Surrendered To The Lord Of Sin-Chapter 56: A distraction

"The living?" Vaeron asked.

She hesitated, just briefly before answering. "Aye. They vanish as well. Not many nor enough to incite panic, but enough to be noticed by those of us who count," The wind rose, tugging at her silver hair as she folded her arms within her sleeves. "We’ve distributed quite a reasonable amount of our men to the Gate, supposing he decides to attack. However, as years passed, there was no sign of him. We were convinced something must’ve happened. Until now,"

Vaeron’s gaze lowered to the city, to the towers and bridges swallowed by night and snow. A slow breath left him before he said, "I doubt," he said. "His absence was merely a distraction,"

The fact that he was just finding out about everything seemed to irritate him more than the knowledge itself.

"I sent word to you," She said suddenly. The admission slipped out softer than intended. "During your absence," She continued, more carefully now. "Not once, noe twice but over the years. Reports at first. Council matters. Then... updates that no longer required a reply," Her fingers flexed at her side. "I thought, if nothing else, you would want to know from me first... after what we shared,"

The wind came after she concluded, flickering the torches from the corridor walls.

Vaeron didn’t reply as his gaze still lingered at the open city.

The silver-haired steadied her breath, though the effort showed when she continued. "I told myself you were occupied or unwilling, just like the rumors. Or that silence was simply your way of closing a door without ceremony," She glanced at him then, searching his profile. "But you never returned even a single word, Vaeron,"

Then she moved, walking towards him only to close the distance. "But that has never altered the way I feel for you," She said. "Nor does your... sudden betrothal,"

The last of her words lingered between them as fragile as frost. She searched his face, those amethyst eyes glinting with resolve and hope that was something far more dangerous. It was the kind of hope tampered with by years of disappointment but still worn thin.

When Vaeron finally turned, he did so without urgency. Not all at once, but enough that the moonlight caught the hard line of his profile beneath the mask, and the pale gleam of his eyes when they settled on her.

There was no surprise nor guilt there but a calm, assessing stillness that cut deeper than anger ever could. Something he’d seen in women over and over again. Something he loathed, and still enjoyed.

Vaeron didn’t move when she took a step closer, and another, more than enough that the cold air was replaced by warmth. It came with her scent that reached him before he acknowledged, breathing the clean, sharp pine water and herbs that struck him with an unwelcome familiarity. It was nothing like the heavy, cloying rose-water. No matter the women he favored, how intimate and indulgent those encounters had been, none of them had succeeded in erasing that scent from his memory.

Again, the memory of those features never ceased to fuck his mind. He refused to concede to the bitter truth that his wants of something more than her blood - the accord - was getting out of hand.

He kept his expression unmoved by her proximity or the uncalled trail of his mind. His jaw ticked once before saying, "What we shared was nothing more than what we both wanted in that moment," He said, never failing to make his words direct. "I offered you what was required of me,"

His eyes were as cold as the snow that descended from the sky as he kept his voice, leveled and unadorned.

Her breath hitched at the bite in his words as her expression faltered. For a moment, the silver-haired did not speak right away.

Instead, she let the silence press in, let it stretch until it became something he would feel obligated to fill.

Her gaze never left him, as though she were memorizing the angles of his face for the last time or daring him to look away. "So that is all you have to say?" She quietly asked in a precise tone.

"You wanted the truth,"

"Your truth," She corrected. "Or the one you’ve decided is safest to keep."

"Truth does not change by how we dress it. Whatever meaning you attached to what passed between us was never promised,"

She inhaled at the sharp clarity of his words. The hurt in her eyes was as translucent as a mirror, reflecting the pang in her chest. "And what if it was real?"

Vaeron’s gaze drifted past her shoulder, out toward the city where towers and bridges dissolved into mist and snowfall. At last, "Desire is fleeting," he said. "It grows when it discovers a vessel of interest and fades when that vessel no longer holds its intrigue,"

He turned fully toward her then, meeting her gaze without flinching. "What happened between us had no future. It was momentary," There was a short pause before he added, "And so it shall remain."

She absorbed them without withdrawing, though something fragile inside her gave way.

"Since when did you of all people care too much about responsibilities?" She asked and a faint humorless curve touched her lips. "At least, we both have that in common. What’s most important..."

"... is that I am bound by a covenant," he cut in, and the silver-haired woman fell silent at once. "And you are intruding upon what little respite I allow myself."

The wind surged across the balcony, snapping banners and scattering snow in sharp spirals.

For the first time, he found himself indifferent to whatever scheme had been devised to lure him. His thoughts drifted unbiddenly to the absurdity of his brother’s words—Or perhaps, your restraint has finally worn thin. He had never once allowed such taunts to take root, never granted them the dignity of consideration until now.

Vaeron refused to let the truth of those words sink in. From the moment... from the moment her presence filled his estate, he had not been intimate with other women with satisfaction.

There was once a time when nothing moved him. Pleasure has been the anchor of his daily life—perhaps the gods’ cruelest punishment for mortality and their kind— but now feels like a toll on him.

"It’s her, isn’t it?"

