Chapter 34
The doors Dreth takes me to tower over me like the entrance to a sealed vault—tall and seamless. He doesn’t speak. Just opens the doors and urges me through.
The air shifts as I step inside—warmer, denser, and fragrant with something like crushed flowers laced with metal.
Glass shelves and low tables fill the room, each one crowded with trays of Heartfillers in shades I’ve never seen.
At first, I spot the familiar ones: the golden yellow of euphoria, the pale-blue haze of sedatives, the coral tone of the memory filler—standard at every checkpoint.
But these aren’t standard. These are trays stacked with variations—Heartfillers in every imaginable shade and intensity of those three types. And beyond.
I think of what Caelus told me, of how Heartfillers are harvested or replicated from someone’s truest-love kiss, and suddenly I am dizzy.
“Axira.” The Benevolent’s voice startles me.
I’ve only ever seen him from a distance, speaking in that glassy, formal tone that makes every word sound like an order.
Thirty paces is about as close as I got in the throne room when I first arrived here.
But he stands from the jeweled metal chair where he was sitting, and my chest feels like it could cave in on itself.
The sooner I find out what he wants with me, the sooner I can get back to my room where I at least felt safer.
He’s not in robes. He isn’t very tall. He’s compact and unassuming, wearing simple gray, sleeves pushed up. He smooths his hand on his pants. He looks…ordinary. My arm, pointlessly hovering near my bun for the blade that used to live there, lowers.
I clear my throat. “You sent for me?”
The only adornment he wears is a silver ring, dull and unpolished, a duplicate of Caelus’s. He turns it now, meeting my eyes with a warm smile. It lands like a blow.
“You and the other contestants have had a difficult few days with the loss of Orrick and Lira. Lira was from your own district,” he says gently, and it feels fake.
I don’t speak. I don’t nod. I just stand there, locked between instinct and confusion. I thought I’d be dragged here and blamed for something. I thought there’d be questions or punishment.
“Did you know each other?” he asks me.
“No.” But her body lying still and bloody on the ground still lives in my head.
“Well, still, I imagine it was not easy to discover them the way my guards tell me you all did.”
I stand rigidly in place, careful not to touch anything, careful to stay near the door.
“And yet, I’m told you haven’t used your mourning Heartfiller,” he says, and my stomach curdles. “I thought we could speak in a more honest setting.” He takes a few slow steps toward one of the tables.
“You’ve endured a great deal in a short time. And grief—” He exhales and something shifts. “Grief changes everything. Even the strongest of us can lose our footing,” he adds, and I realize he means this. It might be the first true thing I’ve ever heard him say.
I don’t trust myself to speak. But my throat aches with the effort of holding in everything I wish I could say. I’ve spent too many days locked in a room too silent, haunted by everything I’ve lost and everything I don’t want to lose.
He walks deeper into his lab, touching some of the unfamiliar Heartfillers on the tables. Then he pauses, gesturing for me to follow. I do, unsure what happens if I disobey a direct request right here, alone, where no one could hear me scream.
The room opens up around us, far larger than I noticed at first. There are more tables, more colorful crystals in glass, bubbling like milk over tall flames.
“What are those?” The question slips before I can draw it back. His mouth spreads in a wide smile.
“I wondered if you were curious. I don’t usually allow anyone in here.
I used to bring Caelus in as a boy. But he doesn’t have much time for games with his father these days.
” He chuckles a deep belly laugh that’s as short as it is surprising, like he’s shown a part of himself he didn’t mean to.
“They’re Heartfillers. Not the approved ones for the districts.
” He removes one of the bubbling glass canisters from its hooks on the wall.
“These I boil into liquids.” He grabs a glass bottle, like the ones on the tray in my room. “To turn into—”
“Scents?” I drift closer to one of the side tables.
Scents are Heartfillers in liquid form? But Scents are freely used by the Skyborn.
I skim their labels, which are written in a looping script.
There are some varieties I didn’t see in my room: Mother’s Voice, Unloving, Devotion, Fearless.
I step back, staring at the mirrored trays holding tiny glass vials—delicate, elegant, almost beautiful. And wrong.
More ways to twist Skyborn feelings.
More ways to have control.
More proof the highborn are in their own cage—a gilded one.
“Yes,” he says. “Not mandated, of course. Skyborn enjoy their freedoms here.”
