THREE NIGHTS

Elaris’s POV

The east-wing chamber is nothing like the rooms Ealaris occupied before the council took action. It was built for temporary guests long ago, before the palace expanded towards the family quarters.

Thicker stone walls loom over Elaris’s head and the space is cramped.

The only windows are narrow, with iron bars crossing them, and there is a bed, small table, washstand, wooden chair, but no fire that has ever been lit.

Two council guards remain inside the chamber at all times.

They have been placed in a strategic position, where they can see Elaris without needing to move and two more stand just beyond the door in the corridor as additional guards.

Their weapons are within the range of sight, but their directions are clearly not to hurt her but to prevent her leaving the chamber without their permission.

One guard introduces himself only by rank before explaining the rules.

“No leaving the chamber without an escort.”

“I understand.”

“No receiving unscheduled visitors.”

“I understand.”

“No food or medicine outside of council approved supplies.”

This catches Elaris’s attention.

I turn towards him. “Who approves it?”

The guard hesitates before answering, “The council medical office.”

This reveals more information to me than he meant to.

Even here, someone else controls every part of what reaches my hands.

I survey the room again and realize the reason for the arrangement. It is not just to keep me secure.

It is so every movement remains traceable to them.

I sit on the narrow bed and attempt to catalogue what other freedoms remain in my grasp.

My breathing.

How the child moves.

My strength.

The knowledge the night healer warned me.

And the three nights between me and the blood moon.

I refuse for the walls to dictate what occurs inside my mind.

Panic would make me careless. Carelessness could make me weak. And weakness is something the people plotting against me have tried to achieve in every interaction since the first altered dose reached Maevra’s room.

I begin to observe.

The guards change every few hours.

One favors his left leg.

The younger guard listens closely to anything that approaches the corridor doors.

The older man watches the food more carefully than me.

I memorize all of it.

It does not matter which clue proves important. I know something will eventually change.

The child moves under my palm.

“Three nights,” I whisper.

Elaris moves again with a smaller push.

I let out a breath.

“Then we survive three nights.”

I do not say it like a prayer, more like I am giving the event a command.

The first ten minute visit is granted late in the morning.

The door opens, and Averic enters with a single council observer directly behind him.

He has the sharp lines of having spent the entire night awake, but there is no time for questions.

The observer closes the door only half and remains close enough to hear everything.

Averic sits in the chair opposite Elaris rather than approaches the bed.

It is all a show, Elaris knows.

“Maevra is unchanged,” says Averic.

My fingers close tighter around the edge of my sleeve.

“Unchanged means stable?”

“Critical, but holding.” Elaris nods.

He explains, “The preliminary finding on the pregnancy regarding Virelle has not been entered into the public records.”

My stomach knots.

“So they’re still hiding it,” I mutter. “They have it called an observation awaiting confirmation.”

“Why is the truth inconvenient? His expression softens minutely. “The blood moon examination remains on schedule, and I am doing everything in my power to ensure no one changes the date or anything about it.”

“Is it possible for them to change it?” I push.

“They can request it.” His gaze meets Elaris’s. “Is that not your question?”

I bite my lip. “Yes.”

Elaris’s expression darkens. “They may well request it.” The words are said carefully, but it terrifies Elaris more to hear an honest answer than reassurance that he has lost every argument.

Averic tells me that the examination site has fallen under council supervision and they will ensure that multiple healers participate. He has required that any measurements taken before the blood moon occur be kept separate so they cannot be overwritten entirely.

“They are already attempting to control the language used in documentation,” I say.

“I am aware.”

“And you still have the confession?”

“I do.”

“And the clasps?”

Elaris finally smiles. It is the first time since I have entered the chamber since Averic arrived, but he has not given up everything. The observer turns his attention over towards a noise outside of the corridor.

Averic waits until Elaris looks away before speaking more quietly.

“The night healer has been transferred at dawn.”

I keep my face blank. “Where?

Another holding room.

Why?

They claimed it was for security reasons.”

I watch Elaris. “You do not believe it.”

“No, I suspect the next best thing would be to remove her from proximity to the greater corridors.” My expression does not change.

“Is she still alive?”

“Yes.

Conscious?

For part of the morning.”

This matters.

What did she say?”

Averic’s gaze drops towards the table between Elaris and me.

“She simply repeated that she had received instructions from someone in the west wing but would not tell me more in the presence of the council healer.”

