Chapter 25 Auron
TWENTY-FIVE
AURON
The fire in Father’s study is always too hot. Too bright. It claws at the edges of the room as though it’s trying to burn away secrets before they can settle. Tonight, it feels personal.
He stands at the tall window that overlooks the frost-laced grounds of the estate, spine rigid, hands clasped behind his back in that way that makes every servant and every son remember exactly who holds the leash.
The same posture he wore the night he handed me the order: Push her through.
Let the Veil decide if she’s worth keeping.
I stay near the door. Not out of respect. Out of calculation. Close enough to leave if the conversation turns to blades. Far enough that he can’t see the faint tremor still lingering in my fingers from the memory of her mouth on mine.
“Report,” he says without turning. His voice is ice over steel—calm, expectant, utterly certain I will obey.
I draw a slow breath through my nose. The air tastes of cedar smoke and old parchment and the faint metallic bite of my own blood where I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from speaking out of turn earlier.
“She’s stronger than before,” I begin. Flat.
Precise. The facts he wants. “The Veil-touched power inside her is volatile. Reactive. It surges with emotion—anger, jealousy, attachment. Mistress Cellan staged a demonstration in Forbidden Magic today. Deliberately provoked her. The shadows nearly tore through half the class before I absorbed them.”
He turns then. Slowly. Deliberately. Eyes the color of winter sky after a killing frost.
“You absorbed it.”
Not a question. A statement. Already dissecting.
“Yes.”
A beat. The fire pops, sending sparks up the chimney like tiny screams. Take me with you.
“And afterward?” His gaze drops to my mouth for half a second—long enough to notice the faint split in my lower lip, the bruise blooming beneath the skin where she bit me. “Did she thank you for playing the hero?”
The memory doesn’t wait for permission.
Her fist twisting in the front of my robe.
The yank that brought me down to her level.
The hissed I hate you that tasted like truth and venom and something dangerously close to need.
Then her mouth—furious, claiming, soft in a way that made no sense against the violence of it.
Hot. Insistent. Tasting of shadows and salt and the copper tang of my own blood when she bit down hard enough to punish me.
For one heartbeat, the curse hadn’t mattered.
For one heartbeat, I’d kissed her back—teeth clashing, tongue sweeping in like I’d been starving for years. My hand had fisted in her hair, tilting her head, deepening it until the world narrowed to the heat of her, the wild snap of her magic against my skin.
Then the pain had arrived.
Black veins crawling up my throat like living poison. The vise around my heart squeezing until breath became impossible. Vision blurring. Knees threatening to buckle while I tore my mouth away and staggered back, palm slammed to my chest as if I could hold the curse inside by sheer will.
I can still feel the echo of it now—dull throbs beneath my sternum, a reminder that wanting her is treason against the very magic that keeps me alive.
My throat works. I force the report out clean.
“She was angry. Unpredictable. But contained. For now.”
Father’s eyes narrow to slits. “You’re omitting.”
Of course he sees it. He always sees the fracture before it splits wide.
“She kissed me,” I say. The words come out quieter than I intend. “After the others left. In the empty chamber.”
Silence stretches—thin and dangerous, like a wire pulled to breaking.
“And you allowed it.”
“I didn’t allow anything.” My voice stays level. Barely. “It happened.”
“You could have walked away.”
A laugh escapes me—short, bitter, edged with something I don’t recognize. “Could I?”
He steps closer. Firelight carves deep shadows across the sharp planes of his face, turning him into something carved from marble and malice.
“You know the price of attachment. You’ve paid smaller debts before—fleeting glances, childish friendships, moments of weakness. This one will be worse.” His voice drops. “She is the fulcrum of the prophecy. The Veilborn key. If you falter now—”
“I’m not faltering.”
The lie tastes like ash and iron. Because I am.
Because. I. am.
I stood in that empty chamber after the pain receded, chest heaving, watching her eyes flicker from hate to confusion to something softer—something curious, something that looked dangerously like want. And, for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to run from it.
I wanted to step forward again, to kiss her without flinching.
I wanted to let her shadows pour into me—not as containment, not as duty, but as surrender. As a choice. My choice.
I wanted to break the lie my father etched into my bones before I could speak: that I cannot love. Cannot desire. Cannot choose.
For the first time, the curse didn’t feel like protection. It felt like a cage. And I wanted out.
Father tilts his head, studying me the way he studies a flawed blade—deciding whether to re-forge or discard.
“Your pulse is elevated. Your magic is restless. You’re compromised.”
“I’m handling it.”
“You will continue surveillance. Closely. Document every surge, every bond she forms, every crack in her control. If the Veil inside her wakes fully—if she becomes the weapon the prophecy foretells—you will do what must be done.”
The old command. The one he gave before I pushed her through the portal.
Use her.
My jaw locks so hard I taste fresh blood.
“And if I refuse?”
The words slip free before I can cage them. Quiet. But they land between us like a thrown gauntlet.
He stills. The room seems to darken, shadows thickening at the corners as though the house itself is listening.
“Then the curse will be the least of your suffering,” he says softly.
“I will tighten it. I will make every breath a reminder. Every heartbeat a punishment. And when you finally break, you will beg me to let you finish what you started—push her through again, deeper this time, until nothing comes back.”
Threat delivered. Clean. Precise. Familiar.
He turns back to the window, dismissing me without another word. I don’t move immediately.
My hand flexes at my side. Shadows curl around my knuckles—dark, liquid, protective. Not his shadows anymore. Not obedient. They feel like mine. Like hers, the ones I saved her from.
I turn and walk out.
The corridor is cold. Empty. Echoing. I stop halfway down, lean my back against the stone, close my eyes.
And let myself remember.
Her lips—soft despite the fury. The way she tasted like mint and rage and something sweeter underneath. The small, desperate sound she made when I kissed her back before the pain tore us apart.
The small, dangerous voice in my head that whispers now, louder than my father’s threats:
Next time, don’t stop.
Next time, choose her.
Even if it kills you.
The magic inside of me stirs, merging with the shadows inside of me now that are restless, hungry, waiting for the moment I finally decide to let them out. I push off the wall and keep walking.
For the first time, the path away from his study doesn’t feel like retreat.
It feels like the beginning of war.