Page 102 of The Vespertine Treaty

The return to the Alistair estate was a blur of rain and exhausted silence.

We had ridden hard. I had left my own armour behind, dressed only in tunics and leathers—a fighter, not a knight—because speed had been the only metric that mattered. Rhana paced alongside the horse, her obsidian armour slick with rain and the blood of the males foolish enough to stand between me and the eastern wing of Malathor’s hidden fortress.

I hadn’t killed him. The urge to end Malathor’s existence had been a blinding, white-hot compulsion. But Rhana, my tether to sanity, had shoved her thoughts into my mind,“Death is too quick. Death is a release. Make him a monument.”

So, I had broken him instead. I had dismantled his staff with the Death-Touch and the edge of my blade, playing with the ones who had starved her, before Silas arrived with the iron cage attached to the black carriage. Malathor was currently rotting in the bowels of my carriage, dragged behind us like offal.

But Ophelia… Ophelia I carried on my saddle, not able to let her out of my sight nor arms.

When we finally breached the wards of my estate, the reception was not ceremonial. It was frantic.

Silas was there before the horse fully stopped, his usual stoicism shattered. And Friedrik… the gargoyle dropped from the roof with a thud that shook the stones.

I slid from the horse, Ophelia in my arms. She was conscious but barely, her eyes tracking the movement of the shadows.

"My Lady!" Silas breathed, stepping forward.

But it was the golden blur that broke her. Poppy, who had been sedated and recovered by Silas, launched herself from the aide’s shoulder.

Ophelia caught her familiar, burying her face in the gold fur. And then, the dam broke. She didn't scream; she just crumpled, sobbing into the fox’s coat.

Friedrik moved then. The massive stone creature wrapped his wings around her in a gesture so tender it looked absurd, shielding her from the rain. Even Silas, who feared my wrath above all else, reached out and squeezed her arm, his face twisted in relief.

They held her. They loved her.

I stood back, watching them. I was the monster who had failed to protect her, and for a moment, I let them offer the warmth I could not generate. Then, necessity took over.

"Enough," I growled, though the command lacked its usual bite. "She is freezing. She needs a warm bath."

The master bath was a cathedral of more marble and rising steam, usually a place of solitary, cold contemplation. Tonight, it smelled of iron, lavender, and the terrifying, metallic scent of my wife’s fear.

I sat Ophelia in the claw-foot tub, the water explicitly heated to a temperature I would usually find scalding, but which was necessary to chase the grave-chill from her bones. The water was milky with healing salts and crushed star-petals, turning the surface into a sheet of opaque pearl.

She was trembling. Not the subtle shiver of cold, but the deep, structural vibration of a building that had been shelled and was waiting to collapse.

I knelt at the edge of the tub behind her, my bare feet touching the damp stone. I had discarded my leathers, my tunic rolled to the elbows, revealing the scars that lined my forearms. I dipped the heavy sea-sponge into the water, the sound loud in the suffocating silence.

"Cain," she whispered, her voice a fractured rasp that grated against my soul. She didn't look at me. She stared at the water, her arms wrapped protectively around her knees. "If this is another game... if this is the part where you lull me into safety just to hurt me... please don't. I don't have anything left for you to break."

The words were a blade sliding between my ribs. The accusation was fair—I was a monster, after all—but hearing it now, after I had torn the city apart to find her, after I had washed Malathor’s guards' blood from my hands only an hour ago... it burned.

I paused, the water dripping from the sponge back into the tub.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

"There is no game, Ophelia," I said, my voice low, stripped of its usual mockery. I sounded tired. I sounded like a male who had stared into the abyss and found it empty without her. "You are safe. The walls are warded. The shadows are mine. Malathor is... handled."

Handled.A polite word for the massacre I had left behind.

She didn't relax. She flinched as I reached out, and the movement sent a spike of murderous rage through me—not at her, but at the ghosts of the hands that had taught her to fear touch.

I moved slowly, telegraphing my intent as one does with a wounded animal. I pressed the warm sponge to her shoulder, scrubbing gently at a smudge of dirt that marred her pale skin. Beneath the dirt, a multitude of bruises bloomed—violent violet marks shaped like fingers all over her body.

My jaw clenched until my teeth ached. I wanted to resurrect Malathor’s army just to kill them again. I wanted to burn the world down until there was nothing left but ash and silence, just to ensure nothing could ever touch her again.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, her voice small. She finally looked at me, her green eyes wide, haunted, and rimmed with red. "Where is the staff? Where is everyone?”

I continued to wash her arm, watching the water chase the dirt away, reclaiming the alabaster skin beneath. I could have summoned them. I could have had a legion of handmaidens in here within seconds. I knew she was wondering why I am the one doing this. She had to.