Her aunt Natalia was doing better, though everyone was walking around as if she was made of glass. She had asked to see any of the children who were still here.
Estrella made her way in after Xaden and his brothers had all seen her. The family was tense, according to Adva the boys were worried their father had broken her.
Ella privately thought no one could.
Natalia sat on the window seat sipping at some tea. Sebastian was outside on the balcony arguing with Zimri.
Ella stopped a few feet away watching Natalia watch them. She set her tea down and looked to Ella patting the seat next to her.
"They'll be alright. Sebastian has always been... protective."
She sighed, tugging the shawl tighter around her. She looked older, exhausted, tired.
"I want you to reach out to your aunt Helena Estrella. Can you do that for me? Just check on her for me?"
Ella nodded waiting for more information. She was a warm presence in the palace, she had always watched her and her siblings when her parents were too busy.
"Is she - is she worried for you?"
Natalia sighed and rubbed at her eyes.
"It wasn't even that he said it you know? I mean I knew he wasn't fond of my family. I don't blame him, my siblings are exhausting. I - I never thought use me to prove a point. He's never...."
She trailed off, trying hard to focus on Ella. Her eyes narrowed, alight again.
"Are you alright? Caelum and you aren't being dragged into this circus are you?"
Ella bit her lip to keep from laughing.
"Sebastian told me about Gaius and his ridiculous rules for those boys. You tell Caelum and his brothers, they always have a place with me alright?"
Ella nodded, unable to hide her hands clenching in her lap as she thought of his brothers.
Natalia reached over to take one, her hand was callused and hot.
"He didn't mean it darling -"
Ella went rigid, a cold creeping into her bones.
"What? I'll get my mother she -"
Natalia's grip on her tightened harder. She met her eyes, steady and sane.
"It was war and I - I wasn't taking care of myself mentally and he spooked me and I lashed out. I - I - your mother and aunt saved him. I tried to run away and Selestra dragged me back."
She looked out the window, sighing.
"I thought they'd kill me, they should have - if they had I wouldn't - they hugged me. Your mother sat with me for days putting her work off till she was convinced I wasn't a flight risk. I -"
She swallowed and looked back to Estrella squeezing her hand.
"Gaius raised them like weapons, especially Caelier. That was how Kaden trained him, as a weapon as everything in life is a battlefield. It's an old way of Vanir thinking, it was how your grandpa Kertayan was raised too. Caelier was born with that iron steel for it."
Her nails dug in when Ella opened her mouth to argue or defend or lash out she wasn't sure.
"I'm not saying your boy isn't born that way Estrella. Listen to what I'm saying love. The Vanir are superstitious their violence is born out of their own arrogance as much as they feel it's born into their children. That children are born for a capacity for violence and death that must be trained and not forced. It was what Caelier was born with according to Gaius anyway. Caelum was born to be a scholar an iron will that was flexible, Caldris had that iron steel too but it was too sharp, too jagged in him."
She cupped her face, brushing aside her hair.
"I was told as a child I was volatile, I was a feral, wild thing. That I needed to be tamed, broken in. Those camps did the beginning work but Dawn finished it. I thought my magic was something to protect Sebastian from. I thought the moment I hurt him, because I would they'd kill me as they should. Selestra forced me back and held me as I screamed and then broke into her arms, your mother sat with me as I hurled every horrible thing I could think at her. I wanted them to leave me alone and they didn't."
She leaned closer, grasping her chin.
"Caelier is doing the work alone, Caldris is doing the work alone, your Caelum was growing. He came earlier to show me some notes he'd made on the history of the architecture here in Jotanheim. He's finding his footing, your sisters are strong just like you, just like your parents raised you all to be. Don't hold that rage in, you'll be like all those stuck up males you always made remarks about to Xaden about. Do not let them, do not let the cycle repeat darling alright?"
Ella couldn't the words even as she wanted to. As deeply as she wanted to hold onto her grudge, onto what she knew was right - she wanted her sister in her life more.
She turned down onto the hallway that lead to Helena and Pelias wing. Helena was humming, playing the piano while Aelin and Aedion played on the carpet nearby. They both jumped up and ran to Estrella who beamed at them.
Her younger "cousins" always brightened her day and their magic was coming in nicely, though her Papa always said it could be more refined.
Helena made her way to her, pulling her into a tight hug.
