inner room. There she set the charm down on the table and waited for her grandfather's voice. Nothing came. The small light inside the metal had gone dark, like a candle drowned in its own wax. She tried again. She held the charm to the light. She spoke his name. The charm sat cold in her palm, sealed shut as a buried chest. Outside the window stood the stone monument of him and his old marching guard, swords down, eyes forward. Their carved faces gave her nothing. She had counted on his counsel tonight. She had counted on it for years. A knock broke the silence. Two figures stepped in without waiting — a young man with steady eyes and a winged girl who would not quite meet hers. "You're hiding," the young man said. "We saw you go." Elara looked at them. At the way the girl's hand brushed his, then drew back, then returned. At the heart-link chain at the girl's throat. She understood at once. "You're Kael," Elara said. Then, to the girl beside him, plain as stone: "Can you be my mother-in-law? Because your son is my lover." She heard the words leave her mouth before she chose them. The silent charm had pushed her past caution. If her grandfather would not speak, she would. Kael did not flinch. "Not always how I'd say it. But yes." The winged girl's face cracked open, then closed. Elara set the dead charm into a small wooden chest on the shelf and shut the lid. She had no guide now. She had only what she had just admitted aloud, and the two people standing in front of her who had heard it.