Chapter 18: Delphine

His hand was warm against my cheek.

Careful. Steady. Too gentle for someone who had once held the weight of a kingdom in his fists.

I didn’t move. I didn’t breathe.

Because everything inside me—the grief, the fire, the fear—had gone silent.

And all that was left was him.

Theron.

The man who wouldn’t kiss me before because he didn’t think he’d stop.

Now, he didn’t stop himself.

He leaned in slowly, giving me every opportunity to pull away. I didn’t.

His mouth met mine with a softness that caught me off guard. There was no force, no demand. Just heat and tension, barely restrained, and a depth of longing I hadn’t expected. He kissed me like it was something sacred. Like it had cost him everything not to.

I curled my fingers into the fabric of his coat, grounding myself as the world narrowed to the point where his mouth met mine. His hand slid from my cheek to the back of my neck, drawing me closer.

It wasn’t a careful kiss for long.

The restraint cracked—splintered under weeks of tension, near-misses, and too many unsaid things. He kissed me like he was burning from the inside out and I was the only thing keeping him from turning to ash.

And I kissed him back like I’d been waiting my whole life to do it.

I didn’t care that the castle might be watching.

I didn’t care about the seal or the curse or the fact that we were standing on the edge of something neither of us could name.

For the first time since arriving here, I didn’t feel like a stranger.

I felt like the castle had been waiting for this, too.

The ground beneath us shuddered.

Theron broke the kiss first, breath ragged. “That wasn’t—”

“Wise?” I finished, forehead still resting against his.

“Safe.”

We didn’t move.

Another tremor rolled through the earth—gentler this time, but unmistakable. The air vibrated, thin threads of magic pulling tight between us.

I looked down.

A single, pale root had pushed up through the garden floor, coiled like a vein around the base of my boot. Not a vine. Not a plant.

A wardline.

The castle was reacting.

“It felt that,” I whispered.

Theron’s eyes flicked down. “It fed on it.”

The glow at the edge of the garden flared—not bright, but focused. A thin line of gold shimmered across the old path leading toward the West Tower.

The vault was awake.

I felt it like a whisper in my blood.

It knew.

And it wanted more.

-

Inside the castle, lights flickered. Wards blinked in and out. I heard the soft, echoing chime of magic spinning out of sync. Like a harp string snapping far below the surface.

Theron pulled back fully now, his expression shifting from raw to cold calculation.

“We need to check the seal,” he said.

I nodded, trying to catch my breath.

My mouth still tingled where he’d kissed me.

The magic around us had changed.

We had changed.

And so had the balance of power in Castle Thorne.