Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Earth | Evelyn's Apartment

The electric kettle hummed in the quiet kitchen, but the ordinary sound did nothing to ease the tension between them.

Evelyn kept her eyes fixed on the steam rising from the spout, her hands pressed against the edge of the laminate countertop, and didn't turn right away, taking a moment to steady her pulse.

"You're a fugitive hiding in an apartment in Brooklyn," Evelyn said softly. The edge had left her voice. She glanced back at him over her shoulder. "And yet you carry the whole world on your shoulders like a cloak you can't take off. So who are you, really, Auberon?"

Auberon took a while to reply. He stood a few paces off, his silver eyes catching the room's pale ambient light. Although the loose way the hoodie was worn could not completely conceal the natural grace and coiled tension of a ruler who had lost his throne, his expression shifted—a rare, unguarded weakness beneath the impenetrable armor he normally wore.

"Titles are of no account when the crown has already been broken," Auberon said. His voice dropped low and steady, and the room seemed to go quiet around it. He took one slow step toward her, close enough to be heard, but not close enough to scare her. "In Aundil, they called me king. Protector of the high houses. The last shield against the dark."

A weak and bitter smile appeared at the corner of his lips. "As for now, I'm just a ghost living in a world which doesn't even believe that our kind exists."

Evelyn looked at him, the sharp reply which she normally had ready failing to come to her. The loneliness in his words was deep and suffocating and struck far too close to home.

"You were injured," she said softly, breaking the heavy silence as she briefly lowered her eyes to his side, the place where the deep blade with silver edges had torn through him days before.

Auberon pursed his lips, and a shadow crossed his striking features as he looked downward at his own hands. "It was merely a lesson," he said, his voice carrying a grim and quiet edge, "and I learned it the hard way."

Evelyn didn't go on, since she knew the kind of determined barrier he always set up to protect his vulnerability. She went back to the counter and started to deal with the mugs. She made a warm and calming mixture of chamomile and honey, poured it carefully into a ceramic mug, and then turned to give it to him.

"This should help you relax," she said, offering it across the small gap between them.

Auberon looked down at the steaming mug, then up at Evelyn's face, where a brief glimpse of true surprise eased the rigid lines of his jaw. He slowly extended his hand, his long fingers touching hers as he gently took the cup.

"Thank you, Evelyn," he whispered, the hostility completely gone from his voice, replaced by a quiet, soothing warmth that seemed to drive back the cold of the Brooklyn night.

They left the small kitchen and went into the dimly lit living room, settling into the worn seating area. Auberon sat in the armchair facing the sofa, his tall frame folding into it silently and attentively, while Evelyn curled into the corner of the couch.

They drank quietly without speaking, and it wasn't unpleasant; the silence between them felt intense yet steady, broken only by distant sounds of traffic and people in the street. After a long stretch of silence, Auberon broke the spell. "Well, I've been thinking—do you have anything that belongs to your grandmother or, more exactly, to Lilian?"

Evelyn stopped and set her mug down in her lap as she went over the boxes stored in the closets and attics. "I'm not completely certain about it; I could ask Ethan since he usually keeps records of such things. The only thing I know for sure is that she disappeared."

Auberon's brow creased as a deep frown of concentration passed over his striking features. "Disappeared?" he repeated, the word seeming strange and ominous on his tongue.

Evelyn nodded slowly, her eyes moving toward the window. "Yes, I never saw her face—she disappeared a long time before I was old enough to remember. My mother used to tell me that one stormy night she had walked out and never returned. No one has seen her since." She shrugged, but she did it a bit carelessly. "We could find something if Ethan still has our parents' things stored away."

Something flickered across Auberon's face at the mention of the storm—recognition, or the shadow of it—gone before she could name it. He said nothing, only turned his mug slowly in his hands.

Evelyn reached for the coffee table, picked up her phone, and tapped open her messaging app to pull up Ethan's chat. "I'll tell him the anniversary got me feeling nostalgic," she murmured, half to herself, typing as she spoke. "That I want to look through some old family things. It's not even a lie."

Hey. Today got me thinking about Grandma Lilian. Do you still have any of Mom and Dad's boxes? Anything of hers?

Auberon leaned slightly forward in the armchair, his remarkable silver eyes bright with open curiosity as they fixed on the small, glowing rectangle flashing in her hand. "What are you doing?" he asked, his deep voice carrying bewilderment.

"Sending a message," Evelyn replied, not looking up as her thumbs flew across the glass screen.

