Aveline could not understand why the Ermine man was still here after looking at her with such fear earlier.

She carefully lowered herself another step down the tree before glancing beneath the branches, and there he was, standing below with one hand casually stretched toward her, silver hair catching the fading evening light.

"Need a hand?" Aelion asked, amusement flickering softly in his eyes. "I noticed you’ve been struggling for quite a while now."

Aveline immediately pouted and turned her face away.

The irritating part was that he looked sincere. Completely sincere. As though he genuinely wanted to help her. And somehow that only made her refuse harder.

"I’m fine, thank you," she said with wounded dignity.

Even Hamilton poked his head out from the folds of her skirt as if to judge her pride.

Still, after that, she descended much faster.

Not because she trusted herself.

But because, somewhere deep down, she had unconsciously begun trusting that if she slipped, Aelion would catch her.

The realization annoyed her greatly.

Her palms burned from scraping against the bark, thin red scratches lining her skin by the time she finally reached the lower branches. Her arms ached terribly, and her pride suffered even worse knowing someone else had witnessed her inability to climb down a tree properly, but at least she had survived with dignity mostly intact.

Mostly.

The moment her feet touched the ground, Hamilton peeked out more fully from her skirts with a tiny chirp of triumph.

Aelion’s attention shifted immediately.

"I have never seen a lizard like this in my life..." he murmured, stepping closer as he reached toward Hamilton curiously.

Before he could touch him, Aveline instinctively took a step back.

Hamilton hissed at once, shrinking against her and baring tiny sharp teeth in clear displeasure.

Aelion paused immediately and lifted both hands in surrender.

"I mean no harm," he said calmly.

Aveline pressed her lips together.

"He doesn’t like being touched by strangers," she replied quietly.

Hamilton wasted no time squeezing himself deeper into her pocket afterward, though he no longer fit properly anymore. Half his tail still stuck out awkwardly, twitching indignantly.

Aveline frowned faintly.

He had definitely grown.

Either she needed bigger pockets... or Hamilton needed to stop growing like a cursed vegetable.

But as she lifted her gaze toward Aelion again, her thoughts slowly stilled.

Something looked... wrong.

Not outwardly.

His face was still beautiful in that strange, unreal way of his. Ethereal. Refined. Too perfect to feel entirely human at times.

And yet... The shadows around him moved differently now.

Aveline blinked slowly.

The darkness curling around his face twisted strangely, like ink dropped into water. Thin strands drifted around him in restless motions, gathering and unraveling around the edges of his expression as though trying to whisper something directly into her mind.

Her breath slowed.

Aveline had already noticed before that shadows behaved differently around her. She saw them differently too, more sharply than she had before, as if they were not merely the absence of light but something that carried intention.

And suddenly, a thought began to take shape.

What if she could see what shadows revealed about people?

What if the way they moved around him meant something?

It seemed absurd to her to even think that. But... Theron did tell her that Greenvale held magic in its borders. She had seen people do stuff she had never seen in her life, even she was doing stuff she never thought she could do in her life.

Was something inside her, got unlocked as she entered Greenvale?

Aelion had looked so calm and ethereal the day she first met him, but now those same shadows seemed to fray that beauty, exposing something less certain beneath it. Was it fear she saw in him? Fear of what she could do? Fear of what she was? Or was it something else entirely?

Had seeing her face that creature and destroy it so easily shaken him enough to make him want something from her?

Or...

Aveline’s eyes sharpened.

Was he already planning something bad?

The thought settled in her chest, uneasy and cold.

Because if shadows could tell the truth, then perhaps what she was seeing now was not just the outline of a man.

Perhaps it was the shape of his intent.

And strangely enough, that realization did not frighten Aveline.

It gave her hope.

A quiet, fragile kind of hope bloomed inside her chest, unfolding slowly through all the fear and loneliness that had been suffocating her since the connection with Theron had broken. Alongside it came something else too—something steadier.

Courage.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Aveline realized she was not entirely helpless.

Yes, she was alone right now. Yes, no one had come searching for her when she disappeared. No one had called her name. No one had noticed she was gone. But despite all of that, she had survived. More than that, she had protected herself.

She had done something.

And Theron...

The thought of him tightened her chest again, but this time she did not let herself sink beneath it. Wherever he was, whatever danger he had fallen into, she would find him. She would make sure he was safe.

That resolve settled into her slowly, taking root where despair had threatened to grow.

Her eyes drifted toward Aelion again. He wore a silk uniform too, finer than most of the others in the Arcanum. He was probably her senior by a year or two judging by the color of his uniform, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she vaguely remembered Kael calling him "Lord."

So he was a noble too.

And suddenly, something clicked into place inside her mind.

If she wanted information about Theron, then nobles would hear things first. Nobles gossiped. Nobles knew what happened within the royal court. Nobles survived by listening carefully and speaking carefully in return.

Maybe making friends here would help her.

The realization startled her more than it should have.

For ten years, she had lived like someone lesser, someone unwanted, someone who had to endure whatever was thrown at her simply to survive another day. She had spent so long being treated like dirt that she had almost forgotten one simple truth.

She, too, was a noble.

She belonged in places like this.

Not as a servant. Not as something to hide away in shame.

She belonged here.

And if she truly possessed powers that frightened people, then of course others would seek her out, fear her, try to use her, or even destroy her. Wasn’t that simply how the world worked? Power attracted both worship and cruelty.

She would just have to learn how to move through it.

Carefully.

Gracefully.

Like flowing water finding its path through stone.

And if her strange ability truly allowed her to glimpse the intentions hidden inside people, then perhaps she was not as defenseless as she once believed.

"Want to get something to eat?" Aelion asked suddenly.

Aveline blinked, pulled from her thoughts.

Then she tilted her head slightly. "I do not remember your name, Lord..."

"Aelion," he said after a pause. "Aelion Sylvarien." 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"Lord Sylvarien," Aveline repeated thoughtfully before nodding once. "I’ll remember that."

And then, to Aelion’s confusion, her entire mood seemed to shift.

Aveline smiled lightly, adjusted Hamilton inside her pocket, and turned away with a little skip in her step as though the terrifying encounter from earlier had somehow become nothing more than an unpleasant interruption in her day.

"See you later," she said, waving casually over her shoulder.

Aelion remained where he stood, watching her leave.

His brows slowly furrowed.

Because somehow, despite everything he had witnessed today—the Noctyrr, the impossible shadows, the power she wielded so naturally—the thing that unsettled him most was her.

Not her strength.

Not even the danger surrounding her.

But the way she could look utterly broken one moment and then walk away the next as though she had already decided to survive the world no matter what it did to her.