Ch13: Weakness Is a Tool

Vibe: The Curse — Agnes Obel | Keep the Streets Empty for Me — Fever Ray | Will You Follow Me Into the Dark — Klergy & Mindy Jones

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Morning never quite arrived in the forest. It simply... grew a little lighter. Elara woke without a start, without any sharp motion. Without fear. She only opened her eyes and lay for a few seconds, not remembering where she was.

The silence was different. Softer. She sat up slowly and listened for a while. No footsteps, no voices, no one calling her name. Her fingers tightened on the edge of the blanket.

/"You survive as long as you're useful."/

She did not answer, not even in her own head.

She rose carefully — her body still remembered exhaustion, but it obeyed now. Outside, the light had grown, the grass was still damp, the air colder, carrying the smell of crushed pine needles, old bark, and the sharp freshness of night. The small creature sat by the threshold. The same one. It lifted its head toward Elara and looked at her. It did not run.

Elara stepped outside slowly.

The forest had not changed, but it felt closer now. She walked a few paces, stopped, breathed in deep, and looked around. No one followed. She raised a hand — for no reason at all — and waved it through the air. Nothing. No one stopped her. No one asked why.

She froze for a moment, her hand still raised.

For the first time in a long while, she had done something without knowing whether it was allowed.

And nothing happened.

/"Don't trust."/

She bent toward a bush, her fingers brushing the leaves. Soft, thin. She pulled one free. Lifted it to her nose — a bitter smell, herbal, sharp.

/"Not edible."/

She set it down. Walked a little farther. Berries, dark and small, strung like beads on a broken thread. She looked at them longer, her fingers trembling faintly.

/"Test it."/

She crushed one — the juice thick and dark, like blood, but without the smell of iron. She waited. Listened to her own body. Nothing. Only then did she take some. She ate slowly, her eyes never leaving the bush. The taste was sharp, sour, but somewhere beneath it — a sweetness, hidden. She swallowed. And felt a knot inside her chest... loosen.

Not him loosening it. Herself.

The days passed quietly.

She moved farther from the cabin, learning the area with care — where the water was, where the ground stayed soft, where it was better not to step, where the forest thickened until the trunks grew together and the gaps between them narrowed to less than a hand's width. The small creatures appeared and vanished. Sometimes close, sometimes farther off. They did not interfere and did not help. They simply... were. Like the forest. Like the silence. Asking nothing in return.

By evening she returned to the cabin, her body worn thin. But her thoughts — no, those still ran, and would not stop.

She sat on the threshold and stared a long while into the dark between the trees.

/"Silence is more frightening than an answer."/

Here, silence did not frighten her. That felt wrong. Or she had already changed.

She lay down earlier than she was used to, and fell asleep fast.

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The dark came at once.

The same room. Not a room — a cage. Narrow walls, a table, two chairs. And him.

Erebus was not sitting. He stood. Not like before — when he had been calm, level. An unnatural tension had gathered in him now, hidden, humming like an overtightened string about to snap under a finger.

A servant girl sat across from her. Young — no older than Elara herself. Her hair pulled back carelessly, one strand fallen loose. Her eyes red, but not from crying — from holding back tears. Her hands folded in her lap, but the left one trembled — barely, a small motion she likely did not feel herself.

"Once more," Erebus said quietly. "Say it"

Elara studied the girl. Her hands, her gaze, her breath.

/"Who is lying."/

"She is not lying."

The silence shifted, turned sharp.

Erebus did not move at once. He only looked at her — long, without a word, until her skin began to feel the weight of that stare as pressure. Then he took a step. Stood beside her.

"No. You are not looking."

He leaned toward her ear — close, but not touching.

"You are not listening."

The servant girl flinched. Elara did not move.

/"Fear shows first."/

She evened her breathing — slowly, as she had been trained to. Too late. He had already seen it. He always saw it.

Erebus turned and stood before her. He looked at her a long moment. His eyes darkened — not with anger. With something calmer.

"You want to be right. You need to be useful."

He stood directly in front of Elara, his hand rising. And then, sharply — a blow. Not hard, but sudden. Her head snapped back, her ears rang, blood began to gather at the corner of her lip.

She did not scream. She could not.

/"Weakness is a tool."/

Elara pressed her fingers into fists. Her nails bit into her palms — her pulse throbbed sharp and hot beneath the pressure. But she did not move. Erebus watched. Waited.

And then — he smiled.

"Good."

He did not look at the girl. Only at Elara. And in one motion — calm, as everything he did was calm — he drew his sword and killed the servant.

The steel struck with a short, sickening sound; the girl did not even blink. Elara did not look away, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her turn her eyes aside.

"She is not afraid anymore," Erebus said, stepping over the pooling dark. "Let us continue."

He cleaned the blade and sheathed — unhurried, as though he had just done something ordinary. The servant girl no longer existed. He turned back to Elara.

And lowered himself onto one knee.

Slowly. Like a knight before his lady. His knee met the floor with certainty, without hesitation, as though this were exactly how it should be. As though what he had just done carried honor in it.

He looked up at her — straight into her eyes. And in his gaze she read something close to satisfaction. Not from the blood. From her. From the fact that she had not broken. That she had held.

Tears. She held those back too.

With his thumb, he traced the corner of her lip, where the blood had risen. Slowly. Almost gently. He lifted it from her skin as though lifting a relic.

Then — that same hand, cold, rose to her cheek. Stroked it. Quiet, even, without pressure — exactly where he had struck her. His palm settled on skin still burning from his blow.

And that was worse than the blow itself.

His gaze held on her, pinning her in place.

Then his hand slid lower, coming to rest at her knee, before trailing upward again, slow, deliberate. It stilled where the fabric gathered in folds against her thigh. He leaned in, his lips barely grazing the shell of her ear, and he whispered, softer than breath: "..."

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She woke with a jolt, her eyes stinging.

For a moment she did not know where she was. Darkness, the smell of dry pine needles, the cabin — and her face, wet. She pressed her palm to it. Tears. He had not watched her here. No one watched her here. And her body finally did what she had not let it do there.

Her breath came ragged, her hands trembling. She simply sat and waited for it to pass. She did not hide it.

He was not here.

She got up and went still.

A sudden, sharp crack tore through the darkness outside.

The small creature by the door flinched and vanished into the shadow — silent, instant.

Then — a scream.

Not human. A wild, piercing wail that bypassed thought and struck straight into bone.

Elara crept to the window.

Broken light fell across the glass — a wild, uneven glow of torches. Shadows scattered between the trees.

People — and... Voices.

"Grab it!"

"Here! Over here!"

Something massive fell — a heavy, dull sound. The ground shuddered underfoot.

Then — a howl. Long, piercing. From pain, or from something else.

And silence. Dead, dense.

Elara stepped back. Her spine met the wall; she slid down it and dropped onto the floor beside the bed. Her heart beat too fast — so fast that nothing remained in her head but the pulse.

/"Run."/

This time she did not think. Did not weigh anything. Did not search for the right move.

She rose and moved — to the door, outside, into the dark between the trees, where the forest was no longer quiet and no one stood to tell her which way to go.

Only her. Only the dark. And somewhere behind her — fire.