Chapter 145: The Reason She Stayed
Aelion’s silver hair fell past his shoulders, long and impossibly smooth, catching the filtered sunlight beneath the trees like strands of pale silk. Aveline frowned as she stared at it.
"I don’t understand."
For a brief, absurd moment, she genuinely thought he meant his brothers hated him because of how beautiful his hair was. Frankly, she was a little envious of it herself.
Aelion’s mouth tightened slightly, as though he already regretted beginning the explanation.
"In Greenvale," he said quietly, "bastards who are acknowledged by noble families are required to grow their hair long. They are forbidden from cutting it."
Aveline blinked.
"It is meant," he continued, "to remind everyone that no matter what surname they carry, they were not born legitimate."
The meaning settled over her slowly.
And when it did, disgust curled in her stomach.
So bastards had only two choices.
Disappear quietly into obscurity... or bear their father’s name and become marked for humiliation for the rest of their lives.
How utterly cruel.
How utterly ridiculous.
Aveline looked at him differently then. The pieces finally began to fit together in her mind—the hatred from his brothers, the way they mocked him, the violence that carried less rage than contempt. This was never simple sibling rivalry.
It was punishment.
Public. Deliberate. Generational.
And suddenly the anger coiled deep inside Aelion made sense.
Aveline’s expression softened despite herself.
"I am an orphan," she said matter-of-factly, as though presenting a fair trade. "At least you have a father who accepted you."
Aelion’s lips twitched faintly, though no real amusement touched his face.
"He had no other choice," he replied.
Aveline tilted her head. "Because he wants to appear noble?"
She had been in Greenvale only a short time, but even she had noticed something obvious. The Sylvarien family’s silver hair was impossible to miss. There was no hiding bastards when they inherited a trait so distinctive.
"There’s more to it," Aelion said.
Aveline studied him for a moment before asking the question that had lingered in her mind ever since the corridor incident.
"Then why are you hiding your ability?"
Her brows furrowed slightly. "If your power is stronger than theirs, shouldn’t your father value you more?"
Aelion exhaled slowly, the sound carrying years of exhaustion within it.
"You’re very naïve, Ava."
Aveline opened her mouth to protest, then suddenly paused.
Realization struck her.
"Your brothers wouldn’t let you live if they knew."
"Their mother’s family wouldn’t," Aelion corrected quietly.
Aveline nodded slowly. Ah.
So the rot went deeper than siblings.
Politics. Inheritance. Power. Families willing to destroy children over bloodlines and succession.
"It is the same reason the King’s bastard survives," Aelion continued, "only because he was born without bending abilities."
Aveline’s heart skipped painfully.
"The King has a bastard too?"
Aelion shrugged lightly, though bitterness flickered across his face.
"Every noble has bastards. Why would the King be any different? Of course he has a royal mistress. Of course, he has a son from her."
Aveline lowered her gaze.
For some reason, the knowledge made her chest ache for Theron.
Perhaps she should not pity him. He was the Crown Prince. Powerful. Revered. Untouchable.
And yet...
What kind of home had raised him, if this was considered normal? What kind of loneliness hid beneath those beautiful, calm eyes of his?
"Everyone is the same," Aelion said quietly.
Something dark twisted around him then. Aveline could almost see it physically now—the shadows near his feet warping unnaturally, sharpening with the hatred inside him.
"Every one of them deserves death."
The words were not dramatic.
That was what made them frightening.
He meant them.
Aveline looked at him carefully.
The rage inside him was old. Ancient, almost. The kind that had not been born from one wound, but from countless smaller cuts endured over years until something inside a person finally rotted.
And strangely enough... she understood it.
Perhaps too well.
"At least," she said softly after a moment, "you were born out of love."
Aelion looked at her.
"Not duty."
For a second, something fragile crossed his face. Pain.
Then he laughed quietly under his breath, though it sounded more like exhaustion threatening to collapse into despair.
"You really know how to say the cruelest things gently," he murmured.
"Truth often is cruel," Aveline said with a shrug. "That’s what I’ve learned."
"You really are insane," he muttered.
"And you are pathetic," Aveline returned without missing a beat.
That was enough to pull a quiet laugh out of him. Not bright. Not relieved. But real. Bitter, disbelieving, and strangely human.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
The alley seemed to hold its breath around them, the filtered sunlight shifting through the leaves above, dust and shadow drifting lazily in the air. The pain between them had not disappeared, and the world beyond the alley had not become any kinder.
But something had changed.
Not trust.
Not yet.
Just the fragile beginning of understanding.
And in Greenvale, where cruelty was often disguised as family and power wore a polite face, that was sometimes the first dangerous step toward something worse. Or something better.
The alleyway around them had gone strangely silent. The leaves overhead rustled softly in the wind, sunlight filtering through the branches in shifting fragments of gold. Somewhere far away, bells rang from another tower within the Arcanum grounds, followed by the distant murmur of students changing classes, but here, between these stone walls hidden by ivy and shadow, the world felt oddly removed from everything else.
Aelion looked down at her again, more carefully this time.
She had scratches on her palms from climbing trees. Dust clung to the hem of her uniform. Her hair was slightly disheveled from fighting four noble boys like a tavern thug. Yet despite all that, there was still something unbearably composed about her.
Strength. The kind born from surviving things that should have destroyed someone.
And suddenly, he understood why she unsettled him so much.
Because she did not behave like someone trying to survive the world. She behaved like someone who already had.
His gaze lowered slightly, the earlier bitterness in him dimming into something quieter. More tired.
"You should have run," he said softly. "You shouldn’t have gotten involved in this."
The wind shifted gently through the alley, stirring the loose strands of his silver hair.
"People here do not forgive humiliation," he continued after a pause. "Especially boys like them."
Aveline held his stare without wavering.
Perhaps another girl would have regretted stepping in. Perhaps another girl would already be trembling, fearing retaliation from noble sons with wounded pride.
But Aveline had survived worse things than spoiled boys with fragile egos.
"Maybe," she said.
The answer was careless on the surface, but her eyes remained steady.
Aelion frowned faintly. "Then why stay?"
That was the part he could not understand.
Why would someone involve themselves in suffering that was not theirs?
Why would someone risk becoming a target for him?
The answer came so softly it nearly disappeared beneath the rustling leaves overhead.
"Because someone else stayed for me when I needed it."
