Chapter 139 – Farewell and Empty Corner
Elowen took a moment before starting again.
It didn't seem like just physical tiredness. It seemed like the kind of pause that comes from someone who knows the next part hurts in a different way — quieter, drier, less blood and more distance.
"The farewell," she said, "wasn't about a nice speech. It was about people who don't know how to say goodbye properly… and still end up giving everything anyway."
Harley leaned back in his chair.
"Tell us."
Elowen nodded.
"In the kingdom, when an apprentice was chosen to leave, there wasn't a big celebration. There was preparation. Clothes. A letter of introduction. A route. And a strange silence in the air."
---
Serenya called Elowen in at the end of the afternoon, atop the inner wall.
The wind came in cold. The kingdom below kept its ordinary rhythm: courtyards, pale rooftops, someone shouting an order too far away to sound urgent.
"You're going to the Eternal Academy," Serenya said, without preamble.
Elowen blinked once.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"You did a lot of things right. That's why you're going."
"That sounds like punishment with manners."
Serenya let out a breath through her nose.
"It sounds like it. It isn't. The kingdom needs women who understand the outside world from within. Not just from the border. You're among the best of your generation. So you're going."
Elowen clenched her fists. Her face, usually closed off, wasn't as steady as usual.
"I don't want to leave."
Serenya looked at her for a long second. The commander's jaw moved, as if the first answer had been swallowed.
"I don't want to send you either," she admitted, quieter. "I'm still going to."
The sentence hung between them, hard and honest.
Later, in the room, Vaela showed up with the suitcase already half packed. This time she didn't throw a cloth at anyone's face. She stopped in the doorway, watched Elowen organize the little she had, and let out a breath like someone who'd taken a punch without fighting back.
"It's not abandonment," Vaela said. Her voice came out hoarse. "It's a mission."
Elowen didn't answer right away. She just folded a shirt with too much care.
Vaela came in, stopped beside her, and without asking permission, pulled the girl into a short, tight hug.
"You're going to eat at the wrong hours. You're going to sleep too little. You're going to pretend everything's fine. I know your face."
"I'll be okay."
"I know you will. I still hate this."
Nyra came in right after, leaned against the doorframe, and crossed her arms. Her usually hard gaze was a little less hard than normal.
"Take the training spear. Only use the real one if you have to. And if you do something stupid in the first month…"
She stopped.
Started again, quieter:
"If you do something stupid in the first month, I'll go there myself. Not to hit you. To bring you back, if I have to."
Elowen lifted her face.
That was when the three of them saw it.
Elowen almost never let feeling rise to the surface. Since she was small, she'd kept everything buried, as if showing pain meant opening a dangerous door. But that day it was written all over her face. Red eyes. A mouth held too firm. A tear escaping even as she blinked fast to hold it back.
"I'm… " her voice broke. "I'm going to miss you."
Vaela's eyes were already full.
"Oh, girl…"
Serenya turned her face away for a second, as if the whole wall had suddenly become interesting. When she looked back, she was moved too, just in her own contained way: chest held too high, eyes shining without easily spilling over.
"You grew up well," Serenya said. "Too fast. And now we pay the price."
Nyra wiped her nose, annoyed at herself.
"I'm not crying."
"You are," Vaela murmured.
"It's farewell allergies."
Elowen let out a short sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Another tear fell, and this time she didn't catch it in time. Vaela wiped it away with her thumb, without making a fuss, then messed up her hair just to keep the moment from getting too heavy.
"Listen," Vaela said. "You can go far. You can get strong. You can even pretend to be made of stone. But don't forget you have a home to come back to."
"I won't forget."
Serenya put a hand on Elowen's shoulder and squeezed once, firm.
"Learn whatever the academy can teach you. Make friends, if you can. And if you can't at first… that's okay. Just don't close yourself off so much that you forget how to let someone in."
Elowen lowered her head. The tears fell quietly, no loud crying, no drama. Just sadness leaking out of someone who'd spent her whole life trying not to leak.
"I'm going to miss you all."
Nyra stepped forward and, in a rare gesture, rested her forehead against Elowen's for a second.
"We will too. Now finish packing that bag before Vaela hides sweets in everything."
"Already did," Vaela admitted, without an ounce of shame.
Elowen laughed again, wet with tears, and the three of them stayed there a while longer — a hug, light scolding, good silence — as if delaying the night could delay the next morning.
It didn't.
But it helped.
---
The trip to the capital was made in a group.
