Chapter 123: A Day in Elaris

Astrid Vale

"You can’t keep wearing that," Liora said the next morning, eyeing the dress I’d been given after my examination, the same one I’d worn for days now without a second thought about it.

"Why not?"

"Because it looks awful, and also because we’re going out," she said, already crossing the room to pull something from a small wardrobe tucked against the far wall. She held it out to me, a simple dress in soft blue fabric, nicer than anything I’d been given since arriving.

"Where are we going?" I asked, taking it warily.

"To see Elaris," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The actual city. Not the wards, not the corridors you’ve been dragged through. The real thing."

I hesitated, still half expecting some trap hidden underneath her enthusiasm, but nothing about Liora suggested deception, and after everything I’d endured in this place, the idea of seeing something that wasn’t white and sterile pulled at me more than I wanted to admit.

I changed, and we left.

The moment we stepped beyond the medical sector, everything shifted. Streets opened up ahead of us, wider than I’d expected, lined with small shops and stalls selling things I couldn’t immediately identify. Children darted between adults, laughing, chasing each other with the same restless energy kids carried everywhere. Vendors called out prices for pastries stacked in neat rows, their scents drifting toward us, warm and sweet. Somewhere nearby, a strange, sleek vehicle glided silently past on some kind of rail system, carrying passengers who barely glanced up from their conversations.

I stopped walking for a moment, just taking it all in. This wasn’t a hideout, or a prison, or some desperate encampment scraping by. This was an entire civilization, complex and functioning, built out of necessity into something that almost resembled home for the people living here.

"You have to try this," Liora said, dragging me toward one of the pastry stalls, already exchanging a few words with the vendor before I could protest.

She handed me something small and golden, still warm. "Eat it."

I took a bite, and immediately regretted it, some overwhelming bitter flavor flooding my mouth that I hadn’t been prepared for at all.

"That’s disgusting," I said, trying not to gag.

Liora looked personally offended. "It’s a delicacy."

"It tastes like burnt medicine."

"You have terrible taste," she said, snatching it back from me and taking a bite herself without hesitation, clearly enjoying it far more than I had.

"Give me something normal," I said, laughing despite myself.

She rolled her eyes but bought another pastry from a different stall, something filled with fruit that turned out to be genuinely delicious, sweet and soft, and I found myself asking for a second one before I’d even finished the first.

"See," Liora said triumphantly. "Not everything I like is terrible."

"The first one still was."

"You have no palate."

We wandered further, and eventually she stopped in front of a row of sleek, two-wheeled scooters lined up near a small station. "Have you ever ridden one of these?"

"No."

"Perfect," she said, already climbing onto one and gesturing for me to take another. "I’ll teach you."

I climbed on awkwardly, immediately wobbling the second I tried to move, and Liora burst out laughing as I nearly toppled sideways trying to catch my balance.

"You’re terrible at this," she said, delighted.

"I’ve never ridden anything like this in my life."

"Try again."

I did, and it took several embarrassing attempts before I finally managed to keep the thing upright long enough to actually move forward, Liora cheering beside me like I’d accomplished something extraordinary. Once I got the hang of it, something loosened in my chest that I hadn’t felt since before the east wing, some small, uncomplicated joy that had nothing to do with fear or survival.

"Race you," Liora said suddenly, already speeding ahead before I could agree.

"That’s not fair, you just taught me two minutes ago!"

"Excuses!"

I pushed after her, laughing harder than I had in what felt like a lifetime, weaving unsteadily through the wide street as she pulled further ahead, both of us shrieking with laughter the entire way.

For those few hours, I forgot completely that I was a prisoner here. I forgot about the doctor, the blood samples, the restricted ward, everything sitting heavy underneath the surface of this strange, hidden world. I was just a girl racing another girl through unfamiliar streets, breathless and laughing, feeling something close to normal for the first time in longer than I could remember.

Eventually Liora led me toward a large open building near the edge of the district, and the moment we stepped inside, her whole face lit up.

"Bone!" she called out, waving enthusiastically at a tall, broad-shouldered man standing near a row of targets set up along the far wall.

"Bone?" I asked.

"Lieutenant Bone," she said. "He’s Alpha Maximus Kine’s second-in-command. He runs the training facility. He’s brilliant."

The man turned toward us, his expression unreadable at first, though something in his posture suggested he was used to Liora’s enthusiasm by now. "Liora," he said, a faint note of amusement in his voice. "And who’s this?"

"This is Astrid," Liora said. "The surface girl."

His eyes moved over me carefully, assessing in a way that felt different from how everyone else here had looked at me so far. Not with curiosity, or suspicion, or pity. Something closer to genuine evaluation.

"Have you ever handled a firearm?" he asked me directly.

"No," I admitted.

"Would you like to learn?"

I glanced at Liora, who was already nodding eagerly beside me, and found myself agreeing despite everything telling me I should probably be more cautious about learning weapons from people who’d kidnapped me.

Bone walked us through the basics, patient in a way I hadn’t expected, correcting Liora’s stance more than once as she fired excitedly at the targets, missing wildly but clearly enjoying every second of it. When it came my turn, I moved slower, more deliberate, watching everything he demonstrated closely before attempting it myself.

He noticed. I could tell by the way his eyes lingered on me a beat longer than they had on Liora, something calculating behind his expression that he didn’t bother hiding.

"You watch everything," he said, not quite a question.

"Habit," I said.

He didn’t push further, but something in the exchange settled uneasily in my chest, a reminder underneath all the laughter and pastries and scooter races that not everyone here had forgotten exactly what I was, or why I’d been brought here in the first place.

By the time we made our way back to our room that night, exhaustion had settled deep into my limbs, the good kind, earned through actual living rather than fear. Liora collapsed onto her bed, still laughing about something from earlier, and I found myself smiling more freely than I had in longer than I wanted to admit.

"I actually like you," I said, surprising myself with how easily the words came out.

"Obviously," Liora said, grinning. "I’m delightful."

I laughed, pulling my knees up against my chest as I sat on my own bed, watching her across the small space between us. Somewhere underneath the exhaustion, something warm had settled into my chest, something I hadn’t expected to feel here, of all places.

"Did you have a friend on the surface?" Liora asked, quieter now, genuine curiosity replacing her earlier playfulness.

I thought of Ivy immediately, her face rising unbidden in my mind, dragging suitcases up two flights of stairs on our first day at Moonshade, refusing to let me disappear into silence the way I’d wanted to.