Chapter 40 Aurelia
Aurelia
The tent was quiet, save for the distant whisper of the wind threading through old trees. The fire outside had dwindled to embers, its warmth still reaching faintly beneath the heavy canvas. I lay on my side, facing Lysara.
Even in the low light, she looked like something conjured from a story.
Sleep wouldn’t come. The longer I stared at her, the more the thoughts pressed in. “I keep wondering about all of it,” I breathed. “The turning. This… pull toward Kaelith. What it means. What I’m becoming.”
Her eyes softened, shadows and silver in the dim light. “It’s all right not to know, Aurelia. There can be beauty in the unknown.”
“And fear,” I whispered.
She gave a small smile. “And fear. But what we do with that fear shapes what follows.”
I let the silence stretch before speaking again.
“Malachi mentioned the lover’s vein. Said it wasn’t just blood. That it was… a bond.” My fingers brushed my wrist as if the vein burned there already. “What kind of bond?”
Lysara rolled onto her back, gaze tracing the canvas above.
“The lover’s vein runs from wrist to heart, yes.
But its power isn’t only in the body. Any turning creates a tether, but this vein deepens it.
Makes the mind more open. More… porous. If you’re unguarded, he can slip through.
See what you see. Feel what you feel. Hear what you think. ”
A coldness shivered down my spine. “So there’s no escape from it.”
“In a way, there is.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “You can close those doors. People think thoughts are helpless things—they aren’t. You can veil them. Direct them. Guard your mind as surely as you guard your breath. The bond may tempt. It may press. But it cannot take what you do not give.”
I turned onto my back, too, staring upward. The words settled heavy, but not hopeless. “Then I’ll figure it out.”
“You will.” Her hand brushed mine briefly, an anchor of warmth. “Not because you already have the answers, but because you know how to seek them.”
“So,” I murmured, trying to change the subject, “what’s with you and Santi? He seems to gravitate to you.”
Lysara’s lips curled into a smile. “I suppose there’s no hiding it anymore.”
She laughed quietly, then turned her gaze back to the canvas above. “At first I thought it was foolishness,” she said. “But there was something about him—how he found joy in a place that should’ve drowned him. I’d carried too much darkness. He reminded me it didn’t all have to be mine.”
I raised a brow.
“For a time, I took care of the people in the cells. I soon came to look forward to that part of my day. Santiago fascinated me,” she admitted.
“Not because he was caged, but because he never let it cage him. That fierceness he has? I’ve come to learn that is his justice.
That his soul won’t tolerate cruelty, not even his own.
He can heal, destroy, protect. Kaerani’s passion burns bright within him. And somehow, he turned it toward me.”
I stared at her for a long moment. Then said the words I’d kept buried. “I know him.”
She stilled.
“I’ve known him since he was a boy. I remember the first time I saw him… He was there, Lysara. At the execution.”
A pause. Then a whisper. “I know.”
I looked down, fingers tightening around the edge of my blanket.
“We weren’t sure if you recognized him,” she said gently. “If maybe you forgot, or blocked it out.”
“I didn’t forget,” I said. “I remember every face. Every name. The ones who threw the rope. The ones who held me down. The ones who laughed. And the ones who only watched.”
I swallowed. “Tomas Berreth. Fira of the Gold Court. Captain Wren. Ellyn Voss. Alder Wrent. Priestess Maelle. And yes—Draven Navarro. Santiago’s father.
” The names tasted like ash on my tongue.
“But I wanted to see what kind of man he became. Sometimes good people get swept into bad things. Sometimes, they suffer for the sins of those who came before.”
“There’s a grace in you, Aurelia. And a fire. The kind that builds—not burns. The kind that belongs to a queen.”
I laughed once. Not bitter. Not quite amused either.
“I’m no queen,” I said. “Just someone very tired of being told what I should or shouldn’t be. How I should feel. What I should believe.”
In the quiet, I felt something settle in my chest. Not peace, exactly. But clarity. Lysara drifted off, her breaths soft and even.
She’d fallen asleep with such ease after our talk, her confession about Santiago coloring the dark with an unexpected warmth. A hidden love bloomed in the shadow of prison walls. And she had chosen it freely.
It stirred something in me. Not envy—I was happy for them. This was an ache. Because while their bond was chosen, mine would not be. My hand still curled between us, where hers had briefly held it. I held on as if the echo of her touch might remind me that some doors could still be mine to close.
The halls of the old castle stretched before me—only not as they had been. No dust. No ruin. Just bone-white walls and floors that gleamed like frozen glass. There was no echo to my steps. No warmth to the air. Just that still, awful quiet that makes you feel like prey.
A hallway of doors bearing marks I did not recognize stretched before me. I bit the inside of my cheek—no pain. A dream.
I moved forward.
Each door I passed bore a mark—a sigil I couldn’t name. And behind each one, the sound of something breathing.
I told myself I would choose which doors to open. That I would decide. But at the corridor’s end, only one door stood ajar. The choice already made.
