Page 236 of House Ignis

It showed a girl who looked like she had been dragged through the heart of a furnace and barely survived.

I closed my eyes, but the darkness was worse. All I saw was the sword. The wooden handle.

Dark vines curling around the grip like something parasitic.

Ancient. Wrong. A blade I had never seen before, yet my hands remembered the weight of it.

When I opened my eyes, my fingers were trembling.

I leaned forward, bracing my palms against the cold marble counter, my breath coming in uneven stutters.

For a long moment, I just stared at my reflection, trying to find the girl who had stood on that pitch.

Then my gaze shifted, meeting Aether’s through the glass.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “I’m sorry you have to deal with a weak wielder.”

Tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them, hot and relentless.

“Listen carefully, cub.” His voice slid through the bond before his body even moved.

Aether began padding toward me, silent and deliberate, his massive obsidian form reflected in the mirror behind me.

The quiet power in that single movement made my throat tighten until it ached. I turned fully toward him and sank down onto my knees on the cold tile.

He stopped right in front of me.

For a moment, we simply looked at each other. Gold into gold. Ancient power into broken spirit.

“I chose you,” he said at last, his voice a low vibration in my skull. “Do you think I chose poorly?”

My mind couldn’t process the question. I couldn’t form an answer through the fog of my own self-loathing. But he already knew that.

“When I first came to you,” he continued, his voice softening, “you were sixteen. Frightened. You went into a flare almost immediately.”

The memory hit me like a physical blow.

The day the gods were supposed to have gifted me my boundling—a day that should have been a triumph.

Instead, my body had betrayed me in front of everyone.

“I remember thinking,” Aether went on dryly, “gods… what have I done?”

My chest tightened painfully, a sob catching in my throat.

“But then,” he said, stepping closer until his heat radiated against my knees, “I watched you force yourself through that pain. Pain I could feel through you. For me.”

Tears blurred my vision again. His presence filled the bond now—warm, steady, and relentless.

“From that moment, I watched you endure flare after flare. I watched you battle your own body just to stand beside the people you love. I watched you refuse to let your suffering define you… even when you could barely breathe through it.”

My hands were shaking. My heart felt too large for my ribs.

“Ava,” he said, and the way he spoke my name nearly broke what was left of me, “for that alone… you are the strongest fae I know.”

The words didn’t just land; they poured into me. They seeped through the bond, through bone and blood and soul, filling the hollow spaces Asher had left behind.

I started sobbing, ugly and helpless and real. All I could manage was a nod.