Not just Elowen.
The kingdom sent other girls from the same generation — apprentices in combat, healing, tracking, formal study. Elowen knew some by sight. Others from the courtyard. Almost none from actual conversation.
On the first day on the road, one of them, with short hair and a voice too open, approached her.
"Elowen, right? The one who trains with Commander Serenya."
"That's me."
"I'm Talia. We could walk together."
Elowen looked at the road ahead. The sadness of the farewell was still stuck to her, making her voice even shorter than usual.
"Sure."
The answer came out so dry that "sure" sounded like "no need." Talia still tried two more comments. Elowen answered in single words. By the end of the afternoon, Talia was already walking further back, with others.
On the second day, it was a girl named **Irielle** who tried — calmer, more observant.
"You don't like talking?"
"That's not it."
"Then what is it?"
Elowen opened her mouth. Closed it. Searched for an explanation that wouldn't dump the whole basement out in the middle of the road, and couldn't find one light enough.
"I just prefer quiet."
Irielle nodded, polite.
"Okay. If you change your mind, just call."
Elowen never called.
Not because Irielle was bad.
Because every new approach pulled the same old lock into place: her body remembering the price of opening up, her mind remembering how many months it had taken just to breathe near Vaela without fear, her chest refusing to start from zero with someone who didn't know the weight of it.
The girls, not knowing any of this, read the silence the most obvious way.
Some thought it was coldness.
Others thought it was arrogance.
Others, just disinterest.
There were attempts. Few, but there were. An invitation to sit by the same fire. A comment about the capital. A laugh thrown her way, hoping for one back. Elowen sometimes answered with short politeness. Sometimes just tilted her head. Almost never carried it further.
Without a shared history, persisting hurt.
So, one by one, they gave up.
Not with hatred.
With exhaustion.
And Elowen, watching the space around her empty out, felt relief and guilt at the same time — the two stuck together, with no way to tell which was worse.
---
The Eternal Academy, seen from outside, seemed too big for someone who'd grown up within walls she knew with her eyes closed.
Elowen walked in with her suitcase, her letter of introduction, and her decision already made:
live in the corner.
Don't fight for space.
Don't open the door.
Don't repeat the whole work of learning to trust.
On the first day, while other students introduced themselves with nervous ease, Elowen answered the bare minimum during the formalities and chose the farthest spot in the lines, the classrooms, the dining hall. Talia still tried a "can we sit together?" at lunch. Elowen looked at the table, looked at her own tray, and said:
"I eat fast."
It wasn't a lie.
It wasn't the whole truth either.
Irielle, later, in the hallway, just said:
"The offer still stands."
Elowen thanked her with a nod. And went on alone.
At night, in the new dormitory, she lay staring at the ceiling and thought about the kingdom. About Serenya on the wall. About Vaela in the chair. About Nyra resting her forehead against hers. Her chest tightened with a longing so physical it almost felt like a fever.
"Just a mission," she murmured to herself. "Just learn and come back."
At that time, she still believed she could get through the entire academy that way: competent, invisible, untouchable.
She didn't know yet that the world — and certain stubborn people — had other plans.
---
Back in the present room, Elowen let out a breath and looked at the group.
"That was it. I left crying and pretending I wasn't. So did they. Each in their own way. Later, on the trip and at the academy, I didn't avoid making friends because family forbade it. I avoided it because opening up hurt. With Serenya, Vaela, and Nyra, it took so long before I could be close without fear… that when other girls tried, I froze up. They didn't know my past. If they'd truly insisted, maybe I would have opened up. But no one's obligated to keep knocking forever on a wall without understanding why it's there. So they stopped. And I stayed in the corner."
Kuroe spoke softly.
"Until us."
"Until you," Elowen confirmed. "You didn't give up at the first silence. Even without knowing anything. That's why it worked."
Marina shook her head, her eyes still a little red.
"Damn… in a sad way."
"Yeah," Elowen said. "Sad and simple."
Harley tapped his heel lightly on the floor.
"And then you met us."
Elowen almost smiled.
"Then I met you. But that's not just the past anymore. That's the path that led here."
She adjusted her immobilized arm, tired, but lighter than at the start of the story.
"For today… I think I stopped in a good place."
Lysithea nodded, gently.
"Stop, then. You've already given enough."
Outside, the academy night went on as usual. Inside the room, the empty corner of the girl who had arrived alone no longer existed the same way.
Now there were too many people around the bed to call it a corner anymore.
**End of Chapter 139**