A VOW OF STARS

0 6

CHAPTER SIX

where did my daddy go?

______________________________________

_____________________________________

She hated staying confined in her room, she hated every second she spent inside, every breath she took felt like the rarest air between the tears that had finally dried up on her cheeks. How pathetic, she thought.

Her promise not to cry had only lasted until she had slipped to her room quite some time ago, she couldn't even recall how long, she only knew that she had drifted on and off sleep for what felt like a heartbeat, thinking that maybe it was just a nightmare.

It wasn't one. It was a day terror. A very real one, not a picture, not a mind hack. A truth. A reality. A fact, and she didn't even how it felt. Just hollow emptiness, layers of nothing upon nothing. She could no longer feel anything, and it killed her, knowing that she should be feeling things.

Her stomach growled in hunger, her head hurt from crying, but she couldn't care any less. Every cell of hers was paralyzed, frozen in space and time as she held the old, ever present Rhysie against her chest. Something to hold on to. Something to make sure that she could still at least feel it's soft fabric against her skin.

Breathe... Breathe... Breathe...

She had to remind herself with every passing moment, to breathe through the knot inside her chest, to breathe through the lump inside her throat.

Breathe... Breathe... Breathe...

The door cracked open, she didn't even care enough to look who got in. Didn't care enough to use her voice and kick them out of her small, new grave. "Get up..." Amren's voice echoed between the dark walls "Enough crying for you, little girl. This will not bring him back."

She wanted to scoff. Her father's second in command always did an admirable job of ignoring Elayla, as if she never existed at all. Maybe because she saw her as a mistake, a lapse of judgment of two people, drunk and in the deep seas of dangerous lust. Sometimes, Elayla saw herself as such, too. "Respectfully." She croaked out, her voice scratchy and cracking "Leave my room."

"No, I'm not." Amren states "I take my orders from Rhy-." At the mere mention of his name, Elayla's temper flared. "Do not bring him into this." She glared at the ancient one.

"So you're asking me to let you die of sorrow after all the years your father had spent keeping you alive?" Amren hissed, clearly not enjoying Layla's defiance.

"He is not here!" Layla straightened in her bed "He is not here, don't try guilt tripping me into things by using baba. You have no right."

"Listen to me carefully, girl." Amren spoke, her tone taming down "There is nothing we can do to bring Rhys from Under The Mountain, right now. He left this city for us to protect, he trusted us with the safety of his home. So now you have two options."

Amren stepped up closely, looking Elayla straight in the eyes, violet meeting silver "You either stay here, wallow up in your tears and waste your father's efforts over you like the child you are. Or you get up, keep your head up and sharpen yourself like the heir you're supposed to be."

"Leave her alone, Amren." A quiet voice said flatly as Azriel walked into the room filled with shadows. 

The ancient one glared at the spymaster, a snarl twisting her lips. "Are you ready to let her perish of hunger and sadness?"

Azriel didn't answer, but his siphons flared the smallest bit, making Amren scowl at him before walking away and closing the door behind her. Elayla turned in her bed, facing the other side of the room. She didn't want anyone near, unless it was Rhysand that miraculously escaped.

Azriel quietly sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing her back with his big hand. "You should at least get something to eat."

"I want my father, not food." She stubbornly answered, trying to get the words past the knot in her throat.

"Starving yourself isn't going to help him back, Layla." He coaxed gently. "You can't train with me without eating." 

Azriel knew how grief could kill, the one where the person was still alive but so far from reach, locked by an invisible key away for any circumstance. He lived it himself, when he was a child cruelly locked away from sunshine and the affection of his mother.

"Training won't bring him back either." His niece muttered, making his heart crack.

"It won't bring him back," He admitted. "But it'd give him something to be proud of, when he comes back. Don't you think so?"

She hesitated for a split second before peeking up at him with eyes that looked painfully like his brother's. Gods, what a mess have Rhysand made all of them.