Chapter 30 The Night Before
Elias
By the time the doors sealed behind me, I already knew three things.
First: Vespera would not forget this.
Second: the Triune would move faster now.
Third: I had crossed a line I could not uncross.
I stood at the window instead, coat shed, tunic loosened at the throat, the palace grounds spread below me in darkness. Torches burned at measured intervals. Guards paced familiar routes. Everything was where it should be.
It should have calmed me.
It didn’t.
My hands rested on the stone sill, fingers flexing slowly, as if expecting resistance even from stone. I had spent the last hour cataloguing necessities in my head—permits, escorts, rations, sealed orders, letters of authority. What could be said aloud. What must remain unspoken.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, the road begins.
Months.
That is how long it would take to reach the border holdings. Not days. Not weeks. Months of narrowing roads and thinning authority, through regions where my name would matter less with every mile.
Months of exposure.
Months of proximity.
Months where a single misstep could not be corrected after the fact.
I exhaled through my nose and turned from the window.
The writing table was already covered in maps and ledgers, lantern light pooling over ink-dark routes and marginal notes. My traveling chest stood open near the wall, dust from foreign roads clinging stubbornly to its seams. I had returned from war intending to stay. To rest. To let the capital feel like home again.
I had been home less than I wanted.
My sister had cried when she saw me. My father had gripped my forearm and said nothing, because men like us did not name relief aloud.
I sat and reached for the quill.
Inspection duties.
Border oversight.
Review of omega transfers.
All legitimate. All accurate enough to withstand scrutiny.
None of it explained the tightness in my chest.
I paused over the map marking the southern pass. Too predictable. I altered the route—only slightly. Added contingencies I did not strictly need. Secondary escorts. Redundant supply points.
Excessive, a distant part of me noted.
I pressed on anyway.
The truth refused to arrange itself into something clean. I had not crossed a line today when they struck her. Not even when they named her body like property.
The line had crossed the moment I realized how easily it had happened. How quietly. How little resistance there had been when power decided it was entitled to take.
The quill pressed too hard. The nib splintered. Ink bled into the page like a bruise.
I closed my eyes.
This was not about her.
The thought dissolved the moment it formed.
The door opened without a knock.
“You’re awake.”
I didn’t look up. I knew the voice.
“So are you,” I said.
My sister stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She was dressed simply, hair unbound, eyes sharp despite the hour. Her gaze flicked immediately to the open chest, the maps, the cloak draped over a chair. She stills.
“Why are you packing?”
“I’m not.”
She gestured at the evidence. “You very clearly are.”
“I haven’t decided anything.”
“That’s worse.”
I set the pen down with deliberate care. “I’m being assigned to the border.”
“You just came back from war.”
“Yes.”
“You said you were done with border rotations.”
“I said I would consider my options.”
“No,” she said flatly. “You said you would stay.”
I met her eyes. Recognition sharpened her expression.
“Something happened.”
“No.”
“That was too fast.”
“Enough,” I said quietly.
She studied me the way she always had—reading what I refused to say. “You don’t do things without reason,” she said. “And you don’t run.”
“I’m not running.”
“No,” she replied softly. “You’re chasing something. Or trying not to.”
Silence stretched.
“You’ll be gone for months,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Is this about Ash—”
“No.” I cut her off. No, no one and nothing could be like that.
Her voice fractured, barely. “We missed you.”
“I know.”
She gripped my arm once, firm and familiar. “Be careful,” she said. “Whatever you think this is.”
Then she left before I could answer.
The door shut.
I remained seated, staring down at the map. I traced the route slowly with one finger. Far. Too far to turn back without consequence.
Down the corridor, an omega slept.
At least I hoped so. She would need her strength for the journey ahead.
I did not go to her door. I did not knock. I did stand there long enough to hear the quiet rhythm of breathing through stone and wood.
Alive.
The relief was sharp enough to unsettle me.
I turned away.
~~~~~
The knock came mid-morning. Tentative.
“My lord,” the voice said. “May I come in?”
That voice…
“Come in.”
She entered like a creature trained for harm—young, pale, carefully groomed, terror held beneath a layer of obedience. Her hands trembled as she folded them into her sleeves. Her eyes remained fixed on the floor. She smelled faintly of calming herbs.
“My lord,” she whispered. “I was told you were preparing to travel.”
“Yes.”
“To the border?”
“Yes.”
Her breath caught. “The Triune wished to ensure arrangements were not overlooked.”
I did not offer her a chair.
“I will be gone some time,” I said.
“I can—” She swallowed. “I can accompany you, if required.”
“No.”
The word landed too sharp. She flinched.
“This journey is not appropriate,” I added more evenly.
“I was chosen,” she said. “For you. To serve your needs.”
“I’m aware.”
Silence hummed between us.
“And yet,” she continued carefully, “you are leaving without fulfilling the bond.”
I looked at her fully then. Not unkindly. She was not the enemy. She was another offering laid carefully at my feet.
“I will speak with the Triune upon my return,” I said.
“When?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
Her shoulders sagged. She bowed, dignity thinning but intact. “As you command, my lord.”
She left quickly, as if stillness might invite punishment.
I exhaled and sank into the chair she never took.
This was wrong. All of it.
I was dismantling my life without a clean end, without certainty, without language strong enough to hold the truth. I thought of sharp, questioning hands. Of an omega who watched me like she expected betrayal—and would be justified in doing so.
I thought of long roads. Of borders. Of inspection duties that would take me farther from the center of power with every mile.
I thought of a body that never made it home.
I stood.
Orders still needed signing. Preparations still needed finishing. Seals still needed setting.
Tonight, the road begins.
And for the first time in my life, I did not know whether what I was leaving behind would survive my absence—or whether she would.