Elysium: Desired by the Cold-hearted Princess [GL]-Chapter 357: Unsettled

Third-person POV

Electra’s eyes snapped open.

For a few seconds, she didn’t move. She just lay there, staring at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling a little too fast. The room was quiet, dim in that soft, early-morning way where the world felt paused. Her gaze shifted on its own, pulled to the warmth beside her.

Seraphina was asleep.

She lay on her side, red hair spread messily across the pillow, one arm tucked under her chin. Her breathing was slow and even, completely unaware of the storm that had just ripped through Electra’s mind. There was something strangely grounding about the sight, something calm and ordinary that didn’t match the way Electra felt inside.

Electra sat up slowly.

Her body felt heavy, like she had been dragged back from somewhere far away. Her fingers curled into the sheets for a moment, steadying herself, before she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She didn’t look at Seraphina again. If she did, she had a feeling she might feel something she didn’t want to name yet.

She stood and walked straight toward the bathroom. The floor was cool under her bare feet, and the house was silent with no guards, no voices, and no crowd chanting for her death. She closed the bathroom door behind her and flicked on the light, and the mirror greeted her instantly.

Electra stopped short.

Her reflection stared back at her, eyes too bright, expression flat but tense, and there, clear as day, were the dried streaks on her cheeks. Pale lines cut through her skin where tears had fallen and dried without her noticing.

Her frown deepened.

Slowly, she lifted a hand and touched her face, dragging her fingers over one of the streaks. The skin felt tight there, slightly itchy, like it always did after crying, but she didn’t remember crying.

Her mind drifted backward, unwillingly, to the dream or memory, she wasn’t sure which one it was yet. The image of the small girl lingered sharply behind her eyes. Much younger, thin, and standing stiffly while a woman’s voice cut into her again and again. She remembered the room, the shouting, and the words that had wrapped themselves around her chest and squeezed.

’Abomination.’

’Take it off.’

Electra’s jaw tightened.

The girl in the dream had been crying, she remembered that clearly. Quiet, broken sobs she could still almost hear if she focused hard enough, and the woman, the queen on the balcony, the one who had screamed for her death hours earlier, had been the same face.

Jella.

Electra stared at her reflection longer, searching for something. Recognition, maybe. Fear, anger, and something that made sense. Instead, there was just confusion.

Had she been crying because of the dream? Or had the dream been pulled from somewhere deeper, something her body remembered even if her mind didn’t? The idea unsettled her in a way she didn’t like. She didn’t like the thought that her body could react without her permission.

She hated that more than anything.

Her eyes flicked briefly to the bathroom door. For half a second, she considered opening it, walking back to the bed, and waking Seraphina up. Seraphina would know something. She always seemed to, but the thought alone made Electra’s lips press into a thin line.

Seraphina talked too much.

That wasn’t an insult, it was just a fact. Ever since Electra had lost her memories, Seraphina had filled every silence like she was terrified of it. Explaining things, reassuring her, promising her that everything would be fine, that she would help, that she would fix this.

Electra had tolerated it. Barely.

It had taken a surprising amount of restraint not to snap at her or threaten to burn something just to make her stop. Especially earlier, when Seraphina had rambled on about memories and bonds and how hard she was willing to work to help Electra "come back."

Come back to what? Electra didn’t know what she was supposed to be coming back to, and the way Seraphina talked about it made her skin itch.

She turned away from the mirror and leaned both hands against the sink, lowering her head slightly. Her shoulders rose and fell once as she took a slow breath. She didn’t need Seraphina’s voice in her head right now, she needed quiet.

The image of the little girl returned again, even clearer this time. The way she had stood so still, like she had learned that moving only made things worse. The way her hands had trembled even when she tried to hide it. The way she had looked... small.

Electra’s fingers tightened against the porcelain.

Was that really her?

She didn’t feel small now, and she definitely didn’t feel weak. Whatever she was in the present, she knew one thing with absolute certainty, no one could ever make her stand like that again.

Her reflection didn’t argue. She straightened and reached for a towel, wetting it under the tap. She scrubbed her face harder than necessary, wiping away the tear tracks until her skin flushed slightly. When she looked up again, they were gone.

She turned off the light and opened the door quietly, stepping back into the bedroom.

Seraphina was still asleep, and Electra paused, watching her for a moment. There was something strange about knowing that this girl had seen her at her worst—angry, confused, and dangerous—and still chose to stay close. Stranger still was the faint pull she felt in her chest when she looked at her, like a thread stretched too tight.

She didn’t like that either.

She walked back to the bed and sat on the edge, careful not to wake her. Her gaze drifted to the window, where the sky had started to shift from dark blue to soft grey.

Morning.

A new day, apparently. One where she was supposed to go back to a school she didn’t remember, meet people she didn’t recognize, and pretend she wasn’t walking around with more than half a life missing.

Her fingers curled loosely in her lap. She didn’t know yet if what she had seen was a dream or a memory. She didn’t know if there were more like it waiting to surface, but she did know one thing, and the certainty settled deep in her bones.

That woman, Jella, had done something to her. Whether it had been words, actions, or something worse, Electra didn’t know yet, but the feeling the memory left behind was unmistakable, and one day, when Electra finally remembered everything—she glanced once more at Seraphina, still asleep, still unaware—she would decide what to do about it.