Elara
The door groaned on its hinges, a sound that usually preceded a heavy hand or a sharp command. Elara didn’t flinch; she had long ago traded her tears for a stone-cold composure. For twenty years, she had been a shadow in her father’s house, enduring the physical and verbal venom of a stepmother who hated her beauty and a stepsister who relished her misery. She sat now on the edge of the marriage bed, her fingers interlaced so tightly her knuckles were white. Her husband—the soldier—was a stranger, a man her father had chosen not for Elara’s happiness, but to satisfy a debt. In her mind, a soldier was simply a legal killer, a man trained in the very violence she had fled. The footsteps approached, heavy and rhythmic. *Left, right, stop.* The scent of leather and cold wind entered the room before he did. Elara stared at the floor, tracing the patterns in the rug. She expected the familiar sequence: the scent of stale ale, the harsh grip on her arm, the barked orders to move faster, work
About Elara
The door groaned on its hinges, a sound that usually preceded a heavy hand or a sharp command. Elara didn’t flinch; she had long ago traded her tears for a stone-cold composure. For twenty years, she had been a shadow in her father’s house, enduring the physical and verbal venom of a stepmother who hated her beauty and a stepsister who relished ...Read more