Auberon's eyebrows shot up into his pale hair, a rare expression of genuine astonishment breaking through his usual stoic composure as he stared at the screen, as if expecting the device to sprout wings or suddenly cast a spell.

The only thing that came out was "What?"

Auberon was a proud man, a ruler who had commanded armies and witnessed the grandest wonders of Aethyria; yet nothing in either world had ever left him truly astonished until this unassuming piece of glass and light.

Evelyn looked at him and set the phone face down on the coffee table with a soft click. "You like it," she said. It wasn't a question. A small, amused smile tugged at her mouth as she watched him, his curiosity written plainly on his face.

"It is… remarkably efficient for something so crude," Auberon conceded, his silver eyes still flicking toward the device as if expecting it to chime again on its own.

Evelyn chuckled softly and stood up from the sofa. "Well, if you're impressed by text, let me show you something else."

She moved around the coffee table, tapped the camera icon on her phone screen, then walked over to stand beside his armchair.

"Here, look at the screen," she instructed, holding the phone out and up, angling it so they were both framed in the small, glowing window. Auberon stiffened slightly at her sudden closeness, his broad shoulder brushing hers, but he leaned in as the shutter clicked, capturing the strange, surreal moment in the dim Brooklyn apartment.

Auberon blinked, his gaze darting from Evelyn's face to the glowing rectangle in her hand where their reflections stared back at him.

On the screen, his impressive, silver-eyed features were captured with impossible clarity—every sharp line of his jaw and pale sweep of hair rendered in vibrant color, framed right beside Evelyn's warm, amused smile. The device hadn't drawn a portrait, nor had it captured a reflection in a looking glass; it had somehow trapped a split second of reality inside a pane of glass.

"It... keeps a moment," Auberon murmured. He stared at the small picture, turning it slightly as if the image might shift. Centuries of elven knowledge, and he had never seen anything like it. "No charcoal. No oil. Not even a trace of magic."

Evelyn smiled, looking down at the photo with a fond glint in her eye. "That's technology for you. No mana required."

"And it remains?" Auberon asked, still not looking away from the screen. "The moment. It does not fade, or… leave, once you lower the glass?"

Something in the question tightened her throat. She thought of her parents' photos, still saved. "It stays," she said quietly. "For as long as I want it to."

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then the low, sharp buzz of her phone cut through the quiet room—the screen lit on the coffee table, Ethan's name glowing across it.

Evelyn hesitated, her hand hovering. A small, cowardly part of her wanted to leave it face down a little longer, to stay inside this fragile, gentle moment before the real world came knocking again.

Across from her, Auberon's head turned sharply toward the window, his pointed ears twitching beneath the hood he hadn't bothered to lower. Down on the street, an engine idled—a long beat too long—before it finally pulled away. Headlights slid across the curtains and were gone.

"Auberon?"

"Nothing," he said, though his eyes stayed on the window a second longer than they needed to.

Evelyn glanced at the curtain, then back at the phone. Just a car, she told herself. She'd been telling herself that a lot lately.

"Speak of the devil," she muttered, and tapped the screen to open Ethan's reply.

Meanwhile, far beyond the veil, a long road had finally ended.

****

Aethyria | The Borderlands

Linrel rested her head back against Jeonran's solid chest, the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart offering a grounding anchor against the biting wind.

Jeonran felt a quiet, conflicting warmth beneath his serious, protective exterior. He hated the selfish satisfaction that rose in his heart—the knowledge that she needed him, that in this moment she had no one else to rely on but him. Although he felt sharp guilt for having such thoughts while the world they knew burned behind them, his arms still tightened slightly around her waist, fiercely protective and determined not to let go.

Alden slowed his horse to a walk, pulling on the reins as the animal’s hooves crunched quietly over the frozen brush. He dismounted with ease, patted its neck, then crossed to the other horse, offering a steadying hand as Jeonran helped Linrel slide down from the saddle.

"We are here," Alden said softly, his breath pluming white in the freezing night air as he glanced up at the weathered, unassuming cabin half-hidden by gnarled ironwood trees.

It sat low in a hollow of the forest, between the thick trees, its roof weathered and covered in moss. No light showed in the shuttered windows. Near the base of the door, worn nearly smooth by years of weather, was a small carved Vaelorian crest.

He unslung the bow from across his back, checking the tension of the cord before casting a cautious, sweeping gaze over the dark, silent treeline. "I shall remain outside for the moment. To make sure it is safe."