20. Thyros
Naeris had avoided me for three days. Three miserable, interminable days. Not that I blamed her.
The first time we kissed, I had all but devoured her against the wall like a male who had lost every shred of discipline.
This last time hadn't been much better. After she left, all I wanted was to run after her and tell her I loved her.
A confession I had carried in silence for far too long.
But I knew that it was too soon. I would have thrust the words at her as though she were somehow expected to know what to do with them.
She was human.
Worse, she had been raised by the Sythari.
The thought sent a familiar surge of rage through me.
I tightened my grip on the edge of the table until the metal groaned in protest. The Sythari had taken a female who should have been cherished and tried to reduce her to a vessel.
A breeding prize. A body to be traded to the highest bidder.
A womb to produce more daughters, only to watch those children be torn from her arms and molded into the same cruel system that had shaped her.
The image hit me with such force that my vision darkened.
Fuck.
I wanted to burn their temples to ash.
Naeris was many things. Brilliant. Defiant. Sharp-tongued and stubborn enough to challenge me at every opportunity. Compassionate in ways she did not even recognize. Beautiful enough to bring an ancient warrior to his knees. But above all, she was a female of extraordinary worth.
She was not an ornament. Not a broodmare. Not a commodity to be bought and sold.
She was the living counterpart to my soul.
My Aelyth.
The one being in all creation who made me believe that perhaps I was not irredeemably broken. The notion that anyone had ever treated her as less than sacred made my blood boil.
I might never be worthy of her.
That truth had haunted me from the moment the bond awakened.
Naeris was light and fire and unbreakable will.
She was everything the cosmos had ever created that was fierce and beautiful and good.
I was the male born in the Abyss, marked by darkness, forged from shadows I still did not fully understand.
But worthy or not no longer mattered matter.
By the stars. By the seven suns. By the endless darkness that had birthed me.
She was mine.
Not as a possession.
Not as a conquest.
But as the other half of my soul. The female written into my very existence. The only being in all creation who could look at the worst parts of me and still choose to stay. And I was prepared to do anything—anything—to become the male she deserved.
I would tear down empires.
I would burn worlds.
I would walk back into Nox Eternum itself and face every horror the Harrowed One could unleash.
I would rip the darkness out of my own soul with my bare hands if that was what it took.
Because if the cosmos granted me the impossible gift of Naeris, then I would spend the rest of eternity proving that even a creature born of the Abyss could become worthy of the light.
I forced myself to inhale slowly.
Naeris needed space.
She had not grown up hearing stories of the Aelyth bond.
She had not spent her life knowing that somewhere in the cosmos, a soul existed who was meant to complete her.
She had been taught to distrust destiny.
To question affection. To believe that desire was a tool others used to control her.
Of course she was frightened. Of course she needed time to decide whether what she felt for me belonged to her or to the bond.
The rational part of me understood all of that.
The rest of me wanted to tear through this ship, drag her into my arms, and kiss her until she forgot every lie she had ever been told. Instead, I waited.
Badly.
I caught fleeting glimpses of her in corridors and common rooms, every sighting both torture and reassurance. She was safe. She was thinking. She had not rejected me.
The golden thread between us remained warm and unbroken. Sometimes I felt her confusion. Sometimes her desire. Sometimes, a fierce yearning so potent it brought me to the brink of madness.
Way beneath it all, there was affection, growing stronger by the hour.
She loved me.
I was almost certain of it.
The realization left me equal parts awed and terrified.
If she chose me—truly chose me, not because of prophecy or destiny but because she wanted the male I was—then I would spend the rest of my existence making sure she'd never regret that choice.
As soon as this crisis was over, when the Vessel was recovered, and the Harrowed One had been driven back into the darkness, I would keep another promise.
I would cross to the farthest reaches of the universe if necessary.
I would find the Sythari worlds. I would hunt down every priest, every noble, every sanctimonious bastard who had profited from the suffering of females like Naeris.
Then I would dismantle their empire piece by piece—not in blind rage, though there would be plenty of that—but in justice.
We would find the rebels. We would free the descendants of the Arkhevari who had been hidden and exploited for countless generations. And we would show them the truth of who they were. No female born of Ashera’s bloodline would ever again be treated as a commodity. Not while I drew breath.
