The soft click of my door opening jolted me from my focused contemplation of the guards’ intentions. It was Lyra, her face a mask of barely suppressed panic. She rushed into the room, her movements agitated, her gaze flicking nervously to the door she had just closed.
“Elara, you must be careful,” she whispered, her voice tight with terror. “Captain Grey is already at work. He’s questioning everyone.”
I remained still, watching her, letting my perception filter through her fear. It wasn’t just general unease; it was a specific, tangible dread tied to Grey’s actions. She was afraid for herself, yes, but mostly for me.
“What is he asking?” I prompted, my voice calm, hoping to soothe her frayed nerves.
Lyra wrung her hands, a familiar gesture of distress. “He’s asking about your… your old habits. He’s twisting everything.”
“How so?” I pressed, a cold knot forming in my stomach. Malachi was being thorough.
“He’s asking if you ever displayed any ‘unusual affinity for stone or silence’ before you vanished,” Lyra recounted, her voice barely a whisper. “He even asked if you ever ‘preferred the company of inanimate objects to lively conversation’.”
My heart pounded against my ribs. It was Malachi’s cruel jab from the council meeting, now weaponized by Grey. He was directly targeting my quiet, contemplative nature, my childhood fascination with the ancient carvings that adorned the palace walls, my preference for solitude. This was the specific, petty cruelty. He was mining my personal history for “evidence” against me, tainting innocent memories.
“He’s saying it’s a sign,” Lyra continued, her eyes wide with desperation. “A sign of… pre-existing dark magic. That you were always predisposed to it.”
The implication was chilling. Malachi wasn’t just discrediting me now; he was trying to erase my past, to rewrite my very essence as inherently evil. He was retroactively justifying his horrific act, making it seem as though I had brought this upon myself.
“He questioned old Master Eldrin, the palace librarian,” Lyra elaborated, her voice quivering with indignation. “Master Eldrin recalled how you loved to spend hours in the archives, studying old texts on architecture and natural history. Grey twisted it, suggesting you were delving into forbidden lore.”
I remembered Master Eldrin, a kind, gentle soul who had encouraged my thirst for knowledge. The thought of him being intimidated, his innocent memories of me distorted into something sinister, fueled a quiet fury within me.
“And he’s intimidating the younger staff, Elara,” Lyra added, her voice dropping to an outraged whisper. “He accused little Maeve, the kitchen scullery maid, of lying when she said you used to give her a kind word or a spare sweet. He said her memories were ‘corrupted by sorcery’ and threatened her with the dungeons if she spread more ‘lies’.”
That was it. The deliberate psychological manipulation of the vulnerable. Dismissing genuine kindness as “sorcery-induced lies.” It was a calculated move to isolate me further, to ensure no one dared to speak a word in my defense, however small. Malachi wanted me to be a monster, and he was making sure no one could remember a time when I wasn’t.
“He’s looking for anything,” I murmured, more to myself than to Lyra. “Anything that fits his narrative.”
“He even asked if you ever wore rings on your left hand,” Lyra whispered, her voice trembling again. “Specifically a green stone.”
My eyes instinctively dropped to the ring on my finger, the emerald glinting faintly in the dim light of the chamber. My heart hammered. He knew. Or he suspected. He knew the ring had been there, and that it was significant.
“He suspects my new abilities,” I stated, the realization solidifying in my mind. “He’s trying to frame my past behaviors as precursors to my current ‘dark magic’. He wants to make it seem like I was always this way, even before the stone.”
Lyra stared at me,
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