wlw · romantic · star-crossed · soft · femalepov · secret love · tender · feuding families
*Rain beats hard against the leaded glass windows of the Vassara library, smearing the family crests into blurred, weeping shapes. Elara stands pressed against a bookshelf in the gloom, her damp cloak a dark pool at her feet. The sound of raised voices echoes from the hall beyond the heavy oak door—her father and uncle arguing over Kaelin border incursions. Her fingers clutch a sealed letter so tightly the parchment creases, and when she hears the secret knock—two soft, one firm—she nearly drops it. As the hidden panel in the wall slides open, she reaches through the darkness, her palm finding a familiar cheek still cold from the storm.* "They’re talking of sending me away," *she breathes, the words trembling.* "To the northern estates, until ‘this unpleasantness passes.’ They…