The cold tiles pressed against my skin.
I didn't know how long I'd been lying there, curled up at the foot of the bookshelf, breathing shallow and weak. My body had given up before my mind could.
A sharp sting tugged at my chest with each breath I managed to draw in.
I blinked up at the ceiling.
The library.
Right.
The secret room… the photos… the strings…
And the picture of me—centered like a target.
I tried to sit up, but my arms trembled violently. My legs were no better. Every movement sent my thoughts spinning. My world had cracked, and it felt like I was floating in between.
"Ma'am…?" A soft voice filtered into the room.
I didn't answer.
Footsteps. Then a gasp.
"Ma'am!" Clora rushed to my side, gently lifting me. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
I couldn't speak. I just shook my head slowly. My lips barely moved.
"Your skin is freezing," she whispered, wrapping her shawl over my shoulders. "Come. Let's get you back to the room."
I let her lead me. I didn't resist.
Not even when she asked no questions—because she didn't dare.
Even she knew better than to ask what happened in Levi's house if you wanted to remain alive.
— — —
I sat in the room with a blanket over me, staring at nothing.
I hadn't cried.
I couldn't.
The image of the red strings—how they all led to me—haunted my every blink. What did it mean? Why was there a baby picture of me there?
That room wasn't for decoration.
It was a plan.
A secret study of something far beyond me.
Of wolves. Of Setvastl.
Of bloodlines.
Of me.
And him.
The door creaked open behind me, but I didn't turn.
I didn't need to.
I felt his presence fill the room like smoke.
He didn't speak.
Not even a hi or hello.
But this time, the silence wasn't as quiet.
He walked to the table and poured himself a glass of water. He sipped slowly, as though nothing unusual had happened—like he hadn't disappeared for a whole day.
His calm unnerved me.
I turned my head, watching him as he adjusted his cufflinks. His face was clean, sharp, unreadable as always.
But now I saw through it.
There was something behind that mask. Something dark. Something deliberate.
He turned and finally looked at me. For a second—just one—I thought I saw a flicker in his eyes. Care? Guilt?
No. That wasn't Levi.
"Do you always hide important books?" I asked, my voice thin but steady.
He didn't answer.
"I couldn't find it," I continued. "The book that was on the shelf yesterday."
I couldn't talk about the room behind the shelves. I feared he might kill me.
He set his glass down carefully.
Still, silence.
"I searched for it everywhere."
He stepped closer, slow and steady like a shadow moving across the floor. He stopped only a few feet away.
Then, softly—too softly for the weight of the moment—he spoke.
"Some information is better left untouched."
It wasn't anger in his voice.
It was something different.
It sounded like a quiet warning.
Something that made my stomach twist.
"What am I to you?" I asked, summoning courage from a place I didn't know existed. "A doll? Or a toy of some kind? Something for your use alone?"
His eyes darkened. For the first time, his perfect posture faltered. He took a breath and looked away.
"You are more than that."
My voice cracked. "What? What then am I?
Why… why did you save me?
And what are you hiding from me?"
I let it all out. All the frustration, the fear—I burst into tears. The tears I had held in for so long. From the moment Setvastl burned to ash until now, I had never allowed myself to cry. Not once.
And here I was, drenched in my own cries, filled with confusion, fear, and pain—the uncontrollable kind of pain.
He didn't respond. He walked past me and reached the window, drawing the curtains halfway open. A sharp ray of light spilled across the room, highlighting the ridges of his jaw, the veins in his hand.
He stood there, staring out in silence.
So I asked the only question left burning in me.
"Did you… plan on killing me? Or maybe using me for some kind of ritual?"
Now I fell to my knees, letting it all out in a pool of tears.
I couldn't—
I couldn't hold myself anymore.
I had lost too much in such little time.
Not just Setvastl—Selena and Valen.
Not just Kas and Jerath.
I had lost myself.
I had lost my identity and every form of sanity I had left.
Then he came and knelt before me. For the first time, I saw it. I saw worry in his perfect face. I saw concern.
And his words hit me directly in the heart.
"You're not just a toy. You're not a device. You are mine. And you are the only thing that completes me."
He gazed sharply at my face, and his expression held a certainty that shook me.
"And I will protect you—with every drop of blood I have in me—because… you are my future."
Immediately, all my worry vanished.
I was certain again.
I knew who I was.
I was his.
His, and only his.
If only I knew what that meant—
It wasn't out of love that he meant to protect me.
It was out of something different.
Something I would soon come to understand.