Sold To The Cruel Prince

Aveline shifted carefully, just enough to confirm that the "stick" he had so proudly displayed the night before was definitely not what she was sitting on now.

It was not a stick.

It was, alarmingly, much more like the "snake" she had encountered earlier.

Theron gave a strained sound when she moved, still perched on him, still making the situation far more unbearable.

His hands clamped around her waist. "Stop moving," he said through gritted teeth.

Aveline only then remembered that he had fallen from a considerable height. He had to be hurt somewhere.

"Are you injured?" she asked, leaning closer, one hand moving to his head as she checked him with concern.

He held her firmly by the waist, leaving her little room to shift, and in trying to look after him, she had only ended up far too close, lying over him as she studied his face.

Then she felt... the unmistakable reaction beneath her.

Aveline’s fingers paused on his ear. Her heart gave a small, unhelpful stutter.

Theron clenched his jaws. That... was not going to make this any easier.

"I’m fine," Theron said, like a warning.

"Yes, clearly," she muttered, sitting up a little straighter. "Ahem. Do you mind letting me up?"

It was becoming difficult to pretend this position was normal.

Theron’s jaw tightened so hard she thought he might crack a tooth. At last, he loosened his grip.

Aveline stood too quickly... and found out almost immediately that it was a bad idea.

Her balance betrayed her immediately, and she dropped back down with unforgivable timing, landing right where she absolutely should not have.

Theron let out a rough, helpless sound.

Death, he thought grimly, would have been kinder.

"Aveline..."

"Forgive me," she said at once, scrambling up again more carefully this time, testing her footing as though the earth itself might conspire against her.

Finally, she managed to stand without incident.

Theron exhaled, the relief in it almost visible.

At last... he could breathe.

But then... she opened her mouth. Of course, she did.

"You should see a physician about that," Aveline said, pointing with grave concern at the very thing he least wanted discussed so early in the morning. "It really should not be staying... like that for so long."

Theron went utterly still.

Then, with the patience of a man standing at the edge of a cliff, he pushed himself upright, ignoring the ache in his back, and reached for her.

"Then fix it," he said softly. "You’re the one who made it worse."

Aveline jumped back at once, eyes wide. The way he said it made her heart trip over itself.

"Help yourself," she said, lifting her chin with a huff that tried very hard to sound brave and only succeeded in sounding flustered.

"You—"

He lunged again.

She laughed, dodged him, and ran.

Theron stared after her, torn between outrage and helplessness.

And Aveline, still fleeing with her pulse in her throat, could not quite stop wondering how exactly something so troublesome was ever supposed to go down at all.

-----

Aveline found her way to the river just as dawn was beginning to thin the darkness.

There, near a rough little shrine to Goddess Lioraen, the Veiled Mother, she saw a group of women gathered in quiet reverence. It was hardly a temple at all, only a marked stone set apart from the riverbank, weathered by wind and prayer and years of hands laying offerings at its base.

She paused, watching.

The women carried flat stones in both hands and placed them one atop another, building small towers as they murmured their prayers beneath their breath. Their voices were low, intimate, almost secretive, as though they were speaking to someone who lived not in marble halls or golden altars, but in the hidden spaces of the world.

Aveline had never seen anything like it.

As an aristocrat, she had been forbidden from worshipping the goddess of shadows. She had been raised to honor Vaelis, the Radiant Lord, in temples of white marble and gold inlay, where the light shone so brightly it almost felt like a command. Those places had always been magnificent.

This place was not.

It was dark. Simple. Unadorned.

And yet, somehow, it felt more alive than all the glittering shrines of her childhood.

She watched longer.

A young peasant girl stood among the others, dressed for marriage, her face caught somewhere between fear and hope. Her family had come with her to offer prayers before she left for her husband’s village, and the tenderness of it struck Aveline unexpectedly. The mother adjusted the girl’s veil with trembling hands. The father looked away, pretending his eyes were not wet. The younger siblings clutched each other and stared as if this were both a beginning and a kind of farewell.

It was beautiful.

Quietly so.

Aveline lowered her gaze to the smooth stones scattered near her feet. She bent and picked one up, turning it over in her palm. It was flatter than the rest, worn smooth by river water.

After a moment, she walked toward the shrine.

Perhaps she should say a prayer too, for her future.

She did not know what waited for her ahead, but she had the unsettling feeling that she needed all the help she could get.

Then a voice stopped her.

"You can’t be here."

The familiar hostility in it did not unsettle her the way it had before.

Aveline turned her head and looked at Kael with cool composure.

"Because I am an aristocrat?" she asked. "Who decided what one should worship?"

She paused, her fingers tightening around the stone.

"And really... who am I now?"

The question lingered between them.

Was she still an aristocrat? She no longer felt like one.

Kael said nothing.

Aveline’s mouth curved faintly, not quite a smile. "And you," she added, her gaze flicking over him, over the shadows that seemed to cling to him as naturally as his own skin, "for someone so comfortable in darkness, I would have assumed you secretly worshipped the goddess."

There were old rumors, after all. Even among the upper class, people had long whispered that those forbidden from public devotion often found ways to pray in secret.

Kael’s lips trembled.

Aveline did not wait for a reply. She turned away and approached the shrine, stone in hand.

For a moment, she simply stood there, then whispered her prayer under her breath and placed the stone atop the others. It settled neatly in place.

She held her breath. She had heard that if the stone did not topple, the prayer would be answered.

The tower remained steady.

Aveline exhaled softly, a strange, small feeling unfurling in her chest. Then she turned and walked away without looking back.

Kael remained still as she passed.

His gaze dropped to the stone she had left behind.

And then... A shadow stirred beneath it, thin at first... almost gentle. Then it rose, swallowing the stone whole.

Just like that, it vanished.

Kael’s hand trembled.

He had never seen anything like it before.

What was that?

The shadow did not move like something summoned.

It moved like something that had been waiting.