Chương 45: Chapter 44: The Unfinished Letter

The willow's shade had thinned by noon, but Elma stayed under it anyway, watching Rita work the seam of the wall a dozen paces off. Rita glanced her way for the third time in as many minutes, still humming something jittery that Elma realized was more to soothe herself than to serve as a cover, her hands never quite steady on the trowel. She had better not find any gap in that wall when she returned. If she returned. She wasn't returning. I didn't feel any hostility off her, the Other said, unprompted.

When you touched her. You can sense that? Contact helps. Goes further than just feelings, if I actually bother to look. He sounded almost proud of it. When did you know that you could use it? Resonance, I mean. A day before you did. First time I could actually take the wheel. Before that I was just... there. Existing. Footsteps approached from the direction of the manor—three sets, one light and quick, two heavier and unhurried behind it. Jorm crested the low rise first, Lucien and Silk trailing a few paces back.

Rita's humming spiked in pitch the instant she spotted them. By the time Silk's shadow fell across the grass, Rita had already gathered her tools and was hurrying off toward the manor without a backward glance. Jorm dropped down beside Elma, her voice low.

"You okay?" Before Elma could answer, Lucien rounded the far side of the willow with Silk a step behind him.

"Christa's looking for you," he said. Elma didn't look at him. He sat anyway, folding himself down onto the grass with a groan.

"Look, I know— believe me, I know what it's like to feel like you hate your own mother some days. But—" Silk laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Maybe not this time."

"It's not my fault Christa misunderstood what I meant," Lucien said, aggrieved. He turned back to Elma.

"But yeah. You should find her before she forgets whatever she was planning to say." Elma stood instead.

"Jorm. Bring your weapon." Jorm blinked.

"Now?"

"Now." Jorm was already running. Lucien watched her go, brow furrowing.

"You're training her in the middle of the day now?"

"We're going to the city." The breeze that had been threading through the willow's branches all noon died at once. Lucien stared at her.

"You're— are you serious?"

"My lead is there."

"No. Absolutely not, I'm not taking you—""I don't need you to take me." Elma's gaze slid to Silk.

"If you meant what you said about helping me incriminate Hephryx, we go now."

"If I'm caught with you in the city," Silk said, "I'm dead."

"I've been there before." Elma pulled her hood up.

"We'll be fine."

"I'm not letting her go," Lucien said, to no one in particular, or possibly to the sky. Elma turned to face him fully.

"You could try, Lucien Kresnik." Beneath her feet, faint threads of green began to surface through the grass, pulsing with each breath she drew. Lucien turned to Silk instead, something close to betrayal in his face.

"You cannot possibly be considering this?"

"I said I'd try her way," Silk said.

"You agreed."

"I didn't think trying meant sneaking the four-year-old heir of Veraxys into the city! Not even a month after someone tried to assassinate her!" Silk stood in silence for a moment, taking a slow, steadying breath.

"I have to do this." Jorm returned at a run, a rolled carpet slung over one shoulder, and dropped it flat across the grass. She unwound it to reveal Gund at its center, wrapped in red cloth, with a white cloak folded alongside it. She lifted the sword free, strapped it horizontally across her back, then draped the cloak over her shoulders above her maid's apron before straightening. She stepped up beside Elma without a word.

Silk looked at Lucien once, longer than the moment strictly needed, and then took her place on Elma's other side. Lucien stared at them in disbelief, then slowly cleared his throat, puffing out his chest as he squared his shoulders. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"You are not going anywhere." What's his deal? the Other asked.

"We're going," Elma told him, "with or without you." Lucien dragged both hands through his hair, muttering something about unbelievable, this is completely unbelievable, before his shoulders finally sagged. He glanced at Silk, and Elma thought she caught more worry than frustration in his expression. If he stayed while Silk didn't, she'd be accused of abandoning her duty. Lucien seemed to value her safety more than his own, because he stepped in beside the rest of them, defeated.

The veins beneath Elma's feet brightened, gathering.

"ELMA!" They turned. Christa was sprinting toward them from the northern guard tower, a sheet of paper clutched in one hand, her eyes darting across its surface even as she ran. She must have spotted them beneath the tree from the tower. But why had she even gone there? Had she seriously believed Elma was hiding in the guards' tower? Christa skidded to a stop in front of her, chest heaving, the paper crumpled slightly where her fingers had gripped it too hard on the run over.

