Chapter Three #3
The realization tightened something in my chest.
I had expected austerity—perhaps even neglect.
Instead, I found evidence of instinct.
Of someone who had taken cold stone and, piece by deliberate piece, turned it into something that held warmth. Someone who craved texture. Safety. Enclosure. Who had arranged her world around softness because the world beyond these walls offered none.
There were no luxuries of vanity.
Only the quiet luxury of survival.
And that struck deeper than silk ever could.
“Who are you?” Malric repeated, as she had yet to reply.
The woman’s gaze darted between us, landing on Malric’s blade, then mine, then the doorway as if she were measuring escape despite knowing there was nowhere to run.
“I…” Her voice came out thin, catching on breath. She swallowed, her throat working. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Malric’s jaw tightened. “Answer the question.”
Her hands clenched at her stomach again, and my attention snagged on the motion because it mirrored what my body wanted to do, the instinctive urge to protect something tender and vital.
“I’m Aveline,” she said finally, as if forcing the name through resistance. “This is my tower.”
Malric’s gaze narrowed. “Your tower,” he repeated, flat.
Aveline nodded once, too quickly, her eyes wide with fear. “You need to leave.”
“Why?” Malric asked.
Her eyes widened further, panic rising so fast it was almost visible, her breath turning shallow. The scent in the room shifted with it, not changing, but intensifying as her body reacted, a burnt smell of fear tainting the sweetness. My own instincts flared in response, my magic twitching again.
I hated I could feel her fear like a pull in my blood.
I hated more that Malric seemed to sense it too, his posture sharpening, his gaze turning even colder as if fear confirmed guilt.
I stepped forward before I fully decided to, my hand on Malric’s sword hand, pushing it down.
“Malric,” I said quietly.
His head snapped toward me, irritation flashing in his eyes.
“Easy,” I added, keeping my voice low, steady, the way I spoke to recruits before battle when their nerves threatened to ruin them. “She’s terrified.”
Malric’s mouth tightened. “So was every liar I ever cut the truth out of.”
Aveline flinched again, her shoulders hunching as if to make herself smaller, invisible. Her gaze locked on Malric’s face, and there was something in it besides fear. Recognition, maybe. Or the way prey watches a predator that has already decided it will hunt.
I shifted my stance to separate myself from Malric, giving her a line of sight to me that his body didn’t block. I kept my sword down, not sheathed, but angled away.
“Aveline,” I said, tasting her name in the air, feeling the way it seemed to align with the scent curling through the room. “We’re not here to hurt you.”
Malric made a sound under his breath, sharp enough that it traveled through the bond. A warning.
Aveline’s eyes flicked to me, then away, as if she didn’t trust herself to look too long.
“You don’t understand,” she said, voice trembling but gaining strength as panic drove her. “You need to go before he comes back.”
“Who?” Malric demanded.
Her throat worked again. She hesitated, and in that hesitation the walls pressed in, the tower humming beneath us as if it were listening.
“My father,” she whispered.
Malric’s expression didn't change, but the bond between us tightened. His attention sharpened further, focus locking on the one detail that could matter most.
“Your father is the king?” he asked.
Aveline’s gaze snapped to his face, as if she hadn’t meant to reveal that much. Her lips parted, then pressed together again, and for a moment she looked like someone trying to decide whether silence would save her.
“It’s the only way,” she said, voice barely audible. “He put me here. He’ll kill you if he finds you.”
The king.
The word landed in my gut like a stone.
Malric’s posture shifted, his weight settling into a stance I recognized from battle: controlled readiness.
His eyes swept the chamber again, not for exits now but for evidence, for proof that could be carried back to the rebellion.
An omega hidden in a tower guarded by old magic. A cage built inside the Wyrdwood.
A weapon.
Or a secret.
Or both.
Aveline’s breath hitched as Malric took another step closer, and my instincts surged again, not only toward her but toward the danger of Malric pushing too hard, too fast.
“Malric,” I said again, firmer this time.
He didn’t look at me. “Stay out of this.”
“She’s going to bolt,” I replied, my voice still low but edged now. “Or she’s going to panic enough that the tower decides we’re the threat.”
Malric’s gaze flicked toward me then, sharp and warning. “You’re letting her scent cloud your head.”
The accusation landed cleanly because it wasn’t wrong.
The scent was everywhere. It clung to the back of my throat, to my skin, to the inside of my lungs. It made my magic restless, made my instincts surge and twist until I didn’t know where fear ended and want began.
But I could see Aveline shaking. I could see how her gaze kept darting to the doorway, how she braced as if expecting it to open any moment and spill death into the room.
And I could see Malric’s control slipping in a different way—his tension turning rigid, his focus narrowing too sharply. Not because he wanted her. Because he wanted the advantage she represented.
He’d always choose the war first.
I stepped another pace forward, careful not to crowd her. “Aveline,” I said, gentle enough that the word didn’t scrape. “How long have you been here?”
Her eyes flicked to Malric again, then back to me, as if deciding which of us was less likely to hurt her.
