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Elarian could only feel Estarin’s warm embrace around her trembling form, roots curling around her like an earthen cradle. Sinking into the wet moss, she only wished to spend her final night with the only family she had ever known.

Sometime during the day, when the filtered sunlight through Estarin’s leaves warmed Elarian’s body, her nightmares softened. Lips pressed into her neck and arms wrapped around her chest until she strained to breathe.

Held.

The first hope Elarian buried as a young elf centuries ago.

For hours, she slept with the comfort of another’s embrace sheltering her from the world that demanded everything and more. She wished never to leave. Though she had nothing left but shattered pieces of herself to give, she would gladly exchange it all for even a moment of softness.

Elarian slowly awoke the next evening as dusk gathered again over the great, silvered limbs of Estarin. As the sleep fell from her eyes, she told herself the dream was nothing but a harmless lie.

Cold air stirred across her skin. Her fingers flexed against the damp earth on reflex. She stilled, breath held as she listened. A low mist had gathered in the Grove. It lazily swirled like the thick fogs in the Evermist she both craved and loathed. Though she knew Lucan couldn’t be within the Grove’s sacred bounds, a part of Elarian hoped to see him again.

I won’t be gentle.

Shivers crawled down her spine as Lucan’s whispered words from that last night in the Evermist echoed in her mind. Gods, how her blood sang when he pressed his weight into her, rock and bone digging into her back, as his breath caressed her face. For a moment, she stayed her blade. For a moment, she wished for him to lean closer. For a moment, she wished for him to rip open her bodice—

Elarian bolted upright before she could finish the blasphemous thought. Her heart lurched as she dry heaved, the taste of bile creeping into her mouth. There it was again—the rotted wound in her heart that would never heal, that let every twisted desire and buried hope blossom into something so foul, even the vampire himself would gain favor from Melistra above her.

Disgust and shame twisted her stomach. Unable to bear seeing Estarin’s beauty, Elarian turned away and forced herself to dress. Her clothes lay folded where the supplicants had left them—black and midnight-blue, edged in silver stitching that faded in the moonlight. One by one, she pulled them on: first the soft, silk undergarments, then her breeches, impossibly black tunic, and bodice. The breath in her chest became shallow as the weight of each item folded around her.

Boots. Gloves. Leather straps. Blades.

With each piece, Elarian felt herself receding, replaced instead with ash and shadow.

When she at last fastened the last strap over her waist, Elarian only remembered Lucan’s cool fingers brushing back bloodied strands of hair from her face.

“Ashen One.”

The Voice stood in front of her. Elarian did not look up.

Reshva always hated it when she refused to acknowledge the name he gave her. Only when she had secured the last of her blades did she finally lift her chin, eyes studying him as if he were prey.

He stood at the edge of the Grove under shadows clinging to the edge of hawthorns ringing Estarin. Tall, composed, and dressed in pale creams, the harshness of his midnight-black hair accentuated his gaunt face. Elarian’s hand shifted to the silver dagger against her thigh. More and more, the Voice looked like the very ones that had bloodied her blade.

Reshva bent his neck in greeting, then clasped his hands.

“You slept longer than expected,” he said.

Elarian’s placid mask did not shift even as heat flooded her veins. “This will be my last chance to embrace our Mother for some time,” she slowly replied.

A faint pause—amusement, almost. “Indeed.”

Reshva stepped forward, boots silent over moss and rock. In his hand, something small caught the gathering moonlight.

Gold.

Elarian’s gaze narrowed.

“Yes, my child,” he said softly. “Gold. A prize, shall we say, from long ago. The vampires have a love of their jewelry, so now you shall as well.”

Reshva opened his palm.

An earring lay there: shaped like a dagger, slender and precise, mirroring the blade at her thigh. At its tip hung a single ruby, dark as the new moon, catching Estarin’s light like a drop of congealed blood.

It was a beautiful thing.

Reshva extended his hand toward Elarian.