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“Yes, Your Majesty.” I ground the words out through the clench in my jaw, giving her one last curtsy before I turned toward the door, Batian already back to fighting with her. It was all noise in my ears, drowned out by the thud of the door behind me as I exited, the Boy following me on silent feet.
Forcing myself to walk slowly, I made my way down the long corridor before turning a corner and pulling into a run. My shoes padded in time with my heart as I raced back to my room, not even seeing where I was going. It didn’t matter. I knew the way. I knew every inch of this place.
It was my prison, after all, and it always would be.
Chapter 4
Elara
“That woman is a monster, and someone should flay her alive!” I yelled the words the second the door to my room snapped shut. I didn’t care if it were technically treason, and I really didn’t care that it wasn’t ladylike or princess-like, or whatever-the-hell-I-was-supposed-to-be-like. I didn’t care. Nothing about my life was ladylike or princess-like anyway.
Even my rooms were sparse, the bedroom barely large enough to fit the small mahogany bed frame that was pushed against my barred windows. I tried to keep the window open, to coax in the breeze that always seemed to be scented with lavender, even though the delicate flowers grew several stories below, but the panes barely let in more than a draft, the casement barely accessible through the bars. The tall bureau that held my underpinnings barely fit between bed and wall, tucked into the corner beside the window as it was. The sitting room I now rampaged in was cramped, the tiny space filled with a simple table, a threadbare chaise, and the Boy’s sleeping quarters, which were also cramped behind a large ornate dressing panel that may have been the nicest thing in the place.
The panels were carved with a scene that showed the history of the Goddesses and the war of the Fae and the Sister in stark relief.
It was beautiful. At one point it had matched my room and all the ornate finishes that would be befitting a princess. But I had lost my large quarters after my Catalyst died, and lost more and more of the luxuries befitting a princess in the years following as Mother tried to make me hide away and behave like the invalid she wanted me to be.
At some point, I stopped caring that she would take things when I disobeyed her, and she stopped trying to punish me that way. It’s not like there was much left to take anyway. Besides, punishing me with pure hatred suited her better. That and, I guess, refusing to accept she had a daughter.
“I hate her!” I yelled again, marching across the sitting room and the one throwable object I could find, the book I had stolen from the palace libraries last week.
I was ready to toss them across the room one by one while yelling more obscenities but only got halfway to them when gloved hands wrapped around my arms and pulled me back into a hard chest. The Boy stood right behind me, his hands firm as he held me against him.
“Boy, not now…” I started. He held firmer, his heat radiating through me as he held me against him. As he breathed. Slow, steady.
He didn’t need to say it for me to hear him.
Calm, Elara.
It was what I always imagined he would say when everything became too much and he was there, right behind me. Holding me just like this.
He clicked twice and exhaled, the sound slow and steady in my ears before he inhaled in a slow calm, his chest rising and falling against my back.
“Please, just let me be mad,” I said, but my voice cracked with a sob, some of the fury already waning.
He clicked again and inhaled, then exhaled. Again and again, he breathed as he held me there, his gloved thumbs moved over my arms. He clicked again, the sound soft as he inhaled, slow, steady, and this time, I followed, my chest shaking with the threat of tears as I tried to follow along with his breaths.
My breaths stuttered as I forced all of that rage and fury out. Well, almost.
It didn’t matter how much I breathed. It would always be there, along with all the loss and sadness and everything else I smothered with bad behavior and rule-breaking. I shoved this down like all the rest.
“She’s never going to stop, is she?” I asked even though I knew he could not answer. He held me closer, his hands sliding down my arms to grip my hands as he pressed his head beside my own. I could see little more than the shadow of the shape of his head through the hood, feel his jaw move as though he was saying something I couldn’t hear.
“I’ve got to stop letting her get under my skin,” I breathed, and he clicked lightly in agreement, the sound faint in my ear. “She won’t be there forever. Batian will be Ramal soon, and then things will change.”
Oh, by the Goddess. They had to change, or I would find a way out of there if they didn’t. My shield of stubbornness and sass could only get me so far, after all.
For now, I inhaled, focusing on the Boy as I exhaled and slowly became myself again.
His hands squeezed my arms before he stepped away, moving to the other side of the room, where his bed lay hidden. I stood there, still breathing, still shaking.
He emerged from his cramped space with two wooden swords in seconds, the old things dinged and dented, the paint I had covered them with years ago all but gone. He held them out in question, not that he really needed an answer.
He knew me. He knew me even better than Batian.
He knew me better than anyone.
There was no better way to work off my anger toward my mother than by becoming even more of what she hated.
