Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The soft rhythm of Liora’s breathing told Baylin that she’d finally fallen asleep.
He waited three more minutes, counting the slow rise and fall of her chest, before carefully extracting himself from the tangle of sheets and warm limbs.
She murmured something indistinct and curled into the space he’d vacated, her golden hair spilling across the pillow like liquid sunlight.
He stood in the darkness, watching her. Three days. That was all it had taken for this small, fierce human to burrow so deep under his skin that he couldn’t imagine walking away.
Mate, his beast rumbled. Ours. Protect.
He silenced the knowledge as he always did. There would be time for that later. Right now, he had work to do.
ARIS had reduced the lighting to what the AI called “nighttime conservation levels,” but his Vultor eyes needed little illumination.
He moved through the shadows with the predator’s grace that had kept him alive through decades of hunting and warfare, his footsteps making no sound on the polished floor.
He was sure ARIS was hiding something in the lower levels and he intended to find out what.
Instead of approaching the stairs, he headed for the maintenance shaft he’d spotted previously.
Liora had walked right past it without a second glance, but he had caught the faint draft of air flowing through its seams and noted the wear patterns on the floor where someone had stood before it many times. The nursemaid, perhaps.
He pressed his palm flat against the panel and pushed. Metal groaned softly, then gave way to reveal a narrow vertical shaft lined with rungs. No electronic locks. Someone wanted a way in that ARIS couldn’t control.
He descended.
The lower levels of the tower were different from the living spaces above.
The air tasted stale, filtered but not truly fresh, and the walls bore the marks of age—micro-fractures in the smooth surface, discoloration where moisture had seeped through failing seals.
This section hadn’t been maintained with the same care as Liora’s domain.
Because ARIS doesn’t want anyone coming down here.
He emerged from the shaft into a corridor lit only by emergency strips along the floor.
His shadow stretched long and dark as he moved forward, ears straining for any sign that the AI had detected his presence.
Nothing. The maintenance shaft wasn’t monitored—or if it was, ARIS had decided not to intervene. Yet.
Doors lined both sides of the corridor. Most were sealed, their access panels dead, but one at the far end showed a faint green glow. He approached it cautiously, every sense alert for traps or alarms.
The door slid open at his touch.
Beyond lay a room unlike anything else in the tower.
Where Liora’s spaces were warm and lived-in, this chamber was sterile—white walls, white floor, white ceiling, all gleaming under harsh overhead lights that flickered to life as he entered.
Medical equipment lined the walls: scanners, diagnostic terminals, and a table that looked disturbingly like an operating surface.
Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust, untouched for years.
But it was the storage unit in the corner that drew his attention, still humming with active power despite the neglect surrounding it. The unit’s display showed a single prompt: AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
He tried the obvious first—Liora’s name, the tower’s designation, a series of numerical combinations based on dates he’d gleaned from her stories. Nothing worked.
Then, on impulse, he typed: NURSEMAID.
The unit clicked. A drawer slid open, revealing a collection of data crystals nestled in protective foam. Each was labeled in careful handwriting: Day One. Week Three. Month Six. Year One. Year Five. Year Twelve.
Year Twelve. The year the nursemaid had died.
He took the first crystal and looked for a playback device. He found one built into the wall, old technology, but still functional, and inserted the first crystal.
The female who appeared on the screen was older than he’d expected with grey hair pulled back in a severe knot and deep lines carved around her mouth and eyes, but her gaze was sharp. She sat in this very room, the medical equipment visible behind her, a tablet clutched in weathered hands.
“Day one,” she said. Her voice was raspy, as if she’d spent years breathing recycled air.
“The infant arrived this morning. Healthy, by all external measures. Three months old. Beautiful. Golden hair like her mother’s.
” A pause. “The father was... brief. He gave me my instructions and left within the hour. I don’t think he could bear to stay longer.
The resemblance to her mother is too strong. ”
He leaned closer to the screen.
“My orders are clear. Raise the child. Protect the child. Never allow her to leave the tower. Never allow anyone else to enter.” The female’s expression tightened. “And never, under any circumstances, allow her blood to be collected or analyzed by outside parties.”
