Chapter 5

She stared at him, and for the first time since she woke up, her eyes drifted down to his bare torso.

Now properly bandaged—with the heavy chest plate removed—his frame was impossible to ignore. He was built like a work of art, carved from broad shoulders, lean, defined muscle, and sharp angles that looked far too perfect to belong to anyone from her world. Even pale, battered, and bruised from a near-fatal fight, he carried a breathtaking, effortless grace that completely took her aback.

Auberon tracked her line of sight, a faint, razor-thin smirk touching the corner of his lips despite his pain.

"See something unfamiliar, human?" he asked, his deep voice carrying a quiet, amused rasp.

Evelyn snapped her gaze straight back up to his face, her cheeks instantly burning hot. She cleared her throat loudly, crossing her arms again to cover her momentary slip.

"I was looking at the wound," she lied terribly, standing up from her chair a little too quickly. "To make sure you weren't bleeding through the wraps."

Auberon's smirk faded, his expression turning sharp again as he reminded her, "You still haven't told me her name."

Evelyn took a breath, meeting his gaze. "Lilian," she said slowly. "Lilian Vane—that's the name I grew up knowing. My mom always said she went by 'Oryndel' before she came here, but Grandma Lilian went missing before I was even born. I never met her."

Auberon's entire body went stock-still. The faint smirk vanished entirely from his lips, replaced by a look of profound, unadulterated shock.

"Lilian Oryndel...?" he whispered, the name slipping past his lips like an ancient, sacred spell. "The Starlight bearer? She who vanished through the Void Rift during the Second War?"

Evelyn's mouth went dry. "Lilian Oryndel," she repeated slowly, testing the shape of it. She'd never met her grandmother—the woman had vanished before Evelyn was even born, without a trace, without a body, without an explanation. The necklace had come to her secondhand, pressed into her palm by her mother instead. But the name had always snagged on something. Vane wasn't a name, it was a decision. Her mother used to go quiet whenever Evelyn asked why Grandma Lilian had changed it, or where she'd really disappeared to, or why nobody had ever gone looking for her. She'd always chalked it up to some old family wound nobody wanted to touch.

Apparently it hadn't been a metaphor.

He stared up at Evelyn as if seeing her for the first time. His molten-lead eyes swept over her brown hair, the sharp curve of her jaw, and the subtle shape of her eyes.

"You carry the blood of House Oryndel," Auberon rasped, his voice filled with awe. "The high nobility of the Northern Spire. Your bloodline was thought to be entirely extinct... wiped out when Elden's ancestors seized the high seats."

Evelyn blinked, her heart taking a strange, heavy leap in her chest. "Extinct? I... I just thought my grandma was a quirky eccentric who collected weird antique jewelry and refused to talk about where she was born."

"She was hiding," Auberon said flatly, his dark eyes locking onto hers. "She was protecting the crest. Protecting you."

He pushed himself further up against the sofa cushions, his gaze shifting back toward the silver chain resting on the floorboards.

"If Elden's shadow-stalkers followed my passage through the rift, they didn't just come for a fallen king," Auberon said softly, his voice dropping into a deadly, grave register. "They will sense the blood of Oryndel. They will come for the last living bearer."

Evelyn stood frozen, the weight of it all pressing down at once—Lilian Oryndel, extinct bloodlines, hunters who tracked blood across worlds. Her quiet, predictable life as a librarian was disintegrating before her eyes, and she couldn't find a single thought steady enough to hold onto.

She stared at the shirtless, silver-haired king sprawling across her couch, her mind completely overloaded. Royal blood? Extinct houses? What in the world was he even talking about? "You're joking," she managed. "This has nothing to do with—"

Her brain gave up entirely somewhere around ancient royal bloodline , which was probably why it took her a full second to register the low, monstrous rumble that cut her off. Evelyn blinked. "Was that... your stomach?"

Auberon's jaw tightened, a rare, faint flush rising to the tips of his slightly pointed ears. He stiffened, trying desperately to maintain his stoic, regal dignity while his stomach growled loudly for a second time. "My treacherous body is demanding nutrients," he declared formally, as if announcing a royal decree rather than admitting he was starving. "What game have your hunters slain recently?"

Evelyn stared at him, letting out a breathless laugh. "Game? Hunters? Your Highness, I shop at Trader Joe's."

Auberon's heavy brows pulled together. "Trader... Joe? Is he the local chieftain?"

"No, he's a grocery store," Evelyn muttered, rubbing her temples. "Look, stay on the couch. Don't touch anything. Don't bleed on my rug. I'm going to see what I have in the kitchen."

She turned on her heel and walked into her small kitchenette. Pulling out a container of leftover chicken penne pasta, she popped it in the microwave, grabbed a plate, and heated it up. A minute later, she carried the steaming plate over and set it on the coffee table alongside a shiny silver fork.

"Here," she said. "It's not a royal feast, but it's food."

Auberon reached down and picked up the fork. To Evelyn's surprise, he held it with flawless, natural grace—his long fingers gripping the utensil with the effortless elegance of someone raised in royal banqueting halls. Elven culture clearly had silverware.

What he didn't have, however, was any idea what he was looking at.

He leaned over the coffee table, hovering his face inches above the plate. He stared at the pale, tubular penne noodles covered in garlic cream sauce like it was a pile of strange, edible grubs or small sea creatures.

He nudged a piece of pasta with the tines of his fork, watching it squish softly. His dark, molten eyes narrowed in deep, profound suspicion.

"What... manner of beast is this?" Auberon asked slowly, his deep voice dripping with hesitation. "And why has it been smothered in curdled cream?"

Evelyn had to press her hand over her mouth to stop a burst of laughter. "It's wheat pasta and parmesan sauce, Auberon. It's not a beast. Just... eat it."

He poked it one more time, glanced at her amused face, and cautiously lifted a single noodle to his mouth. He chewed slowly, his expression tense, before his eyes subtly widened in quiet realization. It was actually delicious.

He immediately abandoned his regal hesitation, taking a second, much larger bite, though he maintained his rigid, aristocratic posture the entire time.

Evelyn leaned back against the kitchen counter, taking a sip of her coffee, watching an ancient high elf aggressively eat leftover microwave pasta off her coffee table.

Yeah, she thought, letting out a tired breath. This is going to be a very long day.