The spark of defiance that had ignited in the Heartstone chamber was a frail, guttering thing by the time Elara reached the sanctuary of her rooms. It was snuffed out entirely by the sight that greeted her.
Her chambers, usually a reflection of her own subdued tastes with their soft blues and silvers, had been invaded. The doors stood wide open, and a small army of servants—not her own familiar, quiet handmaidens, but the king's efficient, impersonal household staff—swarmed the space like ants dismantling a carcass.
Two women were stripping the silk coverlet from her bed, replacing it with one of heavy, embroidered gold velvet. Another was clearing her dressing table, sweeping her few personal trinkets—a smooth river stone, a feather from a songbird, a half-finished sketch of the night sky—into a wooden box with a dismissive clatter. The most personal assault came from the corner, where her small bookshelf of histories and botanical guides stood nearly empty, the volumes being packed away into a trunk.
"What is the meaning of this?" Elara asked, her voice cutting through the bustle. It lacked the royal command of her father, but it held a sharp, cold edge that made several servants freeze.
An older woman with a pinched face and the king's insignia on her tunic stepped forward, dipping into a perfunctory curtsy. "Princess. By His Majesty's order. You are to be made presentable for the journey to the Shadowfell encampment. These… simpler things are no longer suitable."
Elara's eyes fell on the box containing her trinkets. "And where are my things going?"
"Into storage, Your Highness," the woman said, her tone implying the items were destined for the fire.
A young maid, one Elara recognized as a scullery girl from the kitchens, carefully lifted Elara's favorite book, a worn volume on celestial patterns. The head woman sniffed. "Leave that, girl. His Majesty said only items of value are to be packed for the princess's new household. That is rubbish."
Before the scullery girl could respond, Elara crossed the room in three swift strides. She took the book from the girl's hands, her fingers closing around the familiar, soft leather cover. The action was simple, but it made the entire room hold its breath.
"This," Elara said, her voice low but clear, "is mine. It stays with me."
The head woman's lips tightened. "Your Highness, the king's orders—"
"My father's orders were to make me presentable as a bride for a Fae Lord," Elara interrupted, the words tasting like ash. "He said nothing about stripping me of every memory of my home. Or do you presume to know his mind better than I?"
It was a gamble, wielding her title and relationship so bluntly. She never did. But the sight of her life being so callously dismantled had fanned that tiny spark back to life.
The woman paled slightly and dipped into another curtsy. "Of course not, Princess. My apologies." She turned a sharp eye on the other servants. "You heard the Princess. Pack her personal effects with care."
The flurry of activity resumed, but it was more subdued now, tinged with a new wariness. Elara stood holding the book to her chest like a shield. It was a small victory, meaningless in the grand scheme of her exile, but it was hers.
She walked to the window, turning her back on the invasion of her space. Below, the capital city of Aethelgard sprawled, its white spires and cobbled streets looking deceptively peaceful in the morning sun. She could just make out the faint, sickly gray tinge at the edges of the farmlands beyond the walls, the visible mark of the blight her magic fought daily to hold back. Her father was sending her to the very source of that decay. To a man who commanded it.
"He will see the starlight and want to possess it," a quiet voice said beside her.
Elara turned. Kaelen, the court historian and the closest thing she had to a friend, stood there. He was an old man, his back stooped from a lifetime spent hunched over scrolls, but his eyes were keen and kind. He must have slipped in during the commotion. He was holding the river stone from her box, turning it over in his wrinkled hand.
"He will see it as a tool, Kaelen," Elara corrected softly, her gaze returning to the window. "Just as my father does."
"Perhaps," Kaelen murmured. "But the Fae are not like us, Elara. Their wants are… deeper. More primal. To them, a thing of beauty is not just to be used, but to be owned, consumed, made a part of themselves. Your light will be a fever in his blood."
A shiver traced its way down Elara's spine. "You speak as if you know him."
"I know the stories. I know the histories of the Shadowfell Fae. Their power is one of absorption, of entropy. They draw strength from shadow, from decay, from the end of things. Your magic is its absolute opposite. It is creation. It is life." He placed the river stone gently on the windowsill beside her. "Such opposition does not merely cancel out, child. It creates a vortex. It will either destroy you both, or…"
"Or what?"
He met her eyes, his gaze ancient and sad. "Or it will create something entirely new. And that can be far more terrifying."
Before she could press him further, the head woman approached again. "Princess, the tailors are here for your final fitting. The envoy departs at dawn."
Elara was led away from the window, from Kaelen's ominous words, and into her dressing room. There, her breath caught. Hanging from a gilded rack was a gown. It was a masterpiece of intimidation. Fashioned from a deep twilight-blue velvet so dark it was almost black, it was embroidered with countless tiny silver stars and crescent moons, each one picked out with what looked like real silver thread and minuscule diamonds. The sleeves were slashed to show sleeves of silver silk beneath, and the neckline was daringly low. It was the gown of a queen, a seductress, a celestial being. It was not her.
As the tailors fussed and pinned, transforming the glorious garment to her slender frame, Elara felt like an imposter. She stared at her reflection in the tall mirror. The woman staring back was pale, her eyes too large in her face, shadows of exhaustion bruising the skin beneath them. The dress was meant to showcase her power, to present her as a dazzling prize. On her, it looked like a costume. The starlight they wanted to display was the same power that was hollowing her out from the inside.
"It is a armor, Princess," one of the tailors, a younger woman with sympathetic eyes, whispered as she adjusted a pin at Elara's waist. "Think of it as such."
Elara looked at the woman's reflection in the mirror. Armor. The concept was new. She had always been taught her magic was a service, a sacrifice. Never a weapon she could wield for herself.
When the tailors were finally gone and the servants had finished their packing, silence descended upon the ravaged room. Trunks stood by the door, containing the carefully curated version of herself that her father was sending to the enemy. The gilded gown hung alone in the dressing room, a specter of her future.
Elara walked to the window once more, the night now fully fallen. She looked up at the true stars, cold and distant and free. In two days' time, she would be in the Fellwood, in the clutches of Commander Kaelen.
Kaelen's words echoed in her mind. "It will either destroy you both, or it will create something entirely new."
She curled her fingers around the windowsill, her knuckles white. Let them see a prize. Let them see a tool. Let them see a woman in a beautiful gown.
But beneath the velvet and the diamonds, she would forge her own armor. Not of silk and thread, but of will and that single, stubborn spark.
She would go to her gilded cage. But she would not go quietly.