The heavy obsidian door to her chambers clicked shut, followed by the definitive thud of a crossbar being lowered into place on the outside. The sound was one of absolute finality. Elara stood in the center of the room, the lingering echoes of the stone's memories a chaotic storm in her mind, the reality of her imprisonment a cold anchor.
She was a prisoner now, in truth. No more pretense of being a 'guest'. Seraphine's orders had been swift and absolute. Confinement. Awaiting the Commander's judgment.
For a long time, she simply stood, trembling as the adrenaline faded, leaving a hollow, sick feeling in its wake. She had cracked their sacred stone. She, the daughter of the people who had murdered their guardian, had now defiled a vessel of their history. In their eyes, it was a desecration. In hers, it was a catastrophic accident born of a desperate need to understand.
But understanding had changed nothing. It had only made her situation more precarious. Kaelen's cold justice awaited her. Would he see it as an accident? Or as the ultimate human insolence? Given the history she had just witnessed, she feared she already knew the answer.
Lyra arrived later, slipping in after a murmured conversation with the guard outside. Her face was drawn with worry. She carried a tray, but her hands shook slightly as she set it down.
"They are saying you tried to destroy the Echo-Stone," Lyra whispered, her peridot eyes wide with fear. "That your human magic attacked the heart of our memory."
"I didn't attack it," Elara said, her voice raw. She sank onto the edge of the bed. "I touched it, and it… showed me things. The death of the guardian. The origin of the blight." She looked up at Lyra, her own anguish laid bare. "The blight wasn't your weapon. It was your wound."
Lyra stared at her, her expression unreadable for a moment. Then, a profound sadness filled her eyes. "That is a truth most of our young have forgotten. The Commander… it is the fire that fuels him. To hear it from you…" She trailed off, shaking her head. "It will not be received as a revelation, Princess. It will be seen as a provocation."
"What will he do?" Elara asked, the question a mere breath.
"I do not know," Lyra admitted. "His justice is his own. But Seraphine will be whispering in his ear, demanding a harsh punishment. She has always believed this alliance to be a mistake."
Hopelessness threatened to swallow Elara whole. She was trapped, friendless, awaiting sentencing from a man who had every reason to hate her. The spark of defiance felt like a drowned ember.
Later, as the eerie, perpetual twilight of the Fellwood deepened into true night, a new sound came from the door—not the opening of the crossbar, but a faint, rhythmic scraping. Then, a small, folded piece of parchment, thin as a leaf, was slid underneath the door.
Elara stared at it for a long moment before crossing the room and picking it up. The script was elegant, unfamiliar.
The snake poisons the well before the hawk returns. Your light offended the shadow, but it is a different darkness that now seeks to eclipse you. The Stone did not break by chance. Its flaw was old. A truth, violently revealed, can be a weapon for both sides. Do not let them make you the villain of a story you did not write.
There was no signature.
Elara's heart hammered against her ribs. The message was cryptic, but its meaning was clear. An ally. She had an ally in this court. The writer was claiming the stone was already flawed, that her magic had merely exposed a weakness Seraphine might have known about. They were warning her about Seraphine—the 'snake'—acting before Kaelen—the 'hawk'—could return.
Was it true? Or was it simply a trick, a way to manipulate her further?
She read the words again. Do not let them make you the villain.
A strange calm settled over her. The numbness of despair burned away, replaced by a sharp, clear focus. The writer was right. She could not sit here and wait to be a victim of this twisted history. She had to change the narrative.
She went to the small writing desk, finding a piece of the charcoal Lyra used for sketching. On the back of the mysterious parchment, she began to write. Not a plea for mercy. Not an explanation. She wrote a list. A cold, clinical account of the visions the stone had shown her.
1. The Fellwood, vibrant and whole.
2. The human king, my ancestor, slaying the shadow-guardian. The beast's nature: majestic, a core of the forest, not a monster.
3. The blight emanating from the corpse. A sickness of grief, not malice.
4. The Fae magic twisting in response to the land's pain.
5. Kaelen's grief at the site.
She did not write her interpretations. She did not assign blame. She simply recorded the facts as the Echo-Stone had presented them. When she was finished, she folded the parchment and hid it in the sleeve of her dress.
This was her gambit. When Kaelen returned, she would not be a cowering prisoner begging for forgiveness. She would be a witness. She would force him to confront the truth not as an accusation from his enemy, but as a testimony. She would shift the ground of their conflict from her transgression to the original sin that had started it all.
It was a desperate move. It could easily backfire, enraging him further. But to do nothing was to accept the role of the villain. To fight back with the truth was her only path forward.
She looked towards the door, beyond which her anonymous ally moved in the shadows. She was still a prisoner. But she was no longer passive. She was preparing for trial, and her evidence was a history he had tried to bury. Let the hawk return. She would not flinch.