Heir of Dreams and Princess of Light

Chapter 11: The Choices

Estelle was quiet. Too quiet for Reave's taste. 

"Stelle? Are you okay?" He reached out to grab his sister's hand, but she snatched it away before he could get close. 

"How can you even ask me that?" She whispered, her voice quiet and unsteady. "You've known, all this time, that there was another way? And you didn't tell me?" 

Reave bit his lip. I didn't want to give you false hope when there might've been none to give, he wanted to say. Instead, he said, "I didn't want to hurt you, Estelle." 

"Congratulations. You failed." Estelle stood abruptly, moving away from him and cupping her elbows in her palms. Reave watched her go, heart sinking as she moved toward her bookshelf and leaned her forehead against it. He suddenly hated everything about this. He hated the situation, he hated his mother for making it happen, he hated Nyx for making his sister fall in love with him. He hated himself a little, too, for making it all worse. 

"You said there was something else," Estelle said, her voice low. Her back was to him, but he could see the tense set of her shoulders. "What is it?" 

Reave swallowed. "I think you should tell our parents about... all of this." 

Estelle's already tense shoulders stiffened, and Reave braced himself for the anger. But nothing happened. Estelle just stood there, frozen in place. 

Reave slowly got to his feet, walking over to reach out a hand to his sister. "Stelle...?" 

Before he could even touch her, Estelle had vanished into shadows and smoke.

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Deep breaths. In and out. Don't think about it.

She couldn't stop herself, though. There was the spiral, in her mind. If she told Aelin, any semblance of control she'd had would be gone. Aelin would want to fix it. But she couldn't. Everything would change, everything she'd tried so hard to keep the same would shatter. 

Estelle could not tell her mother. She couldn't. Why didn't Reave understand that? It was supposed to be her choice. Everything in her life was supposed to be hers, and hers alone, and they kept trying to take that from her. Why? What had she done in some other life that warranted such bad luck in this one? 

Estelle groaned and leaned her back against the trunk of the apple tree, tilting her head toward the sky. She just wanted things to be normal. She wished everything was like it used to be, before everything had gone wrong. 

Estelle worried sometimes that she'd lost herself when those portals had closed. That some intrinsic, essential part of herself had been pulled right out of her and stolen away to another world. She didn't feel... whole anymore. But at the same time, she felt no different than she had three years ago. It was as if she'd never been whole, not really, and she'd just finally realized it. Now the feeling that something was missing wouldn't leave her be. 

"I miss..." She whispered into the quiet garden. She swallowed, the words stuck in her throat. I miss you. So much. So much that it hurts, sometimes. 

Estelle knew she was in the wrong. She knew her brother was just trying to help, that what she was feeling wasn't normal or healthy for her or anyone around her. She knew that, and still, she couldn't find it in herself to try to change. 

Across the garden, soft footsteps began to tap across the grass. Estelle's head snapped up in time for her to see Aelin appear around a bush of orchids. Immediately, panic flooded through Estelle's veins, and she clenched her fists around the apple blossoms she'd gathered in her lap. Had Reave said something to their mother?