"How are your travels Min Pia Asterin? Your mother says you went all the way to the fae lands? Are they as beautiful as my boys say? They send me paintings of them you know, come I'll show. Aedion stay here with Aelin?"
Aedion nodded seriously as much as a 10 year old could.
Ella felt her shoulders relaxed, Helena was so warm. A steady warmth and her nickname of my little star always brightened her day.
Helena shut the door to her private rooms and held her hands.
"What is it? You looked like you wanted to speak of something private."
Ella hesitated before deciding to just share it.
"I - Auntie Natalia was sick she wanted me to check on you and I -"
Helena sighed and turned to her paints. She went to the sideboard and poured herself some wine, a smaller glass for Estrella despite her being of age for years now.
"That girl feels too much. She always has. What happened?"
Ella told her, half surprised no one had come to tell her anything. Helena stared into her glass the entire time Ella recounted the entire ordeal from her great uncles Samael and Decanus making contact with her grandfathers to Sebastian lashing out and claiming Dacre had never once protected Natalia and -
"And she went catatonic over it? She used to do that before the Camps. Too much emotion directed at her had her shutting down. I used to sit with her, Delphine would place blocks in her lap while her parents argued about what to do."
Helena threw her drink back and looked to Ella. She was beginning to get deja by with that look.
"She just needed someone to sit with her but Dacre wouldn't listen to me about it. He was convinced that something was wrong, she would always escape to the wilderness so he thought that would help."
Helena turned away, moving to the windows.
"I told him that would be bad idea but no one listened to my opinions back then. Or now apparently, did Dacre finally just sit with her?"
"I - yes I think so. What - why didn't they listen to you Granme?"
Helena turned to her, her face softening and she shook her head.
"It's bygones, it doesn't matter. Thank you for telling me Pia ere."
Estrella did not answer Helena right away. She stood there for a moment, the weight of everything Natalia had said pressing against her ribs like armor that had suddenly become too tight. Her fingers curled slightly around the stem of the glass, untouched.
“She doesn’t just feel too much,” Ella said quietly at last. “She carries too much.”
Her violet gaze lifted, steady but shadowed now—not with uncertainty, but with understanding she had not possessed an hour ago.
“I thought…” She exhaled softly, shaking her head. “I thought this was something simpler. That someone was wrong and someone else was right. That I could… choose a side and hold it.”
A faint, humorless smile touched her lips.
“That’s what generals do, isn’t it?”
But there was no pride in it. She stepped closer to Helena, lowering her voice though they were alone.
“Aunt Natalia asked me to check on you, but I think…” Her eyes softened. “I think she was asking me to listen before I decided what to become angry about.”
Her grip tightened slightly on the glass before she finally set it aside.
“I was angry,” she admitted. “At Uncle Sebastian. At Gaius. At all of it. At what was done to Caelum and his brothers.” Her jaw flexed briefly at that. “At the idea that anyone could treat people like… tools.”
A flicker of something fiercer passed through her – protective, dangerous.
“But she’s right. About one thing.”
Estrella straightened, shoulders squaring – not as a soldier now, but as something more deliberate. A future queen choosing the shape of her reign.
“If I let that anger decide everything, then I’m no different from them. From the males who call it strength to break something until it fits their idea of the world.”
Her gaze met Helena’s fully.
“I won’t repeat that cycle. Not in my command. Not in my family.”
There was steel in her now—but it was tempered, not jagged. A softer note followed, quieter, more vulnerable.
“I don’t know how to help them yet,” she admitted. “Caelier… Caldris… even Caelum, though he hides it better.” A small breath. “I don’t know how to reach them without making it worse.”
Her eyes flicked briefly toward the door—toward where Aelin and Aedion laughed faintly in the distance. Then back to Helena.
“But I think… maybe it starts the same way it did for Aunt Natalia.”
Not commands. Not force. Not expectations. Just… presence. Estrella’s expression softened into something warmer, though the resolve never left it.
“I’ll reach out to them. All of them. Not as a commander.” A small, wry breath. “They have enough of those.”
Her lips curved slightly.
“But as someone who isn’t going anywhere.”
“And I’ll check on you too, Granme. Not because she asked me to.”
She stepped forward, closing the distance, and took Helena’s hand in both of hers - steady, grounding.
“But because you should never have been the one no one listened to.”
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