CHAPTER 14 The Face I Trusted

My mind scrambled to catch up with what my eyes were seeing.

"Elira," I whispered.

She smiled, and it was the same warm, easy smile she'd given me every morning since I arrived at the Iron Keep. The same smile she wore while braiding my hair, while bringing me tea when I couldn't sleep, while listening patiently the night I told her, half in tears, about Julian's betrayal. She was the one person in this whole cold fortress who had never once made me feel like an outsider.

"You've been kind to me," I said slowly. "Every single day."

"I know," Elira said. "It wasn't hard. You're an easy person to like, Princess. That's rather the problem."

"Why?" My voice cracked. "Why do all this?"

"Because Lyra was my sister."

The words hit me like a slap.

"Cassian's first wife," I said.

"My sister," Elira repeated, her voice suddenly sharp underneath the calm. "Sweet, gentle Lyra, who came here trusting the same promises you did. Full authority. Equal partnership. A husband who respected her." Her jaw tightened. "And she still ended up dead in the training yard, six months later, with nobody in this keep ever paying for it."

"You think Cassian killed her."

"I think Cassian let her die," Elira snapped. "He was supposed to protect her. He promised her the same things he's been promising you. And somehow, mysteriously, she still ended up dead, and he still walked away without a single scar to show for it."

"So this is revenge," I said. "Against him. Not me."

"At first," Elira admitted. "I came here two years ago planning to find proof of what really happened to my sister. I got close to the household. I made myself useful, made myself liked, made myself invisible. And then you arrived, another contract bride walking into the exact same arrangement my sister walked into, and I realized I finally had a way to make Cassian understand what it feels like to lose everything."

"By hurting me."

"By showing him exactly how it felt for me," Elira said quietly. "Waiting. Wondering. Watching someone you love slip further and further into danger while everyone around you insists it's all under control."

"And Julian?" I asked. "Marcus? The ring, the note, the caravan attack?"

Something like satisfaction flickered across her face.

"Julian was easy," she said. "Bitter, desperate men always are. I found Marcus months ago, offered him gold and information in exchange for small favors. Leaving the ring where you'd find it. Sending word that Julian was watching the border. It didn't take much to convince him his Alpha still wanted you back, and even less to convince Marcus that helping him would earn him a place at Julian's side once you were reclaimed."

"You used them," I said. "Both of them."

"Everyone is useful for something," Elira said simply. "Julian gave me a convenient distraction at your gate. Marcus gave me eyes and hands outside these walls. And you," she tilted her head, studying me the way one studies something fragile right before breaking it, "you gave me the perfect excuse to finally do what I should have done the moment Lyra died."

"Where are Petra and the wounded man?" I demanded, my hand twitching helplessly near my sleeve.

"Alive," Elira said. "Somewhere close. Whether they stay that way depends entirely on what you do in the next few minutes."

"What do you want from me?"

Elira reached into her cloak and pulled out a small vial filled with a dark, swirling liquid.

"This is what killed my sister," she said, holding it up so the moonlight caught the glass. "A poison brewed from shadow herbs, slow enough that no healer could trace it in time, fast enough to finish the job before anyone thought to look closely. I want you to drink it."

My blood ran cold.

"If you drink it willingly," Elira continued, "I'll let Petra and the wounded man go free, and I'll disappear from this keep forever. Cassian will spend the rest of his life wondering what really happened to you, the same way I spent two years wondering about Lyra. That seems fair to me."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then I kill them both right now, and I still find a way to make you suffer before this night is over. Either way, Princess, someone dies tonight. You simply get to choose who."

My fingers itched toward the pendant hanging at my throat, the one Cassian had given me, the one that would summon him and his men the instant I crushed it.

Elira's eyes followed the movement immediately.

"I told you already," she said coldly. "Touch that stone, and they both die before help arrives."

I forced my hand still, my mind racing through every option, every angle, every scrap of training I'd absorbed since childhood. There had to be a way out of this that didn't end with me drinking poison or watching two innocent people die in front of me.

"Choose, Aurora," Elira said, stepping closer, the vial held out between us like an offering. "The clock is already moving."

Behind her, deep in the shadows of the ruined pillars, I caught the faintest flicker of movement. A shape shifting against stone that hadn't shifted a second ago.

Cassian. Close. Closer than Elira realized.

I needed to buy time. Just a few more seconds.

"Tell me one thing first," I said, forcing my voice to stay calm, stalling. "Did Cassian know? About what really happened to Lyra? Did he know, and hide it?"

Elira's expression flickered, something raw and painful breaking through the cold mask for just a moment.