Two days later.
The front door of Aurelian's mansion was not locked. Lyra did not knock.
She entered driven by a fury stronger than fear. Elion had mentioned—innocently—that Aurelian had been seen "buying children" in the lower market.
That had been the final straw. He had saved her to cleanse his conscience, only to dirty his hands again?
The house was too large. Too dark.
But the silence was broken by a sound that did not belong there.
Laughter.
Lyra stopped in the center of the hall.
Her eyes went to the winter garden, visible through the glass doors.
Two elven children were running in circles, playing. They were clean. Dressed in clothes that looked hastily altered but warm.
They were eating apples.
Whole apples.
Aurelian stood near the window, watching them with the expression of a man guarding a dangerous border.
Lyra understood before she asked.
She shoved the glass door open.
He turned slowly. He did not look surprised.
"So this is how you help," she said.
He did not answer. His gaze returned to the boy running outside.
"You saw it," her voice did not shake, but it was sharp as broken glass. "You were in the cells with me. You saw what they do to children. The cages. The smell. The way they stop crying because they learn it doesn't matter."
She stepped closer, invading his space.
"And even so, you buy them. For your… entertainment?"
Aurelian opened his mouth.
Closed it.
He could have told the truth. I saved them from dying.
But the accusation in her eyes was so absolute that defending himself felt pointless. And he did not defend himself to anyone.
"The boy is strong," he said instead, his voice technical. "My coachman needed an assistant. The girl came with the purchase."
The lie was obvious. No coachman needed assistants who were six years old.
"Oh." Lyra let out a short, humorless laugh. "I forgot. None of this touches the heart of a strategist. Everything is utility."
She pulled open the purse she had brought.
Gold plates—her savings, gifts from Elion she had kept—fell onto the table with a dull, final sound.
"That covers what you paid for them."
Aurelian looked at the gold. Then at her.
Something darkened in his eyes. It was not greed.
It was offense.
"Take that away," he said quietly. "I don't need your money."
"You're not keeping them," her voice rose at last, breaking. "I won't let you. Not after everything."
She turned toward the garden, gesturing urgently for the children.
Aurelian felt anger rise. Ingratitude. Her blindness.
"Then take those things with you!" he snapped, too cold, too fast. "They're noisy. They dirty the carpets. They're useless."
The sentence landed wrong.
Too late to stop it.
Perfect enough to wound.
Lyra froze. Looked at him with pure disgust.
"I know exactly what they are to you," she said.
She crossed the garden and knelt in front of the children.
"Come. No one is going to hurt you anymore."
The boy hesitated, still holding his apple.
He looked back at the tall man by the window.
"But, ma'am…" his voice was small. "The sir is good to us. He gave us the apple."
Lyra did not answer.
She only ran her hand through their hair, a reflexive, sorrowful gesture.
Poor child, she thought.
That world was cruel enough to teach that kindness is merely the absence of a beating.
"Come," she insisted, pulling them gently.
Aurelian did not move.
He watched as she took the children away. Watched as she saved them from his own version of "charity."
When the front door slammed shut, silence returned to the mansion.
Heavy. Solid.
Aurelian looked at the table.
At the gold she had thrown as if he were a cheap flesh merchant.
Without warning, he swept his arm across it.
The sound was violent—wood, metal, glass scattering across the floor as if pushed out of the natural order of things.
A servant froze in the doorway.
Never.
Never had he seen that.
Not from that man.
Aurelian stood still, breathing deeply, staring at his own hand.
It was trembling.
Just slightly. But it was trembling.
His mind—always fast—slipped into the past.
The Battle of the Northern Pass. Three thousand enemies pouring downhill. He had half that number. The ground had shaken with enemy cavalry.
That day, he had not shouted.
Had not sweated.
Had not felt his heart race.
He had simply given cold, calculated orders—and won, sipping lukewarm tea in his tent.
But now…
Here, in the safety of his own home, unarmed, before a former slave who barely reached his shoulder…
He had broken things.
He had shouted.
The cold anger turned into something icy along his spine.
It was not hurt.
It was fear.
Not of her.
But of the power she inexplicably had to slip into the perfect machinery of his mind and jam everything.
Lyra Venn had done in five minutes what entire armies had never managed to do.
She had knocked General Aurelian off his axis.
He clenched his fist until the trembling stopped.
"Clean this mess," he ordered the servant, his voice metal again. "And get the smell of apples out of my house."
He walked toward his study without looking back.
But he knew that this time, he would not be able to simply close the door and forget.
The strategist had encountered a variable he could not control.
And that, to him, was true terror.