Even though he knew there would be no answer from inside, Filarion knocked politely before opening Leonie's door. He found her exactly as he had left her after Dorian had spoken to her. She lay sprawled on the bed, skin gleaming with sweat, her drawn face turned toward him.
"What are you feeling now?" he asked, sitting down beside her.
"It's like… my whole body is pulsing. But it's easier to think," she panted. The pain in her head hadn't let up, surging over her in waves that shook her entire being. The feeling wasn't unfamiliar—she had lived through it before, and she knew it would get much worse yet.
"Please, let Dorian help you. He might be able to ease it," Filarion said.
He had tried several times to persuade her to accept Dorian's help. Leonie, however, refused to let the man anywhere near her mind again. She would not give him another chance to manipulate her. She didn't even want to see him. She'd been very clear about that.
And Dorian had stayed away since their fight—at least, as far as she knew. She had no idea he'd spent most of the night at her bedside.
"How can you still trust him?" she whispered. "You can't even know what's real and what he just wants you to see."
She didn't understand any of it. Dorian had proved himself manipulative, deceitful, and careless of others' boundaries. How could these elves remain so loyal to him? Perhaps they were all the same.
"Even if that were true, I can assure you he would have his reasons. In the six hundred years of our friendship I have never once seen his motives be anything but clean. Nor have I seen him cross any of our boundaries."
Before she could interrupt, he went on.
"That doesn't excuse what he did, of course. But when you carry the weight of a whole people's fate on your shoulders for centuries, your knees sometimes buckle under the strain."
Leonie closed her eyes. Thinking only made her head hurt more. On some instinctive level she wanted to trust Filarion, but she had so little faith left even in herself that she no longer trusted her own judgment. Maybe she simply longed so desperately to belong to someone, anyone, that she'd cling to the first hand offered.
"Leonie," Filarion said softly, "in a long life I've learned one thing for certain: the most dangerous illusions aren't born of magic. We create them with our feelings and our minds. Perhaps what you're seeing in him now is nothing more than the veil of your own fear."
Her gaze locked onto his light blue, gentle eyes. They remained like that for long moments, while she turned his words over inwardly.
Yes, Dorian had hurt her, and the disappointment had drowned out everything else she'd felt around him—the gratitude, the tiny bud of trust… He had still dragged her out of prison, risking so much to do it. Maybe she was being too harsh on him. Did he have to be either wholly good or wholly bad? Was there nothing in between?
Marcus had told her that everyone makes mistakes. Was she really going to judge him solely by his worst one?
By the time she followed that thought to its end, her body seized in a fresh spasm. A groan tore from her, the air catching in her lungs until she could only manage shallow, ragged breaths.
Filarion watched her with a troubled expression. He picked up a bowl from the floor, summoned water into it with a single gesture, then dipped a cloth into it and began gently wiping her forehead. The episode lasted around ten minutes before her muscles finally relaxed again and her breathing grew deeper.
Minutes passed in silence before she could speak.
"Do you think… I'm going to die?" she asked haltingly.
Sadness flickered in Filarion's eyes.
"I don't know," he answered honestly. "But we will do everything we can to keep that from happening."
Leonie nodded faintly. She felt bone-deep exhaustion, but fear still gnawed at her.
"I'm afraid," she whispered suddenly. "Of dying. I… I'm not ready yet."
Filarion took her damp, uninjured hand between both of his.
"We are children of the natural world. Our elven lives are only a single stop along the way, a chance to experience and learn. When we die, the wisdom we've gathered returns to the great cycle. We become the wind that soothes your face in grief, the water that washes your wounds clean, the fire that warms you, the earth beneath your feet when you stand to fight. We never truly vanish—we are simply present in a different way."
A small smile curved Leonie's lips.
"That sounds… very much like home," she murmured, closing her eyes again.
Would she truly merge with the other elven souls? Even though she'd grown up among humans? Even though she knew nothing of the world beyond the filth of the baron's court?
Questions like these swirled lazily through her mind as she drifted into a light doze. Filarion rose quietly and slipped out into the hallway, leaving her in peace—for at least a little while.