Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The manor rises from the mist like a half-remembered relic.
Perched above the cliffs, it crouches in crumbling grandeur—stone walls streaked with salt, its windows dark and lifeless.
Wind rattles the shutters like loose teeth.
Ivy has clawed halfway up the south wing.
A noble’s summer retreat, long abandoned.
Now it belongs to us.
We ride through the rusting gates in silence.
The iron groans open and then swings shut behind us with a finality that prickles beneath my skin.
My thighs ache from the saddle, my fingers stiff and blistered from too many hours holding the reins, but I stay upright as the men dismount around me—quiet, precise, a plan already in motion.
No shouted commands. No need. Darian’s orders were given hours ago, and none of his soldiers question them now.
Of course they don’t.
He’s the last to dismount. When his boots hit the ground, I see the strain ripple through him—just for a moment. His limp catches him off guard, more pronounced than before, and he winces before smoothing it away. Then his eyes lift to mine, unreadable in the half-light. Pale as sea-glass.
“Inside,” he says, quiet but steady. “You’ll be safe here. We have until morning.”
Safe. As if I haven’t learned how dangerous that word can be.
Still, I follow him through the arched double doors into the house. The smell of age hits first—dust, old wine, the sharp tang of brine soaked into the floorboards. The kind of house that remembers everything. Footsteps. Secrets. Blood.
He gestures toward a wide corridor to the right. “You’ll find the main chamber down that hall. Take whatever you need.”
I nod but don’t wait for him. My boots echo against the stone as I walk away from him, shoulders straight, pace even. I don’t need help.
The door to the bedroom opens with a groan. Light slants through tall windows, faint and cold. The walls are papered in a fading floral pattern, corners curled like dying leaves. I strip off my gloves and drop them onto the vanity and then catch my reflection in the mirror.
For a moment, I don’t recognize the girl in the mirror.
Raw cheeks. Cracked lips. Eyes that haven’t looked like mine in days—wide, dark, rimmed in pain. And doubt.
This is what running looks like.
One of Darian’s men knocks and then enters with a basin and cloths.
His gaze lingers too long. I ignore it. I peel off the layers of dust and dried blood, scrubbing my skin until it’s red and clean.
When I emerge, I’m wrapped in borrowed riding clothes, my damp hair twisted into a knot. I feel lighter. Emptier.
I sit on the edge of the bed, staring again at the girl in the mirror. Trying to make sense of her. Not because I’m tired. Not because I’m hurt.
Because I can still hear the voice of the messenger who’d ridden alongside us on the road, breathless and hoarse from shouting.
I hadn’t meant to hear it.
Hadn’t meant to listen as the red-faced and dust-slicked rider reined in hard beside Darian.
“She didn’t kill him.”
The words hung there. Unearned. Impossible.
But I knew. I knew they were true the moment I heard them.
Four words. That was all it took to unmake me.
I’d told myself Mallen was dead. I’d built my escape on it. Needed to believe it. I hadn’t checked his pulse. I hadn’t dared. If I had—
I might have hesitated. I might have stayed.
But he lived. He lived, and he was coming.
The mirror doesn’t show panic. It shows something worse.
It shows longing.
I don’t look like someone who’s afraid. Like someone desperate to be chosen. And I don’t know what that makes me.
A liar?
Or just a girl who made one choice—and now wants to make another.
The door creaks open behind me. I don’t have to look to know it’s Darian. He leans in the doorway, his weight casual, his presence deliberate. Still handsome. Still a face and body gifted by the gods.
“Azhara,” he says.
My name sounds different tonight. Less sure. Less rehearsed.
I don’t answer. I rise and move past him without a word, the edge of my shoulder grazing his. The corridor is darker now. The house hushes around us. Every footstep echoes.
I find a sitting room at the end of the hall. Dust drapes the furniture. A cold hearth yawns at the center. I kneel and light the fire myself, coaxing the flames until they lick up and catch. The heat stings my fingers and then begins to spread.
Darian follows, but doesn’t speak. Doesn’t ask if he can come in. He doesn’t need to. Men like him never do.
He stands by the mantel, too close to the fire, like it might soften whatever edge he’s trying to hide.
“You’ve been quiet,” he says. “Since we rode over the ridge.”
“I didn’t have anything to say.”
“You usually do.”
I shrug. The silence stretches.
