Aveline turned to look at him. But she did not meet his eyes. She couldn’t. Not after what she had seen there earlier.

That fear. That same fear she had seen somewhere else.

Her grip around Hamilton tightened.

If these people knew that she had one of those creatures they hunted and feared was acting like a pet with her... it was not good for her, and not good for Hamilton either.

"He’s my pet, from back home," she said.

And then, without another word, she moved.

In a single, fluid motion, she leapt toward the nearest tree, her body acting before her thoughts could catch up. Aelion stepped forward instinctively, reaching out.

"Careful—!"

But he was too late.

Aveline slipped from his grasp like a shadow, catching a branch with ease and pulling herself up into the dense canopy. Leaves swallowed her form as she climbed higher, deeper, until she found a place hidden from sight.

A place that felt... safe.

There, nestled among the thick branches, she curled in on herself, holding Hamilton close against her chest.

For a long moment, she said nothing.

Then, slowly, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the token.

It lay in her palm, dull and lifeless. There was no warmth... no light... and even the scent lingering from Theron wasn’t there anymore.

Nothing.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she lifted it to her lips. She pressed a soft kiss against its surface, lingering there as though she could will it back to life.

Then she blew gently over it, the way one might soothe something fragile, something hurting... as though he could feel it.

"Theron..."

His name slipped from her lips like a prayer, quiet and aching.

"Where are you...?"

Her voice broke at the edges, and the tears she had been holding back finally fell, slipping silently down her cheeks.

She drew her knees closer, curling around Hamilton as though he were the only thing anchoring her.

"Everyone’s bullying me..." she whispered, her voice so small it barely seemed to belong to the same girl who had just stood against something monstrous. "They’re scared of me..."

Her fingers tightened around the token as though it were the only thing tethering her to something gentle, something safe. She pressed it hard against her chest, as if she could force warmth back into it, as if she could make it remember what it once held.

"I miss you..."

The words trembled as they left her, fragile and unguarded.

She called for him again—not with power, not with magic, but with the quiet, aching certainty of someone who believed, without question, that he would answer.

That he always would.

But this time...

There was nothing.

No warmth.

No light.

No presence reaching back.

Aveline did not know that silence had already been decided for her. That somewhere far from her trembling hands and tear-streaked cheeks, the thread she clung to had been severed with deliberate cruelty.

She did not know that he could no longer hear her.

That he had been made to forget her.

And so she waited, just for a moment longer than necessary, her breath caught between hope and fear, as if the next second might bring him back.

It didn’t.

-----

Far away, in the dim, fractured chamber, a quiet wind stirred.

It slipped through the cracks in the stone, gentle and almost tender, brushing past the broken remnants of power that still lingered in the air. It moved without urgency, without purpose... and yet, when it reached them, it softened.

It touched Theron first.

His dark hair shifted slightly beneath its caress, strands lifting and falling as though something unseen had chosen, for a fleeting moment, to linger.

Edric Vantaris watched in silence.

His gaze lingered on the King, on the way the ruler of the realm held the unconscious crown prince—not as a sovereign holding his heir, but as a man holding something breakable. Something he had already broken.

Or perhaps... something he feared he had.

Guilt had a way of changing how one held things.

Edric exhaled slowly.

He had not known the girl well. Not enough to understand her, not enough to define her. And yet... There had been something about her. Something unsettling in its simplicity. She was the kind of presence that drew extremes from people—too easy to hate, too easy to love, with no comfortable ground in between.

And Theron...

Theron had chosen.

Not in words, not in quiet confessions, but in action—decisive, reckless, unwavering. The kind of love that did not hesitate, that did not calculate cost, that simply moved.

He had been willing to tear through anything for her, even the world itself. He even flirted with treason by standing up against his father, the King.

Edric’s eyes lowered slightly.

And in return... the King had reached into that very place and taken it from him.

A reason.

A part of him that had given meaning to everything he was becoming.

Edric’s jaw tightened faintly.

There were many ways to punish a man.

Few were crueler than this. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

To live on... with a hollow where something vital once existed... To feel the absence without understanding it... To carry a wound that could never be named, let alone healed...

The King had done what he believed was necessary.

That did not make it merciful.

The wind passed over them once more, softer now, almost like a fading breath. It brushed against Theron’s still form, lingering just long enough to stir something unseen... or perhaps only imagined.

Edric closed his eyes briefly and let out a quiet sigh.

Some things, once taken, could never truly be returned.

And some silences... were louder than any scream.

The King lifted his eyes to Edric, and when he did, the frightened, shaken man from moments ago seemed to vanish beneath the weight of his crown. What remained was sovereign authority, cold and absolute.

"Where is your son, Spymaster?" the King asked.

Edric bowed at once, but his heart gave a small, uneasy jolt. He knew why the King was asking. He knew exactly what would come next.

Another memory to take.

Another thread to sever.

Something tightened painfully in his chest. That girl—whoever she was, whatever she had become to the Crown Prince—did not deserve this. There had been fear in the King’s eyes, yes, but fear did not make cruelty gentler. It only made it more desperate.

"Your Majesty..." Edric began carefully, trying to keep his voice steady. "There is no need to go this far. We are bound by oath. No one here would betray your trust."

But the King’s expression did not soften.

"He will kill me once he knows," he said, and for the first time his voice fractured just enough to reveal the fear beneath it. "You saw what happened. I do not want to die."

Edric swallowed hard.

He did not believe the Crown Prince wanted to kill his father. Not truly. Not in the way the King feared. If Theron had wanted him dead, the King would already have been dead. There had been power in his son’s hands moments ago enough to raze the room, perhaps enough to bring the whole chamber down around them.

But there was another truth too.

The King had the restless, suspicious fear of a ruler who had spent too long listening for footsteps behind him. A ruler could grow paranoid even of his own blood. And in that paranoia, everything began to look like betrayal.

Edric’s fists clenched at his sides as the King turned and, with a motion that felt far too final, erased the memory from Kael as well.

Edric watched it happen with a tightening in his throat.

The silence that followed was worse than any outburst.

Then the King’s gaze settled on him.

"And you?" he asked, extending his hand.

Edric’s breath caught.

For one terrible second, he could not move.

He was perhaps the only one left who still remembered her face clearly. That girl. The one the Crown Prince had fought for with his whole being. The one he had tried to shield from the world even now, even when the world had turned against him.

Hadn’t she been worth remembering?

Hadn’t she deserved at least that much?

Edric’s breath faltered.

If he refused... he would die.

If he obeyed... she would disappear completely.