Yssa's Secret

Chapter 6

The healing wing was empty by the time Elara slipped through its side door, candlelight from the corridor throwing her shadow long across the tiled floor. Yssa stood at the far counter, alone, grinding something into paste with the focused stillness of a woman who'd rather not be interrupted.

"We need to talk."

Yssa didn't turn around. "It's the middle of the night, Elara."

"You've had a week to find me during the day. You haven't."

"Because there's nothing to discuss."

"Then why won't you look at me?"

That landed. Yssa's hands stilled over the mortar, and slowly, she set it down and turned, her expression already braced, like she'd known this conversation was coming and had simply been hoping it would come later. Or never.

"Go back to your quarters."

"No." Elara stepped further into the room, blocking the path to the door. "You said 'sealed.' Not absent. I've thought about nothing else for a week, and I'm not leaving until you tell me what it means."

"It meant nothing. A slip of the tongue"

"You warned me to stop asking questions before the Crown noticed I was asking them." Elara's voice shook, but she didn't stop. "Healers don't say things like that over a slip of the tongue, Yssa."

Silence. Yssa's eyes flicked toward the corridor a reflex, checking for anyone who might be listening and something in that small, frightened motion told Elara more than words would have.

"There was never anything wrong with your wolf," Yssa said finally, so quietly Elara almost missed it.

Elara's pulse spiked. "Then why couldn't I shift? Why has every healer in this palace told me for fifteen years that I was born broken?"

"Because that was easier to believe than the truth."

"Which is?"

Yssa's jaw tightened, like the words physically cost her something. "Because someone made sure you couldn't."

The room went very quiet.

"Made sure," Elara repeated slowly. "You're saying someone did this to me. On purpose."

"I'm saying your wolf isn't absent. It never was." Yssa's voice had dropped into something raw, something that sounded like relief and terror in equal measure the sound of a secret finally leaving a body that had carried it too long. "It's sealed. Bound. Something old, something deliberate, layered so carefully that even I couldn't be certain until" She stopped herself.

"Until what?"

"Until the inspection." Yssa's hand pressed flat against the counter, steadying herself. "I felt it that day. Underneath everything. A pulse where there shouldn't have been one. Like something alive, locked behind a door that was never meant to open."

Elara's throat had gone tight. "How is that possible? Who could even do something like that?"

"I don't know."

"You do. You have to. You're a healer"

"I don't know, Elara." Yssa's voice cracked, sharp and sudden. "I know the shape of it. I know what it feels like under my hands. I don't know who did it, or how, or why, and I would very much like to keep it that way, because knowing more than that has never once made anyone in this palace safer."

Elara stared at her, chest heaving, a hundred questions crowding her throat at once. She chose the one that mattered most.

"When did you first notice it?"

Yssa didn't answer right away, and that hesitation frightened Elara more than anything the healer had said so far.

"Yssa."

"During your first examination." Yssa's eyes wouldn't meet hers now. "When you were an infant. Weeks old, maybe less."

The floor seemed to tilt slightly under Elara's feet.

"That's not possible," she said slowly. "My father wasn't arrested until I was three. The trial, the execution that was years after I was born."

"I know."

"Then whatever you felt in me as an infant happened before any of it. Before the accusations. Before the trial. Before anyone in this kingdom ever called my father a traitor."

Yssa said nothing, which was answer enough.

Elara's mind raced backward through everything she'd been told her whole life your father betrayed the crown, and this is what happens to a traitor's blood, this is your punishment, this is what you deserve and none of it, none of it, fit anymore.

"You're telling me," she said, voice barely steady, "that whatever's inside me was sealed before my father did anything. Before he was even accused." Her hands curled into fists at her sides. "That means it was never a punishment for his treason. It was never about what he did at all."

"Elara"

"Someone sealed something inside a newborn baby, Yssa. Years before my family fell apart." Her voice rose, unable to help it now. "That's not punishment. That's preparation. Someone knew something about me before anyone knew anything about my father's supposed crimes."

"Keep your voice down." Yssa's eyes darted to the corridor again, genuine panic flashing across her face this time. "Please."

"Who ordered it?" Elara pressed, closer now, desperate. "Who was in that room when I was examined? You said you were there who else was?"

"I can't tell you that."

"Can't, or won't?"

"Does it matter?" Yssa's composure finally broke entirely, her hands trembling as she gripped the counter's edge. "Elara, I have already told you more tonight than I have told anyone in fifteen years. Do you understand what that means? Do you understand what it could cost me if the wrong person learns I said any of it?"

"Then tell me who to be afraid of."

"Everyone," Yssa said, and the word came out shaking, final. "That's the answer. Everyone. I don't know who's still watching this, only that someone is, because records don't get sealed and re-sealed for no reason, because healers don't get quietly warned to forget things they've witnessed unless someone with real power wants them forgotten." She straightened, visibly forcing herself back into control, though her hands hadn't stopped trembling. "I have already said too much."

"Yssa, please"

"No." The healer's voice hardened, fear sharpening into something closer to command. "Listen to me carefully, because I will not say this twice. Whatever was sealed inside you was sealed by someone with enough power to erase it from every record in this palace and enough fear of it to keep erasing it, even now, years later. Do you understand what that means?"

Elara's mouth had gone dry. "That it's dangerous."

"That you are dangerous. To someone." Yssa stepped back, putting distance between them like proximity itself had become a risk. "And people who start asking the kinds of questions you're asking tend not to get the luxury of finishing them."

"Is that a warning?"

"It's the only kindness I have left to give you." Yssa moved toward the door, pausing only long enough to look back, her expression a terrible mixture of pity and fear. "Stop looking, Elara. For your own sake. Some questions don't just get answered."

"They get people killed," Elara finished quietly.

Yssa didn't confirm it. She didn't need to.

She held Elara's gaze for one long, unbearable moment.

Then she slipped through the door and disappeared into the corridor.

Elara stared after her.

“Someone did this to me,” she whispered.

The words sounded different now.

Not I was born broken.

Not I am wolfless.

Someone had chosen this for her.

Someone had known what she was before she was old enough to speak.

And someone in the palace still knew.

A floorboard creaked outside.

Elara froze.

She turned toward the door.

No one entered.

Silence.

Then

Thump.

Elara's hand flew to her chest.

A second pulse struck beneath her ribs.

Thump.

Her breath caught.

That wasn't her heartbeat.

Something else was pulsing inside her.

Something alive.

Something that had been silent for fifteen years.

Elara stared at the closed door.

Yssa's warning echoed in her mind.

Some questions don't just get answered.

Her fingers tightened against her chest.

For the first time in fifteen years, the thing inside her answered back.