Blood.
They’d known. Even at three months old, they’d known.
He removed the first crystal and inserted another. Year Five.
The nursemaid looked older now, more tired, but her voice remained steady.
“She scraped her knee today. She was climbing the greenhouse shelves to reach a plant she wanted to examine. I cleaned the wound and applied a bandage, as any caretaker would. But then I noticed...”
A pause. The woman’s hands trembled slightly as she adjusted something off-screen.
“The bleeding stopped within seconds. By the time I’d prepared the antiseptic, the wound had already begun closing. An hour later, there was no trace that it had ever existed.”
Year Eight.
“I’ve been conducting discreet tests. Nothing that would alarm her—just a few drops when she inevitably cuts herself during her experiments.
The results are... unprecedented. Her blood doesn’t just heal her own body.
It heals anything it touches. Damaged tissue regenerates.
Infections clear. In laboratory conditions, it even shows signs of reversing cellular degradation. ”
His jaw tightened.
“I understand now why her father built this tower. Why he programmed ARIS with such strict protocols. Why he chose such an isolated location for her prison.”
Prison. The nursemaid had used the same word Liora was beginning to use.
“If anyone discovered what her blood could do... the wars that would be fought over her. The experiments. The captivity that would make this tower seem like paradise.”
Year Twelve.
The woman on the screen looked like death. Pale, thin, her hands shaking so badly she could barely hold the tablet. But her eyes were fierce.
“I’m dying. Some kind of systemic failure—ARIS can’t determine the cause, and there’s no treatment available here. Fitting, perhaps. I’ve spent twelve years in isolation, caring for a child who will never know why she’s truly trapped here. Maybe this is the universe’s way of releasing me.”
A rattling cough. The nursemaid paused, gathering herself.
“I’ve left her everything she needs. The greenhouse will sustain her. ARIS will protect her. She’s smart—smarter than her father ever knew—and she’ll survive. But I worry...”
The woman’s voice cracked.
“I worry about what happens when someone finds her. When the secret gets out. Because it will, eventually. Secrets always do.”
She leaned forward, staring directly into the recording device as if she could see through time to whoever would eventually find these crystals.
“If you’re watching this, and you’re not her father—if you’ve found this tower and found this child—then hear me now.
Whatever you’re thinking, whatever you’re planning, walk away.
She’s not a resource. She’s not a weapon.
She’s not a cure for your dying empire or a prize for your collectors.
She’s a person. A brilliant, curious, kind-hearted person who has already suffered more isolation than any soul should bear. ”
The nursemaid’s hand moved to end the recording, then paused.
“But if you can’t walk away—if you care for her, truly care for her—then protect her. Not from scrapes and bruises and the dangers of climbing stairs. Protect her from the people who would use her. Keep her secret safe. And for pity’s sake...”
A sad smile.
“...let her live.”
The screen went dark.
He stood motionless for a long time.
The implications unfolded in his mind like a map of dangerous territory.
He thought about his former pack and Lysara, manipulating and scheming her way into power.
About some of the people he’d encountered during his traveling years—ruthless individuals who would burn entire settlements to ash for resources far less valuable than what Liora carried in her veins.
If anyone knew what her blood contained, she would be hunted. Captured. Drained.
The image of Liora strapped to a table in some sterile facility, tubes running from her arms and her blood harvested while she screamed, rushed through his mind. Or worse—Liora kept docile with drugs, bred like livestock to produce offspring who might carry the same trait.
His beast roared at the thought. Rage, red and blinding, flooded his system until his hands shook with the effort of containing it.
No. Never. Anyone who tries will die.
But containing the rage wasn’t enough. He needed to think. To plan.
Did she realize? Had the nursemaid told her before dying, or had she kept the secret even from the child she’d raised?
No. If she knew, she would have mentioned it. She was too curious, too open, to hide something so significant. She’d noticed her wound healing quickly and dismissed it as normal because she had no baseline for comparison. She’d never seen anyone else heal at a natural pace.
She doesn’t know what she is.
Which raised the real question: Should he tell her?