جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 7

The surgery was set for two days later.Lucien never came during those two days. My parents did.They arrived carrying herbs and broth, as though any of it could soften what they had come to ask of me. My mother hurried to my bedside and took my hand, her eyes already red.“Elara, you’ve suffered.”For one foolish instant, hope stirred in me. “Mother, did you come to”“Sylvie has always been frail,” my father cut in. “This time, you have to save her.”I slowly pulled my hand back. “She is not my sister.”Sylvie was the daughter of my parents’ closest friends. Years ago, those two died in a wolf-stampede at the border while saving my parents’ lives, and before they died, they entrusted Sylvie to our family.At first I welcomed her. I shared my room, my clothes, and the things I liked best. Then things began to go missing. A torn cloak became proof of my temper. A broken charm somehow became my fault. Sylvie would stand behind my parents with red eyes and say almost nothing, and somehow

Lucien’s body swayed.He lowered his eyes to the diagnosis at his feet, and when he read the words Final Stage Wolf Collapse, something in his face cracked.Maeve wiped her tears away with the back of her hand, but her voice still shook with rage.“Yes. Final stage.”“Dr. Rowan told her she had less than forty-eight hours left. If she stayed quiet and did nothing to strain her body, she might have survived a little longer. That kidney was the last thing holding her together.”She stepped closer, every word cutting deeper.“And you took it from her.”“You put her on that table with your own hands to save the foster sister you treasure.”“Are you happy now, Lucien?”He seemed not to hear her at first.He bent down and picked up the papers one by one, his fingers trembling so badly that more than once he nearly dropped them again. Every line he read seemed to burn straight through him.He remembered Elara pressing the file into his hand.He remembered knocking it away.He remembered the w

The day they laid me to rest, rain fell without pause.Lucien stood before my burial stone in a black coat, bareheaded under the storm. Water ran down his face and soaked through his clothes, but he did not move. By the time everyone who had come to send me off had left, he was still there, staring at the carved likeness set into the stone.Maeve walked up behind him and raised an umbrella over his head.“Go back,” she said quietly. “She’s gone.”He did not answer.His fingers lifted slowly and touched my face on the stone as though he still expected warmth.“Elara,” he said, voice low and worn raw, “it’s cold here. Come home.”The tenderness in that voice came too late to mean anything.Maeve turned her face away. “Stop this. She isn’t coming back.”That finally reached him.He swung around, eyes bloodshot and wild. “Be quiet.”His voice cracked, but the force of it still made her go still.“She isn’t gone. She’s angry with me, that’s all. She’s hiding. She’ll come back.”Then he drop