A pulse of warmth flared through the bond, soft and unmistakable: Naeris.
Hope surged through me so swiftly it nearly brought me to my knees.
Whatever happened next, whatever truths awaited us in Nox Eternum, one certainty burned brighter than all the others: I had found my Aelyth.
And I would spend the rest of eternity protecting her.
I felt her before I saw her. The golden thread between us, which had tormented me for three endless days, suddenly flared to brilliant life.
Warmth rushed through my chest, followed by a surge of anticipation so fierce it nearly brought me to my knees.
She was coming to me. A savage satisfaction unfurled inside me.
Mine.
The thought rose instinctively, as natural as breathing. The female who had haunted my thoughts and invaded every corner of my existence was walking toward me of her own accord.
I straightened from where I stood in the corridor outside my quarters, my pulse thundered, every nerve was alive with awareness. My aura flared in response, filling the narrow passage with molten gold.
Then the mark on my back moved.
I froze.
A ripple of darkness slithered beneath my skin, spreading like ink through water. The familiar sensation—cold, invasive, wrong—sent a spike of revulsion through me.
“No,” I muttered.
My hands clenched at my sides. The flaw had no place here. Not now. Not when Naeris was finally coming to me. The darkness writhed again, stronger this time, as if something deep within it had awakened. Then a voice slid through my mind. Turn to me, my son.
Ice flooded my veins. I recoiled as though struck. What the fuck? The whisper was unmistakable.
Silken.
Ancient.
Hungry.
Nhal’Vareth.
I had heard the Harrowed One before, in moments of weakness, in the silent reaches of Nox Eternum. But never like this. Never this clearly. Never this close.
You feel her, the voice crooned. At last, she comes to you.
My breathing turned ragged.
"Get out of my head."
She is not worthy of you. The darkness on my back pulsed. She will betray you.
“No.”
The word tore from my throat. I pressed my palms against the wall, fighting for control. The golden thread strained, blazing brighter. She fears you, the Harrowed One whispered. She will abandon you, as all others will.
My vision darkened at the edges.
Kill her.
The command struck like a physical blow.
Kill her now.
Rage exploded inside me.
Not at Naeris. At the voice. At the creature that dared to poison the one pure thing in my existence. I bared my teeth. I would sooner rip out my own heart. The corridor blurred. The mark burned like liquid fire. Footsteps rounded the corner.
Naeris.
She came to an abrupt halt.
Her eyes widened. “Thyros.”
I lifted my head. The terror on her face nearly destroyed me. Not fear of me. Fear for me.
The Harrowed One hissed in fury.
Do it. Kill her.
My body trembled with the effort of holding myself together.
“Stay back,” I ground out.
Naeris took one look at me and did the exact opposite.
She stepped forward. Her expression changed.
Shock flickered across her features. Her hand flew to her temple.
And suddenly, impossibly, I felt her inside my mind.
Not as an intruder. As light. As warmth.
As the steady, indomitable presence that had become the axis of my world.
Get away from him.
Her voice rang through my consciousness with such force that the corridor seemed to vibrate. The darkness recoiled.
He is mine, Naeris voice was fierce and full of control. You do not get to touch him.
Power surged through the bond. The golden thread transformed into a blazing current, wrapping around the black tendrils in my mind and burning them away.
The Harrowed One shrieked. This changes nothing. But his voice fractured.
You cannot keep him from?—
"Get out." Naeris’ mental command cracked like a whip.
For one suspended heartbeat, silence reigned. I roared and pushed against the Harrowed One. Without warning, the presence vanished. The darkness on my back went still. Air rushed into my lungs. I sagged against the wall, sweat dripping down my body.
Naeris reached me a second later, and her hands framed my face with trembling urgency. “Thyros.”
My name on her lips was ragged with fear. That her fear was for me nearly undid me. The darkness still hissed at the edges of my thoughts. My entire body shook with the effort of holding it back, of keeping every violent impulse chained where it belonged.
“Get away from me,” I ground out, each word torn from between clenched teeth. “I cannot?—”