I was already moving toward the door before she finished. She reached for my arm, trying to slow me, but I pulled away. The corridor stretched ahead, endless marble and silver and light that hurt to look at. My heels clicked against the floor—too fast, too sharp, a rhythm that didn't match my heartbeat.
He's what? I wanted to scream. Say it. Finish the sentence.
But I already knew. Somewhere deep beneath my ribs, in that hollow space grief carves out before you know you're grieving, I already knew.
Servants appeared in doorways, faces pale and shocked, mouths forming words I couldn't hear. Someone called my name. Another reached out as I passed, fingers brushing my sleeve, but I didn't stop. The palace had become a blur of silver and white, all the familiar corridors suddenly strange, as if I were walking through a painting of my home rather than the home itself.
"Velra!"
Mother's voice, sharp with panic. I turned and found her rushing toward me, robes flowing behind her like water. Her face was composed—always composed—but her eyes were red-rimmed, and when she grabbed my shoulders, her hands were shaking.
"You shouldn't—this isn't—" She couldn't seem to finish a sentence either.
I looked at her, and for a moment I didn't recognize her at all. This woman with my mother's face and my mother's silver hair, but eyes that held something I'd never seen before. Not just grief. Something else. Something that looked almost like—
Fear.
"Where is he?" I heard myself ask.
"Velra, please—"
I pulled away from her. "Where. Is. He."
She didn't answer, but her gaze flickered toward the east wing. Toward his chambers.
I ran.
The sound of my footsteps echoed through the halls, and behind me I could hear Mother calling my name, servants murmuring, the whole palace waking to catastrophe. But it all felt distant, muffled, as though I were underwater and they were calling from the shore.
Two shamans stood outside his door, their ceremonial robes stark white against the silver walls. They turned when they heard me approach, their sharp features drawn in identical expressions of sorrow.
"Your Highness, you shouldn't—"
I shoved past them.
The door swung open, and the smell hit me first. Cedar and parchment and something else—something metallic and wrong that made my stomach clench. The room was full of people. Shamans standing in a circle around the bed, their hands raised, lips moving in silent prayer. Court officials clustered near the windows, whispering. Guards standing uselessly by the door.
And in the center of it all, on the bed draped in white silk—
My brother.
He looked asleep. That was the cruelest part. He looked exactly as he had a thousand mornings before, when I'd wake him for breakfast or tease him about sleeping too late. His long pale blue hair spilled across the pillow, catching the morning light. His skin had that same luminous quality all Silver Elves possessed, as though he carried moonlight beneath his skin. His lashes—pale and impossibly long—rested against his cheeks.
I stepped closer, and the shamans parted for me. Their chanting quieted.
He was still beautiful. Even in death, he was beautiful. The thought came unbidden, and I hated myself for it. What kind of sister looked at her brother's corpse and thought about beauty?
But grief does strange things to perception. Everything looked softer through the tears gathering in my eyes. Softer and warmer, like looking at the world through rose-tinted glass. His features seemed sculpted from light itself—too perfect, too peaceful, as though death were only another kind of sleep and any moment he would open his eyes and smile at me.
"Your Highness." One of the shamans—an elder with intricate silver tattoos snaking up his neck—stepped forward. His voice was gentle but firm. "Crown Prince Velmyil is deceased."
The words didn't make sense. They were just sounds, syllables that meant nothing.
"No," I heard myself say. "No, that's wrong."
The shaman's expression didn't change. "I'm sorry, Your Highness. We confirmed it at dawn. Poison."
Poison.
The word ricocheted through my skull.
"That's impossible. Someone would've—we have protections, we have—" My voice was rising, cracking. "Check again. You made a mistake."
"Your Highness—"
"Check again!" I was shouting now, and distantly I could hear how hysterical I sounded, but I couldn't stop. "He's—he can't be—"
Mother's hands on my shoulders again, pulling me back. "Velra, stop. You're making a scene."
I wrenched away from her. "He's my brother!"
"And he's gone." Her voice was steel beneath silk. "Screaming won't bring him back."
I stared at her. At this woman who had just lost her son, who stood there with perfect posture and perfect composure, as though this were just another court function to endure.
"How can you—" I couldn't finish. There were no words for what I wanted to ask.
I turned back to my brother. To his body. Because that's what it was now—a body. Not him. Never him again.