Freedom. An odd choice of word. The Skyborn aren’t free. They don’t have a choice either. Heartfillers—in Scent form—are pushed on them at every given chance like a crutch, designed to become an itch they need to scratch. I don’t understand why he brought me here.
“I made this for you,” he says, right behind me. I jump. I didn’t even hear him move.
He holds a small box with my name on it. Its top is tied with a white ribbon, and in the bow is an oyster pearl that you can only find in the Dockers Row side of the Saltblood district, shining iridescent.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Open it.” He holds it out to me. I hesitate but take it.
Inside is a Heartfiller like none I’ve ever seen. A deep sea blue, flecked with shimmering white. It pulses softly, like breath held underwater.
“I thought something more…personal might help.” His voice is measured, warm, kind. It makes me shift on my feet. “I had it crafted with water from the stream beneath your orphanage. I thought it might bring you peace.”
I freeze. How does he know that detail about me? The stream was a sound I clung to in the dark. I used to fall asleep to it. It was mine. I’m not sure if I feel exposed or seen.
“And a few strands of your hair,” he adds. “Collected by your maid from your robes. Some say grief can cling to what we shed. I don’t know if that’s true, but the more of you the Heartfiller has, the more it can help.”
I stare at the strange Heartfiller. “This is why you called me here? To give me this?”
“Yes. I’ve been working on it nonstop for a couple of days.”
I curl my fingers around the glass. It’s smooth and heavy.
I’ve never received something made just for me by a stranger with my feelings in mind.
Something that knows where I came from. It’s devastating.
And worse—it’s almost…comforting. It shouldn’t feel like a kindness.
Not from him, the man who starves the districts with barely filled ration trucks.
But a part of me wants to hold it close, press it to my chest, and let it swallow the ache that’s been gnawing at me for days. Anything to make the pain go away.
“How would it make me feel?”
He smiles faintly. “Like you’re safe,” he says.
“Like the parts of home that you visit in your dreams. The rush of waves over the feet. Sand between the toes. It has the best mixes of a few fillers, including the memory one. I’ve been working with that one a lot lately, trying to get it just right. ”
He speaks like a craftsman, not a ruler.
“And a happy surprise is that we can put some of the best feelings you’ve ever had inside this so you can feel them again.
” He lifts it from the box and places it into my bare hand.
It’s warm now. Or maybe that’s just me. The scent drifts up before I even raise it to my face—salt and rosemary, warm stone, and a sweet undertone like lemon bread with wild blueberries.
“It’s just terrible that you were grieving so. I really do hope this helps.”
A lump catches in my throat. I let myself imagine what it might be like to feel the way he promises.
To stop aching. To stop waking in the night with the memory of Orrick’s and Lira’s bodies, the spear going through Finn, Ronan’s last words.
Anything to stop seeing my father’s face as he kissed my mother before she was rolled off the cliff into the sea.
And Serafina. The worry. The fear. Missing Caelus.
My knees feel weak. And in my hand…it’s not escape.
But relief.
I want to hurl it across the room. I want to curl around it and never let go. I want to breathe it in and let it quiet everything I can’t carry anymore. I return it to the box, my hand shaking, barely able to let go.
“I don’t want it,” I say, but it comes out a whisper.
His face flickers with shadow. Then he smiles, wider this time, and tiny creases form around his eyes. “Grief is patient, Axira. You will take it with you at least. When you’re ready, it will be there.”
I swallow, wanting to refuse. But his expression leaves no room for argument. “Is that all?” I ask.
“It is. You may go. Thanks for coming to visit. It was nice to have some company in here.”
I turn to leave.
“You’re getting close to my son,” he says casually, as if commenting on the weather.
I halt, my heart pounding, but I don’t look back.
I don’t trust what my face would give away.
“He’s charming,” the Benevolent continues.
“I understand the appeal. But don’t mistake his warmth for safety, Axira. You are too smart for that.”
The door opens for me, where Dreth is waiting, just as silent as before. I stride through it, back straight, but the weight of the Heartfiller in my hands is louder than anything I’ve ever carried. Heavy, like a question I still haven’t answered.
When I’m locked back in my room, I’m flooded with the weight of the last few days all over again. If that’s the Benevolent everyone sees, I can see why so many crave what he offers.
I set the custom Heartfiller box in the waste bin.
Then I pull it out and put it on the vanity.
Before I fall asleep, I move it to my bedside, disgusted with myself.