Chapter 8: Theron

She smiled at me.

After everything—after breaking into the most dangerous part of the castle, after stepping into sealed magic with reckless ease, after throwing my carefully laid silence back in my face—she looked at me and smiled.

And worse?

The castle liked it.

I felt it the moment she walked away. The wards shifted. The walls exhaled. Magic that had lain dormant for decades stirred again, awakened by her presence. Not hostile. Not yet. But eager. Curious.

Welcoming.

Delphine Ashwood hadn’t just walked into Castle Thorne—she’d unsettled it, teased it, made it lean forward like a predator intrigued by the scent of something new. Something powerful.

I stood in the observatory, above the greenhouses where our conversation had ended, watching her disappear down the winding garden path. Even now, long after her presence had vanished from sight, the magic clung to the space she’d left behind.

She was supposed to be a contractor. A tool.

Instead, she was becoming a catalyst.

After making it back inside, I turned toward the war table, the sprawling map of Castle Thorne spread across it like a battlefield. The leyline markings—visible only to those tied to the old magic—had begun to warp at the edges. Not from decay. From change. As though the castle were reshaping itself in response to her.

I traced a finger across the oldest glyph at the base of the map, the one connected directly to the vault’s seal. The magic there pulsed faintly, in time with something else.

With her.

The door behind me opened with a soft click, breaking the quiet. I didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

“You let her in,” Valesa said without accusation, just weary acknowledgment.

“I tried to keep her out,” I replied, voice flat.

“Not very hard,” she murmured, stepping into the room beside me. “You never strengthened the secondary wards. You didn’t even lock the archives.”

“I underestimated her,” I admitted. “Or perhaps I overestimated the wards.”

Valesa gave me a look—cool, sharp, knowing. “No. You hesitated.”

I said nothing.

“She reminds you of her,” she added, not unkindly.

That drew a reaction. My jaw clenched, my hand curling into a fist atop the edge of the table.

“She’s not her,” I said sharply.

“No,” Valesa agreed. “She’s not. She’s something else entirely. The last Ashwood was strong, but brittle. This one... bends. Adapts. She laughs in the face of danger and dares the darkness to bite first.”

“She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” I muttered. “She walks into ancient vaults with nothing but bravado and half-formed spells.”

“She walks in,” Valesa said quietly. “That’s more than most would dare.”

I turned away from the table, the silence between us heavy. “The vault responds to her. I can feel it. The seal is weakening—and not from age.”

“She’s not breaking it,” Valesa said. “It’s opening for her.”

“Exactly,” I murmured. “That’s what terrifies me.”

Valesa was quiet for a long moment. Then, softly, “She’s changing the castle, and she’s changing you.”

“She’s a problem,” I said, though the words tasted like a lie.

“She’s a solution,” Valesa countered. “You’re just afraid of the cost.”

I glanced at her sharply. “You don’t know what that cost is.”

Her gaze didn’t waver. “I know you’re tired, Theron. I know you’ve been carrying this alone for too long. And I know that you’d rather die than let anyone close enough to help.”

“Because help gets people killed,” I snapped.

“Or saved,” she said simply.

The silence that followed was brutal. Raw.

I turned back to the window, staring into the misty edges of the garden. The moon had risen fully now, casting silver light across the grounds. Somewhere out there, Delphine was probably pacing, sketching glyphs in the dirt or muttering to herself in frustration.

And the castle was listening.

“I don’t know what it wants from her,” I said quietly. “But I know it’s choosing her.”

Valesa stepped beside me, folding her hands neatly. “And you?”

I looked at her, my voice low. “I’m not supposed to want anything.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That wasn’t an answer.”

I didn’t give her one.

Instead, I pulled open the drawer beneath the war table and retrieved the oldest scroll we had—the Ashwood record. It smelled like smoke and iron and old regret. I unrolled it carefully, revealing the name of the woman who sealed the vault with her blood.

Delphine’s ancestor.

She hadn’t gone willingly, not at first. She was offered a choice: die and seal the breach, or live and risk letting the realm beyond this one devour everything. They say she chose nobility.

But I remember her eyes.

And they didn’t hold nobility. They held rage.

Delphine has those same eyes.

And yet now, the magic called to Delphine with reverence. With desire.

As if she were the key that could unlock what no one else could even approach.

Or the offering it had waited centuries to claim.

I closed the scroll slowly, heart heavy.

“She doesn’t know,” I said aloud.

“Then tell her,” Valesa said.

“I can’t,” I whispered. “Because once I do, she’ll leave. Or she’ll stay—and never forgive me.”

Valesa’s gaze was unflinching. “Then choose. Secrets or salvation.”

I turned back to the window once more, watching the fog curl along the garden stones.

“I haven’t decided which she is yet.”