Chapter 5

Elena's POV

A week after the banquet, something happened in the Prince's domain.

A hunter disguised as an attendant slipped into the side hall.

That day had begun as nothing more than an ordinary council session.

Several members of the Council were present.

Adrian was there too.

He had brought Clara with him, seated in the place nearest the head of the table.

She was plainly out of place there.

As the vampires discussed territory, taxation, and the purging of hunters along the borders, her face stayed pale the whole time.

Adrian soothed her in a low voice more than once.

Only then did she manage not to leave her seat.

I sat at the other end of the long table, listening quietly to the Council argue.

After the engagement ended, my father had begun bringing me back into family affairs.

He said that since I was no longer Adrian's fiancée, I ought to plan for my own future.

The words were practical.

And they were the most welcome thing I'd heard in a long while.

At last I was no longer simply someone's fiancée.

I was still Elena.

A daughter of an ancient vampire house.

Someone who should have had her own place in that council chamber all along.

Halfway through the session, I caught the faintest trace of silver.

The scent was buried under blood wine and incense, almost impossible to detect.

My fingers stilled. I raised my eyes toward the door.

An attendant was walking in, carrying a tray of wine.

His steps were steady.

His head bowed at just the right angle.

But his hand gripped the tray too tightly.

The next second, his arm shot up.

Beneath the tray was a small silver crossbow.

And its target was Adrian.

"Watch out!"

Someone screamed.

The side hall dissolved into chaos.

The guards drew their swords.

The Elders rose.

Clara’s face drained of color, and her first instinct was to shrink back.

She knocked over a chair, caught her hem on her ankle, and fell to the floor.

Adrian threw up a hand and knocked the first silver bolt aside.

But the second was already upon him.

In my last life, it had been the same.

Not the same day.

But the same kind of danger.

A hunter had hidden by a side door of a banquet hall, firing a silver bolt at Adrian then too.

Back then I was close to him, with no time to think.

I threw myself over and shoved him out of the way.

The bolt drove into my shoulder.

A burning pain ignited in my flesh, scorching until my whole arm went nearly numb.

Adrian steadied me and frowned.

"Elena, that was reckless."

I was in too much pain to keep the color in my lips, yet I forced a calm and asked whether he was hurt.

That day, he was silent for a long time.

Afterward, I thought it meant his heart ached for me.

Only now do I understand that he simply couldn't grasp why I kept clinging to him, knowing he didn't love me.

Couldn't grasp why I kept throwing myself in front of him, knowing it would only hurt.

This time, I did not move.

I sat at the other end of the long table.

I watched calmly as the guards rushed in.

I watched Adrian twist aside.

The silver bolt grazed his shoulder, tore his coat, and drew a thin line of blood.

Not fatal.

Hardly even a serious wound.

But the hall went still for a heartbeat.

Because everyone had seen it.

Clara had bolted under the table, hidden herself completely, without a single glance at her fiancé.

And I, the childhood sweetheart who had always been willing to die for Adrian, only sat quietly where I was.

The hunter was subdued quickly.

The guards pinned him to the floor.

The Council's faces were grim.

Adrian stood where he was, blood seeping from his shoulder.

But he didn't look at the wound first.

His gaze cut through the chaos and found me.

I knew what he was thinking.

He was wondering why I hadn't rushed forward.

Why I hadn't thrown my body in front of his to take the danger, the way I always had.

But Adrian.

This time, why should I save you?

A handmaid helped Clara up, and she was shaking all over with fright.

She threw herself into Adrian's arms, her voice thick with tears.

"Adrian, I was so scared."

"That man almost killed me too just now."

Adrian looked down at her.

His hand lifted, then in the end settled on her back.

"It's over now."

Clara cried harder.

"This place is terrifying."

"I want to go back."

"I don't want to stay here anymore."

The Council's faces went colder still.

A human girl, saying such things in a vampire council chamber.

It was not merely cowardice.

It was an outright insult.

Yet Adrian did not reproach her.

He only looked at me.

That one look was heavy.

It held accusation, along with a flicker of resentment I couldn’t comprehend.

I stood and gave him a bow, exactly as custom required.

"Lord Adrian, you're injured."

"Please have the doctor see to it quickly."

The words were perfectly proper.

And perfectly distant.

Adrian's face darkened further.

"That's all you have to say?"

I asked calmly:

"What else would there be?"

He stared at me.

"You weren't like this before."

That line again.

It seemed to be the only thing he could use to prove that he and I were still tangled together.

But the Elena of before was already dead.

Dead beneath a hunter's gun.

Dead in the moment he said he wished he had never met me.

I looked at the blood on his shoulder.

There was no satisfaction in my heart.

And no ache either.

Only a tired sort of calm.

"What I used to be doesn't matter anymore."

Clara lifted her tear-filled eyes to me.

Perhaps she expected me to mock her for being a coward.

But I didn't.

She was human.

It was natural for her to be afraid.

It was natural for her not to save Adrian.

What wasn't natural was the version of me from my last life.

Who knew perfectly well she would be burned.

Who knew perfectly well he might not be moved at all.

And who still threw her life in front of him, over and over, to be his shield.

Adrian said in a low voice:

"Elena, do you really have to be this petty with me?"

I laughed.

"I just didn't take a bolt for you. Any normal person would do the same. Does that really count as being petty?"

He went still.

No one in the hall spoke.

Every noble was watching us.

In the past, I dreaded nothing more than embarrassing Adrian in front of a crowd.

I would smooth it over for him, protect his face.

I would swallow my own grievance and shame, every last drop of it.

But not now. Now I didn't want to.

I looked at Clara.

"Miss Clara has had a fright. Lord Adrian, you should take her back."

"As for the hunter, the Council will look into it."

With that, I turned and left the side hall.

Behind me came the muffled sound of Clara crying.

And Adrian's voice, calling my name.

"Elena."

I didn't look back.

As I stepped through the door, the night wind brushed my shoulder.

The place that had been wounded in my last life was whole now, yet it still ached faintly.

I lifted a hand and pressed it.

That spot had once been pierced by a silver bolt, scorched by daylight.

It had once been struck by a silver bullet.

Every scar was proof that I had loved Adrian.

But no amount of proof could buy a single shred of his sincerity.

This life, I would never use wounds to prove love again.

And I would never again use my life to save a man who had long since stopped being mine.