Jealousy doesn’t touch this. It’s betrayal. I warned her about the potion. She swore she wouldn’t use it on Atticus, promised me. And yet… she did. She chose him. Didn’t trust me to finish what I’d said I would. She turned her back and let him in. My chest tightens, a fire stoked hotter than any fight I’ve had with blood onmy hands.
For a beat I let my brain invent explanations that are kinder—maybe she thought Atticus safer, maybe she panicked and figured his father could help her with the Council—but the facts are bone-simple enough to hurt: she used someone else when I bled for this. She hid it. She lied.
And the calculations step in, cold and precise. She’s not just Arwen. She’s the single most dangerous anomaly I’ve ever heard of—one hundred percent power rating. If she manifests her power and aligns with Pride, under Atticus’s reach, the balance could shift dangerously.
My father’s teeth gleam at the thought of taking more land; Atticus’s father would take that power and sharpen it into a blade at the world’s throat. War follows that kind of advantage. Borders will burn. Families die. My people could end up in the ground if I hand the enemy a weapon that powerful.
Protecting her is becoming a problem with edges that cut both ways. I don’t save people without ledger entries. Every mercy cost something. Every favor is currency. If I bail her out now, I could be buying a favor for Atticus’s house.
My pulse drums at my temples. Anger tastes like hot metal, but so does the idea of handing the Pride coalition a weapon. I stare, warring with myself as Arwen laughs low, a sound quick and private. For a second I think of stepping forward, of putting the vial on her palm and saying, Take it. Regardless of the consequences. I can save this girl, who has warmed something inside of the heart that died a long time ago.
The rope of consequences coils in my mind: Atticus’s father smiling, my father maneuvering, the map redrawn with my people stranded on the wrong side of someone else’s greed. A war unfolds inthought, leaving nothing but corpses and ash in its wake. The vial hums now, too loud, like an animal desperate to be freed.
My throat works. I can taste words—bitter apologies, excuses—but none steady the ledger.
I turn my back. The step creaks under my foot like an accusation. They don’t notice. They’re in that private world.
I move down the stairwell like every step is a promise I might break. The vial thunks against my ribs, heavy, urgent. I wanted to be the man who saved her—not because it was owed, not for leverage, not to add another tally to my name—but because it felt like I could be… different. Better than the bastard my father raised me to be. Better than the empire of knives and teeth I’ve spent my life building.
I wanted an act that didn’t leave a mark on anyone but me. No theft. No blood. No debt. Just the raw, fleeting warmth of doing something… human.
I don’t know if that Maddox West exists. Maybe he never has. Maybe he never will.
The warmth from the potion curdles into something colder: strategic denial. I fold that warmth into a fist and bury it. My loyalty is to my people. I can’t gift the universe a god and pretend there won’t be a cost.
The vial stays under my jacket, a secret I keep from everyone and perhaps the worst kindness I can offer.
37
Thou Shalt Not Feed the Sinless
Arwen
The vibration of my phone tears me from sleep. Sharp. Insistent. My fingers fumble against the smooth glass. A single email waits. From Dean Bellows.
Please come by my office before breakfast.
No greeting. No niceties. Just the cold weight of authority in black and white.
My stomach twists. Finals are close, which means the Councilors are coming. My trial is imminent, the one I still feel wholly unprepared for.
Boots, hair hastily twisted into a knot, jacket half-zipped. I move through dorm halls as the building murmurs in sleep; the walls pressing quiet and heavy around me.
I think of the past weeks—Atticus at my side. Watching him train the edges of his power without crossing the line into will control. Sweat streaked his hair, fingers trembled, eyes dark with effort.
He swears he won’t force actual control on a person without reason. That he hates the idea. He surprises me. People still look at us with obvious question but it’s like he pushes his Pride nature to the side. He’s only focused on helping me.
Hope, and care, coming from someone I didn’t know I deserved.
***
Dean Bellows’ office smells of paper, polished wood, faint citrus, and faint impatience. Her eyes lift as I knock.
“Arwen,” she says. Waiting. Expecting.
I sit. Silent.
“I assume,” she cuts straight, “you would have told me if you’d manifested.”
