I did not sleep after she left.
The necklace from my parents stayed on the bed where I had set it down. The one Seraphine had given me earlier remained around my neck. Two pieces of jewelry. Two different claims. I sat with my back against the headboard and stared at the wall until the light in the window changed.
Dead.
The word did not feel real, but the consequences did. No one was searching for me. My mother had cried over a body that belonged to a stranger. My father had placed a family necklace into the hands of the woman who had taken me. The crown prince had stood at a funeral and mourned a version of me that no longer existed. The kingdom had closed the file. Elira Veyne was finished.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes until colors bloomed behind the lids. It did not help. The knowledge stayed exactly where she had put it.
Anger came in waves. At her, for doing this. At myself, for the hours I had spent listening for her key like it mattered. At the simple fact that the only person left in the world who knew I was still breathing was the same person who had erased me from it. Grief sat underneath the anger, heavier and less useful. I thought of my mother’s hands. I thought of the last ordinary conversation I could remember having with my father. Both memories felt like they belonged to someone else.
Eventually I stood up.
The chains were gone. I had noticed it the morning she returned, but the argument and the reveal had pushed the detail aside. Now I tested the new range of movement. I could cross the full length of the room. I could reach the window, the small table, the corner where the covered pot still sat. I could open the inner door.
I stepped out carefully, half expecting her to appear and shut everything down again. Nothing happened. To the left was the bathroom I already knew. To the right was a narrow sitting room with a cold fireplace and two chairs that did not look often used. Further on, a kitchen with basic supplies and a locked door that clearly led outside. I tried the handle. It did not move. Of course it didn’t.
The cottage was larger than the single room I had been kept in, but it was still a closed shape. More space. Same ending. I walked the perimeter twice, touching walls, testing windows, listening for any sound of the outside world that was not filtered through glass and distance. Birds. Wind. Nothing that resembled a road or a voice.
I ended up back in the bedroom because there was nowhere else that felt like it belonged to me, even slightly. The blue dress had started to feel like part of the furniture. I hated how familiar it had become.
Time moved strangely. I ate some of the bread left in the kitchen without tasting it. I sat in the chair by the empty fireplace and tried to read the silence for meaning. Mostly I waited, and then hated myself for waiting.
She had said she would come more often. The words had been stiff, almost resentful, as if the decision had been forced out of her by the argument. I did not know whether to believe them. I also did not know what I wanted the answer to be. If she stayed away, the quiet would grind me down. If she returned, I would have to look at the person who had stood in front of my parents and accepted a necklace while the world finished burying me. This story is hosted at NovelPing.
The light began to fade. I lit the lamp the way she had shown me once, early on, and watched the flame steady. Shadows stretched across the floor. My reflection in the small mirror above the table looked pale and older than I remembered.
I thought about screaming. The idea went nowhere. There was no one to hear it except the woman who already knew exactly where I was.
Night settled fully. I lay down on the bed without changing clothes and stared at the ceiling. The two necklaces rested against my skin in different ways: one chosen by her, one carried from a funeral I had not been allowed to attend. I turned onto my side and faced the door.
I told myself I was only listening for danger.
The truth was simpler and worse.
I was listening for her.
Even after everything. Even knowing what she had done. Some miserable, practical part of me had already accepted that the only footsteps that would ever approach this door again belonged to Seraphine D’Arcourt. The rest of the world had finished its mourning and moved on. She was what remained.
I closed my eyes against the lamp light and tried not to count the hours until morning. The anger was still there. The grief was still there. Underneath both of them sat a quieter, uglier feeling I did not want to name: the beginning of a life measured entirely by whether or not she chose to walk through that door.