Chapter 7 — Leaving Without Farewell
Elowen left before dawn.
The decision had been made the night before, quietly, without ceremony or tears. She had folded her few belongings into a small, threadbare satchel while the Ashmere estate slept if the echoing halls could ever be said to sleep. The candle on her bedside table had burned low as she worked, its flame wavering each time a distant door creaked or a servant passed in the corridor outside her tiny room.
This room had never truly been hers.
It had once been a storage closet, repurposed when it became inconvenient to keep the lord's illegitimate daughter sleeping in the servants' quarters. The walls were narrow, the ceiling slanted, and the single window was too small to let in more than a blade of pale moonlight. Elowen had lived here since she was twelve, ever since her presence became an embarrassment rather than a nuisance.
Now, she stood in the center of it, satchel slung over her shoulder, hands trembling faintly.
She was leaving everything she had ever known.
Not that there was much to leave behind.
She glanced once at the narrow bed, the thin blanket folded neatly atop it. She had mended that blanket more times than she could count, stitching it together with careful hands after it tore, after it was yanked away in punishment, after it was tossed onto the stone floor in anger. The mattress sagged in the middle from years of use, but she had slept on worse.
Her gaze drifted to the small wooden chest beneath the window. Inside were the only things she truly owned: a comb with three missing teeth, a ribbon she had once found discarded in the garden, and a pressed wildflower from a summer long past, when she had still believed kindness might be returned if she gave enough of it.
She closed the chest gently.
There was nothing else to do here.
Elowen slipped out into the corridor, closing the door without a sound. The stone beneath her bare feet was cold, as it always was in the early hours, but she welcomed the bite of it. It kept her focused. Kept her from thinking too much about where she was going.
Or who she was being sent to.
The Warlord of Blackspire.
The Void King.
The man whispered about in taverns and behind gloved hands at court. A monster in human form. A tyrant who ruled through fear and annihilation. A man who slaughtered entire battalions without blinking and left nothing behind but shadows scorched into the earth.
Her husband.
The word still felt unreal.
Elowen moved through the halls with the ease of habit, avoiding the boards that creaked, skirting the places where light pooled beneath doors. She had learned this estate the way one learned a battlefield not out of love, but out of survival. Every shortcut, every hiding place, every blind corner where she could pause and breathe.
She did not go to the lord's chambers.
She did not go to the solar where her stepmother slept, nor to the grand rooms where her half sister's silks and jewels lay scattered across furniture Elowen had polished only hours before.
There would be no goodbyes.
No one would miss her.
The kitchens were quiet when she passed through them, the hearth cold, the scent of yesterday's bread lingering faintly in the air. She paused there, just for a moment, and pressed her fingers to the scar on her wrist a thin, pale line where hot grease had splashed years ago and she had been scolded for wasting oil instead of treated for the burn.
She exhaled slowly.
Then she moved on.
The servants' entrance opened onto the rear courtyard, where the delivery carts came and went and where Elowen had spent countless hours scrubbing stone until her hands bled. The gate was unguarded at this hour, as it always was. House Ashmere did not fear theft from its own servants.
The sky above was just beginning to lighten, the blackness giving way to bruised shades of indigo and gray. The air was cool and damp, carrying the scent of wet earth and distant rain. Elowen paused at the threshold, one hand resting against the rough wood of the gate.
This was it.
She stepped through.
The road beyond the estate stretched long and empty, winding down toward the main trade route where the Blackspire escort was meant to meet her at first light. Her family had arranged everything with ruthless efficiency. They did not want her lingering. Did not want neighbors asking questions or servants gossiping about where the maid had gone.
She adjusted the strap of her satchel and began to walk.
With each step, the estate loomed farther behind her, its towers rising pale and distant against the sky. She did not look back.
She had learned long ago that looking back only made things harder.
The road was quiet, save for the soft crunch of gravel beneath her feet and the occasional call of a waking bird. Elowen walked steadily, her pace unhurried but determined. She had been told the escort would arrive shortly after sunrise, and she intended to be there before them not waiting, not crouched in the dirt like a supplicant.
If she was to be given away like a bargaining chip, she would at least stand when it happened.
As she walked, her thoughts wandered, unbidden, to the man she was to marry.
Kael Draven Blackspire.
