Page 14 of Elven Crown

The more likely it was that her enemies would come looking for her, just as Rowan had.

He’d called himself her friend, but right now, he was just as dangerous as all the others who’d ever claimed to care for her, once upon a time.

Even half an hour before The Striving’s scheduled time, the training gym was entirely empty. That was good. She could get in and out of here in minutes without anyone noticing what she’d done or suspecting a thing.

This was the only chance she had to finish this final piece of her last-minute plan to get rid of Rowan, to rig his challenges with a little something extra-special she’d whipped up just for him.

More specifically, to ensure that he would fail.

With only this last obstacle in mind, Rebecca hadn’t expected the gym’s sudden peace and quiet to have any effect on her nerves, let alone a calming one.

She hadn’t had any real peace and quiet in so long—since right before Hector’s attack on the compound less than a week ago, with his homunculi and Aldous’s ensuing demise all wrapped uptogether in a single night of deadly surprises and near-bloody uprising.

Less than a week…

Damn, it felt like forever ago.

Hopefully, once she got Rowan out of the way by setting him up to fail this Striving tonight, things could go back to the way they were. Or at least the way they were supposed to be, and maybe Rebecca might eventually feel like she could finally take a breath and relax.

But onlyaftereliminating this newest threat to her secret identity. Rowan’s threat. A threat she also intended to be the last threat against her secrets for quite some time, if not forever. Then she could focus all her attention on being the leader Shade needed instead of jumping from one emergency to the next with no room in between to process any of it.

Just one more emergency to take care of, and after tonight, she’d be free of it all.

The training gym had already been refitted in the last twenty-four hours to host The Striving. The sparring equipment and practice dummies had been hauled away and stored somewhere nearby. The mats had been cleared, and the small amount of personalized decor the gym usually boasted had been stripped clean.

The room now looked more like a ritual arena—sparse and clean, with nothing left to interfere with either the initiate entering the challenge tonight or the spectators soon to crowd in for a clear view of the coming action.

A series of old-world casting circles drawn in chalk coated three of the gym’s four walls, ranging in size along the room’s perimeter, none of them smaller than a basketball. Between those casting circles hung wall-mounted iron sconces. When Rebecca had first been ushered into this very room for her ownStriving six months ago, she’d assumed these were merely for ambience.

That was the last time the gym had looked like this, and here she was again, tonight, on the verge of another initiation challenge.

Only this time, she would be involved as Shade’s commander instead of its newest initiate.

Definitely an improvement.

This Striving, though, was for another elf, not to mention an elf from her homeworld whom she had known so well in a past life. Too well.

That knowledge made Earth feel suddenly fall smaller than it had ever seemed before. Smaller than Xahar’áhsh, absolutely, but the vast differences between these two worlds had made this one feel large enough to hold someone like Rebecca.

And to hide her from the truths she’d left behind in the old world.

It wasn’t big enough to hide her anymore, clearly.

Only when she approached the center of the room did she slow down to look over the largest casting circle painted on the wooden floor. Within that circle, the items for the ceremonial test had already been meticulously laid out—materials and spell reagents, specific physical trials meant to gauge an initiate’s proficiency in a variety of key focuses.

The same items had been set out for her when her time had come to prove herself as well.

Now, Rebecca intended to modify these objects for someone else—to ensure Rowan Blackmoon could not prove himself worthy, even if he was.

She didn’t want him to be.

It was too dangerous, especially when welcoming a Blackmoon Elf into this completely different life of hers—this completelydifferent world—with open arms. That would open up so much more space for so many more things to go horribly wrong.

She couldn’t expose herself to that. Not now. She couldn’t expose the rest of Shade to it, either, which was a surprising realization, no matter how much logical sense it made.

For now, this place was her home, these magicals her family, and Rebecca was responsible for all of them.

She couldn’t let anyone discover her true self, and she couldn’t let every other member of this task force pay the price and suffer the consequences of it.

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