Page 96 of A Kingdom of Lies

“Sit.” Elinor gestured to the dirt ground as though there was a chair of comfort for me to rest upon. “There is much to discuss, and it has been many years since another arrival has merited enough interest in me to speak with.”

I did as she asked, lowering myself to the ground on quivering knees. “Why would you have told my mother to leave you?”

The question danced between us, flirting with the silence as Elinor prepared her answer. “My home had become unsafe. Your mother wished to help me, during a time when help was hard to come by. I was running. Your mother and I had an ironclad plan, or so we had believed. Escape the Oakstorm court and find a new life. But the Hunters found us not more than a day’s ride away from the Wychwood border. That is where this story begins.”

“What were you running from?” I asked quietly, yet another question I felt as though I knew the answer to.

And I was right.

“Not what, but who. I had to leave Oakstorm, Wychwood – hell, I needed to be clear of this entire realm to protect my child. It was never for me, but for him. I would have traversed the entire world, discovered and unknown, to keep him safe.”

My breathing hitched. “Tarron had a brother…” I remembered the story. It wasn’t only Elinor who was taken by Hunters, but Doran’s other child. His name was just out of reach, no matter how hard I tried to reach for it, it slipped away. Perhaps everything that had happened thus far had made me forget about the details, but I understood without looking further that Elinor was alone in this cell.

Elinor, with the help of gripping to the iron bars, eased herself down onto the floor and sat opposite me. She didn’t moan, but her face winced as though she hurt from the simple action. “You may wonder why I could not judge your mother for her infidelity to her first husband. I know what it is like to fall in love with someone whilst being eternally tied to another. Just like Julianna, I too had a child outside of wedlock. I loved him, but he was not safe in Oakstorm.”

I pieced together the picture Elinor laid out before me, the missing fragments forming an untold story.

“Lovis,”– Elinor choked on the name as though it was the hardest thing she had ever spoken – “was a dear, sweet boy.”

Was.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive–” I stopped myself.

“Ask the question, Robin.”

I swallowed hard. “What happened to him… to Lovis?”

Had he become like Erix and the gryvern? Or had he survived that curse because Elinor was his mother, and her magic was to heal even the darkest of fates?

It may have been an insensitive question, but I harboured far harsher ones in my mind.

“He died many years ago. Killed by the treatment of the Hand and his acolytes. I failed my Lovis. I wasn’t able to provide him with the safety he should have been promised. That is my failure as a mother.”

I looked to the dust-covered rock ground, feeling my eyes sting as though needles pricked into them. “I’m so sorry.”

It hurt to hear of the loss of Elinor’s son, knowing that Tarron also no longer lived. But did she know?

“I am too. I often wonder, if I had not made the choices I did in my life, would I ever have needed to leave Cedarfall? Your mother would not have needed to help which ultimately led to her demise. I should never have had my Lovis. So many lives would have been spared if I had only curbed my longing.”

I understood now why Elinor looked as though she carried the weight of the world across her hunched shoulders. Guilt was a heavy burden to carry, and she bore it all, no matter how misplaced that guilt was.

“Whoever you were running from must have been awful enough to separate you from the family you left behind.” I found myself saying it before I even had the chance to truly think. “It was Doran, wasn’t it?”

Elinor nodded, her sadness morphing to the pinched expression of angry. “Tarron was the spitting image of hisfatherin mannerism and darkness only. All I gifted that boy was his looks and power. The rest, his soul especially, was the perfect mirror of Doran. Tarron did not need me. Doran, on the other hand, required me for what I could bear him: perfect, unmarred children. Yet imagine what he would have done when he found out that Lovis was not of his flesh and blood – death was fated for my youngest child no matter if I stayed or left.”

For a moment my body chilled so deeply that I was certain I was free from the iron cuff at my neck and my power had returned. A shiver sliced across my skin, my mouth drying as Elinor’s truth settled over me.

“Doran was not Lovis’ father?”

Elinor tipped her head, but didn’t once release my gaze. There was something proud about her expression. It hardened the features of her face, eradicating any whisper of sadness that had only a moment before aged her.

“There was nothing Lovis shared with Doran. Lovis was kind. Innocent. Perfect. I had once thought the same about Tarron, but as the years passed by, I knew I had lost him to his father’s warped soul. Unlike Doran’s other children, Tarron was physically perfect. But inside he was just as tormented as his sire. Lovis was different. Entirely, completely and undeniably opposite. It was only a matter of time before Doran noticed. I left believing that I was doing the right thing by Lovis and by me. I have learned that no matter the choices we make in life, there are always countless outcomes. Ones that we do not even consider when making our decisions. This…” Elinor gestured around her. “This is simply one outcome I had never contemplated. Now I am left here to bleed for a man who speaks to demons, without my son, without my future.”

There was a long pause between us. Elinor allowed me a moment to decipher all she had revealed. Questions upon questions layered upon one another and I almost forgot about the urgency of getting out of here. I could have sat there for an eternity speaking to a woman I had believed dead.

“You know my story now. Tell me, Robin, what has happened in your life to end up here, with me, imprisoned by a madman?”

I took a deep, shuddering breath, and chose to tell my truth clearly, just as she had shared hers. “I came for an audience with the Hand. To barter with him for his army and power. Then I heard about the Below, and those desires shifted. Although my being here, in the pits of the castle with you, is not how I imagined my welcome, I’m no more deterred from what I desire from the Hand, but the army I want is here.”

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