THE WOLF KING’S BRIDE

CHAPTER FIVE – THE HANDMAID'S WARNING

Elara’s POV

The morning came with a silence so absolute it felt heavy, sitting in the center of my chest like a physical weight.

I lay in the expansive, cold bed of the Queen’s Wing, staring at the canopy above, unable to shake the echoes of the previous night. The memory of her the woman in the dream was scorched into my mind. I could still hear the way she cried, a sound of melodic agony, insisting she would finish what she had started. It wasn't just a nightmare; it felt like a summons.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that silver shimmer and felt the phantom chill of her presence, leaving me with a restless, gnawing anxiety that no amount of daylight could dispell.

The heavy oak doors creaked open, and Liora walked in. She looked terrible worse than I did. There were bruised, dark circles under her eyes, and her hair, usually pinned back with neat precision, was falling in loose, frantic strands around her face. She looked as though she hadn't slept in days, or perhaps as though she had spent the night staring into the same darkness I had.

She set the breakfast tray down on the small table near the hearth, but the clatter of porcelain was frantic. Her hands were shaking so violently that the tea spilled over the rim of the cup, pooling on the silver tray.

"You need to eat something, my lady," she said, her voice small and brittle.

"I'm not hungry, Liora," I replied, sitting up and wrapping my arms around my knees. The very thought of food made my stomach turn.

Liora bit her lip, her eyes darting toward the door with a sharp, terrified rhythm, checking to see if any of the King’s guards or the castle’s "whispers" were listening to us.

"Please, my lady," she whispered. "You are going to need your strength for what’s coming."

I turned to face her fully, my gaze locking onto hers. I needed someone to acknowledge the madness.

"Liora, do you believe a ghost can cry?"

Her face went bone-pale, the little color she had left draining away instantly. "I... I don't know what you mean, my lady."

"Yes, you do," I said, sliding out of bed and stepping closer to her. The cold marble floor bit at my feet.

"You’ve been here much longer than I have. You know things. I see it in the way you look at me not with the respect of a handmaid, but with pity. Like you’re waiting for something terrible to happen to me."

She looked away, her bottom lip trembling as tears welled in her eyes. "I shouldn't say anything. If the King knew I was talking to you about... about the history..."

"About what?" I grabbed her hand, my fingers lacing through her shaking ones. "Liora, please. I’m scared, and everyone in this castle treats me like a porcelain doll that’s already been cracked. No one will tell me the truth. If I’m going to face whatever is in this house, I need to know what it is."

She pulled her hand back, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were trying to hold her soul inside her body. "The other brides," she whispered so softly I had to lean in to hear. "There were others before you, Elara. Many others over the years."

My stomach dropped, a cold stone of dread settling in my gut. "What happened to them? Kael told me he sent them away."

"They disappeared," she said, her voice trembling with a raw, jagged edge. "Every single one of them. They never made it to the village. They were gone before the second full moon could rise over the peaks."

"Gone where? Did they run away?"

"No one knows." She finally looked at me, tears streaming down her face now, unchecked.

"Some say the castle itself grew hungry and took them. Some say... some say she did."

"She?" But I didn't need to ask. The name was already vibrating in the air between us. "The first queen. Seraphina."

Liora nodded frantically. "She’s still here, my lady. Not alive in the way you and I are, but not gone either. The castle is her cage and her kingdom. When the moon turns red, they say she walks these halls, calling out to him, trying to find a way back. And every time she does, the new bride vanishes without a trace."

A nervous, hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat. I let it out, though it sounded more like a choke. "And you think that's going to happen to me? That I’m just the next one on the list?"

"I think she already knows you are here," Liora said, her voice dropping to a terrifyingly flat tone. "I think she’s been watching you since the moment your carriage crossed the border. She doesn't just want Kael back, Elara. She wants her life back."

The room suddenly felt twenty degrees colder. In the hearth, the fire flashed with a sudden, violent burst of orange light, as if something invisible had just walked past the flames and fanned them. I shivered, pulling my silk robe tighter around my shoulders.

"Why are you telling me this now?" I asked.

"Because you deserve to know," she said, wiping her eyes with a shaking hand. "And because I saw her. Three nights before the last girl disappeared, I saw her standing in the West Wing. She was by her portrait, bathed in that sickly silver light. And Elara... she was smiling."

"The West Wing," I repeated. The words felt heavy. "Kael told me never to go there. He said it was dangerous."

"Then don't go!" Liora begged, reaching out and grabbing my arms with surprising strength. Her eyes were wide, pleading. "Promise me you won't. Please, my lady. Stay in the light. Don't let her lead you into the dark."

