Elara’s POV

The carriage station smelled like wet straw and horse dung.

I stood beneath the flickering lantern for a long while, gripping my small travel bag so hard my knuckles had gone white. Exactly three blocks. That was all. Exactly three blocks between me and the crib where Lyra was sleeping. Exactly three blocks between me and everything I’d just destroyed.

My body wouldn’t stop shaking.

The night air bit through my thin cloak. No wolf blood to warm me now. No inner fire. No Moonlight curling protectively around my senses, sharpening every sound, every scent. Just skin and bone and the dull, ordinary cold that sank into mortal flesh and stayed there.

I pressed my fist against my sternum. The hollow ache behind my ribs hadn’t stopped since I’d set the letter on the nursery table. It pulsed with every heartbeat, steady and merciless, like a second wound that refused to clot.

You left your baby sleeping.

The thought hit me like a blade between the ribs. I doubled over, catching myself against the wooden post of the station shelter. A dry heave clawed up my throat. Nothing came. I hadn’t eaten in what felt like ages.

She’ll wake up. She’ll cry. And you won’t be there.

"Stop," I whispered. "Stop it."

The carriage wasn’t here yet. I glanced down the empty road and saw nothing but darkness and lantern light reflected in puddles from the evening rain. The waiting felt like punishment. Every second I stood still was another second I could turn around. Walk back. Slip through the door, pick Lyra up, and pretend the letter had never existed.

When Kaelen finally found the letter, I imagined his face. The tightening of his jaw. The way those dark gold eyes would narrow as he read my words. Would he rage? Would he put his fist through the wall and send the entire palace guard to drag me back? Or would there be something quieter behind the fury—a flicker of relief he’d never admit to, a loosening in his chest at the realization that his broken mortal mate had finally done the merciful thing and removed herself?

I didn’t know which possibility hurt more.

My bag sat at my feet. Clothing. The coin purse I’d been quietly filling for some time, skimming from my personal allowance so no one would notice. My communication stone, the small enchanted disc that could receive messages across distances. And nothing else. No portraits. No keepsakes. I’d left everything that mattered in that wardrobe for the children.

I couldn’t go to Brenna. She’d take one look at me, demand an explanation, and have a message to Kaelen before I finished my first sentence. She loved me too fiercely to let me do this. That was exactly why I couldn’t face her.

I couldn’t go north either. The rogue threat still lingered along the border territories, and without Moonlight—without my wolf—I was nothing but soft meat walking through predator country.

So I had no destination. Just away.

The rumble of wheels reached me before the carriage appeared. A public coach, battered and mud-splattered, drawn by two stocky draft horses. The driver was a thick-necked man who didn’t glance twice at me as I paid the fare and climbed aboard.

Inside, the cabin smelled like old leather and someone’s forgotten lunch. I was the only passenger. I pressed myself into the corner, pulled my hood low, and watched the capital slide past through the rain-streaked window.

There. That café on Thornberry Lane. The one with the crooked green awning. Kaelen had taken me there once, early on—before the court knew my face, before the whispers started. He’d ordered me a honey pastry and watched me eat it with an expression I’d never seen on his face before. Something soft. Something almost bewildered, like he couldn’t understand why watching me lick sugar off my fingers made him look at me that way.

I turned my head away from the window.

Too late. The next landmark was already sliding into view. The public park with the iron gate and the old oak tree. Valerius had learned to ride the wooden rocking horse there—the painted one near the fountain. He’d screamed with laughter, his dark curls bouncing, his gold eyes blazing with pure joy. "Mommy, look! I’m going so fast!"

My throat closed.

Then came the pale stone facade of the Royal Medical Hall. Lyra had been born there on a night when the rain sounded exactly like this. I remembered the ceiling above the delivery bed. I remembered counting the cracks in the plaster because the pain was so enormous I needed something small and meaningless to anchor myself to. I remembered the first thin cry. The weight of her in my arms. Silver hair. So much silver hair for something so impossibly small.

I couldn’t breathe.

The walls of the carriage shrank around me. The air thickened. My lungs seized, refusing to expand, and a black tide of panic surged up from my stomach into my chest.

"Stop," I gasped. I lurched forward and banged on the partition. "Stop the carriage. Please. I need to get off."

The driver pulled the reins without argument. I stumbled out onto a street I didn’t recognize in a town I’d never visited. Small. Quiet. Stone buildings with thatched roofs. A bakery with a closed sign. A cobbler’s shop. A tavern with amber light spilling from its windows.

I stood in the street and dragged air into my lungs until the black spots retreated.

You’re fine. You’re fine. Keep moving.

The tavern door opened with a creak. Inside, warmth and noise wrapped around me—the clatter of mugs, the murmur of conversation, the crackle of a hearth fire. I found a table in the far corner, dropped my bag on the bench, and sat down with my back to the wall.

A serving woman appeared. Young. Mortal. A smudge of flour on her apron.

"What’ll it be?" 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Ale," I said. My voice came out hoarse and strange. "Whatever you have."

She brought it quickly. I wrapped both hands around the mug and didn’t drink.

The tavern was half full. Ordinary people living ordinary lives. A merchant in a rumpled coat, muttering about quarterly trade ledgers to a bored companion. A young mother at the next table, cutting bread into small pieces for two children who couldn’t sit still. An elderly couple sharing a bowl of stew in comfortable silence, their shoulders touching. A girl—barely past childhood—sat near the window, fidgeting with a communication stone and smiling at whatever message had appeared on its surface.

I watched them all. These people who belonged here. Who had roots and routines and knew where they would sleep tonight.

I didn’t belong anywhere.

The ale went warm in my hands. I still hadn’t taken a sip. The young mother caught her smaller child just before he toppled off the bench, scooping him up with a practiced arm and pressing a kiss to his temple. He squealed. She laughed.

My vision blurred. I looked down at the table.

Lyra will wake up soon. She always wakes once in the night. She’ll look for you.

I pressed my palms flat against the wood and breathed.

Valerius will ask where you are. He’ll ask again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

The communication stone in my bag vibrated.

I flinched. My hand shot to the bag. I pulled the stone out and stared at the glowing surface, my heart hammering so violently I could feel it in my teeth.

A market notice. Some tradesman advertising carriage insurance across provincial routes.

I exhaled. Just noise. Just a mass-sent, useless missive.

I checked the blocked channels. Kaelen’s sigil was still dark, sealed behind the barrier I’d set before leaving. If he’d tried to reach me, the messages wouldn’t come through. Good. If I heard his voice—even his written words—my resolve would shatter like thin glass, and I’d be running back to that nursery before dawn.

This was better. This silence. This severance.

I set the stone on the table and stared at it. The tavern noise washed over me. The merchant droned on. The children laughed. The old couple murmured. The girl by the window giggled at her stone.

I was surrounded by life, and I had never felt more alone.

My communication stone vibrated again. This time, I almost dropped it on the ground. The sigil on it made my heart stop. Finnian. My hands were trembling when I opened the message. "Ela! Long time no see, how have you been?!"