Chapter 188
Elara
The word settled over me like a weight I'd been carrying my entire life without knowing its name. Inheritance. What we're given without asking, what we can't escape, what defines us before we even have a chance to define ourselves.
I thought of my father's pocket watch, shattered and repaired. I thought of the Vane name that had sheltered and suffocated me in equal measure. I thought of Lily, the inheritance of trauma I'd passed to her without meaning to, and the inheritance of love that couldn't save her.
Around me, contestants were already moving, sketching, mixing colors. I forced myself to breathe past the tightness in my chest and pick up my pencil. The image that formed under my fingers was immediate and visceral—not a single object or figure, but a composition of hands.
Adult hands passing down objects to smaller hands, which in turn passed them to even smaller ones, a chain stretching back into shadow and forward into light. But the objects being passed weren't treasures or gifts. They were weights. Chains. Beautiful, ornate chains that the hands couldn't refuse, couldn't put down, could only accept and carry forward.
I lost myself in the work, building up layers of meaning with each brushstroke. The hands at the beginning of the chain were painted in rich, deep colors—the inheritance looked like wealth, like privilege, like something to be grateful for. But as the chain progressed forward, the colors shifted, became muddier, more complex. The hands grew strained, fingers white with the effort of holding on. And at the very end, the smallest hands—a child's hands—were beginning to open, to let something fall, though you couldn't quite see yet whether they were dropping the weight or reaching for something new.
Time compressed and expanded around me. I was vaguely aware of Dr. Sterling and the judges making their rounds, of cameras focusing on different pods, of the soft sounds of other artists working. But my world had narrowed to this canvas, to this truth I was trying to capture about the things we inherit—the burdens and the blessings so tangled together we can't separate them, can't reject one without losing the other.
When the thirty-minute warning sounded, I surfaced enough to assess what I'd created. The painting was darker than I'd intended, more emotionally raw. Looking at it made my chest ache with recognition. This was what it meant to be a Vane by adoption, an artist by blood, a mother by tragedy, a survivor by necessity. This was inheritance stripped of its pretty wrapping, revealed as the complex, painful gift it actually was.
I glanced across at Sloane's pod. Her canvas showed a perfectly rendered still life—a mahogany desk with leather-bound books, a string of pearls, a silver picture frame containing a faded photograph.
It was technically flawless, the kind of safe, literal interpretation that showed skill but no real understanding. Inheritance as museum piece, as something to be displayed rather than lived with. I felt a cold satisfaction seeing it. She'd had to work without her usual advantages, and it showed in the conservative choice, the lack of depth.
The final buzzer sounded. I stepped back from my canvas with paint-stained hands and a bone-deep exhaustion that felt almost cleansing. I'd left everything I had on that canvas—every complicated feeling about what I'd been given and what it had cost me.
The judges retreated for deliberation while staff began setting up for the announcement. I emerged from my pod on shaky legs, my phone immediately in my hand. Still nothing from Julian beyond Atlas's earlier message. The hollow feeling in my chest, which I'd managed to ignore during the intensity of creation, came rushing back.
He wasn't coming. After everything, he'd chosen something—someone—else.
"Contestants, please take your seats," a staff member called.
I found a chair near the end of the row, carefully not looking at where Sloane sat in the center with Ethan hovering nearby. The audience had grown even larger, the tiered seating completely full. I scanned the crowd one last time, knowing it was pointless but unable to stop myself.
No Julian.
Dr. Sterling returned to the podium, her expression unreadable. "The judges have completed their deliberation," she began. "I want to begin by saying that every piece created today demonstrated remarkable skill and artistic vision. The decision was not an easy one."
My heart hammered against my ribs. I gripped the edges of my chair.
"However, we have reached a consensus. The Praxis Prize International Youth Art Competition grand prize, including a fifty-thousand-dollar scholarship and a solo exhibition at the Chelsea Contemporary Gallery, goes to—"
The pause felt eternal.
"—Sloane Kennedy, for her work Legacy."
The applause that erupted felt distant, muffled, as if I were hearing it from underwater. I watched Sloane rise gracefully, one hand on her stomach in a gesture that managed to be both protective and performative. She accepted the trophy with perfect, practiced humility, tears glistening artfully as she thanked the judges, the audience, and "the incredible legacy of women artists who came before me and made this possible."
The audience ate it up. Standing ovation. Camera flashes. I remained in my seat, frozen, as Dr. Sterling continued announcing second and third place. Isabella Torres took second. A girl from Montreal took third.
My name wasn't called.
I hadn't placed at all.
The realization settled over me like a heavy blanket, smothering and absolute. All of it—the preparation, the sabotage I'd overcome, the public humiliation, the fragile trust I'd started to rebuild with Julian—all of it had been for nothing. I'd failed. Not just failed to win, but failed to place at all, failed to prove I belonged here, failed to justify anyone's faith in me.
Failed to prove to Julian that I was worth choosing.
I needed to leave. Needed to escape before I broke down in front of everyone, before the cameras captured my failure for thousands to dissect. I rose as unobtrusively as possible, keeping my head down as I made for the exit.
"Elara!" Nora's voice called behind me, but I pretended not to hear.
I was almost to the door when my phone buzzed insistently. Against my better judgment, I pulled it out.
Julian's name lit up the screen.
My thumb hovered over decline. What could he possibly say now? He hadn't been here when I needed him, and now that I'd lost, now that I'd been publicly revealed as not good enough, what use was I to him?
But some self-destructive impulse made me answer.
"Elara." His voice was rough, urgent in a way I'd never heard before. "Where are you? Are you still at the venue?"