I knelt beside the bed, and my hands found the silk sheets, clutching them as though I could anchor myself to something solid. The fabric was cool beneath my fingers. I pressed my forehead to the mattress, and the tears finally came, hot and relentless.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
For not answering his letter. For being too proud, too vain, too wrapped up in my own misery to go to him when he asked. For spending that night obsessing over my reflection while he—while someone—
Poison.
Someone had killed him.
The thought crystallized slowly, cutting through the fog of grief. This wasn't illness. This wasn't accident. Someone had walked into his chamber and taken his life deliberately, carefully, with malice.
Who?
I lifted my head, looking around the room. At the shamans with their sorrowful eyes. At the officials whispering in corners. At the guards who had failed to protect him. At my mother, who stood watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
One of them knew. One of them had to know.
The door burst open again, and more voices flooded in. Court officials, more guards, all of them speaking at once, words tumbling over each other in a cacophony of shock and anger and fear.
"—found a human near the gates—"
"—trying to flee—"
"—assassin—"
I stood slowly, my legs unsteady beneath me. The room tilted slightly, and I grabbed the bedpost to keep from swaying.
"What?" My voice came out hoarse. "What did you say?"
A knight stepped forward, his armor catching the light. "Your Highness, we've apprehended a suspect. A human. He was attempting to leave the castle when we caught him."
A human.
The words settled over me like frost.
Of course it was a human. Who else would dare? Who else would be so brazen, so reckless, so—
Inferior.
The thought surprised me with its viciousness. I'd never thought of humans that way before—or if I had, I'd never let myself acknowledge it. But now, with my brother's body still warm on the bed behind me, the contempt felt righteous. Natural.
A human had done this. A human had taken everything.
"Where is he?" I asked.
The knight hesitated. "The throne room, Your Highness. The queen has ordered—"
I didn't wait to hear the rest.
The throne room was chaos.
I'd never seen the court like this—officials shouting over one another, guards standing in tight clusters, servants rushing back and forth with scrolls and messages. The air felt charged, electric with fury and fear.
And in the center of it all, on his knees with his hands bound behind his back, was the human.
He was small. That was the first thing I noticed. Small and unremarkable, with dull brown hair and skin that lacked the luminous quality of our people. He looked terrified, eyes wide and darting, mouth moving in what might have been pleas or prayers—I couldn't tell and didn't care.
This creature had killed my brother.
"—didn't do anything! Please, you have to believe me, I—"
His voice was high and grating, each word stumbling over the next. I wanted him to stop talking. I wanted someone to make him stop.
Mother stood near the thrones, trying to impose order with raised hands and sharp commands, but no one was listening. The court had become a mob, baying for blood.
"Silence!" she shouted, but her voice was swallowed by the noise.
Then he appeared.
Daencelyus.
My uncle moved through the crowd like a shadow given form, his black robes stark against white marble. He was taller than most of the court, his presence commanding in a way that had nothing to do with volume or force. When he spoke, the room quieted.
"A human," he said softly, his voice carrying despite its gentleness. "In our palace. Near the crown prince's chambers. On the night he died."
He circled the prisoner slowly, deliberately, like a predator assessing prey. The human shrank away from him, and I felt a savage satisfaction at seeing him cower.
"Please," the human whimpered. "I didn't—I'm just a servant, I was—"
"You were where you didn't belong." Daencelyus's tone never changed, never rose. That somehow made it more terrifying. "And now he's dead."
"I didn't poison him! I swear, I would never—"
"Liar!" someone shouted from the crowd. Others joined in, a chorus of accusations and demands for justice.
I stood at the edge of the chaos, watching. My hands were clenched at my sides, nails biting into my palms. My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat painful.
He did this. This human, this insignificant creature, had taken my brother from me.
Mother was trying to speak again, something about due process and investigation, but her voice was lost in the storm. She looked small suddenly, fragile, a woman trying to hold back a tide with her bare hands.
"We cannot act rashly!" she cried. "There must be a trial, we must follow—"
But Daencelyus wasn't listening. No one was listening.
He drew his blade in one smooth motion. The steel caught the light, silver and merciless.
"No—wait—please—" The human's voice spiraled into panic, words dissolving into incoherent sounds.
I should have looked away. Some part of me knew that—knew that what was about to happen would mark me, change me, leave a stain that wouldn't wash out.
But I didn't look away.
The blade came down.
