Not when she spoke too boldly. Not when she questioned him. Not even when she had wrapped her hand around his cock and stroked him without instruction.
And that absence of punishment had begun to unfurl something inside her.
It made her move more freely. It made her speak her thoughts more often, even if not always, even if sometimes she still caught herself before words escaped her tongue. But still more than she ever had before.
For the first time in her life, Lyssena felt special.
Not merely tolerated or useful. Special.
She felt like a splash of color in a world carved from shadow. She had no village laws pressing against her ribs, no watchful eyes measuring the length of her bath or the sharpness of her tongue, and even if freedom required an oxygen mask shaped like a bird’s face, she would wear it gladly if it meant she could walk where she pleased and lift her chin without fear.
And now, she was going to see what lay beyond those doors.
She was going to see The Void.
The thought sent a bright thrill through her chest, and she could not stop the small, excited breath that escaped her beneath the beak.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Shadow and Air
Erevos
When his songbird finished moving in place, Erevos finally allowed himself to take a proper look at his newest creation.
His darkness had swallowed her whole, sealing itself along every curve and hollow, and the sight pleased him more than he thought it would.
Lyssena was breathing the air he provided from the human realm, air stolen and folded through time and space. It was not the first time she had done so; she had breathed it within their home, beneath his ceilings, within walls that answered to him. She still did. But now she carried it with her.
What excited him, what stirred something sharp and hungry beneath his skin, was not merely that she could breathe, but that he could manipulate that fragile oxygen across realms anddistances, thread it through shadow and eternity, and let his songbird carry it wherever she wished to wander.
Since she had asked him whether she was still inside a cage, the question unsettled him. Erevos had resolved that she would never feel that way again.
For his greatest wish—his most consuming desire—was to make her stay.
Forever.
He had given her a home shaped from himself. He had arranged meals suitable for human flesh. He had drawn baths that held her gently instead of devouring her. And now he knew she could breathe without dying in his realm.
He had tested the mask on a deer first.
The creature had trembled as he fitted the shadowed beak over its snout, its pulse frantic beneath thin skin, its dark eyes wide with a terror that meant nothing to him—not when compared to the thought of risking Lyssena’s life. He had watched the animal step beyond the threshold, had watched it live.
Only then had he allowed himself to place such a thing in her hands.
Now it was finally time for his songbird to see the outside.
With those thoughts, Erevos opened both doors. He kept his gaze fixed on hers as the shadows parted, watching her masked eyes, watching the subtle lift of her shoulders as anticipation threaded through her body. He had believed he was eager to show her The Void, just as he had been eager to feed her, to bathe her, to clothe her, to provide, to shape, to give.
But as he stood there, shadow curling around his wrists, he realized that his eagerness was not about The Void at all.
It was about her reaction to it.
He wanted to see awe flood her.
He wanted to see fear flicker and then soften.
He wanted to know whether she would step forward on her own.
