1. The Price of Her #5
Steam rolled into the hall as Surian stepped out beside Allora. Their conversation halted at the soft sound he made to announce himself.
Allora froze. She did not look at him.
Surian followed the direction of the sound and saw him standing in the light pooling across the marble floor.
He held the tray a fraction too tightly.
“I brought you a gift,” he said, keeping his voice level. “The maids have told me you haven’t been eating.”
No answer came.
He set the tray beside her and extended the flowers. Surian accepted them instead, her movements measured and careful, easing the moment without openly intervening.
“You love these,” he added, voice trying for warmth. “Peaches. From the southern groves. Sweet, like you used to be.” He really disliked the way that came out but he was trying.
Still nothing.
His voice dropped, strained with effort. “I thought maybe we could sit for a while. Talk. Or not talk. Just... exist. Together.”
Her voice cut through him. “You kept me from my world!”
The words landed without embellishment. Malec visibly winced.
“When the portal collapsed, I made my choice,” she said. “You overruled it. You kept me here because you wanted me here. I will not forgive that.”
He drew a breath, and it did not steady him. “I kept you alive!”
“You didn’t save me,” she said. “You prevented me from deciding for myself. I was running toward my people, my home, I was trying to go to them, and you decided I wasn’t allowed!”
His demeanor changed; he was no longer soft spoken, fear and self preservation edged to the surface as he rose to defend himself. “I had to! You would’ve died out there. You weren’t safe. None of you were. I did what I had to do!”
“No, you did what you wanted,” she shot back. “You never asked what I wanted.”
He faltered for a fraction of a second. “I—” he started, but her voice cut through.
"You don't love me," she snarled. "You love the idea of me. An object you can lock away. A possession to worship you or need you or bend to your will. But I'm not your pet and I will never be yours."
The accusation stole his voice. Malec's mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Her hands balled into fists. "This is exactly why I can't love you. I'm not even real to you—just whatever fantasy fits the narrative. And fuck me, I finally get it." She spun on her heel. "Go to hell, Malec!"
She turned away before he could answer.
Then, without another word, she fled. Her footsteps struck the marble, the sound carrying down the corridor before thinning into distance. Each echo pressed against his ribs until the space she left behind felt physical.
Malec stepped forward without thinking. Surian moved into his path.
He stopped so abruptly the leather of his boots dragged against stone. The air between them was electric, a wall of defiance meeting a breaking storm. His face went still in a way that was more dangerous than anger.
“Move,” he said.
She didn’t.
The refusal landed somewhere deep and volatile.
His hands gripped hard at his sides, fingers digging into his palms enough to sting, they were glowing with a static magical current begging to be released.
He was breathing too fast. Then his control failed as he drove his fist into the wall with brutal force.
Marble split beneath the impact, a fracture racing outward in jagged lines.
The sound reverberated through the hall, followed by the sudden scatter of stone against the floor.
Magic surged from him in a violent wave, not shaped or guided but expelled, as if his body could no longer contain it.
The sconces flashed. Fine dust drifted through the steam.
Surian took a step back.
He stood there shaking, chest rising and falling in uneven pulls. His eyes were bright in a way that made it difficult to look at him for too long. Power hummed under his skin, unstable.
“Surian, move,” he repeated, lower now. “It is not safe to stand between me and her.”
“I know,” Surian said, steady despite the tremor in the air. “But someone has to.”
The words struck harder than the wall had.
Malec looked past her, toward the direction Allora had fled.
His fingers twitched at his sides, desperate to reach out—desperate to be seen.
The ache in his groin, the tightness in his chest, the rawness behind his ribs, they were nothing compared to the quiet rejection in her eyes.
He wasn’t used to feeling powerless. He hated it.
But worse than hating it… was knowing she had every right.
“I only need to speak to her,” he said, though the plea in it betrayed him.
“No,” Surian answered, gentler. “You need to let her breathe.”
He closed his eyes briefly, as if the statement had weight. It did.
“You’re coming apart,” she continued. “And if you go to her like this, you will drag her down with you.”
He swallowed, forcing words past the pressure in his throat. "The tether is suffocating me," he said. "I need her."
Surian studied him a moment longer, wary. Then she softened, just slightly. "I know," she said quietly. "I know it hurts you but she’s not ready, Malec. So I’ll watch her and be there for her."
He did not look at her when he answered. “Then watch her. Be there in ways I cannot. In return, I will set aside what you did.”
“You’re forgiving me?” she asked carefully.
“I am choosing not to pursue it,” he said. “That is enough.”
Surian studied him for a moment, then nodded.
The corridor felt too narrow. The air too thin.
Without another word, Malec turned away from the direction Allora had gone. His steps were controlled now, but there was nothing calm about him.
Behind him, Surian lingered turning toward the shattered marble, her gaze falling to the jagged cracks webbed across the once-pristine wall.
In her arms, the gifts still rested—flowers bruised, fruit cooling, tonic untouched.
She looked down at them with a quiet ache and wondered: would these ever be enough to bring Allora back? Or had Malec already lost her for good?
Allora ran without direction, anger carrying her through corridor after corridor until it burned out and left only exhaustion. She found herself in an unused sitting room tucked behind a columned alcove and closed the door behind her with shaking hands.
The moment the latch caught, her composure collapsed.
She fell onto the velvet settee and pressed her face into a pillow as the sob tore free.
It was not delicate. It was not quiet. The sound scraped out of her chest and left her trembling, grief and fury tangled so tightly they were indistinguishable.
Tears soaked into the fabric while the room absorbed what she could no longer contain.
That was how Surian found her.
The door opened without ceremony. Surian carried no offerings this time, no careful gestures meant to soften what had already been done. Beneath one arm rested a curved instrument lacquered in obsidian, its strings fine as spun wire.
Allora did not look up.
She had drawn her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, curls loose and unbound around her face. The hearth had gone cold. Shadows gathered in the corners, settling around her stillness.
Surian lingered only a moment before moving to the far side of the room. She sat in a shaft of pale light and set the instrument across her lap. The first notes came quietly as she tuned by ear, soft plucks that carried through the calm without demanding attention.
“I thought you might not want to speak,” Surian said quietly. “Music asks for nothing.”
Allora gave no answer. Surian began to play.
The melody moved through the chamber with steady patience, filling the silence without pressing against it. Gradually Allora’s breathing eased and the tension in her hands loosened against the velvet.
A faint hum slipped from her throat before she seemed aware of it.
Surian shifted the progression to make space for the fragile note, allowing it to settle into the music.
The sound steadied, and Allora’s voice followed, low and unguarded, carrying the raw weight of grief that had no strength left for restraint.
Surian kept her gaze on the strings and supported the melody quietly, weaving harmony beneath the voice rather than over it.
The song drifted beyond the chamber and into the palace corridors as a guard slowed his steps. A maid paused with linens in her arms and conversations softened, then stopped as the unfamiliar voice carried through the stone halls.
Farther down the corridor Surion broke off mid-sentence. He did not recognize the melody, yet the sorrow within it caught his attention immediately. His head turned slightly as he listened, interest flowing intensifying behind his eyes.
“She has no idea what she carries,” he murmured.
A slow smile touched his mouth.
“Let him drown her in guilt,” Surion said softly. “I’ll give her an audience.”
He continued down the corridor already refining the idea, considering which gathering would draw the most influential ears and how best to place her where the court would have no choice but to listen.
Influence rarely entered a room announcing itself.
Sometimes it sang.