Chapter Eight
AVELINE
Ididn't speak for a long while.
The word omega lingered inside me, heavy and slow, as though it had been waiting for years to surface and was now finding its place inside of me. The sensation was a peculiar blend of the unfamiliar and the deeply known, reminiscent of a forgotten name I’d been forbidden to remember.
The dining chamber stretched around us in quiet stone arcs, the magical sconces casting steady light that left the upper reaches in shadow. The table under my hands was firm and tangible. The rest seemed less definite.
The plate in front of me was laden with food, though I couldn't imagine eating. Steam curled gently from the dishes, carrying scents that made my stomach rumble. Yet a part of me rejected all of it. I remained uneasy, agitated, and tense. Everything pressed too close, suffocating me.
I lifted my cup, aware of the slight tremor in my hand, and took a sip of the willow bark tea that Malric had brought me. It was warm and soothing, helping to ease the tension that gripped me even now. My body needed fuel, but I stared at the food in front of me, unsure if I could stomach it.
The chair beside me scraped against the stone floor. The sound made me flinch before I could stop myself. A large body settled into the space, heat and solid muscle crowding my side.
Malric.
“You need to eat,” he said. No impatience. No edge. Just fact. “The heat takes a lot out of an omega. You may not feel like it, but you need food.”
The table between us was scarred and uneven, lit by low lamplight and the dying fire. He slid my untouched plate away and replaced it with a heavy wooden bowl. The scent hit first—warm oats, cream, honey, something spiced.
He stirred the porridge once, testing the thickness. Steam rose in steady curls. He dipped the spoon, blew across it, then held it in front of my mouth. He didn’t rush me. Didn’t command.
“This will sit easy. Try it.”
His voice was low, rough at the edges. Controlled. It steadied something inside me that had been vibrating since the spike.
I opened my mouth.
The oats were soft. Sweet from honey. Nutmeg lingered at the back of my tongue. My stomach tightened, then eased. I swallowed and waited for pain that didn’t come.
He gave me another spoonful. Then another. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until the spoon scraped the bottom of the bowl.
The chair on my other side shifted. Boots against stone.
Thane.
I felt the slight touch of his shoulder on mine as he leaned in. In his hand was a warm roll split open and thick with herbed cheese. The scent made my mouth water again.
I reached for it. He pulled it back just out of reach.
“You let Malric feed you,” he said quietly. There was something in his tone—almost uncertain. “Let me?”
His storm-colored eyes searched mine like he expected refusal.
I opened my mouth.
He tore off a piece and pressed it to my lips. The bread was still warm from the hearth. The cheese was rich, salted, flecked with herbs I didn’t recognize. I chewed and swallowed. He fed me another bite. And another.
When a smear of cheese lingered at the corner of his thumb, I leaned forward without thinking and licked it away.
His breath caught.
I leaned back slowly, warmth settling low in my belly now that had nothing to do with food. I felt stuffed. Heavy in a good way. I shook my head when Malric reached for something else.
“That’s enough.”
“You’ll need to eat more often,” Malric said. “Small meals. Dense ones. You have to prepare for the next heat.”
The word made my spine tighten.
Heat.
The spike had been bad enough. Blinding. Consuming. Pain layered with something I didn’t understand. I didn’t want to imagine it worse.
But there was something else pressing harder against my thoughts.
“Why would he do that?” The question slipped out before I could swallow it back. “Why would he imprison his own daughter?”
The fire cracked behind us. Neither of them answered right away. Their silence wasn’t careless. It wasn’t avoiding the question. It was deliberate.
Thane spoke first, slower than usual. “We were sent into the Wyrdwood looking for something. The king was said to have hidden a weapon here. Something that could shift the war.”
A weapon. The word lodged under my ribs.
“A weapon,” I repeated. My fingers curled against the edge of the table. “You think that’s me.”
Malric didn’t dress it up. “We believe you’re central to whatever he’s hiding.”
Not comfort. Not denial. Truth.
The distinction mattered less than he perhaps intended.
I leaned back slightly in my chair, needing space though the room had not grown smaller. “I have never been trained in combat. I have never wielded magic deliberately. I was taught history and etiquette, and how to remain composed at the table. How could I possibly be what you seek?”
