Chapter 20

Elara's POV

Lady Vesna requested a private audience with me on the morning of her departure, and though every instinct told me to decline, curiosity and something like stubborn courage won out instead, so I met her in the small sitting room off the eastern courtyard, where sunlight fell warm across the stone floor and made the whole conversation feel almost deceptively peaceful.

"I wasn't certain you'd agree to see me alone," she said, settling into the chair across from mine with the same effortless grace she carried into every room. "Most people in your position would want witnesses, given how our first conversation went."

"I decided I'd rather hear whatever you actually came here to say without an audience watching us both perform for it," I said. "You didn't travel this far just to warn me about bonds burning too bright. That felt like an opening line, not the real point."

Something shifted in Vesna's expression, surprise again, the same flicker I'd caught at dinner, like I kept failing to match whatever picture she'd built of me before we ever met.

"You're sharper than the rumors gave you credit for," she said. "Very well. I did come with a purpose beyond idle warnings." She folded her hands in her lap, and for the first time since her arrival, something almost genuine crept into her voice. "I've watched Kael carry that curse for decades, Elara. Watched it eat away at him a little more every year, watched him push away anyone who tried to get close enough to matter. Whatever you've done, whatever this bond actually is, I saw the difference in him myself at dinner two nights ago. That wasn't performance. I know Kael well enough to know when he's performing."

"You sound almost pleased," I said carefully.

"I'm complicated," she admitted, something wry twisting her mouth. "Part of me spent years hoping I might be the one to finally break through his walls, and losing that particular hope isn't entirely pleasant, whatever else I might feel about it. But I've also watched too many good men lost to curses and politics to want to see this one fail out of pettiness on my part. If you're truly what breaks it, then Nightfall Hollow needs you protected far more than it needs my jealousy getting in the way."

The admission caught me off guard, enough that I sat back slightly, reassessing everything I'd assumed about her since the carriages first appeared on the road.

"Why tell me this," I asked. "You could have simply left without saying any of it."

"Because you're about to become a very valuable, very visible target, and I don't think anyone here has been entirely honest with you about how dangerous that's going to get." Vesna leaned forward, her voice dropping lower, more serious than anything she'd said since arriving. "Elder Mathis isn't the only one in this court who fears what your presence means for the old order. There are Lycans here who've built their whole standing around the idea that the curse is permanent, that certain traditions exist because they have to. A cure changes more than Kael's fate. It changes the entire structure of power in this kingdom, and not everyone benefits from that change equally."

"You think someone here might work against us. Against me."

"I think history rarely favors the person who threatens to rewrite it," Vesna said simply. "I don't have proof of anything specific, only years of watching how court politics work in kingdoms far less dangerous than this one. Watch the people who smile at you the widest, Elara. Watch the people who seem the most pleased about last night's success. Sometimes the ones celebrating loudest are simply the best at hiding what they actually feel."

I thought of Elder Mathis's careful, measuring eyes, the warning he'd delivered that morning that had sounded so reasonable on the surface, and something cold settled low in my stomach even as I tried to tell myself I was reading too much into a single uncomfortable conversation.

"Thank you," I said finally. "For telling me. I don't think I expected honesty from you, given how our first conversation went."

"Don't mistake this for friendship," Vesna said, though there was little real coldness left in her voice by then. "I still think you're playing a dangerous game, and I still think there's a real chance it ends badly for both of you. But I'd rather be wrong about that while you're prepared for the danger, than right about it because no one bothered to warn you it was coming."

She left within the hour, her procession winding back down the stone road the same way it had arrived, and I stood at the window of my room watching the dark carriages shrink into the tree line, turning her warning over and over in my mind until Kael found me there, his expression questioning at whatever he could read on my face.

"What did she say to you," he asked.

I told him everything, watching his jaw tighten progressively through the retelling, and by the time I finished, he'd crossed the room to stand beside me at the window, his hand finding mine automatically, like the gesture had become instinct between us now rather than something either of us had to think about.

"She's not wrong to be cautious," he said finally. "I've trusted Mathis's counsel for decades, but trust built on decades doesn't erase the fact that a cure to my curse threatens every assumption this court has built its structure around. I should have thought of that sooner."

"What do we do?"

"We watch. Carefully, quietly, without accusing anyone of anything we can't prove." His thumb traced slow circles over the back of my hand, the mark between us warm and steady even amid the new weight of the conversation. "And we make sure that whatever happens next, you're never standing anywhere alone long enough for anyone to make a move against you without me knowing about it immediately."

"That sounds exhausting for both of us."

"Maybe," he admitted, "but I've already lost you once to circumstances outside my control, in that clearing the rogues attacked, and I have no intention of losing you again to a threat I could have prevented simply by paying closer attention." He turned to face me fully, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear with the same gentle care he'd shown that very first night. "I meant what I said after the full moon, Elara. Whatever this is between us, it's real, and it's worth protecting properly. Not carelessly. Not with blind trust in people I've simply known the longest."

I leaned into his touch, letting the warmth of the mark settle some of the unease Vesna's warning had stirred up, and outside the window, the last of her carriages disappeared around the bend in the road, leaving Nightfall Hollow quiet again, though it no longer felt quite as safe as it had the morning before.

"Then we watch together," I said. "Whatever's coming, we face it together."