Cael with guards started to walk to his place.
He moved through the halls with his heavy uneven steps. His head was unsettled—his thoughts frayed, unraveling at the edges as he searched, almost unconsciously, for traces of her.
A lingering scent, a shadow where she might have stood, the faintest whisper of her presence in the air. He found none. And yet, his gaze flickered toward every corridor, every exit, as if she might appear.
He wanted to stay awake, wait longer but his weak body betrayed him to silence.
When Cael opened his eyes, he thought he had died.
The light was soft.
The pain was distant, like a fevered memory slowly retreating into the fog.
And then—
"Cael," said a voice, familiar and impossibly gentle.
He turned his head slightly.
It was her.
His mother.
Aging, yes—but strong. Her hands were weathered, her eyes damp with emotion, but her touch steady as she carefully pressed cool salve onto his burns.
He blinked. "Mother...?"
"Shh," she whispered, brushing his hair from his damp forehead. "You'll make the wounds worse."
He tried to sit. Pain lanced through him like lightning. "But… how…?"
Before she could answer, the chamber door creaked open.
Boots. The rustle of silk. The sound of something always just short of compassion.
Velastra.
Her gaze flicked over him, unreadable as ever, but her eyes paused on his mother—not cold, not warm. Simply. Respectful.
"As a reward for surviving the fire," she said, tone clipped, "your mother will stay here and these new servants and guards."
Then, without waiting for thanks or tears, she turned and walked out, her cloak sweeping behind her like a curtain drawn over some hidden truth.
And with her exit, silence bloomed.
Cael stared at the door long after it closed. It was only when he felt fingers gently squeezing his that the pressure in his chest finally broke.
He cried.
Silently at first. Then not.
Not from pain.
Not from Velastra's whips, her biting words, or the long years of humiliation.
But because she—his mother—was here. Safe. Whole.
And somehow…
Unharmed.
He gasped between sobs. "You're… alright?"
His mother nodded, tears in her own eyes. "I was given a small place near the gardens. Servants. Books. I was treated fairly."
He looked at her, stunned. "By… Everyone?"
She nodded again.
"They never spoke to us harshly nor avoid us. There were rules. Strict ones. No one touched the women or children even the men from our lands—not once. They fear her highness, as among us, her assassins scatter- she never failed to protect us."
Cael's throat tightened. "I knew."
He stopped.
Because he had endured thirty years of blood and obeyed in peace as he had witnessed it, it was once but certain. Velastra, the only one in the court who stand to stop the king into making his people servants. She never stripped them of their rights and entity. Her father, the king, feared rebellion and him awakening his poisoned meridian, ordered him dead. However, Velastra offered to marry him, and break his strength and power for eternity through the oath arcana and blood binding unity.
Thirty years of being chained, lashed, broken, used.
And in that moment, the truth carved itself into his ribs.
It was only ever him.
Her cruelty had not been mindless.
It had been focused. Contained.
Punishment, perhaps.
Justice, in her mind.
But it had never spilled beyond him.
And in that quiet chamber, pain became something else.
Not just sorrow.
Not regret.
But the faint, terrifying sting of something too dangerous to name—
Hope and desire to be treated with her gentleness.
---
Velastra stood beneath the covered balcony at the far end of the west wing, shrouded in dusk and stone.
From where she leaned, beyond the patterned lattice of carved wood, she could just make out the flicker of candlelight spilling from his chamber window.
They were speaking softly.
Cael and his mother.
She couldn't hear the words. She didn't need to.
She had stationed guards far enough away to avoid suspicion, but close enough to report if anything—unexpected—occurred.
She watches hoping he is happy.
"Your highness, he is crying." A man from the shadow spoke.
Velastra's fingers dug into the railing.
'So, he still knows how to cry.
Thirty years of silence. Thirty years of obedience of chains, of bleeding when told—and he had never once wept for himself.'
Velastra turned away, a shadow curling at the edge of her lips—not quite a smile.
---
Velastra had not returned to his place.
Not for days. Not for months.
Not since that night she sent his mother. Not since her lips—bloody and bruised—last claimed his. Not since her words, dark and cruel, branded themselves behind his eyes.
He was recovering. Slowly. Faster than the physicians expected. But he hated every day she did not come.
It was unnatural, the ache. Worse than pain. Worse than her lash.
Because now he started to seek her gentle attention.
And it terrified him.
He no longer bore chains, yet their absence did not grant freedom.
The east wing had changed—his mother's presence, the new servants, the flush of color where once there had only been cold stone. Even the guards, who had once sneered, now averted their gaze, as he is now the master.
He could step beyond the palace walls. He could walk out, unchallenged, unbound. But he did not want to.
It was the way her absence changed the air itself.
His place—once an arena of punishment—felt hollow. The torchlight too soft. The bed too cold. The food untouched. His body healed but restless. His fingers twitched where chains once pressed.
'Why does it feel worse now than when she tortures me?'
He dreamt of her. At night. In the quiet. And when he woke, he sometimes found his hands clenched, nails bleeding into palms.
And then…
He bit his own lip again.
Not by command.
But because the silence was unbearable.
Because her teeth always found that spot.
Because it felt like hers.
And he didn't know what that meant anymore.
---
Two hundred miles south of the capital, the wind carried dust and sickness across the borderlands.
The famine had made the air thin, brittle. The peasants had no food, no shelter, barely enough to bury the dead. Then, the royal envoy arrived, dressed in imperial black, Velastra stepped out, not in silks, but in simple field gear—hood down, sleeves rolled, dirt already on her gloves.
The king had sent her to "stabilize the edge," as her name alone would strike obedience.
She distributed Vaelgrains-a staple crop with a faint, silver sheen, that restores strength swiftly- only for royals but now for everyone needing it.
She pulled her blade on corrupt gem collectors and burned forged ledgers in the square.
She did it efficiently, with no show of pity.
But the people whispered.
"She brings no kindness in her voice… but in her orders, we eat."
And still, she did not smile.
Until that night.
Returning to her private tent, mud crusted at her boots, wind still howling outside, she finally let herself be still.
And there it was again.
The thought.
The hunger.
Not for power. Not for blood.
But for him.
The image of Cael—bound or unbound, obedient or burning—lingered in her head like a fevered perfume. She laid back on her cot, staring at the canvas roof as if it held answers, and slowly, almost involuntarily…
She bit her lip.
Same spot.
Blood bloomed softly under her teeth.
She smiled.
"Mm. Addicting," she murmured, voice laced with velvet mischief.