“You were right not to check,” he says. “At the maze. If you had—he would’ve used it. Turned it against you. That’s what he does.”
My spine stiffens. “I made a mistake.”
He studies me carefully. “No, you made a decision.”
“I told myself I had to. That I was saving myself. That leaving him behind was the right thing.”
“And now?”
“Now I know he lived. And I ran when I shouldn’t have.”
He tilts his head. “I fought for you. Bled for you. Won the Reaping for you. I’ve planned this for years.
Bribed guards. Found courtiers who weren’t as loyal as they should have been.
My fleet waits for us to join them on the next tide.
All to take you with me and keep you safe. From Mallen. From your father.”
“From the magic?”
Darian stills.
“Was this about me, Darian? Or about making sure my father doesn’t get his magic back?”
“Both. I could not let your father keep power for himself. I know that’s what would happen if no one claimed you. And if you choose a man from Starsfall, then the magic returns. The crown will drink it. I meant to keep that from him. But you are not a tactic. Not to me. You matter.”
It is what men do not say that tells the truth. I hear it now. This was always the shape of the Reaping this year: choose Darian or choose Mallen and call one mine, while my father plans for every eventuality and tries to rig the board.
“Are you still coming with me to Larksbind?”
“I thought I would.” My voice is low. “On the road, before the messenger. I told myself I’d disappear and become something new. I wanted to believe I could leave my life behind. And if it didn’t work, I’d walk away.”
“And now that you know?”
My fingers curl near the fire.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. But I know I can’t pretend anymore.”
He steps forward. “You think it changes things.”
“I know it does.”
The words hang in the air, weighty and absolute. I watch him, waiting to see if he’ll challenge them. Twist them. Wrap them in velvet and feed them back to me in prettier language.
But all he does is breathe—shallow, sharp—and step forward.
He walks toward me slowly, like he’s approaching a cornered bird. “He’s coming with a whole army at his back. He’s not coming for love. He’s coming for blood.”
“No,” I say quietly. “He’s coming because I lied when I said I was finished. He believes I’m still worth saving.”
I let the fire fill the silence, tension crackling like a wire pulled too tight. His gaze pins me. The question’s coming—I already know it.
“You want to return to him?”
The question is quiet. Dangerous.
I turn toward him. “Yes.”
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“You think you can survive him?” he asks.
“I already did.”
“You saw it. What he was. What he’s capable of. That darkness in the labyrinth—it wasn’t just the labyrinth.”
“I know.”
“Then why go back?”
I meet his gaze. “Because I love him.”
His mouth tightens. “You don’t owe him anything.”
“I know.”
“You think that makes it love?”
I don’t answer. I let him hear the silence.
“I can give you safety,” he says. “A future. I’ll make you happy. You’ll want for nothing. All you have to do is come with me and this will end. I’ll give you everything you ever wanted, Azhara. Please.”
I study him. The man who brought me here. Who’s offered me escape and protection. Who wants to be chosen, but hasn’t asked why I might need to choose in the first place.
And I think about the man I left behind.
The one who’s storming after me with an army not because of rage, but because he still thinks I’m worth the ruin.
Who used to find me in the dark just to say my name like it mattered.
Who pressed his forehead to mine after every fight.
Who remembered I hated lilac and always carried juniper oil instead.
“You’d have me forget,” I say at last.
His breath catches. “Would that be so terrible?”
The fire crackles between us. The air feels heavy.
“Yes.”
He watches me closely. “You think he’ll give you more than I can?”
“I think he’ll never try to change me.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t speak. The line of his throat moves as he swallows it back—whatever plea or protest he almost gave voice to. For a moment, his mask slips. Not enough to see the wound, but enough to know it’s there.
He exhales slowly. “Come to Larksbind. With me.”
I look at him. Really look.
“No,” I say.
His silence is long and still. He doesn’t ask why. He already knows.
But he says it anyway.
“You’re choosing him.”
“I already did,” I whisper.
“In the labyrinth?”
“In every moment I didn’t kill him. In every moment I’ve regretted it ever since. And in all those I should have given him before.”
My voice trembles on the last word. Not from weakness—but from the weight of everything I should have done, and didn’t. I press my hands together, grounding myself in the present, in the only thing I can still control: this choice.
“You’re mistaking guilt for love.”
“I know the difference.”