“I don’t know,” she admitted, voice cracking. “Years. Time doesn’t…” She shook her head, swallowing hard. “He comes sometimes. He tells me it’s safer for me here.”
Malric’s jaw flexed. “Safer? Why?”
Aveline’s hands tightened in her gown. “Because I’m dangerous.”
Silence held for a beat.
My breath went shallow again, the words sinking into me. She believed it. Not as a story she told to please her jailer. As a truth carved into her very being.
Malric’s gaze sharpened, as if calculating who she was and how to use her. A weapon. A curse. An omega hidden away for a reason.
And beneath that calculation, something else flared through our bond. Not tenderness. Not desire. Something more dangerous.
Possibility.
My chest tightened. I stared at Malric’s profile, at the way he held himself so controlled it looked like calm, and I wondered how long that control would last with her scent in the air and the king’s name hanging between us like a blade.
I couldn’t lose him.
Not to her. Not to the war. Not to the promise of a future that didn’t include me.
“Aveline,” I said again, steadier now, forcing my voice into the shape of reassurance even as my storm churned under my ribs. “We need to understand what this place is. What you are to him.”
Her eyes widened with fresh fear. “I’m not—” She cut herself off, breath catching. “I don’t want to be anything. I just want you to leave. I don’t want to hurt you.”
Malric took another step, and the air tightened immediately, the tower humming louder beneath our feet. Aveline flinched hard enough that she nearly stumbled.
I moved without thinking, stepping between Malric and her line of sight, not blocking him fully, but forcing him to slow.
His gaze snapped to mine, irritation sharp and immediate. “Move.”
“Not like this,” I said quietly. “If you push her, she’ll shut down, or she’ll scream, and if her father truly is the king—”
Malric’s eyes narrowed. “If he’s the king, then she’s the reason this tower exists.”
“And if she’s terrified, then she’s not your enemy,” I shot back, then immediately regretted the edge in my voice because it carried too much of my desperation.
Malric’s stare held mine a moment longer, the bond taut between us, strained by the new presence in the room.
Behind me, Aveline’s breath came in shallow bursts. The scent in the air warmed, thickened, and my body reacted again, heat curling low and urgent, a reminder that no matter how hard I tried to keep my head, my instincts were already awake.
I forced myself to breathe through it, to stay steady.
Aveline’s voice came soft, shaking. “Please.”
The word wasn’t directed at either of us specifically. It was aimed at the room, at the tower, at anything that might listen.
Malric’s jaw worked, then he stepped back half a pace, the smallest concession, but enough that the tower’s hum eased.
His gaze cut back to Aveline. “You said the king put you here.”
She nodded quickly.
“Why?” he demanded.
Aveline’s eyes darted to me, then down. Her shoulders curled inward as if the answer hurt. “He said I’m dangerous,” she whispered. “That I hurt someone when I was young.”
“Who?” I asked, softer.
Her breath shuddered. “My mother.”
The words filled the chamber, their gravity causing my skin to tingle. Malric went still again, and his attention shifted in the bond. Not softness. A recalibration. The war mind taking in a new fact, placing it carefully.
Aveline’s eyes lifted, shining with something she refused to let fall. “He said he couldn’t protect anyone if I did it again,” she added. “He said I couldn’t leave.”
Malric’s gaze sharpened. “And the king comes here himself.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Sometimes.”
“How often?” Malric pressed.
Aveline’s breath came fast. “I don’t know. He doesn’t—he doesn’t announce himself. He just appears. And if you’re here when he does—”
Her voice broke on the last word.
The girl’s panic spiked, as a tightening in the air, a shift in scent that made my instincts surge again. My magic stirred, clouds gathering somewhere far above the tower, though I couldn’t see them. The pressure built under my ribs, threatening to swamp me.
I wanted to grab Malric and drag him back down the stairs.
I wanted to stay right where I was and breathe her in until my head emptied of everything else.
Both urges terrified me.
Malric’s gaze flicked briefly toward the doorway as if measuring time. Then he looked back at Aveline, his voice controlled again. “If the king is your father, then you’re in the center of this war whether you want to be or not.”
Aveline shook her head, frantic. “War? No. I don’t know anything. I don’t—I don’t even know what happens outside. He doesn’t tell me. He just says it’s safer.”
Malric’s eyes narrowed. “Safer for whom?”
Aveline’s breath hitched, and for the first time, she looked at Malric as if she saw him fully, not just as a threat, but as something she couldn’t place.
“Safer for everyone and me. If I hurt anyone else, he wouldn’t be able to protect me.”
Malric scoffed. “He’s the king. He can do whatever he wants. Believe me, he has been doing that for years. If you’re his daughter, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to save you.”
She hugged herself, rocking slightly on her feet, her head focused down. Panic remained high. I sensed we were about to lose her if we pushed too hard.
The tower hummed underfoot.
The scent thickened.
Caught between them, I sensed the tension in my bond with Malric due to recent events. The mission had become complicated, and I knew the outcome would either unite us or divide us.