Chapter 17

Elara's POV

Dinner that evening was a formal affair held in the castle's great dining hall, long tables set with more silverware than I knew what to do with, and I found myself grateful for the hours Freya had spent drilling me on which fork belonged to which course, even as my attention kept drifting toward Lady Vesna.

Seated close enough to Kael's right hand that the placement alone felt like a small, deliberate statement.

"Relax your shoulders," Nyra murmured beside me, barely moving her lips as she reached for her wine. "You look like you're bracing for an attack."

"I feel like I'm bracing for an attack."

"Then hide it better. Vesna feeds on visible nerves the way some wolves feed on fear during a hunt."

I forced my shoulders down, took a slow breath, and tried to focus on the food in front of me instead of the easy, practiced way Vesna leaned toward Kael during a lull in the conversation, her voice pitched low enough that I couldn't hear the words, though I could see the careful, neutral way Kael responded, giving her nothing to work with despite her clear effort to draw something more out of him.

"Tell me, Elara," Vesna said, turning her attention my way with a suddenness that made my spine straighten before I could stop it, "how does an omega from a small pack like Ashwood adjust to court life in a kingdom like this? It must be quite the change, going from folding laundry, I believe someone mentioned, to sitting at a King's table."

The comment landed exactly where she intended it to, a small blade wrapped in polite curiosity, and I felt several pairs of eyes at the table shift toward me, waiting to see how I'd respond.

"It's certainly different," I said, keeping my voice light, refusing to let the old shame color my tone the way it once might have.

"Though I've found the change less difficult than people seem to expect. I think most of us are capable of far more than the roles we're given credit for, if anyone bothers to look past the label long enough to notice."

"How diplomatic," Vesna said, though something in her eyes suggested she hadn't expected quite that answer.

"And here I thought omegas were taught to simply accept the labels given to them, not challenge the people doing the labeling."

"I was taught that for a long time," I agreed. "I'm unlearning it. It's proving to be one of the more useful things I've done recently."

A few soft sounds of amusement moved down the table, and I caught Soren's barely concealed grin from further down, and even Elder Mathis, seated near the far end, offered the smallest twitch of what might have been approval before his expression smoothed back into its usual careful neutrality.

Vesna's smile stayed fixed in place, though something colder moved behind her eyes, and she turned her attention back to Kael with the air of someone regrouping rather than retreating. "You've trained her well, Kael. I'll give you that much."

"I haven't trained her at all," Kael said evenly. "Elara speaks for herself. She always has."

The dinner continued through several more courses, the conversation drifting toward trade routes and border patrols and the kind of political matters I understood only in fragments.

Though I noticed Vesna steering the topic more than once toward questions about Nightfall Hollow's alliances, about which packs and kingdoms Kael trusted most, questions that felt less like genuine diplomatic interest and more like careful information gathering dressed up in polite dinner conversation.

It wasn't until the meal was nearly finished that she turned her attention back to me, and this time her voice carried something quieter, almost conspiratorial, pitched for just the two of us despite the crowded table.

"A word of advice, if you'll permit me," she said, leaning slightly closer.

"Bonds like the one you share with Kael, born from crisis, from rescue, from all that dramatic circumstance in the woods, they burn very bright very fast. I've watched it happen before, with others.

The question is always whether something built that quickly can survive once the excitement fades and the real difficulties begin."

"Is that concern," I asked, "or a warning?"

"Perhaps both." Vesna's smile turned almost gentle, which somehow felt more unsettling than her sharper edges had. "I've known Kael a long time, Elara. Longer than you've been alive, likely.

I've watched him guard himself against exactly this kind of attachment for decades, for good reason. Curses like his don't simply vanish because someone finally believes in a fairy tale ending.

I'd hate to see you break your heart chasing one, the same way I'd hate to see him break in ways that can't be undone if it doesn't work out the way you're both hoping."

There was something almost sincere buried under the words, enough that I couldn't quite dismiss the whole comment as pure manipulation, though the timing of it, delivered quietly at a dinner clearly meant to assess exactly how deep my bond with Kael actually ran, told me sincerity wasn't the only thing motivating her to say it.

"I appreciate the concern," I said carefully. "But I think Kael and I are capable of deciding for ourselves what we're willing to risk, and what we believe is worth the risk.

That's not really something anyone else gets to decide for us, no matter how long they've known him."

Vesna studied me for a long moment, something calculating moving behind her violet eyes, and then she inclined her head slightly, conceding the point without fully agreeing with it.

"Fair enough, because I do hope you're right, Elara. For both your sakes."

Later that night, after the last of the guests had retired and the castle had settled into its quiet nighttime rhythm, Kael found me on the small balcony outside my room, staring out at the moon just beginning to swell toward fullness over the dark tree line.

"She got to you," he said, coming to stand beside me, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine.

"She tried to." I kept my eyes on the moon, feeling the mark on my wrist pulse faintly warm, like it always did when he stood this close.

"She's not entirely wrong to wonder, though.

About whether something built this fast can actually last."

"No," Kael agreed quietly. "She's not entirely wrong to wonder that." He turned to face me fully, and in the moonlight his eyes looked more silver than dark, steady in a way that eased something anxious in my chest.

"But I've had a hundred years to learn the difference between things that are simply fast and things that are simply true. This is the second one, Elara. I'd stake my kingdom on it before I'd doubt that."