The name alone carried weight. Even spoken silently in her mind, it felt heavy, dangerous. She had overheard enough whispered conversations over the years to piece together an image of him: tall, dark, cold eyed. A man who did not smile. A man who did not hesitate.
A man who had never been kind.
Her fingers tightened around the strap of her satchel.
She did not know what awaited her at Blackspire. She did not know what kind of husband he would be, or what kind of life she would be expected to live. She only knew that she had survived worse than uncertainty.
She had survived cruelty dressed as respectability. Hunger masked as discipline. Silence as punishment.
If the Warlord of Blackspire was truly a monster, then at least he would be an honest one.
The thought startled her.
She frowned, shaking her head slightly as if to dislodge it. She should not be comforting herself with such ideas. Monsters were monsters, no matter how plainly they showed their teeth.
Still… there was something different about this fear.
This fear was clean. Sharp. It did not carry the slow, grinding humiliation she had lived with all her life. It did not come with the knowledge that those who hurt her did so because they could, because they enjoyed it, because they knew no one would stop them.
Whatever Kael Draven was, he had not chosen her.
And for the first time, that thought did not sting.
The sun was just cresting the horizon when Elowen reached the meeting point a wide clearing where the road forked, marked by an old stone milestone half swallowed by moss. She stopped there, resting her satchel at her feet, and waited.
The minutes stretched.
She listened to the sounds of the morning, to the wind stirring the grass and the distant lowing of cattle. Her stomach twisted with a familiar ache not hunger, not exactly, but the tension that came with waiting for something inevitable.
Footsteps approached from behind her.
Elowen turned slowly, her heart leaping into her throat as a familiar voice cut through the quiet.
"Well," Maribel Ashmere drawled, her tone light and cruel as ever. "You're punctual. I'll give you that."
Elowen's shoulders stiffened.
Maribel stood a few paces away, wrapped in a cloak of fine wool, her hair braided elaborately and pinned with silver. She looked as she always did perfect, polished, untouched by hardship. Two guards flanked her, their expressions bored.
Elowen inclined her head slightly. "My lady."
Maribel laughed softly. "Still playing the obedient maid, even now? How quaint."
She stepped closer, her gaze raking over Elowen with open disdain. "I thought you might try to run. Throw yourself into a ditch somewhere and make us all look bad."
"I have nowhere to run," Elowen said quietly.
Maribel's smile sharpened. "Good. At least you understand your place."
She circled Elowen slowly, like a cat inspecting prey. "You should be grateful, you know. Not everyone gets to marry into power. Even if it is… that sort of power."
Elowen said nothing.
Maribel stopped in front of her, close enough that Elowen could smell her perfume something floral and cloying. "Do you know what they say about him?" she asked, her voice dropping conspiratorially. "They say he killed his first wife."
Elowen's breath caught despite herself.
"Oh, don't look so shocked," Maribel continued, clearly enjoying this. "She was a noblewoman, too. Thought she could tame him. Poor thing."
Elowen lifted her gaze, meeting Maribel's eyes for the first time. "Then why send me?"
Maribel blinked, taken aback by the question. Then she laughed again. "Because if he kills you, no one important will mourn."
The words landed like a blow.
Maribel straightened, smoothing her cloak. "The escort will be here soon. Try not to embarrass us on the way out, sister. You're worth quite a lot of gold now."
She turned away, signaling to the guards. As they left, Maribel glanced back once more. "Oh and Elowen? Don't expect rescue. This time, there will be none."
When they were gone, the clearing felt unbearably empty.
Elowen stood very still, her hands clenched at her sides, her chest tight. She had expected cruelty. She had expected mockery. Yet the words still hurt, burrowing deep despite her efforts to harden herself against them.
No one important will mourn.
She swallowed, lifting her chin.
Perhaps not.
But she would mourn herself if she gave up now.
The sound of approaching hooves reached her ears moments later heavy, deliberate, accompanied by the low rumble of wheels on stone. Elowen turned toward the road just as a dark procession emerged from the trees.
Black banners marked with an unfamiliar sigil a twisted crown encircled by shadow fluttered in the morning breeze. The horses were massive, their armor blackened and etched with faint runes that seemed to drink in the light. At their head rode a man clad in dark steel, his posture straight, his presence commanding even at a distance.
Elowen's breath stilled.
This was it.
She gathered her satchel, squared her shoulders, and stood to face whatever awaited her.
No farewell behind her.
Only the road ahead.