The question was barely louder than the wind and something shifted in him. It wasn’t in his expression but in the subtle tightening of his shoulders and the infinitesimal pause before he answered.

"No."

The lie tasted thin even to him and she saw it.

Hurt flickered in those rare orbs before depleting into obvious jealousy. However, she didn’t allow herself to showcase the latter and stepped away, placing a deliberate distance between them.

For a while, the silence became the only source of conversation as the wind brushed past. The night’s air was cool and unnervingly soothing to the mind, as unspoken thoughts filled the quiet hush of the town, snow softening rooftops and streets, while lanternlight glimmered faintly through the falling white. Smoke curled from chimneys in thin lines, the stillness below untouched by the weight of what loomed beyond its walls.

"You know what she is," The silver-haired said softly, not in an accusing tone but stating a fact. "A mortal. A fragile one, by our measure. Bound to laws she doesn’t understand, and a subject to punishments she cannot survive."

Vaeron’s gaze sharpened as she reminded him of his sole obligation as a Sin. He was more than aware of that knowledge, and Blackvale happened to be a part of everything. "Don’t,"

But she continued despite his warning, and if encouraging, closing the distance once more. "She is a kind sentence and a punishment made flesh. If you fulfill what is demanded of you—properly—your accord would be complete," Then she looked at him then, truly looked at him, those orbs glinting with resolve. "And once the covenant is satisfied, you would be free. At least,"

The implication settled heavily between them when a pause followed. Vaeron flexed his fingers against the rail of the balcony though his expression remained unreadable. Although, if one looked closer, they’ll notice the dispassion in those eyes.

"You’ll be free to take whom you wish. To bind whom you wish. Even to marry—if that were your desire," She said, and the wind howled, as if in warning. "She would not survive it. You know that as well as I do. Mortals rarely do. I understand that gods do not bleed the way mortals do, and realized that werewolves... die easily. And I understand that if you complete what you were sent to do-"

"Enough," he repeated.

Something cold and sharp cut through the air between them, not power unleashed, but power restrained, the kind far more lethal.

That oddly irked him more than it should. Vaeron moved then, however not toward her but away, and the distance he put between them was unmistakable. "It seems the earlier merriment must’ve left an aftereffect upon you. It would explain the liberties you’re taking with your words," he said coldly. "If you’d excuse me. Good night,"

Without waiting for her consent, he walked away, only for her voice to call after him. "Vaeron,"

He looked through his shoulders, denying her his full view. For a moment, no other words ensued between them. The silence carried the weight of the words that were better left unspoken, and he moved, proceeding through the corridor without another glance at the woman behind.

That night, he retreated to his wing at Blackvale’s Hall without light. He’d always been a creature that welcomed darkness to the solitude of his world, and tonight, he did the same.

Vaeron sat in the dark and welcomed the shadows to claim him. In that silence, it permitted him to recall all that had transpired. Things he had felt—rage when she was kidnapped, and desire he’d never felt before—into consideration. And in truth, he was indeed slipping.

His little wolf was one hell of a woman who did nothing but everything to evoke rather eccentric sensations from him that were unwelcome in the path that had been constructed.

The war with Stormhill didn’t go as planned. As expected, his army didn’t meet up to the number of theirs, but was strong enough to hold their brute force. Their banners stretched farther as anticipated, their ranks bolstered by mercenaries and coastal levies drawn from three allied ports.

Stormhill did not wage war with precision but drowned its enemies in bodies and iron, relying on sheer force to overwhelm resistance by another weapon called Blackstone, forged by their sword. He had anticipated that much. What he had not anticipated was how quickly Stormhill adapted.

They abandoned their initial landward advance when they realized his army would not break. Instead, they turned to attrition, burning supply routes, poisoning wells, and forcing skirmishes. Every clash was calculated to cost his time, men, and momentum, and still, his army held.

They survived because his forces were disciplined, whereas Stormhill’s were brutish. His commanders knew when to stand and when to withdraw. Stormhill’s brute strength shattered against preparation again and again, but survival was not victory.

They had not committed its full strength. Their main fleet remained untouched, anchored beyond the horizon, waiting. The coastal fortifications they tested were never meant to fall yet, and he knew they would return. And this time, he had predicted they would come by sea.

Stormhill’s fleets were infamous, heavy warships reinforced for ramming, carrying siege engines designed to batter harbors into submission. If they breached his coastal defenses, the city would choke, trade would collapse and reinforcements would never arrive in time.

That was where Blackvale’s strength lay, not in numbers alone, but in its fleets. One fleet could cripple three if deployed correctly and without Blackvale’s ships, Stormhill would control the sea lanes within a fortnight. Without control of the sea, the war would not have been lost quickly, but it would have been lost inevitably.

That was why, despite his contempt, he needed the favor of the Nameless King. That is all the more reason he couldn’t allow the werewolf Princess to distract him. Especially not here.

It was too... dangerous.

Before him rested his arsenal to ’fix’ the things wrong inside him, and just like he was taught—just like he’d done countless times before—he found the frost deep inside and permitted it to chill him, calm him... and make him impenetrable.