“This isn’t real,” Elena said, her voice fragile in the dark chamber.
But the light disagreed. In fact, it grew warmer and gentler. It seeped into the cracks of the stone and found her skin, brushing against her cheeks.
“Mother?” She breathed.
The voices from the village reached her faintly, distant and blurred. Within Elena’s room, it was quiet.
Elena knew fevers formed hallucinations. This knowledge should have comforted her when the light began to fill the room—a light neither from the fireplace, its sunken and sulking embers like the eyes of a dying beast; nor from the narrow window, rimmed with frost and half-swallowed by snowdrift, but from somewhere else entirely.
And the room seemed to respond. Shadows thickened in the corners, curling along the rough-hewn walls. Walls that had stood here long before her, her father, or the Crown. Witnesses to everything, they had long ago lost the desire to speak.
Now, as the light grew, the silence wavered; the walls whispered once more.
The bed beneath her shifted as she stirred. Its heavy frame, carved by hands long dead, pressed her down instead of holding her up.
Elena squeezed her eyes shut, but the light was still there. Golden threads under her eyelids pressed into the corners of her mind.
She turned her face to the wall, pressing her forehead to its rough surface. The cool stone was something to hold on to.
“The purges will continue,” she spoke back to the walls. “Father’s work is not finished. We will end this. We will erase suffering.”
These were facts: solid, unshakable things she could anchor herself to against this rising tide.
“I am Elena Thorn,” she said aloud, as if saying it could lock her into that place and time. “I serve the Crown. I do not believe in—”
But she couldn’t finish. Because for perhaps the first time in her life, she wasn’t sure what she believed.
The light brushed against her face with that same unbearable gentleness, stirring… what?
Recognition?
Father could explain it. The angle of sunset through glass. Illusions prey on the weak.
He had made the ghosts go away, the monsters leave the wardrobe, and the world conform to an explanation. That was it, then. Only a man in a mask.
But now, with fever burning through her defenses, the masks were peeling away. Layer by layer, they fell. And at the end, nothing stared back.
The final mask revealed no truth, no monster, no God. Just emptiness where facts once stood.
The light swelled again, patient and unyielding, and somewhere inside her, Elena felt something answer.
The castle bells rang, three deep notes. The sound came like a judgment, each peal pressing through her chest. Then…
The light shifted, coalescing in the air before her. Its brightness softened into a recognizable form—her mother’s face.
Elena froze. The face was faint, shimmering like a reflection in rippling water, but to her it was unmistakable. Her mother’s eyes found hers.
“Mother?” Elena gasped, a desperate, breaking sound. “It’s you.”
The light didn’t waver, but her mother’s face flickered, dissolving into golden threads that curled back into the corners of the room.
Elena stumbled, seizing the bedpost just as Marcus burst in, his torch flaring weakly against the shadows, dispelling the apparition.
“Elena?” he said cautiously.
Her gaze snapped to him, gasping for breath. “Nothing, nothing. I just thought I saw something.”
“Or someone? You should be resting. You are not well,” he said in a familiar voice, a sound that belonged to this room—as if spoken by the walls.
Elena turned to him, desperate now for his presence. Marcus stood there, backlit by the torch he carried. But the light played tricks; the waver of flame caught the hollows of his face, making him look older. Tired.
“Recite with me, brother,” she said quickly. “Like Father taught us.”
He hesitated. A blink, no more. Even in her fevered state, she noticed.
“Consciousness is the breath of neurons,” she began, the words spilling out like a prayer. “The universe is material—”
“Observable and knowable,” Marcus finished reciting the catechism.
Elena looked up. “You don’t sound convinced.”
“It’s the fever talking,” Marcus said, closing the gap. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’m thinking more clearly than I have in years,” Elena snapped. But even as she said it, she knew she was grasping for the litany like a lifeline—anything to hold back the thing pressing against her mind.
The shadows on the walls shifted. For a heartbeat, Elena thought they moved to warn her.
Marcus broke through. “Elena, please, stop all this. I know you remember Mother. You called out to her, before I came in. Do you remember her hands?”
Elena held her breath. The fire hummed; the shadows retreated.
“Her hands were warm,” Marcus whispered, pressing in as he placed the torch on the wall. “Even at the end. You held onto them. Do you remember?”
“Enough,” she said, but her voice broke at the end.
“You stood with her,” Marcus continued. “You believed, maybe only for that moment. Don’t you remember?”
“I…” Her throat burned with the word. The light filled her and, for one unbearable moment, it felt like love. Like forgiveness.
Marcus inched in. “Elena,” he said, low and steady. “Do you remember what it was like before all this? When you were little? Before Father…” He swallowed. “Before he changed everything, including himself.”
Elena shook her head. “That doesn’t matter anymore.”
“It matters to me,” Marcus said in low tones. “You were just a girl when he started his research—and purge. I tried to shield you from it, to keep you from hearing the screams, from seeing what he was becoming. I told you stories to drown out the noise, do you remember that?”
Elena froze.
“You used to cling to my arm and whisper that you weren’t afraid,” Marcus continued, his tone thick with grief. “But I knew you were. I could feel it. You asked me if there were monsters in the castle, and I told you no. I lied, Elena. Because I didn’t want you to see the truth about Father.”
