His expression didn’t change, but his stance eased, like something in him recognized my resolve. He cleared his throat. “What do you fear Aeryn’s done?”
I closed my eyes. “Aeryn’s always been strong. Kind. Steady. But inside…” My voice faltered. “He fights his mind. The darkness there doesn’t whisper, it shouts. And when it takes hold, it’s hard to pull him back.”
I met Malachi’s gaze. “The leaders of Synnex call people like Aeryn necrotic. Doomed. They think minds like his sit too close to death to ever be trusted.”
Malachi’s jaw worked.
“If I don’t get back soon,” I said, voice thin, “he might slip too far. And I won’t be there to stop it.”
“Listen to me,” Malachi said, voice even. “You didn’t ask for this. But that doesn’t mean it will destroy you.”
I looked into his eyes. “And what if it does?”
He didn’t flinch. “Then I’ll be there to pull you back.”
His gaze flicked to the window, then back to me with a smirk. “And Little Dove,” he added, “there are locks on the door if you need privacy.”
He left before I could speak again—duty and distance closing behind him like armor. For the first time since waking, I was alone enough for dread to find me.
I let out a shaky breath only once the door closed. For a moment, I just stood there. Staring at the empty space he’d left behind. Then came the sudden, absurd impulse to call him back. To ask him to stay. To explain myself—though gods knew I didn’t even understand what I would’ve said.
I clenched my fists instead. No. Not now. Not like this.
I had kissed before. Touched. Let my hands explore beneath layers of linen and skin. But never the act itself. Never the full giving over. I had always assumed I would choose it—quietly, on my own terms. And if I was being honest, some part of me had always imagined it would be Hayat. Not because we’d ever spoken of it, or even danced around the edge of something more. But because he was safe. Trusted. Mine. I’d thought, perhaps one day, we would lie side by side beneath the stars and decide together—to be each other’s first, if only to remove the uncertainty.
No awkward fumbling. No weight of expectation. Just two friends making a strange, sacred thing less terrifying.
But now?
Now there was fire under my skin. A hunger I hadn’t asked for, couldn’t explain. It wasn’t gentle, and it wasn’t planned. It had a name, and it wasn’t Hayat’s.
37
Aurelia
The mirror caughtmy reflection in soft fragments. I stood still before it. My fingers lingered on the edge of the new leathers Malachi had brought me—charcoal-black, stitched with runes that hummed faintly against my skin.
The fabric wasn’t like the stiff, armor-grade leather I’d worn when I arrived. This moved with me, molding to my limbs, hugging the curves of my hips and waist. I twisted at the waist, flexed my arms, dropped into a crouch. Not a sound. Gods, what I would’ve given to climb the Synnex cliffs in these.
They would’ve made the shale feel like sand. I could almost smell the salt-laced wind again—almost feel the ache in my thighs from the final stretch, almost hear Aeryn’s voice daring me not to look down as he sat at the edge, watching me.
My throat tightened.
I forced my shoulders back and looked at myself properly.
I looked sharper than I felt—every inch honed, alive, and unreadable. But under the surface, a thousand questions kept breathing.
What was I now? What was I becoming?
My muscles thrummed with a strength that didn’t feel mine, but every step still dragged as though I’d borrowed the weight of stone.
There were still echoes of who I used to be in the set of my jaw, the narrowing of my eyes, the stubborn tilt of my chin, but they were stitched together with something foreign now. Like I was a story mid-rewrite, and no one had decided the ending.
A knock pulled me from my thoughts. Light. Hesitant. Still, it felt like a signal, like the sound itself was telling me: time’s run out.
A shuffle in my wardrobe snapped me back to reality.
“I truly can prepare myself, Malachi,” I said as I exited the bathing chamber. I hadn’t even heard the door open—only felt a sudden shift in the room.