There should have been more to it. More ceremony, more weight, more something. But death, I learned in that moment, is shockingly quick. One second the human was there, pleading and sobbing. The next, he wasn't.
His head rolled across the marble floor.
Someone gasped. Another person let out a choked sound of approval. Mother's hands flew to her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.
And I—
I felt nothing.
No. That wasn't quite true. I felt something, but I couldn't name it. Relief? Satisfaction? Justice?
Or just... emptiness.
The throne room had gone silent. Everyone stared at the body, at the blood spreading across pristine white marble, at Daencelyus standing over it all with his blade still drawn.
"Justice," someone murmured. Then louder: "Justice for the crown prince!"
Others took up the cry. Within moments, half the court was shouting, fists raised, celebrating the swift execution of the assassin, unlike the usual calmness of us silver elves.
But some faces remained pale and shocked. Some of the officials exchanged uneasy glances. And Mother—Mother looked like she might be sick.
I stood frozen, watching the blood pool and spread. It was darker than I'd expected. Almost black in the silver light.
Is this what you wanted? a small voice whispered in the back of my mind. Is this justice?
I didn't know. I didn't know anything anymore.
Daencelyus turned toward Mother, wiping his blade clean with a cloth produced by a nearby servant. "The assassin has been dealt with, Your Majesty. The crown prince can rest in peace."
Mother's jaw worked soundlessly for a moment before she found her voice. "That was... that was not your decision to make."
"Someone had to make it." His tone was still gentle, still calm, but there was steel beneath it. "The court demanded justice. I gave it to them."
He sheathed his blade and turned to address the crowd. "Let this serve as a warning to any who would threaten the Silver Court. We are not weak. We are not defenseless. And we will not tolerate treachery."
Cheers erupted again, and I watched as Daencelyus basked in their approval. He looked every inch the protector, the strong leader the court needed in this moment of crisis.
And Mother looked like a queen who had just lost control of her kingdom.
I backed away slowly, each step measured and careful, as though sudden movement might shatter whatever fragile thing was holding me together. No one noticed me leaving. They were all too busy celebrating or arguing or staring at the corpse still bleeding on the floor.
The corridor outside was blessedly quiet. I pressed my back against the cool marble wall and closed my eyes, trying to breathe, trying to think, trying to feel something other than this awful numbness spreading through my chest.
My brother was dead.
A human had been executed for it.
And I had watched it happen.
Good, part of me whispered. He deserved it. They all deserve it.
But another part of me—smaller, quieter, easier to ignore—whispered something else:
Was he even guilty?
I pushed the thought away. I had to. Because if I let myself doubt, if I let myself question, then I would have to confront what I'd just witnessed. What I'd just condoned with my silence.
And I wasn't ready for that.
Not yet.
I walked back to my chambers on legs that didn't quite feel like mine, through corridors that seemed longer than they'd been that morning, past servants who bowed and murmured condolences I couldn't hear.
When I finally reached my room and closed the door behind me, the silence was absolute.
I stood in the center of the chamber, staring at nothing.
The letter still sat on my vanity. My brother's handwriting, patient and kind, inviting me to watch fireflies.
I had ignored him. I had chosen my reflection over him. I had let my pride and my vanity and my endless, pointless obsessions consume me while he—
While he died alone.
The mirror waited across the room, its surface dark and still. I couldn't look at it. Not now. Not when I could barely stand to look at myself.
I sank onto the edge of my bed and finally, finally, let myself break.
The sobs came quietly at first, then louder, wracking my whole body with their force. I cried for my brother, for the letter I'd never answered, for the fireflies we'd never watch together. I cried for the human who might have been innocent, executed before anyone could prove otherwise. I cried for the girl I'd been yesterday, who had spent hours perfecting her reflection and thought that mattered.
I cried until I had nothing left.
When the tears finally stopped, the sun had moved across the sky. Afternoon light slanted through my windows, golden and indifferent.
I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, and felt the numbness settle in again. It was easier than feeling. Safer.
Somewhere in the palace, they would be preparing my brother's body for the funeral rites. Somewhere, Daencelyus was consolidating power. Somewhere, my mother was trying to hold together a court that no longer listened to her.
And I was here, alone, doing what I did best:
Nothing.
The thought should have spurred me to action. Should have made me angry, or defiant, or something.
But I only closed my eyes and let the darkness take me.
Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow I would face this. Tomorrow I would be strong.
But not today.
Today, I was allowed to break.