Inside, candlelight flickered against stone. A slab waited in the center, black and slick like oil. A body lay stretched across it—my own. Pale. Still. Lips parted like she’d just stopped screaming.
My stomach lurched.
From the shadows, he emerged.
Kaelith.
“You said you’d figure it out,” he murmured, circling the slab where my body lay. “But there is nothing to figure out. You were made for this.”
His crown was twisted up wrongly from his head. His eyes were pinpricks of silver, too bright to be human. He circled the altar, fingers dragging over my lifeless body.
“No,” I whispered. My voice felt brittle.
He looked up, smiled at me with certainty before handing me a blade. My hands—both mine and not mine—trembled as I took it.
“You came here to be saved,” he said, “but you already belong to the dark.”
The altar flared with light. Suddenly, the slab held another.
It was Lysara. Eyes wide. Lips trembling. Her pulse visible in her throat.
The hunger snapped through me. My jaw ached. My hands itched. I didn’t want this. But the hunger did. And the knife in my hand felt weightless.
I lunged—
And awoke to shouting.
Hands dragged me back, strong and unyielding. Lysara’s scream tore the night. Santiago’s voice was sharp with panic. My throat burned, my jaw ached—gods, my jaw—
The tent flap flew open. Blood slicked the floor where we’d been lying. Santiago crouched over Lysara, light spilling from his hand at her throat. Her throat.
Horror slammed into me. I did that.
I thrashed against Malachi’s grip, sobbing, snarling. But he held fast. We stumbled into his tent. My breath tore ragged from me, everything rimmed in red. He didn’t speak at first. Just uncorked a vial and pressed it to my lips.
I hesitated, teeth bared. “Aurelia,” he said, steady, not unkind. “Drink.” I obeyed.
The draévinth cooled my veins. The hunger loosened its claws, but it wasn’t gone. It prowled at the edges of me, waiting. My thoughts moved sluggishly, my breath still ragged as I blinked up at him.
“Come,” Malachi said, gesturing to the pallet on the floor.
He sank down first, fingers working the buttons at his collar. I hovered where I was, unsure, my chest tight. Was Lysara safe? Had I truly— The memory of blood slick on the floor burned behind my eyes.
“It’s all right, Aurelia.” His voice was low, steady. “Let me help you.”
I didn’t move. He sighed, then reached forward and drew me down to sit folded in front of him. Our knees touched. The quiet press of bone against bone startled me more than any order.
“You can say no,” he murmured. “But this will help more than the tonic ever could.”
He shrugged his tunic from his shoulders, letting it fall. The firelight traced every line of him, the strength in his chest and arms, the scars that told his history.
My eyes lingered too long.
“You’re staring, Aurelia.” A faint smile tugged at his mouth.
Heat rose to my cheeks. “Sorry. I just—I’m not ready for—”
“While I’m flattered,” he muttered, dragging a hand down his face. “That’s not what I meant.” He hesitated, breath catching. “Not that I wouldn’t—” He cut himself off, exasperated. His gaze steadied on mine again, firmer now.
“Bite me.”
My mouth watered at the command, hunger surging anew.
“Absolutely not,” I whispered, though I was already leaning forward, drawn helplessly to his pulse.
“It’s all right,” he said softly, tilting his head. “Just…don’t drain me.”
I hesitated, searching his eyes for doubt. There was none. Only a quiet kind of trust. My palms found themselves cupping his jaw, turning his face until the strong column of his throat lay bare. The heat of him pulsed against my lips.
I hesitated—one final, fragile heartbeat—before my canines broke skin with a soft pop.
Warmth rushed over my tongue. Rich. Alive. Mine.
A low growl tore from me, half-pleasure, half-desperation. I couldn’t stop. The taste was fire and sweetness, pulling me under. I needed more.
Somewhere in the haze, I shifted—climbing onto his lap and curling my legs around his waist as though I could erase all space between us. His heartbeat thundered against my lips. I drank like it could quiet every fear.
His hand pressed against the back of my neck. Not harsh. Not forcing. Just steady. Anchoring.
“Aurelia.”
The sound of my name cut through the haze. My canines slipped free.
I drew back with a gasp, breath ragged, his blood warm at the corner of my mouth. For a moment, all I could do was stare at the mark I’d left on his throat. Mine.
Shame hit at the reminder of the scene from my tent, of the control I felt slipping.
“I—” My voice broke. I pressed trembling fingers to my lips. “I could have—”
He caught my wrist before I could pull away, his eyes steady. “But you didn’t.”
The words rang louder than the pounding in my head. Still, my chest ached with the weight of what I’d taken, of how close I’d come to losing myself.
I turned my face aside, unable to meet his gaze. “I don’t want to become this.”
“You will,” Malachi said quietly. His hand lingered at my wrist, warm, alive. “But not this.”
I froze.
“You’ll change, Aurelia. That much is certain. The bond, the hunger—they’ll shape you. But only you decide what shape to take. Monster. Weapon. Or something else entirely. That choice is yours. Every time.”
Something like relief—rooted me back to myself. Not peace. But the faint outline of choice.