Elara's POV
I did not want to watch her.
I resisted it for another day. Maybe two. I told myself I was being paranoid. That everything Lena was doing had an innocent explanation.
I watched anyway.
Because the alternative was continuing to ignore something I could feel pressing against the underside of everything. And I was the queen. Ignoring things that pressed against the underside of everything had consequences I could not afford.
I started small.
Nothing obvious. Nothing that would alert her. Just paying attention. Noticing the things I had been telling myself not to notice.
The absences. The way she was gone for stretches that she explained with small, ordinary reasons.
Each reason made sense on its own. But together, they added up to something I could not quite see the shape of. A pattern of absence. A rhythm of disappearance that had not been there before.
