Chapter 62
Ashterion wasn’t sure what the fuck he was doing.
He sat in the armchair across the room, watching her sleep, his body unnaturally still, shadows wafting across the floor.
It should have been nothing.
She was nothing to him.
And yet—
Unbidden, his eyes drifted back to her.
The way she had melted into the bed despite herself, exhaustion dragging her under like a tide she hadn’t been able to fight. The way the firelight softened her edges, turned her skin golden against the darkness of his sheets.
She didn’t trust him. She despised him. And yet she slept.
His heart raced. A small spike of something he didn’t want to inspect burrowed into his ribs before he crushed it down.
It didn’t matter.
He exhaled slowly, rising from the chair as if he could outrun the thought forming in the back of his mind.
Shadow Drask.
Gods. He didn’t know why her saying it bothered him so much.
It had never mattered before. Not when the other courts spat it with ease. Not when they whispered behind goblets, half-mocking, half-terrified of the High Lord who could be traded for the right price. Xyliria called it his purpose. Said she’d found his use when no one else could.
He hadn’t cared.
He didn’t care.
But when Isara said it—
When she looked him in the eye and voiced that truth, dragging it out into the light?
It had clawed him apart. Ripped into parts of him he’d long thought silent.
He scrubbed a hand down his face as he stepped into the bathing chamber, jaw clenched tight. The mirror greeted him as it always did. A reflection he didn’t recognise anymore.
He undid his tunic and let it fall. The newest wounds were fresh enough that the shirt tugged at them slightly as it slid off his shoulders.
He barely noticed.
His body had long since become a graveyard. Fresh wounds stacked over old ones. Half-healed slashes and burn marks, faded scars that he no longer remembered receiving.
They didn’t ache anymore. Just reminders.
He didn’t look like the male who’d once ruled armies. He looked like the reason they would refuse to follow.
Ashterion yanked on a sleep shirt and stepped back into the room, movements mechanical. A sigh left him before he slipped into bed, keeping as much space as possible between them. Not touching. Not breathing too close.
Still trying to figure out what the hell had possessed him to bring her to him that first night.
He was curious. That was all. Torture had become dull to experience. The same routine. The same games.
It certainly didn’t matter that part of him wanted, without understanding why, to reach out. To press his thumb to the bruises on her wrists. To replace violence with something quieter.
Gods, he needed to figure out a way to get her out of here.
Away from him.
Soon.
The sheets shifted.
Ashterion didn’t look up right away. He heard the subtle change in her breathing—the way it caught, tightened, then hissed out in a quiet, panicked exhale. The kind a person made when their dream had dissolved and the nightmare of waking had taken its place.
He turned another page of his book, letting the silence stretch.
“You dream like someone trying to outrun a blade,” he said, voice low, casual.
A pause. Then the distinct sound of her breath catching.
He finally looked up.
She was propped on one elbow, hair mussed from sleep, eyes sharp despite the exhaustion hollowing her face.
“Breakfast,” he offered, gesturing to the small table with a flick of his fingers. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“I’d rather starve,” she muttered, even as her stomach growled loud enough that he was certain the entire castle had heard.
His lips twitched. “How refreshingly predictable.”
She rose—slowly, stiffly, pain obvious in the careful way she moved—but with that same blade-backed pride.
She sank into the armchair opposite him, spine rigid, expression scathing.
“Your hospitality is overwhelming,” she snapped, tone dry enough to draw blood. “Do all your prisoners get the royal treatment, or am I special?”
He didn’t look up from his book. “Only the ones who dump wine on me.”
She grabbed a piece of bread and tore into it. The violence of it was strangely charming. Her gaze flicked to the porcelain cup by his elbow.
“Go ahead,” he murmured. “Though I can’t promise it’s not poisoned.”
She snorted, mouth full. “If you wanted me dead, you wouldn’t waste good coffee on it.”
“You’re learning.”
She took the cup.
“You know,” she said, lifting her eyes to him. “For someone who’s supposed to be breaking me, you’re doing a piss-poor job.”
Ashterion turned another page, unhurried. “The day is young.”
She took another sip of the coffee, then set it down with deliberate care.
“When do I go back to my cell?”
Ashterion didn’t answer immediately. He finished his sip of coffee first, savouring the taste.
“Soon,” he said at last. “But first, we need to address those pesky wounds of yours.”
Her brow furrowed. “What wounds?”
