I don’t touch it. Don’t blink. Just say:
“Get out of my office.”
He chuckles, low and patronizing. “It’s not yours anymore.”
The door hisses shut behind him.
I sit in the silence.
A tarnished idol. A queen without a crown. A woman caught in the gravitational pull of a goddamn black hole.
My fingernails dig crescents into my palms.
I could walk away.
Could take the offer. Start over. Try to remember who I was before him.
But as I stare at the blank walls, the thought of never seeing him again…
It feels worse than death.
Becausethatis the real truth:
I’m not theirs anymore.
I’mhis.
And I don’t know what that means. Not yet.
But I’m going to find out.
Even if it burns everything down.
The elevator pings open to a corridor bathed in soft amber. The air smells faintly of ozone and resin wood—probably someone’s failed attempt at ambiance. I press my forehead against the cool wall and breathe deep. I didn’t rehearse this. I didn’t plan it. But every nerve in my body screams that tonight, I cross the line.
My shoes carry me through the door to Aebon’s suite—the same I nearly died to reach—three knock-soft raps and then a pause. My pulse rattles like a gavel. I lift my hand again.
“He’s in there,” Aebon’s voice gruffs from just inside. It’s not a greeting. It barely registers. I grip the brass plate and brace myself.
Aebon opens the door, and… shatter.
The light in his face doesn’t touch his eyes. They’re shadows themselves—black-flickered red, haunted. His fingers twitch as he sees me.
I step inside and my throat seizes.
Blood caked under his nails, crusted between knuckles. His suit sleeves are ragged and smeared, the cuffs soaked. The air shakes with the metallic stink of fresh iron, a damn hallucination no filter can erase.
My stomach drops.
I swallow, voice tight. “What did you do?”
He closes the door behind us with careless slowness, as if he needs every second.
A half-step. His chest rises in a single ragged inhale.
Then he stands tall. Cold. Still dripping.
“I… I cleared the vault,” he says. Voice low and fraying. “I—shut them down, all of them.”