“Not all power is expressed through force,” Malric replied. “Some alters alignment simply by existing.”
There was no accusation in his voice—only measured calmness.
Thane’s gaze remained steady on me. “There is an old prophecy. Fragmented. Suppressed. It speaks of an omega hidden where roots bind stone. Of a living key who would undo old wards and expose corruption at the heart of the throne.”
The words moved through me slowly, touching pieces of memory I couldn't quite reach.
“I was never taught that. Anything that mentioned omegas was framed as cautionary. Dangerous. Destabilizing,” I said.
“The king ensured it would be,” Malric said. “Texts were destroyed. Scholars silenced. It became treason to speak of the old structures.”
The image that rose in my mind was not of books burning.
It was of my mother.
“She used to smell like crushed flowers,” I said before I intended to.
Both of them went still.
“Not arranged bouquets,” I continued, the memory sharpening as I spoke. “Wild blooms warmed by the sun. The kind that release their scent when stepped on. When I was small, I would press my face into her skirts and breathe until I felt safe.”
My throat tightened around the next words.
“She laughed softly as though joy were something that needed to remain private. And she sang when she thought no one was listening. Songs older than the court. She used to tell me to listen, to pay attention, but tell no one.”
The chamber seemed quieter now, the air heavier with recollection.
“I don’t remember the day she died clearly,” I said. “I remember being told about it. I remember Father standing beside my bed, his voice controlled, explaining that there had been an accident.”
I paused, the memory fleeting and just out of reach.
“But I remember before that.”
I closed my eyes and relaxed, letting the memory slowly emerge, not forcing it.
“I was ill. Or frightened. My chest felt too tight to breathe properly. I was crying in a way that felt endless, as though something inside me was tearing open. She held me. She pressed her hands to my back and my ribs. I remember warmth spreading through me, and light.”
The light had not been soft.
“It grew brighter. Too bright, almost painful, like I was being torn apart. A shift occurred—not in me, but in her. As though the heat that had been building inside my body changed direction and went into her.”
My hands curled against the fabric of my skirts as realization dawned.
“She was trying to take it from me. I could feel it moving from me into her. The surge that had frightened me. She held me tighter, as though she believed she could contain it by absorbing it herself.”
When I opened my eyes again, the chamber seemed to shrink.
“I woke later. Alone. The room had been cleaned. The air smelled different. Sharp. As though something had burned. Father said she had been too weak to survive what I had done.”
The words hung there, suspended between us.
Thane’s jaw tightened. Malric’s gaze sharpened.
“She was a healer,” I said softly. “Her magic drew pain from others. I used to watch the light gather in her hands when she worked. She would carry what hurt them until it faded.”
“And when your awakening began,” Malric said carefully, “she may have tried to absorb that as well.”
The implication didn't need embellishment.
“She didn't fail,” Thane added quietly. “She protected you with the only tools she had.”
I had lived with the quiet certainty that I had destroyed her.
That I had reached for comfort and consumed it.
“You believe she burned herself out trying to contain what I was becoming,” I said.
“Yes,” Malric answered.
Not harshly. Not gently. Simply certain.
The shift inside me was subtle but profound.
The guilt that had lived in my bones since childhood didn't vanish, but it altered shape.
It was no longer the image of a monster-child draining her mother dry.
It was the image of a woman standing between her daughter and something neither of them had been taught to understand.
“My father told me I killed her,” I said.
“And you believed him,” Thane replied.
There was no accusation in his tone—only acknowledgement.
“But I did. She burned herself out trying to help me and it killed her.”
I stared at my hands, remembering how no one touched me afterward. How servants avoided my gaze. How Father’s visits became shorter. How I came to the tower shortly after that, never to leave. He had built it to control me. To ensure that if I ever awakened fully, it would be under his direction.
“But did you?” Thane asked quietly. “Did you kill her or were you told you did?”
I let out a long breath. “No, my father said he ended her life because it was a mercy. She was suffering after what I did.”
Malric and Thane exchanged glances, then Malric laid a hand on mine. “You were a child,” Malric said. “Placed in a position no child should bear.”
“I thought I was broken,” I said quietly. “I thought whatever was wrong in me had already killed once before. And I feared I would do it again.”