Chapter 30: The Last Vial
The elixir sat inside a slender vial, dark as night, sealed with a golden cap. It shimmered faintly when the light touched it—not with beauty, but with menace. Vaelith didn't look at it long. She wrapped it again in silk and tucked it inside the velvet-lined drawer beneath her writing desk. The drawer locked with a sigil only she knew.
Elira entered the chamber without a sound, as she always did. She didn't speak—words between them had become few and cold, clipped and efficient. She had seen the vial before. She had seen all of them.
Vaelith's eyes flicked to the window, where the moon hung low over the palace tiers, casting silver across the stone gardens. Distant laughter echoed faintly from the banquet halls far below—some sister's celebration, no doubt. Music floated upward, too cheery for the quiet that weighed in this room.
Vaelith turned from the window.
Elira stood near the corner, her arms crossed, face unreadable.
"They all failed," Vaelith said, voice low and steady.
Elira nodded once.
"Three before this one," Vaelith continued. "All slaves. All Bound with the vial. None lasted."
Elira's expression did not soften. It never did. She simply answered, "They weren't strong enough."
Vaelith's lips pressed thin. "Or maybe the process kills more than the body."
They both knew it was true. Twelve days alone in the chamber, stripped of light, sound, touch, and taste, with only a single needle feeding the elixir into the veins—most did not survive the mind's unraveling. The body was easier to break.
"There's only one vial left," Vaelith said, the words almost a whisper. "One more chance."
Elira's eyes met hers. "Only one choice."
Vaelith nodded. "Thirty-six days since the first."
The slow toll of time weighed on the room like a dark stone. It had been over a month of waiting, testing, and death. The failures were not mourned. They had been used, discarded, and forgotten—slaves with no names, no histories, no worth beyond the trials they could not survive.
"There is no mercy in this," Vaelith said. "Only necessity."
Elira inclined her head slightly. "He's the last."
Elira's mouth tightened. "Like the others before him."
"Yes," Vaelith said. "But he is… different."
Elira looked away. "Different does not mean he will survive."
"None of them are meant to," Vaelith replied. "But we have no choice. The throne demands power. Without Bound under me, I am nothing but a name in a room full of hungry ghosts."
Elira stepped closer. "You will send him soon?"
Vaelith nodded. "In three days."
Elira's eyes narrowed. "Three days. And after that?"
Vaelith folded her hands, steady as stone. "Then we prepare for the Rite. If he survives, everything changes. If not…" She paused.
Elira's face remained unreadable. "There is no more. No more vials. No more chances."
The two women stood in silence, the firelight flickering over their faces, casting shadows that seemed too heavy to bear.
"He doesn't know," Vaelith finally said. "He doesn't know what waits for him. What we ask."
Elira's gaze hardened. "He won't."
"No," Vaelith said. "Not until it's too late."
Elira reached out, placing the vial gently on the desk.
"Time is a luxury," Vaelith said. "And I am running out."
Outside, the night deepened. The palace slept, unaware of the cold gamble being made in its darkest chambers.
Vaelith turned away from the window once more, her reflection fractured in the glass.
She did not flinch.
Because she had no room left for fear.
Only resolve.