The most dangerous part wasn't freeing Elara. It was that Vale couldn't know she'd been freed.
We brought her back toward Crescent Hollow carefully, but we couldn't bring her in the moment Vale saw his forged heir walk into the true line's stronghold, alongside the Luna, he'd know his weapon had turned, and he'd either flee, or move his plot up, or find some new way to strike that I hadn't mapped. The entire plan depended on Vale believing, right up until the Founding Moon, that Elara was still his loyal princess, still hidden and obedient at the estate, still ready to claim a throne on his command.
Which meant Elara had to go back.
"Back to the cage," she said, when I laid it out, and I heard the fear under it, and I didn't blame her.
"Not the cage. That's the point." I met her eyes.