“Stop.” Barely audible now.
“Do you remember Mother’s garden?” Marcus pressed gently, leaning in closer. “You’d sit on the old stone wall, knees swinging, and you’d tell me the flowers were listening. You were so sure of it. You said everything in the world had a voice, if only we listened closely.”
“That was,” Elena faltered—
“That was you,” Marcus said, raw. “Before Father started twisting you into this—this machine. You believed in beauty, in grace, in something more. You weren’t born to carry out his work, Elena. You were born to be free. And his science won’t do that. The truth will.”
Elena steadied herself on the bedpost. For one fragile moment, she saw herself again: a girl on the stone wall, laughing, believing.
“I…” Her voice was frail. She took a single step toward Marcus.
The light brightened, golden and inviting.
“You can end this,” Marcus said gently. “You don’t have to follow Father’s path.”
Her hand trembled at her side. “I—” But her father’s voice slammed into her mind, cold and unyielding: “You are not weak, Elena.”
Elena straightened, her face hardening. The warmth evaporated, replaced by icy resolve. Her command rang out, hard as cold steel:
“Guards!”
The word broke the silence, scattering the light like a gust of wind blowing out a candle.
The door burst open, and Garrick stormed in, his heavy boots thudding against the stone. Warily, Ward followed close behind, his torch angled lazily.
“My lady?” Garrick said as he scanned the room, his gaze darting between Marcus and Elena. “What’s going on?”
Ward raised an eyebrow, his gaze lingering on Marcus. “We heard shouting.”
Elena stood tall, though her face was pale. “Take him.” She pointed a finger at Marcus. “He’s a traitor. A heretic. Arrest him.”
Garrick’s brow furrowed. His hand drifted to the hilt of his sword, but he didn’t draw. “Your brother, my lady? The young Lord Thorn? Why?”
The silence thickened, deep as the stone walls around them.
Marcus seized the moment, quietly, with a feeling deeper than defiance. “You know me, Garrick. You’ve known me since I was a boy.” He turned, looking at Ward now. “And you. You’ve never believed in the Crown’s stories. Not really.”
Ward raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond. The torch crackled between them.
Marcus looked back at Elena, pleading. “Elena, listen to me. This isn’t you. It’s him. Father. He built you to serve his truth. But you can be more than that. You are more than that.”
Elena tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. Marcus edged forward and this time, Garrick didn’t stop him.
“Do you remember the night Mother died?” Marcus said, stumbling on the last word as though it hurt to say it aloud. “You were with her. You held her hands.”
“No,” Elena said. Her head shook once, twice, as if she could shake off the memories themselves.
“You did,” Marcus pressed. “You believed her, you believed—”
“Silence,” Elena interrupted, shaking. For one terrible, beautiful moment, something split open. Elena’s face crumpled. “I don’t—I don’t know what’s real,” she choked out, diminished, almost like a child.
“Mother,” Elena called, barely hearing herself.
Ward shifted uncomfortably, his torch sputtering in the still air. “This is madness,” he muttered, half to Garrick, half to himself.
Garrick didn’t answer. His face was unreadable, but his hand dropped from Marcus’s arm, his hesitation laid bare.
Marcus said, gentle as the light, “She’s here, Elena. She’s always been here, waiting for you. You just have to let go.”
Then her father’s words thundered through her mind, and the lightning followed:
“Weakness is a choice. You are not weak, Elena.”
Elena staggered back as though struck. Her spine straightened, alive with the renewed strength. Her face hardened.
When she spoke, she was cold and mechanical, humanity flattened under steel. “I serve the Crown.”
Marcus’s face fell, his horror plain. “Elena, no—”
“Garrick, Ward.” Elena’s voice rang out, clear as a bell. The light faltered, its warmth receding like an outbound tide.
Garrick jolted upright, his soldier’s instincts snapping back into place. Ward let out his breath, a sound halfway between frustration and relief.
“Arrest him,” Elena said. Her tears were gone now, her expression blank. “My brother is a traitor. A heretic. He will answer for his crimes against the Crown.”
“No.” Marcus shook his head.
Elena didn’t look at him. “Take him. He is a Candlemaker,” she said, hardened. “A Crown offence. The worst kind of treason! Punishable by death.”
Garrick’s hand tightened on his sword hilt. His gaze shifted to Marcus, and for a moment, his shoulders dipped, burdened by the inevitability of the choice before him. “Is this true?”
Marcus met his gaze squarely. “It is,” he said simply.
Ward let out a low whistle. “Well, that’s that, then.”
“Garrick,” Marcus said, turning to the older guard. “You’ve known me since I was a boy. You know this is about truth, about standing up for what’s real and challenging the deceptions we’ve all accepted. My actions serve the true interests of the Crown.”
Garrick’s knuckles were turning white. “My lady…?”
Elena’s gaze was unflinching. “You have your orders,” she said coldly. “You know what the Crown commands. Or do you risk treason yourself, Garrick?”
He nodded stiffly, his shoulders dropping. “As you command.”