ELARA POV
"You look well."
I turned around so fast I nearly knocked over the stone bench behind me.
Julian Thorne was standing at the garden entrance with his hands clasped behind his back and that same soft careful smile he'd had in the Chamber. Like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't stood in that room and held a blade to my sister's throat and called it paperwork.
"Julian." I said his name flat. Didn't move toward him.
"Elara." He stepped into the garden like I'd invited him. "I hope they've been treating you well. The Spire can be... intimidating at first."
Intimidating. That was one word for it.
I'd come out here because the east garden was the one place I was allowed to go that had actual air. Real air. Not the heavy, close, strange-smelling air of the East Tower that sat in the back of your throat and tasted like iron and something older. Out here there were actual plants … dark ones, mostly, leaves that were almost purple and flowers I didn't have names for, some of them so black they looked like holes cut into the world. Little stone paths wound between them. A bench in the corner. A wall of dark ivy so thick you couldn't see the stone behind it.
It wasn't pretty exactly. But it was outside. It was air. After one full night and half a day locked in that room watching shadows breathe on the walls, I needed outside more than I needed food.
And now Julian was here.
Of course he was.
"This is an inspection," I said. Not a question.
"A wellness check." He moved along the path slowly, hands still behind his back, looking at the plants like he was genuinely interested in them. "The Council likes to ensure that arrangements like this one are running smoothly."
"The arrangement is running fine."
"Good. Good." He stopped near a cluster of dark flowers and tilted his head at them. "And Alpha Vane? He's been... appropriate with you?"
I looked at him. "What does that mean."
"It means what it means." He finally looked at me. The smile was softer now. More personal. The kind of smile that was trying to tell me we were on the same side. "Elara. I know this situation isn't what you wanted. I know how it happened and I know my part in it and I'm not going to pretend otherwise."
"Okay," I said carefully.
"But I need you to know that there are people watching out for you. People who want to make sure you're actually safe in here. Not just alive. Safe."
I didn't say anything.
He took a step toward me. "Has he touched you?"
"That's not your business."
"It is, actually. Part of my role is ensuring the vessel is…"
"Don't call me that."
He stopped. Blinked. "I apologize. Elara." He said my name like a correction. "Part of my role is ensuring you're protected."
I almost laughed. Almost. "You're the one who put me here."
"I know."
"You stood in that room and you smiled at me and you had a knife at my sister's throat and you told me to sign."
"I know." His voice went quieter. "And I'm sorry for that. Truly. The Council doesn't give a lot of room for… there weren't other options available at the time."
"Right."
I wanted to believe he felt bad. Part of me … the stupid part, the part that was still a little scared and a little lonely after one night in this palace … wanted to grab onto that apology and hold it like it meant something. It would have been easier. Having one person in this place who was actually on my side.
But I'd watched his face in the Chamber. He hadn't looked sorry then. Not even a little. He'd looked like a man finishing a task he'd been planning for a long time.
"But there are now." He took another step. We were maybe four feet apart. "Elara, I need you to listen to me. Really listen. Not as the Commander. Just… as someone who knows things you don't."
I crossed my arms. "Talk then."
He looked at me for a second like he was deciding something. Then he said it.
"Silas Vane has had three mates before you."
The garden went quiet. Or maybe it was always quiet and I just noticed it now.
"What," I said.
"Three. Over the past twelve years. All of them were brought to the Spire under different circumstances but the result was the same every time." He held my eyes. "They didn't leave."
My stomach did something unpleasant.
"What do you mean they didn't leave."
"I mean they died, Elara." Flat. Direct. "The Void inside him … it's not stable. It never has been. It gets into the people closest to him. Starts small. They lose sleep first, then appetite, then … other things. By the end they're barely themselves anymore." He paused. "The last one lasted four months."
I stood very still.
"You're telling me this now." My voice came out strange. "After I already signed."
"I'm telling you this now because now is when I can actually help you." He reached into his jacket. "There's a way out. Not from the contract … that's sealed, we both know that … but there's a way to protect yourself while you're in here. A way for us to know if things start going wrong before it's too late."
He held out his hand.
In his palm was a small thing. Thin and dark, like a sliver of metal, barely bigger than my thumbnail. It almost looked like nothing.
"What is that," I said.
"A tracker. Small enough that you won't feel it. It goes under the skin at the wrist … takes two seconds, hurts less than a pinch." He kept his hand out, kept his voice calm and reasonable and kind. "If anything happens, if you feel something changing, if the shadows start touching you in ways they shouldn't … we'll know. We can get to you."
I looked at the thing in his palm.
It was so small. That was the thing that scared me most about it … how small it was. Like something designed specifically to be missed. To be forgotten about once it was inside you. Like he'd done this before and knew exactly how big it needed to not be.
I looked at his face.
He still had that smile. That soft, sorry, I'm-only-trying-to-help smile. The exact same one from the Chamber right before he told me to sign or watch my sister die. The smile that looked like kindness and was made of something else entirely.
"You want to put a tracker in my body," I said slowly.
"For your protection…"
"You want to track the baby." The second I said it out loud I knew it was right. I could see it in the half-second flicker across his face before the smile came back. "That's what this is. You don't care about me. You want to know where the baby is at every second."
"Elara…"
"Get away from me."
He stepped forward anyway. Hand still out. "Just let me…"
The hiss came from everywhere at once.
I felt it before I heard it … a shift in the air, a sudden cold that had nothing to do with wind. And then the shadows along the garden walls moved. Not drifting, not slow. Sharp and fast, pulling toward Julian like they'd been waiting for a reason.
They hissed.
Actual sound. Low and awful and wrong, like air being let out of something that shouldn't have air in it.
Julian froze.
The shadow nearest to him reared up … I don't have a better word for it, it just reared, like an animal deciding whether to strike … and Julian took one step back. Then another. His hand with the tracker went back into his jacket fast.
"The Spire doesn't like visitors," said a voice from the dark.
Julian went completely still.
I turned.
Silas was standing at the far end of the garden path. I don't know when he got there. He was always just … there, suddenly, like the dark produced him. His eyes were different in the low light out here. The grey was gone. What was there instead was pale and cold and glowing in a way that wasn't quite human and wasn't quite wolf and was somehow worse than both.
He looked at Julian the way you look at something you've already decided what to do with.
"Alpha Vane." Julian's voice stayed smooth. Impressive, honestly. "I was just conducting a routine…"
"I know what you were conducting." Silas walked forward. Slow. Each step deliberate. The shadows followed him the way they always did, pulling toward him, but they kept one tendril angled toward Julian like a warning still in progress. "I've been watching for the last four minutes."
Julian's jaw tightened. Just barely. "The Council has a right to…"
"Touch her again, Julian." Silas stopped. Close enough now that Julian had to look up at him. His voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "Touch her again and I'll send your head back to the Council in a gift box."
The garden went dead silent.
Julian looked at him for a long moment. Then he looked at me. Something moved in his expression that I couldn't fully read … not quite fear, not quite frustration. Something calculated. Like he was storing this away for later.
He straightened his jacket.
"I'll see myself out," he said.
And walked away.