"I promise," I whispered, though even as the words left my lips, I felt a lie forming in my heart. The more she begged, the more I felt a strange, magnetic pulling at the base of my skull. It was like a voice in my blood not a sound, but a feeling. It said go. It said come home.

That night, sleep was a ghost that refused to visit. Every shadow in the corner of the room seemed to stretch and move like a living thing. Every groan of the settling stone made my heart race against my ribs. Finally, driven by an impulse I couldn't name, I got up and wrapped my heavy cloak around my shoulders.

I stepped out into the hallway. The corridors were silent, glowing with those strange, ghostly blue flames that danced in the wall sconces. They never gave off heat; they only cast long, shadows that seemed to dance as I passed. My feet moved on their own, carrying me toward the one place I had promised to avoid.

Curiosity, stupidity, or perhaps that darker pull I was too afraid to name it didn't matter. I needed to see the face of the woman who was haunting my life.

The door to the West Wing was already open, a sliver of darkness inviting me in.

Cold air spilled out, carrying a heavy, cloying scent of crushed roses and something acrid, like burnt hair or wood.

I stepped inside, and the hallway seemed to stretch impossibly long, the perspective warping in the moonlight. The walls were lined with portraits of women in wedding dresses the other brides. All of them were beautiful, all of them looked profoundly sad, and their painted eyes seemed to track my movement with a silent, warning gaze.

At the very end of the hall hung the largest portrait, framed in ornate, blackened silver.

Her. Queen Seraphina.

She was stunning. In the painting, she wore a silver gown that flowed like liquid water, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders like a silk waterfall. And her eyes those sharp, silver eyes that looked exactly like Kael’s when the wolf took over his soul.

I stepped closer, my breath catching in my throat as I reached the frame. My heart stopped.

It was my face.

It wasn't just a resemblance or a similarity. It was me. The same arch of the eyebrow, the same curve of the mouth, the same stubborn set of the jaw. It was as if someone had painted my soul hundreds of years before I was even born.

"You shouldn't be here," a voice rumbled from the dark.

I spun around, my heart hammering so hard it was painful. Kael stood in the doorway, half-hidden in the deep shadows. His eyes were glowing faintly, the silver light in them reflecting the moon.

"You told me not to come here," I said, my voice shaking. "But you never told me why. You never told me I’d be looking at a mirror."

He walked toward me slowly, his presence heavy and suffocating.

"Because she listens," he said quietly, his gaze fixed on the painting. "And you do not want her attention, Elara. She is a jealous queen."

A sudden, cold wind swept through the corridor, though there were no open windows. The blue torches flickered wildly, casting jagged shadows across the portraits of the lost brides.

"Why does she look like me, Kael?" I asked, my voice rising. "Is this why you married me? Because I’m a replacement?"

He didn't answer immediately. He reached out and grabbed my hand, his grip firm as he tried to pull me away from the portrait and back toward the safety of the main hall.

"Kael, answer me! Why does she have my face?"

"Because the moon is cruel," he said, his voice rough and pained.

"It repeats what it can't replace. It finds a vessel that fits the mold and it pours the memory back in."

The floor beneath us trembled then a deep, groan that shook the frames on the walls. From somewhere behind the canvas of the portrait came a whisper. It was soft, mournful, and vibrated in the very air.

"Don't leave me again, Kael..."

I froze. Every hair on my body stood up. The voice was beautiful and terrible, sounding like it was coming from the walls, the floor, and the inside of my own head all at once.

Kael’s eyes flashed a violent silver. "Go," he said sharply, his voice tight with alarm. "Elara, go now! Get back to your room!"

But I was paralyzed. I watched as the painted eyes of Seraphina seemed to blink. The oil on the canvas shifted, the pupils dilating as they locked onto me. She was seeing me.

"I don't understand," I whispered, my legs feeling like lead. "What does she want from me?"

Kael looked at me, and for the first time, I saw real, unmasked fear in the eyes of the Wolf King. He wasn't afraid of the ghost; he was afraid for me.

"She wants what was hers," he said, pulling me to his side. "And she thinks that is you."

The whisper came again, louder this time, wrapping around my name like a cold caress.

"Elara..."

The mark on my wrist flared, burning with a white-hot intensity that made me cry out. The light of it glowed silver through the fabric of my sleeve, pulsing in time with the heartbeat of the castle.

"Don't listen to her," Kael hissed, his arm wrapping around me like a shield.

The torches went out all at once, plunging the West Wing into absolute darkness. And in that void, a voice that felt like a shard of ice sliding down my face whispered…

"You can't keep her from me, Kael. Not this time