Chapter 11: Theron

I shouldn’t have brought her there.

That thought clung to me as I left the greenhouse, shadowing every step back through the sleeping castle.

I’d watched her kneel beside the basin, silver light glinting in her hair, her fingers so steady despite the pulse of ancient magic beneath them. She hadn’t flinched. She hadn’t hesitated.

She had looked right into the heart of the curse and said, with terrifying certainty, “It doesn’t scare me.”

She should have. She still might.

But in that moment, all I could see was how she fit into the space—as if the castle had been waiting for her shape, her defiance, her flame. Like she belonged.

And gods help me, I hated that part of me agreed.

Her presence unsettled me—not just for the danger it invited, but for what it stirred inside me. It had been centuries since I’d let myself feel anything so immediate, so visceral. Wanting had always been dangerous. Wanting had always come with a cost. And yet—

She was beautiful.

Not the delicate, icy beauty of noble courtiers or the perfect symmetry of court-born vampires. No. Delphine Ashwood was beautiful like fire was beautiful—impossible to ignore, sharp around the edges, something you felt before you understood it.

The way her eyes caught the light when she was thinking. The way she tilted her head when she challenged me, like she was daring me to push back. The way she smiled—not sweet, but bright, and always at the worst possible moment.

I’d spent a hundred years closing the doors she waltzed through in days.

I told myself it was the castle responding to her bloodline. To the history buried beneath its foundations.

But I knew better.

It wasn’t just the castle.

It was me.

—

I stood now on the observatory balcony, the night wind pulling at the hem of my coat, the moon high and cold above. Below, the greenhouse glowed faintly, biolights drifting like fireflies in the dark.

I could still feel her there. Even now.

The castle could, too.

The way the wards moved tonight—they pulsed, ever so slightly, like breath. Like anticipation. As if it knew something had changed between us.

Because something had.

I didn’t know what I’d intended when I asked her to meet me. Part of me had wanted to warn her. Another part had wanted—needed—to see her again. And when she arrived, cloaked in moonlight and stubborn fire, I’d felt something shift in my chest.

She looked at me like I was more than a title, more than a mistake wrapped in shadows. She looked like she might actually see me. And gods, I’d forgotten what that felt like.

The door creaked open behind me.

I didn’t turn.

“Don’t,” I said quietly. “Not yet.”

Valesa paused in the doorway. Then stepped out beside me, holding a glass of bloodwine.

“You’re thinking too loudly,” she said gently.

I gave a soft, humorless laugh. “That obvious?”

“Only to people who’ve known you for a hundred years,” she said, handing me the glass. “And to sentient castles with a sense of drama.”

I took the wine but didn’t drink it.

“She stayed,” I murmured. “She looked into that cursed spring and didn’t run.”

“She doesn’t run,” Valesa said. “It’s not in her nature.”

“She’s not afraid of what’s down there,” I said, voice rough. “She should be.”

“She trusts you,” she said softly.

“She doesn’t know me,” I snapped.

“She’s starting to,” Valesa replied, unbothered. “And maybe that scares you more than the vault ever could.”

I looked away.

“She’s different,” I admitted. “From the others. From everyone. She looks at this place like it’s alive. Like she’s not just here to fix the magic—she wants to understand it. Tame it.”

“Maybe she will,” Valesa said.

I clenched the glass in my hand. “Or maybe she’ll fall into the same trap the others did. Maybe the castle will take her, too.”

“She’s not them.”

“She’s still Ashwood.”

Valesa fell silent. The wind pulled softly at her braid.

“I should send her away,” I said again.

“You won’t,” she replied. “Because you want her to stay. And because for the first time in a long while, you don’t want to carry this alone.”

I closed my eyes, breathing in the cold night air.

The truth, as always, sat like a blade beneath the skin.

Delphine had cracked something open in me. Something I thought I’d buried in the blood-soaked past. I’d spent centuries guarding these halls, these secrets, my heart.

And in less than a week, she’d stepped in with salt on her fingers and laughter on her lips and made the castle remember what it felt like to be alive.

What I felt like.

I turned back to the window. Somewhere out there, she was still awake. I could feel her magic like a drumbeat against the stone—steady, wild, and tethered to something older than even I remembered.

The castle had chosen her.

And I didn’t know if I could stop what came next.

But gods help me, for the first time in centuries—

I didn’t want to.