Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
LINDSAY
The air bites tonight.
Enough to warn winter is close. The sky is fading from bruised lavender into deep indigo as I make my way toward the west perimeter gate. Frost is already forming at the edges of the stone path, catching what little light remains and scattering it like crushed glass.
Auron is already there. Of course he is. He seems the type that would be early to things, even if they are things he was volunteered for.
He stands perfectly still, hands tucked into his coat pockets, breath ghosting faintly in the cold. His white-blond hair glows in the dim light—almost silver, almost snow—and the faint breeze teases a few strands loose. He looks like he belongs to this season, sculpted out of the cold itself.
When he turns at the sound of my approach, a slow, knowing smile curves his mouth.
“You’re punctual,” he says, voice smooth and unbothered despite the chill. “I wasn’t sure if I’d have to retrieve you.”
“I don’t need retrieving,” I counter, crossing my arms to conserve warmth.
“No,” he murmurs, stepping closer, “you need…watching.”
I bristle, even as a little puff of cold escapes my mouth on the exhale. “If you’re trying to be charming, don’t.”
He tilts his head, amused. “You assume I try. It’s effortless.”
The temperature drops another degree, our breath mingling in white trails as we fall into step beside each other. The ground crunches beneath our boots where the frost has already hardened. The scent of winter hangs between the pines.
The path grows darker as the sun slips fully behind the horizon. Lantern crystals flicker awake one by one, their glow faint and strained.
And Auron’s voice cuts through the cold.
“You’re afraid of me.”
“I’m cautious,” I say, adjusting my scarf. “That’s different. And you haven’t given me any reason to trust you.”
Auron hums in acknowledgment. “Smart.”
The forest around us is quiet, the kind of hush that only happens when the season is turning, when creatures burrow deeper and shadows stretch longer.
Minutes pass in silence before he speaks again, and something in him has shifted—softened.
“I wasn’t always this way,” he says.
I blink. “This way… how?”
He hesitates. That alone tells me this is real.
“Cold. Controlled.” He exhales slowly. “Alone.”
It’s strange hearing that from someone who moves through the world like it belongs to him. I try to picture a younger Auron—open, bright, untouched by whatever made him this hardened.
I fail. Completely.
“I can’t imagine it,” I admit.
He gives a quiet, humorless laugh. “That’s the point. No one can anymore. I’m exactly what I was crafted to be.”
We reach a lantern post. The crystal flickers weakly.
“Auron,” I say gently, “why tell me this?”
His steps slow.
“Because you look at me like you don’t already have me figured out,” he says quietly. “Everyone else sees what they expect. You don’t.”
My stomach dips.
“I’m not trying to figure you out,” I say softly. “I’m just—”
“Not dismissing me,” he finishes. “Even when you should.”
I blink at him. He’s different when he’s being honest. A difference I sorta want to know more about. “I don’t think I should.”
Auron huffs out a breath that might be a laugh, might be disbelief. Frost curls in the air between us. We walk again, our boots crunching softly on the icy path. After a moment, his voice drops lower.
“People stop looking past the surface, Lindsay. They decide what you are, and that becomes the end of it.” His jaw tightens. “But you…haven’t done that.”
“I barely know you.”
“And yet,” he murmurs, “you haven’t. Even when I give you every opportunity.”
The lantern beside us flickers brighter for a heartbeat, catching in the blue of his eyes and turning them softer—almost human.
For the first time since meeting him, Auron Draven doesn’t look untouchable.
He looks…lonely. And I know what lonely feels like.
That was my life before I came here. I didn’t fit in, had one friend who moved away, my mom died, my gran died, and I never knew my dad.
“Your turn,” he says abruptly, the mask snapping back into place. “Why does the Veil whisper your name?”
My breath stutters.
“Auron…”
His smile returns—sharp, confident, deflecting.
“See? I’m not the only one with secrets. And some part of you knows the answer to that.”
Before I can respond, the lantern nearest us flickers a second time—harder.
A cold pulse rolls through the air. The kind that raises every hair on my arms. Auron goes still, like a predator sensing the barest tremor through the earth.
Another ripple shudders across the path, brushing against my magic, tugging at something deep inside my chest.
My breath hitches. “Auron… did you feel—”
His hand snaps out, gripping my wrist before I can finish.
