Chapter Two: Tea, Daggers, and Devotion
"Stand still or I'll pin this hairpiece into your brain."
Amalthea didn't flinch. "You say that like it's a threat."
The maid behind her let out a theatrical sigh and yanked the comb tighter, twisting the sleek dark strands into a flawless spiral of braids and coils.
"You're lucky you have the bone structure to make up for that attitude, my lady."
"I hear that a lot," Amalthea replied with a small smile, lifting her teacup without spilling a drop.
Outside the arched windows, the sun lit the white marble walls of the House of Ascension like a theater set. Laughter drifted in from the garden below, shrill and over-perfumed. Noble daughters fluttered about in layers of silk and practiced charm, each one desperate to outshine the others with sweetness—or sabotage.
The tea tasted of lavender and crushed mint. Bitter. Deliberate.
Amalthea let it settle on her tongue before swallowing, letting the sharpness remind her where she was.
"Are you sure about that hairpin?" she asked casually, catching the glint of metal.
The maid blinked. "Why?"
"It looks poisoned."
There was a pause. Then an uncomfortable laugh. "You nobles and your jokes."
Amalthea's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Mm. Hilarious."
---
Her first lesson of the day was Imperial History.
Which meant she'd be trapped in a study hall with twenty other girls pretending to be clever while trying to stare each other into an early grave. It was more performance than education.
Still, Amalthea took her place in the back row, letting the sunlight catch the edge of her profile just enough. Every movement she made was precise, timed to the rhythm of what she wanted people to see: elegant, but shy. Pretty, but quiet. Rich, but humble.
Forgettable.
It was working. Too well, almost.
"Lady Vale, is it?" someone whispered to her right.
She turned her head slightly.
The girl beside her was all icy charm—platinum curls, crystal blue eyes, and a smirk that never quite softened. Her dress was lace and frost tones, perfect for someone used to being the center of a colder world.
"I'm Lady Elira of House Thornspire. We haven't spoken yet, which is unusual. I make a habit of meeting every girl worth meeting."
Amalthea inclined her head. "Then I'm flattered."
"But not impressed?" Elira asked.
"I never said that."
"Mm. But you didn't deny it either." The girl's smirk widened. "Delightful."
The instructor—an aging nobleman with a scroll longer than his patience—started droning on about Aetherium wars and the founding of the Sigils. Amalthea kept her gaze forward, but she felt Elira watching her.
She also felt something else. A shift in the air.
The faintest tremor of Aetherium.
It brushed her skin like cold silk.
She didn't react, didn't so much as blink.
But she felt him.
He was here.
---
Damon
He stood outside the hall, hidden in the narrow gap between two guardian columns. Clad in dusky gray, his hair swept back, his presence wrapped in an Umbral veil that shimmered just enough to bend the light away from him.
Amateurs would call it invisibility.
He called it breathing in silence.
Inside, she was sitting as if she belonged—spine straight, hands delicately folded, eyes calm.
But Damon Vire could see the pulse in her neck. The tension in her fingers.
She knew.
He had to be careful.
The Whispering Dagger did not forgive sentiment. And he was crossing a line just by being here.
But how could he not be?
He hadn't expected a mate—not in this cursed empire, not in a noble, not in a Devourer. But the moment his power had brushed hers, it had locked on. Drawn. Marked. The bond was still weak—buried under years of suppression—but it was there.
He had wanted to walk away.
But her name was already written across his soul in invisible ink.
And Damon Vire had never been good at walking away.
---
Later – Courtyard
Amalthea was peeling an apple with a small ceremonial dagger.
Slowly. Carefully. Just enough pressure to keep the peel intact.
She sat on a garden bench as birds chirped in the nearby trees and noble girls fluttered around with parasols and false laughter.
Lady Elira was seated beside her.
"Did you know House Vael has a duel pending against House Thornspire?" Elira said, sipping her wine.
"I don't duel over gossip," Amalthea replied without looking up.
"Oh, this isn't gossip. This is blood tax. Your cousin Calista filed it last year. Said your house dishonored theirs."
Amalthea's grip on the dagger tightened for just a breath. "Did she now."
"She also said House Vale was new money, raised from trade scum and alchemy—illegitimate nobles at best."
Amalthea turned slightly. "Is that meant to scare me?"
Elira shrugged. "Just offering a courtesy. No one survives here without knowing which wolves are hungry."
Amalthea finally looked up. Her gaze was soft, curious, and so sharp it could skin bone.
"I don't mind wolves," she said.
"I know how to bite back."
---
Later – Bathing Chambers
Steam curled through the air, rich with rosewater and myrrh.
Amalthea slid into the warm pool slowly, letting the heat soak into her bones. Alone, for once. The walls were marble and the water soft as velvet.
She tilted her head back against the stone and stared at the ceiling.
Seven years.
Seven godsdamned years since the day the flame sigil on her skin cracked apart and revealed something... darker.
Her "cleansing" had been public.
Her body burned with spellfire. Her name removed from the High Houses' registry. Her family silent.
All of it because she awakened not as a Fyrant like her mother... but something else.
Something banned.
Something feared.
Devourer.
She hadn't even known what that meant back then. Only that it hurt. That it broke her. That it changed her.
And when she survived?
They tried to kill her again.
She clenched her fists beneath the water.
Her power stirred.
The tiles beneath her feet shivered.
And far above the chamber ceiling, in the shadows, someone moved.
---
Damon
He shouldn't be here.
He really shouldn't.
He hadn't meant to follow her. Just meant to observe. Confirm what he already felt. Report back to the Syndicate.
But when he saw the steam rise, saw her hair unbound, saw the faint glow of energy ripple off her skin...
He couldn't move.
She was glowing. Not in power, but in presence. A woman carved from wrath and ruin and something softer she kept caged so tightly he doubted she even remembered it was there.
He shouldn't want her.
He did.
He stepped back into shadow and disappeared again, silent as breath.
But the bond between them pulsed, just once.
And in the water, Amalthea opened her eyes.
---
That Night – Her Room
A letter waited on her bed.
Again.
This time it wasn't veiled. It was direct. Written in slanted black ink.
> "The wolves are circling.
I'll keep their teeth away—for now.
But you owe me a truth.
Why did you return?"
— D.V.
She stared at the signature.
D.V.
A smirk tugged at her mouth.
So the Shadow had a name.
She lit the letter on fire and watched it curl to nothing.
Then she whispered into the silence of her empty room:
"I came back to burn what tried to bury me."
And the shadows around her swirled... as if they approved.
---