“Did she name Virelle?” “Not today.”

I absorb his meaning. The night healer has essentially tied herself in knots, and someone has already begun to move her to a location where it will not be easy for that thread to slip away from me.

Elaris leans back. “I need you to understand something.”

“What?”

“They may try to force you to react before the examination takes place.”

Elaris stares at me. “Because if Elaris loses control, I can use it against her.

Because if you physically deteriorate, they can claim that it is impossible to continue the examination.”

The child pushes against my ribs.

Suddenly Elaris considers the three nights as being extremely short.

The council observer finally announces that the visit is over.

Averic rises, and for a second, I consider Elaris crossing the space between us.

Neither of them do, leaving neither of our hands to reach across the empty air at the same time.

“Protect your strength,” says Averic.

“I am.”

“Eat.”

“I will.”

“Sleep when you can,” Elaris told me.

“I’ll try.”

The observer opens the door.

Averic pauses before stepping through, and I have a dozen questions.

About Maevra. About the night healer. About Virelle. About the examination. About what would happen if the council decided that the preliminary finding was inconvenient enough to bury.Instead, I ask him what I need.

“Will the blood moon still occur?”

He looks back through the doorway. “Yes.”

Then he is gone.

The door closes, and I sit and keep my hands pressed over my stomach.

The child moves again, not in violent discomfort, just enough to remind me that there is indeed someone inside me who cannot afford for me to be scared.

The day stretches out with nothing useful to occur.

Meals arrive on a schedule, and the servants are strangers. They do not wear the colors of Maevra’s household, and never remain long enough to exchange a word of conversation. Each tray is individually inspected by the guards before reaching me, even the water measured.

I eat slowly.

Not because I am hungry, but because I refuse for anyone else to use a portion of my body as fuel.

Afterwards, I rest.

Then I walk.

Then I rest again.

I have started marking the time on guard rotations rather than the position of the sun.

The older guard leaves first, and is replaced by a younger warrior.

Again after two hours, the corridor shifts, and one time I almost wonder whether the palace wishes to isolate this wing, or if there are opportunities for others who wish for me to disappear to use the council’s orders to hide.

Both would be dangerous.

I reach out and touch the wall beside the bed.

The stone is cold beneath my fingertips.

It is where they want Elaris to wait.

So Elaris decides to watch.

The second visit comes in the evening and finishes before long.

Averic enters with the same observer, but his body is less careful. Elaris does not sit immediately.

The council has fixed on the examination site.

“Where?”

The old shrine hall beyond the east wing.

Elaris visualizes it, remembering it from years earlier.

It is one of the oldest public buildings tied to the palace, the walls open enough for council witnesses to see inside events but the chambers protected. Fewer people could claim that it had happened anywhere secretive.

“When?”

Three nights.

The words roll heavily.

“Can they change it?”

“They can petition to.”

“And?”

“I have opposed every request.”

He looks at me. “Why?

Because if they shift it, they receive an additional opportunity to determine who carries out the examination, what is recorded, and who sees it.

He finally sits. “The shrine hall has been secured under council orders. There will be three independent healers examining both pregnancies, and records will be written separately. No one healer will have authority over the results.”

“That sounds difficult to manipulate.”

“That is the point. For the first time since I woke that day, I am allowed to feel something good inside me. “They will be able to control everything if they wish to.

But it is Averic who adds, “That is why they may not choose to wait.”

I understand.

If Virelle’s people intend to stop the examination, they have three nights to do it.

After they leave, Elaris does something she has not done since entering the east wing.

She walks the room back and forth deliberately.

From the bed towards the door.

The door towards the windows.

The windows towards the washstand.

Then back, then again three times in total.

The chamber is barely large enough for her stretches, but she allows herself to think.

One entrance. Nothing she can see of adjoining rooms, only two narrower windows than the ones she has had used to her benefit. A fireplace with no heat. No secret servants’ passageways, no balcony. No second entry or egress.

If a person wishes to reach Elaris, they will have to come either through the guards, the food, or nothing that appears like a threat but still reaches her without permission.

Her hands run across the bed frame beneath the cover and examine the wood for anything suspicious.

Nothing.

She looks at the washstand. Nothing. The water jug. Clean. The cup. Untouched. The towels. Ordinary.

I stand again, and this should reassure me, but instead my skin prickles.

A person who cannot reach the room directly has no need to enter it.

They only need someone else to carry things inside.

