Theron followed her voice until the darkness finally gave way.
He stepped into a clearing so vivid that it felt almost unreal after the dead blackness of the forest. The change was so sudden it made him pause in place.
Everything here was bright, touched with color and life. Wildflowers spread across the ground in soft, untad clusters, their fragrance drifting through the air with the sweetness of a place untouched by fear.
The breeze moved gently through the leaves overhead, and the rustle of the branches blended with the clear song of birds and the faint, harmonious hum of the world itself. The sunlight was warm and steady, spilling across the adow in golden abundance, and butterflies floated lazily from flower to flower as though nothing had ever been broken in this place.
For a mont, he simply stood there and breathed it in.
Then he saw her.
Aveline was there, lying on the grass with an ease that made her look as though she belonged to the clearing more than anyone else ever could. She was not tense. She was not guarded. She was simply there, quiet and unafraid, as if the world had finally beco gentle enough to hold her without asking her to defend herself.
He sat beside Aveline, who then started talking as naturally as breathing, her voice flowing through the bright air with a liveliness that made the whole scene feel warr still.
She was speaking about the training Lucien had been giving her, her words animated with the odd mixture of annoyance and fascination she seed to reserve for learning sothing new. Then she ntioned a new friend nad Lydia, and another na, Hamilton, which sounded so much like a pet that he could not help but think of it that way too.
She spoke with the easy familiarity of soone recounting the ordinary details of her day, and in that simple, unguarded rhythm, there was sothing almost painfully intimate.
She never once ntioned Aelion.
Theron sat there and watched her face as she talked, drawn in by the movent of her mouth, the brightness in her expression, the way her crystal-blue eyes caught the light whenever she glanced his way.
Her golden hair stirred with the wind, a soft shimr of pale gold that seed to dance around her like sothing alive. Everything about her looked beautiful in the strange, effortless way that made beauty feel less like an appearance and more like a presence.
It seed to gather around her, around the way she smiled, the way she spoke, the way she looked, without ever seeming to know how much she affected the space around her.
Beautiful.
Everything about her was beautiful.
And then, as he watched, sothing dark stirred at the edge of the clearing.
At first, it was only a shadow, distant and indistinct, almost easy to ignore. But it kept growing, slowly spreading and deepening until it began to swallow the brightness around it. The flowers seed dimr. The wind seed thinner. The warmth of the sun felt strained as that darkness advanced, inch by inch, toward the light.
Theron’s breath caught.
Then he woke with a sharp gasp.
The room rushed back into focus around him, and with it ca the startling realization that he was not alone. Aveline was still curled beside him, asleep and peaceful in a way that made her look almost impossibly soft. The sight of her should have steadied him, but instead it made him register, all at once, exactly how close they were.
His arm was around her.
His hand was resting against her breast.
Theron froze.
His heart slamd so hard it felt as though it might tear free of his chest. In a rush of mortified clarity, he snatched his hand away as if burned, every muscle in his body going rigid with stunned embarrassnt.
Then he felt it.
His father.
The awareness struck him so suddenly that the room seed to sharpen around it.
Outside, the sky was beginning to brighten with the first pale signs of dawn, and yet the king was here, at the Arcanum, at this hour, near the girls’ dormitory. The realization sent a cold, imdiate pulse of alarm through him.
Unless...
Theron’s eyes moved to Aveline.
She was still sleeping soundly, her face calm and serene, a faint smile lingering at her lips as though even in sleep she had found no reason to fear the world around her. The softness of that expression made his chest tighten in a way he could not have nad.
For one instinctive mont, he wanted to throw an Aurelion veil over the window and hide them both from sight.
But that would only make it obvious.
His father would know at once that he was here.
So, Theron rose instead and went to the window.
He stood there, silent and motionless, hidden behind the curtain as he watched the king below.
The king remained in place for a long mont, staring up at the window as though he were weighing sothing he had not yet decided to na. The stillness of his figure was sohow more unsettling than movent would have been. It suggested intention. It suggested patience. It suggested that he was not rely passing by, but had co here for a reason.
Theron’s heart thudded painfully.
He tried to think, to plan, to decide whether he should stay where he was or find so other way to leave without being seen. Every instinct in him tightened at once. He wanted to know whether his father had co for him, or for her. He wanted to know whether this was a search or a warning or sothing far worse.
And just as he was about to turn away from the window, sothing heavy latched itself around his legs.
Theron looked down sharply, his eyes narrowing in the half-light.
For a second, he could not make sense of what he was seeing. The creature clung low to the floor, just above his knees in height, and in the dimness, it almost resembled a lizard. But the resemblance ended there. He could feel its presence before he understood it, a dense, unnatural force that did not belong in a room like this. This was no harmless animal. It was one of those things. One of the monsters.
His expression sharpened at once.
Why was it here?
Had it co to hurt her?
The thought struck him with such sudden violence that his body moved before his mind fully caught up. His fingers lifted and began to trace a rune in the air, the pattern precise and lethal, shaped from instinct and alarm alike. If the creature ant to harm her, then it would not be allowed the chance.
The rune took form at once, glowing with dangerous clarity in the dim room.
Theron’s gaze fixed on the thing at his feet, cold and intent.
And then he struck.
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