“Exactly.”
Isara huffed, the sound laced with irritation and resignation. “Of course. Can’t have the High Lord’s pet project looking… untouched.”
“No,” he agreed smoothly. “That would raise questions neither of us wants answered.”
Her posture stiffened again, jaw ticking. He could almost feel the argument building.
He cut it off before she could speak.
“And when you return,” he said, voice cool and quiet, “you’ll need to lie.”
“Lie?”
Ashterion set his book down on the table beside him, folding one leg neatly over the other as he gave her his full attention. “To your friends. To your precious Varyth. They can’t know the truth about what happened last night.”
She scoffed. “They’d never—”
“Sell you out?” he interrupted, his tone featherlight. “Of course not.”
He let the silence stretch before continuing, softer now, almost pitying. “But how certain are you, truly? That Varyth’s affection for you outweighs the opportunity to put me in harm’s way?”
That stopped her cold.
Ashterion watched the war behind her eyes. The flash of instinctive denial that didn’t quite make it to her lips. The split-second of doubt she tried to swallow.
“You can trust them, yes.” He smiled, small and razor-edged. “But can you predict them?”
Her fingers clenched around the porcelain cup.
He leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap. “You’ll tell them what they expect to hear. That I hurt you. Broke you. Played the part I’m meant to play.” His eyes met hers, unblinking. “Because if you don’t… if they even suspect the truth… we both know how this ends.”
Isara stood, abrupt enough that the chair scraped against the stone. “You think I’m going to lie to them? Pretend I was some broken doll in your hands?”
Ashterion didn’t rise. He simply looked up at her, tone deceptively mild. “If you’re determined to walk out of here in one piece,” he murmured. “You’ll listen to me.”
Her glare hardened, fury flickering beneath the surface.
“I want to go home,” she snapped, her voice breaking. “Whatever it takes.”
“So, listen to me. Though admittedly…” Ashterion raised a brow at her. “I cannot understand the desire to crawl back to Luceren.”
That hit. Her jaw clenched. “My children need me.”
The statement hung between them, suspended in the sudden stillness of the room.
Everything in him, every inch of his detachment, every frayed thread of endurance, snapped. All twelve centuries of his existence crashed into that single word. Children.
Isara’s face drained of colour, horror dawning in her features as she realised what she’d revealed. Her hand flew to her mouth, too late to catch the secret that had escaped.
“You have children?” His shadows reacted before he could master them, coiling tight around his ankles in agitated spirals.
“I didn’t—” she started, then stopped, her throat working as she swallowed.
Her eyes were wild. But it wasn’t ordinary fear. No, it was the primal terror that lived in the marrow of mothers who would burn worlds to protect what was theirs.
“No,” she whispered, the lie transparent as glass. “I misspoke.”
Ashterion’s mind recalculated in real time. She’d arrived less than a year ago. He was confident of that much. Varyth wouldn’t have been able to hide her presence for longer than a few seasons. There was no way the children were born here.
“You have children.” Not a question this time. A fact. Carved and cold.
Isara’s reaction was instant. She moved like something feral—like she’d throw the entire room into flame and ruin if she thought it would protect what was hers. Her magic lashed against the collar, the scent of ether filling the air as it fought to break free.
“If you go anywhere near them, I will take you apart piece by piece.”
Ah.
There it was. The mother underneath the soldier. The apex predator that had always been hiding behind the brittle pride and sharp tongue.
Ashterion forced calm into his frame. Smoothed every instinct that screamed for more information. “Not to worry, little fireling. I have no interest in hunting children. It’s no fun. They’re very slow.”
She stared at him. Like she couldn’t tell if he was joking. Isara opened her mouth, then closed it.
Ashterion rolled his eyes. “Truly, do you think I’m so depraved I would harm a child?”
She didn’t answer, just kept breathing far too fast and hard, chest rising in those panicked, irregular bursts. The female needed to calm down before she threw herself into a wall.
“You can stop looking at me like that.” He sighed. “Your children are of no use to me. Besides.” He flicked his gaze back to her, cool and dry. “I assume they take after you, so they’re probably a nightmare.”
She jolted back into motion, advancing a step towards him. “You bastard,” she spat. But there was a hint of something beyond rage behind the words.
Ashterion smirked, tilting his head. “Yes.” He leaned back, shadows curling quietly around the legs of his chair as he folded the moment into thought.
Children. Under Varyth’s care.