The days after Santiago spoke to me blurred into something heavy and slow.
I didn't plan to stay in my room.
It just… happened.
The first morning, I woke up with the echo of his words still pressed against my chest—You shouldn't be here. Not shouted. Not cruel. Just final. Like a door closed gently but firmly in my face.
So when the maids came, I told them breakfast could be brought upstairs.
They looked surprised. Not offended. Just surprised.
The second day, I did the same.
By the third day, they didn't ask anymore.
I stayed in the room that was meant to be ours, though it felt more like a borrowed space now. I sat by the window, watched the palace gardens from above, listened to the birds gossip about things that didn't concern me.
The storm mage is distant, one bird chirped.
"He always was," I murmured.
But now he is louder inside, another added.
That made me frown.
Santiago didn't come.
Not once.
I told myself I didn't care. That this was better. Easier. After all, this marriage wasn't born of affection. It was duty. Alliance. Expectations.
Still… each morning I found myself listening for footsteps that never came.
On the second day, I caught my reflection in the mirror and barely recognized myself again—not because I looked regal, but because I looked dull. Quiet. Like someone who had folded inward to take up less space.
On the third day, anger crept in.
Not loud anger. Not the kind that demanded answers.
The quiet kind.
The kind that asked, What did you expect, Angel?
That night, I sat curled on the bed, my fox stretched along my legs.
He is pretending not to notice, the fox said.
I laughed softly. "Of course he is."
Storms ignore the damage they cause, it replied.
I didn't answer.
The fourth night came wrapped in silence.
Too much silence.
I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening. The palace had a rhythm I was slowly learning—the settling of stone, the distant movement of guards, the faint hum of magic woven into the walls.
Then I heard it.
A sound that didn't belong.
"Angel."
I sat up.
My heart skipped.
The voice was low. Familiar. Controlled.
Santiago.
I pushed myself out of bed, the cold floor biting into my feet. The voice came again, clearer now, drifting through the corridor.
"Angel… help me."
My chest tightened instantly.
Fear replaced everything else.
Santiago never asked for help.
Never.
I didn't stop to think. Didn't stop to question why he would call for me after three days of silence. I wrapped a shawl around myself and hurried out of the room, following the sound.
The palace corridors were darker at night, the lanterns dimmed low. Each step echoed too loudly. My heartbeat matched it.
"Santiago?" I whispered.
"Here," the voice replied. "In my room."
I slowed as I reached the door.
It was closed.
That should have warned me.
Something in my chest felt… wrong. Tight. Like the air before lightning strikes.
Angel, my fox whispered urgently from somewhere behind me. This is not—
I reached for the handle.
The door opened easily.
The room was darker than I remembered. No lamps lit. No runes glowing.
"Santiago?" I called again.
"I'm here," the voice said softly. Too softly.
It came from everywhere.
The door closed behind me.
I turned sharply—but before I could move, the air shifted.
Cold rushed through me, sharp and invasive, like something sliding beneath my skin. My breath hitched. The room seemed to tilt.
"Angel," the voice whispered again—but this time, it wasn't Santiago's.
It was wrong.
Too layered. Too deep.
Realization hit me a second too late.
"No," I whispered, stepping back. "You're not—"
Laughter echoed, low and satisfied.
"You hear what others cannot," the thing said. "You feel what you do not understand."
My body went rigid.
The shadows moved.
Something pressed against my mind—not pain, not force—but presence. Ancient. Curious. Hungry.
I tried to scream.
Nothing came out.
Magic wrapped around me, cold and suffocating, slipping into the spaces I didn't know how to protect. My thoughts blurred. My limbs felt distant, like they no longer belonged to me.
Storm bearer's wife, the voice murmured. Such a fragile door.
I fought.
Not with magic—I didn't have that kind—but with instinct. With stubbornness. With the part of me that listened, that noticed, that refused to disappear quietly.
Leave, I tried to say.
The thing laughed again.
Darkness folded inward.
I woke up in my bed.
For a moment, I thought it had been a nightmare.
The room was quiet. Familiar. The curtains stirred gently in the night breeze.
Then I realized I hadn't walked back here.
I sat up slowly.
My body felt… wrong. Heavy. Like I'd slept too long. Or not at all.
My fox was gone.
"Fox?" I whispered.
No answer.
Something inside me shifted.
Not violently. Subtly.
Like a shadow settling into a corner of a room I hadn't noticed before.
I lay back down, heart racing, staring at the ceiling until sleep dragged me under again—too fast, too deep.
Santiago returned near dawn.
The moment he stepped into his wing, he felt it.
The imbalance.
The air around his chambers was disturbed, magic warped in a way that made his skin prickle. His steps slowed.
His door was open.
Santiago stopped.
Cold certainty settled in his chest.
Something was wrong.
And for the first time since the marriage began, fear sharpened beneath.