Elara's POV
"Velora… You're here…" I managed to close the door behind me.
"I'm here," she says so flatly, her arms clamped at her sides as though she wants to discipline a pupil of hers.
"You were the one knocking?"
"It's obvious, how many times do you have to ask?"
I bent my head low.
I'm visibly sweating.
The look on her face isn't hard to define. It confirms the feeling that already overwhelms me that I'm trash. Perhaps she can see the dirt on me, and has already given me a valid score that she's disappointed.
"Vel…"
I stop myself. I don't know what to say.
She walks a few steps while I follow behind her. But then she stops, turns back to look at me.
"I told you not to… But now…" she clenches her fingers, clenches her teeth.
"I—"
The words wouldn't come through. Instead, lumps keep forming in my throat, and I'm busy swallowing.
She doesn't say another word, just a long look that says a lot, and expresses heavy and weighty words to me. She's heading to the kitchen area. But the manner in which she makes the tension is dreadful.
These thoughts of hers could be related to the things she's been hesitating to tell me about.
"Velora." I take a pause in my steps.
I just need her to ease the tension the silence is creating. I don't even care if we are at the wrong place for her to speak. I'm not thinking of all that.
"Shh… let's go." She makes me continue walking along with her.
On normal occasions, I would decide she wants to dismiss every thought of disappointment in her mind. Perhaps she understands that mistakes are only normal even in this situation. But that is never so.
It is a kind of suspense I hate, but do I even care anyway?
For the fact that she must have been connected to my late parents, and has been so much of a nanny to me since I got trapped in this palace, makes me want to appear pleasing to her.
That could also be a lie.
If I think it is about her, then that could also be a cover to my obvious guilt, that my instincts tell me that an intimate affair with Cassian isn't right.
What if it is a series of past events, and my parents' death haunts me?
"You will eat." Velora breaks the silence, but her eyes do not look at me as she would.
"I don't—"
"You will."
I just nod. If that can help me feel better and solve the awkward moment between us.
At the entrance to the kitchen, I catch sight of the same maid I met a while ago, Sabrina. She's inside the kitchen, and so is the chef. Our eyes meet, but she doesn't smile like she did an hour ago.
It's normal for her not to, but my mind can't do without interpreting it to mean "she knows"
She knows my shame.
"Sabrina." Velora motions at her.
She comes to stand closer to us. "Yes ma'am."
She doesn't even spare me a glance, strange, right?
Velora motions at me. "She needs to eat, dinner."
"Okay, ma'am."
She goes back inside to meet the chef. I watch her place different plates in the tray. She returns with the tray filled up. How can I possibly eat all these?
I'm a prisoner.
Prisoners are not served this way, but my case isn't following a normal order.
I want to tell Velora that the tray is unnecessary filled up, but the tension between us won't let me do that. Sabrina can't even say "hi" to me.
I'm concluding it's because she can sense my guilt after I've done a stupid action.
We leave the kitchen with the tray in Velora's hands.
"The maid," I say, trying to start a topic about Sabrina's unusual behavior.
Velora doesn't respond, but she hears me. She hasn't asked how come about my leaving the room without the gammas stopping me. Perhaps she already knows.
Inside the room, she calls for another maid to change the table to a shorter one, one I can use as a dining table.
She places the tray on the table. "You should eat."
Without waiting for me to reply, she sits on a chair close to the door.
"I wonder how you have sex with him on an empty stomach," she says.
"I… I…"
What am I supposed to say? Nothing that will ever make sense to me or her.
The meats on the tray, the red meat, the white meat stare at me as though they have a mind of their own and judge me with this bit of consciousness they have. I almost believe they can, and here come my late parents' bodies haunting me again.
I take a bite of the red meat, but spit it out on the floor.
"Elara… You don't eat meat?" Velora asks.
I don't feel I need to answer.
But the redness of the meat is just like their red blood staining the floor of our home. The meat depicts their flesh being torn apart.
I can't stand that meat reminds me of them.
Also about Cassian's presence… His presence breeds the most painful position I last saw them, but I can make a connection if it relates to them. There shouldn't be a connection, but my senses want to make me believe there is, even though it's not possible.
But he's starting to mess with my head.
Why would he tell me he had a dream about me, but refuse to spill the details?
Velora claims she has important information to tell me. Important information because it also involves my parents. Yet again, I haven't heard a word about it. She wouldn't say.
It all feels like a riddle that I have no solution to solve.
My veins tighten, and the blood flow to all parts of my body seems to take on a sluggish movement.
A chilling sensation grips me. My fingers start to tremble. I threw the tray off the table.
"Elara…"
I feel a sharp pain, but it isn't from a knife. Not from a needle, but my own fingers digging into me. Again.
I'm seeing that same redness.
"Blood…" Velora gasps. "Your fingers are digging into your skin…"