Chapter twenty nine:Punishment of silence
The locket's weight lingered like a ghost in her palm.
Elira sat alone in her chamber, the door bolted shut behind her. The fire had long since dimmed to a sullen glow, its light flickering across the stone floor in strange shapes that whispered of things hidden beneath the surface.
The cold had followed her from the cellar.
Even now, in the warmth of her room, it clung to her skin—an invisible weight beneath her bones. Elira sat at the edge of her bed, Calen's locket cradled in her palms. It pulsed faintly with a warmth that didn't belong to metal, like it remembered being worn by someone who loved her once.
But the warmth didn't comfort her
The pull she'd felt in the cellar, the sensation of unseen eyes trailing her back up the stairs—it hadn't faded. If anything, it lingered. Thick. Watching. She'd left the door shut behind her, but she'd felt the walls breathe as she passed.
No dreams came that night.
By morning, her nerves felt raw.
Mirelle had brought tea without a word. Perhaps the girl sensed the unease in Elira's silence, or the way she flinched when the breeze brushed too cold against her throat. Still, she asked no questions. Not about the faint soot under her fingernails, or the shadow beneath her eyes.
She didn't mention the cellar to Mirelle. Something told her not to. The maid noticed her silence but didn't press, only brushing her hair gently and murmuring things about the garden walk she'd prepare later.
But Elira barely heard her. Her mind replayed the sensation from the night before: a pull, a whisper, the eerie stillness of air that should have moved. And the locket—Calen's locket. She hadn't worn it yet. Something about it made her uneasy. As though placing it around her neck might awaken something she wasn't ready for.
Elira tried to eat. Tried to rest. But her thoughts spiraled.
What was Calen's locket doing here?
Who had left it in the dark?
Why now?
As if it was listening.
A memory stirred: her brother's laugh—low, full of life—cut off abruptly by the crushing silence of his disappearance. That absence had become a wound she no longer knew how to name. She hadn't wept for Calen in months. Not properly. Not until now.
Her eyes burned, but no tears fell. She couldn't cry. Not here. Not with this cursed thing around her throat.
She reached up, fingers brushing the cold metal of the collar.
And it tightened.
She stood and paced. Her bare feet brushed cool stone. Her hand clenched and unclenched. Her breath caught—
The collar tightened.
A sudden, sharp constriction around her throat. Her body seized in reflex, hands flying to the metal band, gasping. She dropped to one knee, the world spinning. Panic swelled—and the collar only gripped tighter, like it fed on fear.
The collar constricted again—harder.
Elira dropped to both knees, gasping. Hands stuck to her throat, nails scraping uselessly over smooth iron. Her vision danced at the edges, a ring of fire blooming behind her eyes. Panic surged—she couldn't breathe—
Her vision blurred.
No incantation. No voice. Just the raw, unfiltered edge of terror—and pain.
She choked once, twice—then remembered: Breathe.
She forced herself still. Inhaled. Focused. Let the panic ebb, no matter how much her lungs screamed.
And like a beast reluctantly soothed, the collar eased.
Tears burned her lashes as she knelt on the stone floor, fingers trembling. Her breath was a ragged whisper. Her thoughts—no longer her own—pulsed like something shared.
A knock at the door. Then silence.
She didn't move.
Not until it opened.
Lucien entered with a stride too silent for human ears. He stopped when he saw her—still kneeling, the faint mark of the collar's punishment bruising her skin. His eyes flickered, darkened, but his voice remained calm.
"You panicked."
Elira lifted her head slowly. "It—tightened on its own. I didn't do anything."
"You panicked," he said again, voice neutral. "The collar responds to fear. You should've learned that by now."
She looked up at him. "So I'm to live like this? Afraid of my own thoughts?"
"No." His eyes darkened. "You're to learn to master them."
She recoiled from the word master, and he saw it. A flicker of something passed through him—unspoken, sharp. He stood and turned away, gaze locked on the cold hearth.
"This was not meant for you," he murmured.
It wasn't the first time he'd said something like that. As though she were the wrong puzzle piece forced into a place where someone else once belonged.
Elira stood, slowly. Her legs shook beneath her. "Then take it off."
Lucien didn't turn around.
Silence stretched between them like a chasm.
"I can't," he said at last.
Or won't—she couldn't tell which. But something in his posture betrayed tension, a dissonance that hadn't been there before.
When he left, he did so without a word. The door shut behind him not with anger, but with restraint—like a man holding back a scream.