Asema’s jaw tightens. "He left me to guard the estate. To guardyou."
I reach the bottom step. I am eye-level with her now. She towers over me, armored and lethal, yet she does not move to stop me.
"Am I a prisoner, Captain?" I ask softly.
Asema looks at me. She looks at the faint bruising on my jaw, the wildness of my hair. A flicker of something unreadable crosses her face—confusion, perhaps, or a grudging respect for a creature that walked into the fire and didn't burn.
"He gave no orders to lock you in," she says slowly. "He gave no orders at all. He simply... left."
"Then I am going to the library."
I step toward her. It is a gamble.
Asema does not move. She stands like a statue of iron and duty. But as I pass her, I feel the tension radiating off her—not aggression, but uncertainty. The hierarchy of this house has shattered. The master has fled, and the slave is walking the halls like a ghost.
"Be careful, human," Asema murmurs as I pass. "The library is where he keeps his secrets."
I do not look back.
The library is freezing. The fire in the great hearth has died down to a pile of gray ash, the heat long gone. The room smells of stale smoke and the charred remains of leather.
I walk to the fireplace. The book he threw into the flames last night—before he dragged me to his bed—is destroyed. The pages are delicate, black flakes that crumble at a breath. But the spine... the spine was thick, bound in dragon-hide.
I kneel on the hearthstone, ignoring the soot staining my knees. I reach into the cold ash.
My fingers brush against something hard. I pull it out.
It is a fragment of the cover, miraculously preserved in the middle of the burn pile. The leather is scorched, curling at the edges, but the deep, gold-leaf embossing is still visible.
It is written in the sharp, angular script of the High Elves.
...of the Purna.
I trace the word with my thumb.
Purna.
The word sends a jolt through me, sharp and vibrating, like striking a tuning fork against my ribs. It is not just a name. It is a memory I do not possess, a bell ringing in the deep waters of my blood.
Purna.The witches. The anomalies. The women who could touch the minds of gods.
I look at the charred scrap. Below the title, a fragment of text remains legible.
...not a gift, but a theft. They do not channel; they become.
I squeeze the leather until it bites into my palm.
He is aware of who I am even if I do not. That is why he looked at me with such horror in the study. That is why he hated himself for touching me. He absolutely knows what I am, and he knows that by Dark Elf law, I should be ash in this grate.
But he kept me.
The idea is a heady, dangerous wine. He is protecting me. Not out of kindness, but out of addiction.
Boom.
The heavy silence of the library is shattered. The doors to the estate, three rooms away, bang open with a force that vibrates through the floorboards.
A gust of wind sweeps through the house, carrying a scent that makes my stomach turn.
