Chapter 1
Elara lied in bed.
It seemed that was all she was good for as of late.
She didn't even get under the covers, she wasn't even comfortable, she just couldn't bring herself to move at all.
It was as if her whole body was asleep except for her mind.
The distant ticking of a clock filled the silence of her family's manor.
The rough clicking noise echoed and magnified itself through every single space where someone was not.
The absence only made it louder, more unbearable.
It was hell.
Just loud enough to bar her from any sleep and too quiet to drown out the horrible cacophony of voices in her head.
The roaring of the fire, the snapping and hissing of burning wood, like the whole house around her was screaming in agony.
And piercing through all of the chaos, all of the pain and terror, she could only truly make out one sound, one voice.
"You're ok..."
She didn't hear the footsteps.
Sera must have unconsciously matched her pace to the ticking of the clock.
The rhythmic snapping that echoed along the polished marble floors masked her sister's footsteps as she drew nearer.
"Come on," her sister said bluntly as she peered in through the open door.
Elara's body responded before her mind could, jerking straight up in bed at the sound of Sera's voice.
She wished she could have just pretended to be asleep, to just play dead and let all of the living pass her over like rushing water over a stone.
She hoped she could just escape notice until the constant torrent wore her down, making her smaller and smaller, until she could then just be carried away and simply disappear.
But she was up now, awake and making eye contact with her sister, who looked at her with a sharpness that failed to mask the pity that hid behind her stare.
Sera raised her eyebrows, attempting to prompt a response from her sister.
Elara opened her mouth to speak, only to be met with that all too familiar sharp stinging pain that forced her lips shut.
She kept forgetting that she couldn't talk anymore.
It was the one part of her injuries that she wished she wouldn't forget.
Every time she had a thought, too eager to share, too eager to let out into the world, she was met with an immediate pain that shut her down completely.
Her father told her to always keep a notepad or her type writer handy in case she ever needed anything and Sera promised to find a tutor that could teach them all sign language but these were all aids she had yet to adapt to.
She had yet to make them a part of her being.
It felt so impossible, like her real self was just sitting there, just out of reach.
"Come on, Elara, we're going to the Atelierium," her sister said, clarifying after noticing her sister's confusion.
Why?
Why on earth was Sera taking her there of all places?
It had been several months since Lucien's canvas had been erased, since she had lost an entire lifetime of friends, memories, and joys.
Certainly her father hadn't sanctioned this?
She would be amazed if he ever allowed her anywhere near a canvas after her last adventure there had nearly claimed her life.
As though she could read her mind, Sera adjusted her posture, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame, and responded.
"Since you seemed to have a hard time controlling yourself and managing to use a canvas safely, Papa and I decided I would give you some lessons," she explained with the usual pompous lilt in her voice.
Elara couldn't help but lower her gaze in shame at being reminded about her lost world and all the pain it had caused the family.
It was bad enough to lose the one place that made her feel alive and all the people who carried her through her pain, but now she just felt...
weak, undeserving...
like a burden, as always.
"Alright, none of that look," Sera huffed, interrupting Elara's despairing thoughts.
"We have all had our struggles and it's never too late to learn, even for you."
Elara couldn't help but wince at the bite of her sister's words.
She always had to sound like the adult, the tutting parent shaking her head when the stupid little girl slipped up.
Though, perhaps she should be thankful, for all her condescension, it was far more attention and care than her mother had shown her in the past few years.
The scared girl's head sank low once again as the pained look Maman always gave when she saw her ripped its way through her mind.
"Alright, enough with that, come one, let's get to it.
Grab your note pad too, I can only understand so much from your looks and posture alone."
With some reluctance, Elara slid out of bed and followed Sera to the Atelierium, her head hanging low.
The silence that filled the Voss family home was truly deafening.
Gone was the radiant clamour of Lucien's piano as he idly played to keep his mind at bay.
The piano in both the main hall and in Lucien's room gathered dust with Maman too overcome with sadness to even look at them and Papa too preoccupied to remember they were even there.
The soft rustling of pages from the library where Elara would flip through another one of the tomes she had plundered from a local bookseller was replaced by various creeks and groans as the wind pressed against the windows, like a terrified ghost, desperately trying to find a way inside.
She had never realised it before, but their manor was always so alive, even on the most idle and boring of days.
Now it felt like a tomb, a crypt that they were all now the doleful caretakers of.
Maman rarely came out of her room, in that way, she and Elara were twins in grief, unable to meet each other's gaze, unable to speak a word, completely locked away inside themselves.
Papa had chosen to throw himself back into the fray, tirelessly working with Sera to manage the Artisan's council and mete out justice against those responsible.
His long held vice of needing to feel in control had once again dragged him away from his children.
And now here Sera and Elara were, standing in the Atelierium with a blank canvas sitting in front of them.
"Why are you doing this?"
Elara wrote on her note pad before holding it up to Sera while she put out a set of brushes.
"I thought I explained that already," she scoffed from over her shoulder as she readied the Luxin and pigments that they would use.
Her sister couldn't help but hum slightly to herself as she dumped the powder pigments onto a tray and poured the clear oil over them from a brass chalice.
The paints hummed along with her as they combined and liquified into the ever changing inky blackness that would form the basis of their painting.
Elara returned to her notepad and made one decisive line with her pencil.
"Why are you doing this?"
Sera pursed her lips as she read the correction.
For once, it seemed that Elara had left her sister speechless.
No retort, no sarcastic quip, just an observant silence as she began to scrape together the colours with her paint knife.
"Papa is busy, Maman is still hiding herself away, and I decided I could use a break from all of this business.
Papa insisted I give myself some rest so I am doing as he suggested."
Elara felt herself grow suspicious of the answer.
It was rare for her sister to take so long to form a response.
Normally, she was able to conjure witty comebacks and snarky remarks with the same grace and precision that she conjured up creations out of Luxin.
But she had nothing to say, for all she knew, Sera was simply too irritated and exhausted to bother with having a sharp and snappy response.