My final words hung in the air of the command center, a direct and undeniable challenge. "Because I was never in distress." I saw a flicker of something in Rhyian's eyes—a grudging respect warring with deep-seated anger and suspicion.
Without waiting for his response, I turned and walked into the elevator. The doors hissed shut, encasing me in silence. I leaned my head back against the cool steel wall, my body finally registering the toll of the fight. My muscles screamed in protest, and a deep, throbbing ache started in my shoulder where I had rolled on the stone floor. But beneath the pain, a fierce, triumphant energy burned. I had not just survived. I had won.
When the doors opened to the penthouse suite, I walked straight to the bar, my legs unsteady. I ignored the priceless, ancient liquors and poured a glass of water, downing it in three long swallows. My hand was shaking. The adrenaline was finally leaving my system, leaving a hollow, trembling exhaustion in its wake.
I set the burlap sack containing the box and Silas's ring on the large glass table, a gruesome centerpiece in the luxurious room. It was my trophy. My bargaining chip.
I didn't have to wait long. Less than two minutes later, the elevator chimed, and Rhyian entered the suite. He had shed his suit jacket, and the top button of his shirt was undone. He looked less like a Sovereign and more like a man coming home after a long, disastrous day at the office. He walked over to the bar and poured himself a measure of dark, viscous liquid into a crystal tumbler. It looked like blood. It probably was.
He didn't drink it. He just held it, swirling the contents, his silver eyes fixed on me.
"We need to talk," he said, his voice stripped of all its earlier anger, leaving only a bone-deep weariness.
"I believe I said that already," I replied, sinking onto one of the low, grey couches. I gestured to the couch opposite me. "Have a seat. This might take a while."
He sat, placing his glass on the table between us, next to my sack of horrors. We sat in silence for a long moment, two sovereigns of our own small, broken kingdoms, sizing each other up.
"Seven years ago," he began, his voice a low rumble, "I fell in love with a cello prodigy. She was brilliant, passionate, and so fiercely alive she made my world of shadows feel like a dream. She was human. Fragile. I was so certain of her fragility that I destroyed both our lives to protect it." He looked up, his gaze pinning me in place. "That woman is not the person I sent into the catacombs tonight. So I will ask you again. Who are you, Carys?"
The moment had come. I could continue to lie, to deflect, to hoard my secret. But he had seen too much. The lie was no longer a shield; it was a liability. A barrier to the truth I now desperately needed from him. Our truce could not be built on a foundation of deceit, not if we were to survive Silas and the Coven.
I took a deep breath.
"You were right about one thing. I was human. For all intents and purposes, I was. I didn't know I was anything else."
I watched his face for a reaction. There was none. Only intense, focused listening.
"My family, the Corbins... we're an old line. But we thought we were just... normal. I never knew my grandmother. She died young. My mother always said there was 'a weakness' in the women of our family."
"Not a weakness," Rhyian breathed, a look of dawning comprehension on his face. "A defense mechanism."
"I don't know what you'd call it," I continued, my voice quiet. "All I know is that after you left, when I was pregnant with Rowan... I started to change. It was slow at first. I healed faster. My senses got sharper. I could hear things I shouldn't be able to hear. I could feel things." I looked at him. "I can feel the energy of your kind. A foul static from the ghouls. A clean, cold power from you. I can feel weaknesses. It's like... a sixth sense. An instinct for survival."
I leaned forward, my voice dropping.
"When Rowan was born, it solidified. Whatever was dormant inside me, he... he woke it up completely. Carrying a child of your blood, of your power... it didn't shatter me, Rhyian. It reforged me. It activated what my bloodline was always meant to be."
I finally said the word Silas had whispered in the library, the name I had found buried in the oldest texts.
"I am Aethel."
The name landed in the room with the weight of a physical blow. Rhyian's mask of composure finally, completely cracked. He stared at me, his silver eyes wide with an emotion I had never seen in him before: pure, unadulterated awe.
"Aethel," he whispered, the word a breath of reverence. "I thought you were a myth. A children's story told to vampire fledglings to scare them. The 'Arbiters.' The 'Balancers.' Humans with blood that could resist compulsion and sense the supernatural. It was said your line had faded from the world millennia ago."
"It didn't fade," I said. "It just went to sleep. And you, and our son, woke it up."
The pieces clicked into place in his ancient, brilliant mind. I could see it happening in his eyes. My survival. My skills. My defiance. It all made sense now.
"The prophecy," he breathed, standing up and beginning to pace. "The Seer spoke of a 'mortal vessel.' But you... you are not entirely mortal. Your bloodline carries its own ancient power. It didn't break. It adapted. It fought back. The two magics... they didn't destroy each other. They created a balance." He stopped and looked at Rowan's closed door. "Our son... he isn't just a dhampir. He is the fusion of a Sovereign vampire and the last Aethel. He is... unique in all of creation."
The sheer, terrifying weight of what our son was settled over me. He wasn't just a prize. He was a miracle. A living impossibility.
Rhyian turned back to me, and all the anger, all the suspicion was gone. In its place was a look of such profound, agonizing regret that it made my own heart ache.
"I am a fool," he said, his voice thick with self-loathing. "A blind, arrogant fool. I saw a candle and thought I was protecting it from the wind, when all along you were a dormant star. I abandoned you to an awakening you didn't understand, to a pregnancy that must have been... terrifying. Alone."
He walked toward me and for the first time, I didn't flinch. He knelt in front of me, just as he had for Rowan, placing his hands on the couch on either side of my legs. He was looking up at me, the Sovereign of Cinderfall on his knees.
"I cannot ask for your forgiveness," he said, his voice raw. "I have not earned it. I may never earn it. But I am asking for a new truce. Not one of 'guest' and 'Sovereign.' Not one of 'prisoner' and 'protector.' But one of partners. Equals."
He looked at my hands, which were clenched into fists in my lap. Gently, he reached out and placed his cold fingers over mine. The touch was not possessive. It was a plea.
"Teach me what you are," he whispered. "And let me teach you what I am. Let us face Silas, and the Coven, and this entire damned world, together. As his parents. As allies. Please, Carys."
His thumb stroked the back of my hand, a small, simple gesture that sent a jolt of electricity through me. It was the first gentle touch he had given me in seven years.
And in that moment, staring down at the broken, repentant monster on his knees before me, the ice that had encased my heart for so long began to crack.