Chapter 3 — No One Chose Me

Elara Veyne

Three years passed.

No one adopted me.

In my first life, that would have felt like failure. In my second, it was success.

I learned to be forgettable. During every annual evaluation, my Life blessing remained disappointingly weak. 

It was an act, of course.

Behind an abandoned greenhouse at the church, I started training in secret. I trained as best I could, but I focused on the one thing the Caldris never taught me: control.

They had always demanded more mana, more potions, more hours awake. If I survived ten mixtures, Gideon ordered an eleventh.

Now survival depended on knowing how to do less.

I studied too. Borders. Trade. Taxes. Contracts. Laws. The meaning of clauses I had signed in my first life without understanding them.

Discovering that the Caldris had managed to turn slavery into respectable legal language did not improve my mood.

At sixteen, I began taking temporary jobs outside the Church. I copied records, organized stock, served tea, and saved almost every coin.

At first, I hid money beneath my mattress. After another girl lost two coins and searched every bed in the dormitory, I divided mine among several places.

Paranoia, perhaps.

I preferred experience.

Working also taught me how thoroughly the Caldris name had spread through Aldervane.

“The Caldris Pack has signed yet another military contract.”

“Their recovery potions are excellent.”

“Gideon Caldris is receiving another commendation.”

People said those things while I carried boxes and expected me to agree.

Sometimes I smiled and said, “Truly admirable.”

It required more self-control than I liked.

----

One afternoon, a black carriage stopped outside the teahouse where I worked.

The iron wolf on the door was impossible to mistake.

Livia stepped out.

Healthy. Beautiful. Dressed in more money than I had saved in two years.

Her eyes caught the light with a faint amber sheen as she turned.

For a second, she looked directly at me.

Then away.

She did not recognize me.

But my body recognized her.

My hands went cold. My neck burned where the collar had once rested. For one breath, tea and rain disappeared beneath memories of alchemical smoke and blood.

Then I searched the carriage for someone else.

The girl with brown braids.

She was not there.

During the first months after her adoption, girls at the Church had received bits of news. Then nothing.

Maybe she was studying somewhere else. Maybe she lived on another property. Or maybe she was perfectly safe.

None of the possibilities convinced me.

When the carriage left, I stayed by the window.

I remembered raising my hand when she followed Gideon into that room,  when she was adopted.

Then lowering it.

“I hope you’re all right,” I whispered.

---

A few months later, Julian Reeve appeared.

I was leaving an apothecary when I nearly stepped in front of a cart.

“Careful.”

I knew the voice immediately.

Julian held the reins, younger than the man who had betrayed me but otherwise painfully familiar.

For one second, I thought he recognized me.

Impossible.

Then his gaze lingered on my face and he smiled.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“Is that box heavy?”

“No.”

“I can help.”

“No to that too.”

He laughed softly.

I hated that I remembered loving that sound.

“Do you work here?”

“Sometimes.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

“Lucky you.”

His smile changed slightly.

“Maybe not.”

It was too familiar.

It had been like that before, too. A conversation that went on longer than necessary. Bread brought in on the sly. Promises. Kisses. A door he swore he’d leave open.

And Gideon waiting on the other side.

Julian had not betrayed me in this life. That was the inconvenient truth. He had never lied to me, never promised escape, never sold me.

But I remembered.

“I need to go.”

“Hey. What’s your name?”

I kept walking.

I knew his already.

That was more than enough.

---

Those years also taught me to notice patterns.

Whenever wars worsened, more children arrived at the Church. That made sense. Wars made orphans, especially human ones.

What bothered me was how quickly certain families appeared when children from particular regions or with useful manifestations arrived. The Church recorded blessings, bloodlines, mana stability, and talents with great care, yet the fate of some children became strangely vague after adoption.

Maybe it was bureaucracy.

Maybe I had learned to see monsters everywhere.

In any case, that was strange.

I remembered the girl with braids and decided not to forget.

----

On my eighteenth birthday, everything I owned fit inside one bag: clothes, two books, documents, hidden savings, and a bundle of food Sister Ysabel insisted on adding.

She walked me to the gates.

“I still don’t like this,” she said.

“I understood that the first two times.”

Ysabel adjusted the collar of my coat.

My first instinct was to recoil.

I stopped myself.

She had never hurt me. I was still learning that some hands could touch without trying to possess.

“You could stay longer,” she said. “Maybe a good family will appear.”

“I think we’re past waiting for someone to choose me.”

“Elara...”

“It’s all right.”

And strangely, it was.

Ysabel had never demanded explanations. She left food, books, or a new candle by my bed and pretended not to notice how late I stayed in the library.

Maybe affection could be quiet.

“Thank you,” I said.

She looked surprised.

“Do you know where you’re going?”

I looked through the gates at Sacred Crown Avenue, crowded with carriages, mana rails, humans, shifters, soldiers, vendors, and enough people for someone to disappear among them.

“Not yet.”

“That worries me.”

I smiled. “That’s the good part.”

She hugged me.

My body went rigid for a second.

Then relaxed.

Only a little.

When we separated, I walked through the gates.

No one followed.

No one demanded to know where I was going.

No one grabbed my arm.

I could turn left. Right. Keep walking straight.

Such a simple choice almost frightened me.

I thought about the girl with braids, Livia, Julian, Sabine, and finally Gideon.

The hatred was still there.

But I had learned to be patient.

One day I would return, open every door the Caldris kept locked, and make Aldervane see what existed behind them.

But that day, I kept walking.

No one had bought me.

No one had chosen me.

For the first time in my life, I belonged nowhere.

And never had an absence felt so much like freedom.