Aveline glanced sideways at Aelion.
The wind moved through the corridor and stirred his long silver hair, lifting the pale strands around his face like threads of moonlight. For one fleeting mont, he looked less like a dangerous nobleman and more like a lonely boy carrying wounds far too heavy for soone his age.
"You really hate them," she said quietly.
Aelion’s expression stilled. Then his lips curved into a smile that never reached his eyes.
"Shouldn’t I?" he asked softly.
His jaw tightened as he looked away from her, as though the effort of holding himself together had suddenly beco exhausting.
"If I had the power to do it," he continued, his voice lower now, steadier in a way that felt far more frightening, "I would kill every last one of them."
The words did not sound dramatic. That was what made them terrifying. There was no madness in his tone. No shouting. No reckless rage. Only certainty.
"My father, who murdered my mother just to take away from her," he said. "The nobles who called it justice because it didn’t matter what my mother went through... The King, who heard my pleas and chose silence because protecting people like us was inconvenient."
A bitter laugh escaped him then, hollow and sharp.
"All of them."
His hands curled tightly at his sides, the veins in his fingers faintly visible beneath pale skin.
"I want every misery this world can offer to fall upon them," he said. "I want them to feel even a fraction of what they forced upon us."
Aveline watched him silently.
The rage inside him twisted across his beautiful face until he barely looked like himself anymore. The elegance and composure he usually carried had cracked apart, exposing sothing dark and wounded underneath.
And yet...
She could not bring herself to say he was wrong.
Because the mont he spoke of murdered mothers and indifferent kings, her own heart twisted painfully.
What would she do if she ever found the people who killed her parents? What would she do if she stood before those responsible for everything that ca after?
The hunger... The bruises... The loneliness...The years of fear...
Would she forgive them?
No.
Her fingers slowly curled into fists at her sides. Perhaps she, too, would want blood.
Aelion suddenly seed to realize how much he had revealed.
He swallowed hard and blinked away the faint sheen gathering in his eyes before she could properly see it. Almost imdiately, he straightened, fixing his torn sleeves and smoothing his clothes with sharp, practiced motions, as though he could hide his vulnerability by restoring order to his appearance.
"You should get back to class," he said quickly.
And then he walked away.
Aveline watched him go, sensing the self-disgust in the rigidity of his shoulders. He hated himself for speaking too much. for allowing soone to see the ugliness inside him.
But after taking a few steps, he stopped.
For a brief mont, the wind carried the scent of wildflowers from the woods surrounding the Arcanum, softening the silence between them.
"And be careful," he said quietly without turning around.
Not once did he look back at her.
Aveline stood there watching him fix his long silver hair as he disappeared farther down the corridor, his figure slowly swallowed by sunlight and shadow.
And despite everything she had just heard—the hatred, the violence, the darkness curling inside him—a small smile still ford on her lips.
Because for soone who carried that much anger in his heart... Aelion was not a bad person.
-----
anwhile, deep within the Royal Palace, the throne room stood in all the suffocating grandeur of Greenvale’s power.
Towering marble pillars stretched toward the vaulted ceiling, their surfaces carved with ancient scenes of conquest, dragons, celestial beasts, and kings crowned beneath blazing suns. Golden vines curled around the pillars like living things, shimring faintly beneath the glow of magic-infused crystals embedded into the stone.
Massive tapestries hung between the columns, heavy with embroidery woven from gold thread and dyed silks so rich in color they seed almost alive. So depicted the founding of Greenvale. Others portrayed victorious wars, royal marriages, and ancient bloodlines blessed by elental power.
Above it all hung an enormous crystalline chandelier suspended from the ceiling like a fallen constellation.
The countless crystals embedded within it glowed softly with stored aether, casting pale rivers of light across the polished black floor beneath. Every flicker reflected endlessly upon the marble, making the throne room appear both magnificent and cold.
Guards lined the hall in perfect formation, their silver armor gleaming beneath the chandelier’s light. Not a single one moved. They stood like statues carved from steel, hands resting over ceremonial swords.
At the very end of the hall, elevated upon layers of white marble steps, sat the throne of Greenvale.
It was forged of gold and pale crystal, ancient runes glowing faintly along its edges. Jagged crystal formations rose behind it like frozen light, giving the throne an almost divine appearance, as though no ordinary man should have been permitted to sit upon it.
And upon that throne sat the King.
The heavy robes draped around his shoulders made him appear larger than life, though the exhaustion beneath his eyes could not be entirely concealed. One hand rested against the armrest of the throne while the other remained still upon his lap, fingers faintly tense despite the calm expression he wore.
Before him stood ministers, nobles, military advisors, and court officials with bowed heads; the atmosphere in the chamber was unusually celebratory.
The massive doors of the throne room opened.
Every gaze shifted instantly.
Theron entered the hall.
The sound of his boots echoed sharply across the polished floor as he walked forward beneath the towering pillars. His dark cloak flowed behind him with asured elegance, the silver embroidery along its edges catching the crystalline light overhead.
He looked composed.
Untouchable.
Yet there was a coldness around him now that had not existed before.
Kael followed several steps behind with his head slightly bowed, maintaining the perfect decorum expected of the Crown Prince’s shadow guard.
The ministers lowered their heads deeper as the Crown Prince approached the throne.
The King watched his son descend into the center of the hall, and for one unbearable mont, guilt twisted sharply inside his chest.
Because Theron looked at him without hatred or fury now. Without that fierce, desperate protectiveness that had nearly torn the chamber apart earlier, he looked unbearably calm.
Empty.
And that emptiness was sohow more frightening than anger.
The King swallowed the ache it stirred in him, telling himself he had found a way to bring back his son’s joy. He had done what was necessary. He had pulled Theron back from the edge of sothing dangerous. From grief. From obsession. From a bond that should never have been allowed to take root so deeply.
And yet, as the Crown Prince stepped into the throne room, the silence around him felt wrong.
Theron’s gaze passed over the kneeling ministers, the glittering pillars, the crystal chandelier above, and then settled on Alaric standing on the steps leading up to the throne. He did not look pleased. In fact, there was a stiffness to him, a tension in the line of his shoulders that suggested he was bracing himself for sothing he did not want to endure.
Then he felt her before he fully turned.
A presence ca to his side.
Rosalyn Caelvaris.
His fiancée.
Theron’s eyes shifted toward her as she stepped up beside him, her movents composed and graceful, her presence polished to the exact degree expected of a woman who had been raised to stand at the side of a future king.
Her hand rose toward his, fingers poised in quiet assurance, as if the simplest touch between them should be enough to seal whatever the court wished to believe.
Theron looked at that hand.
Then at her face.
There was no gentleness or warmth in his expression, and no happiness to see her after a long ti.
Only a cool, unreadable stillness, as everyone eagerly waited for him to accept her hand.
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