CHAPTER SEVEN

  Choices

  Elowen woke slowly, as if surfacing through deep water.

  For a moment she didn’t remember where she was. The ceiling above her was carved—branches arching, stags leaping, long-haired figures with narrow, pointed ears disappearing into the curves of polished wood. Morning light filtered through pale curtains, brushing the carvings in a soft gold.

  Nothing about the room made sense to the life she’d come from.

  Her hand moved before she could stop it, sliding across the mattress to the edge, fingertips searching for the floorboards, then the gap beneath the bed. Old habits. She checked for shadows. For boots. For anything that meant danger waiting quietly for her to stir.

  Only silence answered.

  She exhaled—slow, measured, embarrassed at herself even though no one was watching.

  It had been seven months in Eryndor’s house. Seven months of waking in this too-soft bed. Seven months of not being struck for flinching, or shouted at for dropping a cup, or shoved aside because someone else needed the space more.

  And still her first thought every morning was: Did I survive the night?

  She rubbed her palms together under the blankets. They’d grown calloused in a different way. From archery practice. From riding reins. From gripping a quill too tightly because she still worried the ink might be taken if she didn’t finish fast enough.

  The drapes around her bed had twisted again while she slept—pulled slightly to one side, as if she’d curled into them during a nightmare. She tugged them straight automatically. Order soothed her. Eryndor said it was because she appreciated beauty; she knew it was because disorder had once meant danger.

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  She stood, stretching carefully. Her body still carried ghosts of old pains—bruises that weren’t visible anymore but still replayed in the muscles. She dressed in the clothes set out on the small chair by the hearth: simple linen tunic, fitted riding trousers. Eryndor insisted she wear what let her move, not what made nobles proud.

  On the table by the window sat the silver flute he’d given her a few months back.

  She hesitated—not out of reluctance, but out of something else. Something like recognition. Like the instrument was a quiet animal that needed to be approached gently.

  Elowen touched the flute’s cool surface with two fingers.

  The air in the room shifted—barely. A soft stirring, as though someone had breathed out behind her. She didn’t turn. Didn’t startle. She only let her hand rest there a moment longer.

  The wind had started responding to her in small, careful ways.

  She wasn’t sure if that comforted her or frightened her.

  A knock sounded at the door. Not three even taps—those belonged to Eryndor—but quick, polite ones. Light enough to be respectful, soft enough to be afraid of waking her.

  “Miss?” a woman’s voice called through the wood. One of the maids—Marra, if Elowen was guessing right. “Breakfast is laid out in the blue hall. Lord Eryndor says you’re to join him when you’re ready.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  A pause, then a quiet, “Of course, miss,” and the soft patter of footsteps fading down the corridor.

  Elowen stood there a moment longer, hands curled lightly at her sides. No one barked at her to hurry. No one threatened to take the meal away if she was slow. No one told her she didn’t belong at the table.

  It was… unsettling.

  She closed the door behind her and lifted her chin. Eryndor would be expecting her for their morning ride—to “see if yesterday’s practice holds,” as he always phrased it. Not a test. A continuation. A steadiness.

  Another small thing she was still learning how to accept.

  Practice. Not tests. Another improvement.

  She slipped the flute into its cloth wrap, tied it, and placed it carefully in the small satchel she carried for lessons. Not because she needed it today, but because something in her balked at leaving it behind.

  Safe here or not, she didn’t trust good things to stay where she left them.

  She opened the door.

  The corridor beyond was empty, quiet, sunlit. No shouts. No footsteps pounding. No slammed doors. Just the soft hum of a house that had taken her in and refused to let fear dictate how she lived here.

  Elowen stepped out, and for the first time, the house didn’t feel borrowed.

  It felt… almost like something she was allowed to inhabit.