“Don’t move,” he murmurs.
The voice he uses is nothing like the teasing, controlled edge he had moments ago. This one is low. Focused. Dangerous.
The air around us shifts again, colder now, like frost crawling beneath my skin. A whisper curls along the edge of my hearing.
Lindsay…
It’s faint and distant. But I hear it. And something inside me pulls toward it before I can stop myself.
Auron yanks me back, positioning his body between mine and the tree line like he expects something to break through.
My pulse jumps. “Auron—”
His fingers tighten around mine.
“You don’t answer it.”
I swallow hard. “I wasn’t going to.”
“Yes,” he says, voice steady, “you were.”
For a moment, the accusation stings—until I realize he’s not angry. He’s scared. Auron Draven is scared. Not for himself. For me. And if that doesn’t tilt my world sideways, I don’t know what will.
The whisper comes again, brushing the trees like a breeze made of voices.
Lindsay…
Auron steps closer, shadows of winter light clinging to his pale hair, jaw clenched, shoulders set. His magic—whatever sharp, cold thing burns inside him—rises like a shield.
“You stay with me,” he commands.
After a few tense moments—his hand circling my wrist as though he doesn’t trust me not to follow the voice—the air goes silent. The whisper fades. The lantern flickers once more… then steadies.
Only when the quiet settles back into place does Auron exhale, releasing my wrist slowly, like he’s forcing himself to let go.
I look up at him. Really look.
His composure is cracked around the edges. Not much. Just enough that I can see something fragile beneath the frost. For the second time tonight, he looks almost human. I don’t know what to do with that information.
“The voice feels familiar,” I say, admitting a truth I haven’t told anyone, to him, the one guy I probably shouldn’t trust.
His expression shifts. “Familiar, how?”
I wrap my arms around myself, the cold finally seeping past my jacket. “I don’t know. It feels like… like something I should remember but can’t.”
Auron studies me, eyes colder than winter air but not unkind. “Has it spoken to you before yesterday?”
I lick my lips, pulse thudding in my throat. The truth presses up from somewhere deep and hidden.
“No,” I say softly. “Not like that. Not…calling my name.”
His gaze sharpens.
“But whispers like it…” I swallow. “They’ve followed me my whole life.”
His breath stills—just a fraction.
I force myself to keep going, even though the words feel like I’m unearthing something I buried years ago.
“When I was little, I’d hear things. Voices no one else heard.
I pushed them away. Pretended it wasn’t real.
” My fingers curl into my palms. “Because if no one else heard them, then it had to be my imagination. Right?”
Auron doesn’t speak. He watches me with a focus that feels surgical—as though he’s taking apart every memory behind my words.
“But now…” I breathe out slowly. “What if they weren’t imaginary? What if they were always real, and I just didn’t understand what I was hearing?”
Auron turns fully toward me, the cold halo of his white-blond hair catching the faint lantern glow. “Lindsay—”
“What if the Veil has been calling me since I was a kid?” The question rasps out of me. “And I didn’t know?”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” he says quietly.
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can give without lying.”
My heart stutters. “Auron—if you know something—”
“Lindsay.” His voice drops—softer, warmer, stripped of every mask he wears. “If the Veil has been whispering to you since childhood…then it means you were marked long before you came here.”
A chill runs through me that has nothing to do with the winter air.
“And if that’s true,” he continues, stepping closer, “your magic isn’t waking up because you’re learning to use it.” His throat works, like the next words cost him. “It’s waking up because something on the other side has been waiting for you.”
The lantern flickers violently at the same moment a low tremor moves through the ground.
Auron reacts instantly. His arm snaps out, and he grips my wrist again, as though he is going to hold me in place.
“Come on, you’re done patrolling tonight,” he says and tugs me behind him, back toward campus. The protective edge in his voice is new.
It’s raw.
Uncontrolled.
“Auron—”
“Not a word,” he warns, scanning the dark. “If it hears you, it will answer. And neither of us want that tonight.”
Another cold ripple passes. Fainter this time. Retreating. Auron doesn’t release me until the lantern’s passing is steady again.
When he finally looks back at me, his expression is something I’ve never seen on him before. It holds none of that cockiness or bored indifference I’ve seen countless times. No, now there appears to be fear in his eyes.