A Mother's Words

Chapter 10

Elara shoved the dress and hidden letter beneath the folded blanket at the foot of her cot before reaching the door.

Her hands were still shaking when she pulled it open.

"What?"

"Finally!"

Petra, one of the kitchen girls, stood in the corridor with a basket balanced against her hip.

"Bellamy wants the mending returned before supper," she said breathlessly. "He's already asked twice."

Elara blinked.

"That's the emergency?"

"You didn't answer the first three times I knocked." Petra frowned. "I thought something had happened to you."

"Nothing happened."

Petra's eyes narrowed.

"You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

"I was concentrating."

"On what?"

Elara glanced toward the cot.

"The hem."

Petra stared at her.

"The hem made you look terrified?"

"It is a difficult hem."

"Right."

Petra clearly didn't believe her, but she held out the basket.

"Bellamy said he wants the finished pieces before supper."

"They aren't finished."

"He won't like that."

"He doesn't like anything."

Petra snorted.

"Tell him tomorrow morning."

"He'll blame me."

"Then tell him I told you to tell him."

"You want me dead?"

Despite herself, Elara almost smiled.

"Go, Petra."

Petra shook her head and started down the corridor.

Then she stopped.

"Elara?"

"Yes?"

"You really are all right?"

Elara hesitated.

"Yes."

Petra studied her for another second before finally walking away.

Elara closed the door and waited.

One second.

Two.

Five.

Only when Petra's footsteps disappeared did she slide the bolt into place.

"That was close."

Mira's voice came from beside the window.

Elara turned.

"You heard all of that?"

"I heard enough to know Bellamy nearly killed us both without even being here."

Elara hurried to the cot and pulled the folded blanket away.

The letter was still there.

She picked it up carefully.

"Read it," Mira whispered.

Elara looked at her.

"What if it changes nothing?"

"Then you'll know."

"And what if it changes everything?"

Mira held her gaze.

"Then you'll know that too."

Elara swallowed.

Slowly, she unfolded the parchment.

Her mother's handwriting stared back at her.

For fifteen years, she had remembered that handwriting only from one old letter hidden beneath her belongings.

Now, it was in her hands again.

She read the first line.

My daughter, if you are reading this, then the Moonstone has finally begun to awaken.

Elara stopped breathing for a moment.

"Mira."

"What?"

"Listen."

She read it aloud.

Mira's expression changed.

"The Moonstone?"

Elara nodded.

"Keep reading."

Elara's eyes moved down the page.

I have hidden this where I hope no one but you will ever find it. If the Moonstone has stirred, then time is shorter than I feared, and I owe you truths I was never permitted to give you while I lived.

Elara's fingers tightened around the parchment.

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know."

"Then keep reading."

She did.

You are more than the Veyne name, Elara. More than what this kingdom has told you, and more than what it will continue to tell you, if it can help it.

Elara's eyes burned.

She continued.

Do not trust every word the royal court speaks of your father, or of your family, or of what happened the year everything changed.

Her voice weakened.

"Some of it is true. Much of it is not. I was never able to tell you which was which, and I am sorry for that more than I can write."

Silence filled the room.

Mira stepped closer.

"Elara..."

Elara stared at the letter.

"For fifteen years," she whispered, "I've heard the same story."

"What story?"

"That my father betrayed the kingdom. That he deserved his sentence. That my mother died afterwards and left me behind."

Mira's face tightened.

"You were a child."

"I know."

"And you believed them."

"I had no reason not to."

Mira reached for her hand.

"Maybe you do now."

Elara looked down at the letter.

Her mother's next words waited beneath the crease.

She unfolded it carefully.

I have wanted, every day since your birth, to tell you what you truly are.

Elara froze.

Mira leaned closer.

"What?"

Elara couldn't answer.

She continued reading.

I could not. Not while the court watched us as closely as they did, not while your father's enemies searched for any excuse to

The sentence ended.

Elara frowned.

She turned the parchment over.

Nothing.

She checked the fold.

Nothing.

"That's it?"

Mira took the letter gently.

"Maybe there's another page."

"There isn't."

"Look again."

Elara searched every crease.

Nothing.

Her mother's final sentence had simply stopped.

"She didn't finish it."

Mira stared at the unfinished line.

"Maybe she was interrupted."

"Or someone stopped her."

Neither of them spoke.

A cold feeling moved through Elara's chest.

"She knew something," Elara whispered.

"About you?"

"About my family."

Mira looked at the letter again.

"She said you're more than the Veyne name."

Elara's eyes lifted.

"Why would she write that?"

"I don't know."

"Why hide it in my dress?"

"Maybe she knew you'd keep it."

"She made the dress when I was a child."

"Then maybe she expected you to grow into it."

Elara gave a nervous laugh.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

Elara looked down again.

There was something beneath the unfinished sentence.

A single word.

Smaller than the rest.

It was almost as if it had been added at the last possible moment.

Her breath caught.

"Mira."

"What?"

"There's another word."

Mira leaned closer.

Elara pointed.

Moonstone.

Mira's expression changed instantly.

"The ceremony."

"Three weeks."

"Why would your mother mention it?"

"I don't know."

"You said the letter was hidden years ago."

"It was."

"Then how could she know?"

Elara shook her head.

"Maybe she didn't know the exact day."

"Then what did she know?"

Elara didn't answer.

She read the unfinished sentence again.

I have wanted, every day since your birth, to tell you what you truly are.

Her fingers trembled.

"What if she knew why I never shifted?"

Mira went silent.

Elara's eyes lifted.

"What if she knew why I've always been different?"

"Elara..."

"Yssa said something was sealed inside me."

Mira stared at her.

"You never told me that."

"I wasn't supposed to."

"Who told you?"

"The healer."

Mira lowered her voice.

"And you think this letter is connected?"

"I don't know."

"You keep saying that."

"Because I don't!"

Elara pressed the letter against her chest.

"I've spent fifteen years being told I was wolfless. Broken. The traitor's daughter. And now my mother leaves me a letter saying none of it is as simple as they made me believe."

Mira stepped closer.

"Then maybe it's time you stopped believing them."

Elara looked at her.

"What if she's wrong?"

"Then you'll find out."

"What if she's right?"

Mira's expression softened.

"Then you'll finally know why."

Elara looked toward the window.

Beyond the palace rooftops, the temple towers rose against the evening sky.

Three weeks.

The Sacred Moon Ceremony was three weeks away.

Her mother had written about the Moonstone long before Elara knew it would matter.

That couldn't be a coincidence.

Could it?

Elara folded the parchment carefully.

"I need to hide this."

"Where?"

"Somewhere no one will think to look."

Mira nodded.

"And the ceremony?"

Elara looked toward the temple again.

For years, she had wanted only one thing from the Sacred Moon Ceremony.

To stand inside the temple.

To touch the Moonstone.

To prove she wasn't invisible.

Now she wanted something else.

An answer.

"What are you going to do?" Mira asked.

Elara slipped the letter inside her dress.

"I'm going to the ceremony."

Mira gave her a worried look.

"And if something happens?"

Elara's hand moved instinctively to the place where the letter rested against her heart.

"Then I'll find out what my mother was trying to tell me."

She looked at the unfinished sentence one last time.

The missing words haunted her more than the ones she'd read.

I have wanted, every day since your birth, to tell you what you truly are...

What had her mother intended to write next?

And why had she never been allowed to finish?

Elara folded the dress over the hidden letter.

Three weeks.

The Moonstone was waiting.

And somewhere beneath fifteen years of lies, her mother's unfinished warning was waiting too.