"I—" She looked down at the page, as if it might tell her where to start.

"I wrote it down because I didn't trust myself to say it right. What happened earlier was your uncle's fault." She pointed a finger at Lucien.

"No, it's not!" Lucien shouted. Christa's eyes found Elma's again.

"Whatever I did wrong. Tell me and I'll fix it. Whatever you think is broken in me, I'll change it. Just tell me what you hate about me." Elma held her gaze for a long moment.

"I don't… hate you." Something in Christa's face shifted. Elma fidgeted with the edge of her cloak, fingers worrying at the fabric.

"I'm not cursed," she continued.

"I'm sorry I called you that," Christa said, her voice wavering.

"You're not cursed. It's just a sickness. We'll get rid of it eventually."

"I'm not…" Elma cut in.

"Sick, either."

"I don't—" Christa's voice wavered.

"I don't understand." Elma searched for the words and found them slower than she usually did.

"The thing that tore the manor apart. The thing you think was a monster." Her throat tightened around the next part.

"It was my brother. He was confused when he came out. He didn't understand what he was doing." Awkward…

"What are you talking about? What brother—" Elma pressed on before she could lose the thread of it.

"I'm not what you think I am. I'm not really—" She stopped.

"Not really what?"

"I'm not the daughter you think you have." Christa just stared at her, uncomprehending, waiting for the rest. Elma opened her mouth to continue, but the expression on Christa's face stopped her. She looked more concerned than understanding. Of course she was. What was she even doing? Sable had told her not to tell anyone, and Elma was starting to act without thinking about what Sable might do to her. She just needed to stay obedient until she got out of their leash. That was the plan. It had always been the plan.

Sable's disapproval of what Elma was about to do was evident in the way the green veins beneath her churned, rising almost beyond her control. As if they were a nest of snakes, ready to strike the moment she slipped. She swallowed the words forming in her throat and turned back to face Christa.

"Nothing. I have to go," she said instead. Christa's gaze flicked to the others, then back.

"Go? Go where?" The veins beneath Elma's feet began to glow. Christa's face went white.

"Where are you going?" Lucien threw both hands up immediately.

"I want it on record, I am not involved in this. I'm being kidnapped. I tried to stop her." He pointed at Elma without looking at her.

"If you see Valerius, tell him that. Not my fault." Jorm raised one hand, very slowly.

"Um. Me too." Elma looked at her. Jorm looked away. Christa's expression cracked open, the realization landing all at once.

"No." Elma said nothing.

"Don't—" Christa lunged forward, the letter still crushed in her fist, reaching. The green light flared, bright and encompassing. By the time her hand closed on empty air, they were already gone—Elma, Lucien, Silk, and Jorm swallowed whole by the light, leaving Christa standing alone beneath the willow with an unfinished letter and no one left to give it to.

The green light broke apart into the scorched, familiar quiet of the sun temple, its broken roof letting slanted afternoon light fall across the four of them in uneven columns. Lucien staggered, one hand shooting out to brace himself against a cracked pillar. He made a low, strangled sound and bent forward slightly, breathing through his nose.

"Give me a second," he managed. Silk and Jorm both looked steadier, though Jorm's eyes had gone wide as she took in the ruin around them—the collapsed timber, the vines threading through soot-black stone, the dulled sun sigil still visible above the broken entrance. Lucien straightened eventually, color returning to his face in slow degrees. He fixed Elma with a look that was equal parts disbelief and alarm.

"That again. How," he said, "do you do that?" His voice climbed slightly.

"That's your Innate Ability? Teleportation?" Elma held his gaze for a beat.

"Yes." She heard how thin it sounded the second it left her mouth. Lucien clearly heard it too, but he didn't push. He was already turning, scanning the ruined temple, cataloguing the more immediate problem.

"Fine. Great. Wonderful power you've got there." He dragged a hand down his face.

"We have minutes, maybe, before someone comes looking. What's the plan? Where are we even going?" Elma looked around at the three of them—Lucien still faintly unsteady, Silk with one hand resting near her hilt out of habit, Jorm gripping the strap of Gund across her back like it might steady her too. She adjusted the edge of her cloak, glancing toward the charred beams and ruined walls that obscured the city beyond.

"The Silver Bastion."