Page 27 of The Awakening of Essensia

“Hurts like the Abyss but I’m fine.” Freya leaned forward slightly, resting a hand over Vaelira’s. “It’s you I’m worried about. You haven’t eaten?” Her gaze drifted to the untouched tray on the dresser.

“I’m not hungry.”

Freya sighed. “Right,” she said, swinging one leg off the bed. “If you won’t eat it, I will.”

Vaelira jumped to her feet. “Don’t you dare.”

She crossed to the dresser and picked up the cold bowl. A spoon stuck up at an angle in the thick porridge. “Here.” She held it out.

Freya shrugged. “Now you’ve got it, you might as well eat it.”

“I’m not—” Her stomach protested loudly.

“Sit. Now.”

Vaelira sank into the armchair, the bowl heavy as stone in her hands.

A stone.

Where was the moonstone?

She blinked down at the bowl. It’s just a rock. She told herself. I don’t care.

“They’ve been holding off on the funeral.” Freya spoke softly.

The spoon slipped from Vaelira’s fingers and clinked loudly against the edge of the bowl.

Freya shifted slightly, leaning back. “Alright,” she said. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

A long pause.

“The way I see it, you’ve got two options,” she continued.

Vaelira raised a brow, not looking up.

“Stay here, and deal with what’s happened. Try to get on with your life the best you can. Maybe you can help Loklan shovel horseshit.”

Vaelira’s throat worked around a knot. “What’s option number two?”

“Leave.”

It landed like a kick to the gut. “What?”

“Leave and get some space,” Freya continued. “Let yourself come to terms with all of this, without having to pass by the place where it happened every morning.”

“I—” Vaelira faltered. “I don’t even know where I’d go.”

Freya snorted. “Don’t play dumb. You go to Caerthalyn.”

Vaelira stared into the bowl. For a moment, she saw tall palace spires rising stark against a mountainside, their stone catching the light like something from a children’s story.

“But you’re not bound to the Guard anymore,” Freya added, more gently. “Not if you walk away from it. They can’t order you to the capital if you’re not one of them. But if you go, you’d be going because you chose to.”

Vaelira struggled to wrap her head around the idea.

Leave the guard. Had it truly come to that?

The guard was all she had ever known, all she had ever wanted. Now Freya was putting an impossible decision before her.