The evening meal arrives shortly afterwards, and I wait while the guards inspect it. The smells are ordinary, broth, root vegetables, and bread, nothing sharp or dangerous underneath. Elaris tastes a little before deciding.

Nothing has happened to me with this meal.

Elaris eats enough to strengthen her arms without feeling hungry.

The child keeps me awake.

After the tray is cleared, I sit beside the window and watch the last light disappear behind the bars. Both hands pressed against my stomach.

“I don’t know what your world will look like,” I whisper. “But I know I am getting you there.”

I think of the child I never held, and the sorrow is nearly as sharp as when it happened, but the pain has shifted.

For years, I believed losing that baby was the price I had to pay for Caedmon. I realize now that it was never supposed to be my price.

I press my forehead towards my knees. “You don’t have to pay for anyone’s survival.”

Elaris moves beneath me.

I smile despite everything. “Neither do I.”

For a moment, the room stops being as much of a cell.

Then I hear the guards changing positions outside.

Night has fallen over the east wing.

The palace becomes quieter, but nothing is truly silent, and I hear the scrape of boots, the murmur of guards speaking to one another, the swish of a door closing elsewhere far beyond the outer wall of the east wing. Then footsteps approaching. They pass by, and I wait for anyone else to follow. Nothing does.

I lay down without undressing, and sleep comes with fragments.

Each time, I wake. Listening before opening my eyes.

The night healer’s warning still repeats in my head.

Three nights.

Three nights.

Three nights.

Not because it is a magic chant, since it still is nothing that determines what occurs.

But now it is a deadline.

I think of Virelle.

She has survived the accusations, the altered bottles, the false witness, clasps, and the preliminary examination inconsistency surrounding Elaris’s situation. She knows the blood moon threatens her claim, and that Elaris must survive for that to occur. It leaves only one question.

What happens if she cannot control the result?

The odor slips beneath the door, a faint trace of crushed herbs before more of the scent reaches me, and my body recognizes something bitter. Something with a sharper edge underneath that, but neither sharp enough nor long enough to identify.

My stomach tightens, and Elaris’s hands come up and press against my ribs.

I rise slowly, the guards noticing almost immediately.

“What is it?” asks one.

I don’t reply right away. I walk towards the door, and Elaris’s stomach grumbles.

The scent grows stronger the closer I am to the threshold before Elaris moves sideways and her hands move toward her ribs.

Elaris’s stomach tightens again as she shifts uncomfortably across the floor.

“Do you smell that?” I ask, and the older guard bends down and peers at the bottom of the door.

His expression has changed. “Stay back.”

Elaris leans beside the opening, but the second guard reaches for your weapon, instead.

Neither of them open the door, which tells her they still understand the danger before her.

The odor is not coming from my room.

I hear someone shift the wall in the corridor.

One set of footsteps then another.

A whisper. Something dragged lightly across the stone. She steps back, the older guard tells the second to remain with Elaris. He opens the door.

“Wait here.”

Elaris watches as he steps into the corridor. The second guard stands between me and the doorway.

For several seconds, nothing else happens. Then the man outside spoke some final words, which Elaris cannot hear.

He returns through the doorway, and his face is no longer carefully controlled but reveals concern.

“What happened?” Elaris asks.

“Nothing. I think.” He looks carefully down at the floor outside the chamber. Elaris sees a small bundle lying against the lower part of the door but not footsteps, a servant, or an explanation of what it was. The pouch still seems warm.

Elaris lowers carefully before responding.

“Did you see anyone?”

“No.

Then how did it get here?”

His eyes meet Elaris’s. “That is the concern I have.”

He signals to the second guard. “Bring a metal tray. I want to see what it is without disturbing anyone.”

Elaris’s stomach rolls.

The bundle is lifted carefully onto it, and the knot removed. The moment Elaris looks, the room seems fuller of the scent.

Three dried wolfsbane petals, one single strand of pale hair.

And beneath them— a fifth broken-chain clasp.

Elaris knows the symbol immediately.

The same mark has appeared alongside threats, evidence, and an attempt to turn every situation towards me.

But something else has changed, this time.

The clasp is new, handled freshly.

The guard looks toward the corridor just as she does.

“Lady Elaris…”

Elaris’s eyes are locked on the pouch. Someone has reached the one place the council promised sealed. Someone knew precisely where I was being kept.

And someone wanted me to know that the countdown was already underway.