“And fear,” I whispered.
She gave a small smile. “And fear. But what we do with that fear shapes what follows.”
I let the silence stretch before speaking again.
“Malachi mentioned the lover’s vein. Said it wasn’t just blood.That it was… a bond.” My fingers brushed my wrist as if the vein burned there already. “What kind of bond?”
Lysara rolled onto her back, gaze tracing the canvas above. “The lover’s vein runs from wrist to heart, yes. But its power isn’t only in the body. Any turning creates a tether, but this vein deepens it. Makes the mind more open. More… porous. If you’re unguarded, he can slip through. See what you see. Feel what you feel. Hear what you think.”
A coldness shivered down my spine. “So there’s no escape from it.”
“In a way, there is.” Her voice was gentle but firm. “You can close those doors. People think thoughts are helpless things—they aren’t. You can veil them. Direct them. Guard your mind as surely as you guard your breath. The bond may tempt. It may press. But it cannot take what you do not give.”
I turned onto my back, too, staring upward. The words settled heavy, but not hopeless. “Then I’ll figure it out.”
“You will.” Her hand brushed mine briefly, an anchor of warmth. “Not because you already have the answers, but because you know how to seek them.”
“So,” I murmured, trying to change the subject, “what’s with you and Santi? He seems to gravitate to you.”
Lysara’s lips curled into a smile. “I suppose there’s no hiding it anymore.”
She laughed quietly, then turned her gaze back to the canvas above. “At first I thought it was foolishness,” she said. “But there was something about him—how he found joy in a place that should’ve drowned him. I’d carried too much darkness. He reminded me it didn’t all have to be mine.”
I raised a brow.
“For a time, I took care of the people in the cells. I soon came to look forward to that part of my day. Santiago fascinated me,”she admitted. “Not because he was caged, but because he never let it cage him. That fierceness he has? I’ve come to learn that is his justice. That his soul won’t tolerate cruelty, not even his own. He can heal, destroy, protect. Kaerani’s passion burns bright within him. And somehow, he turned it toward me.”
I stared at her for a long moment. Then said the words I’d kept buried. “I know him.”
She stilled.
“I’ve known him since he was a boy. I remember the first time I saw him… He was there, Lysara. At the execution.”
A pause. Then a whisper. “I know.”
I looked down, fingers tightening around the edge of my blanket.
“We weren’t sure if you recognized him,” she said gently. “If maybe you forgot, or blocked it out.”
“I didn’t forget,” I said. “I remember every face. Every name. The ones who threw the rope. The ones who held me down. The ones who laughed. And the ones who only watched.”
I swallowed. “Tomas Berreth. Fira of the Gold Court. Captain Wren. Ellyn Voss. Alder Wrent. Priestess Maelle. And yes—Draven Navarro. Santiago’s father.” The names tasted like ash on my tongue. “But I wanted to see what kind of man he became. Sometimes good people get swept into bad things. Sometimes, they suffer for the sins of those who came before.”
“There’s a grace in you, Aurelia. And a fire. The kind that builds—not burns. The kind that belongs to a queen.”
I laughed once. Not bitter. Not quite amused either.
“I’m no queen,” I said. “Just someone very tired of being told what I should or shouldn’t be. How I should feel. What I should believe.”
In the quiet, I felt something settle in my chest. Not peace, exactly. But clarity. Lysara drifted off, her breaths soft and even.
She’d fallen asleep with such ease after our talk, her confession about Santiago coloring the dark with an unexpected warmth. A hidden love bloomed in the shadow of prison walls. And she had chosen it freely.
It stirred something in me. Not envy—I was happy for them. This was an ache. Because while their bond was chosen, mine would not be. My hand still curled between us, where hers had briefly held it. I held on as if the echo of her touch might remind me that some doors could still be mine to close.
The halls of the old castle stretched before me—only not as they had been. No dust. No ruin. Just bone-white walls and floors that gleamed like frozen glass. There was no echo to my steps. No warmth to the air. Just that still, awful quiet that makes you feel like prey.
A hallway of doors bearing marks I did not recognize stretched before me. I bit the inside of my cheek—no pain. A dream.