Viktor unlatched the last brass bolt with a care that betrayed more hesitation than he intended. The locks were elegant—ornate and imported to resemble decorative flourishes on the heavy paneled door—but their purpose remained unmistakable.
When he eased the door open, warm lamplight spilled into the hall.
Ayoka's study was one of the finest chambers in the judgment-town. A tall arched window looked out onto an eerily still garden. Velvet drapes, pinned back with carved wooden lilies, framed the glass. A Turkish rug in deep reds and indigos softened the floor, and Ayoka sat barefoot upon a midnight-blue settee, a book open across her lap, pen and inkwell arranged with quiet precision.
It was elegant.
It was comfortable.
It was locked.
The house itself rested within the Shadowman's peculiar town—a place suspended between worlds, where wandering souls awaited judgment. Every structure had a function in that unseen order, and this chamber served as Ayoka's containment as much as her refuge.
She was rarely permitted to leave. The painter's ritual performances, Malik's brief visits, and the occasional supervised walk were her only moments beyond these walls. The rest of her hours passed in a silence heavy enough to feel like a presence of its own.
Isolation bred restlessness. With no real companions and only the drift of lost spirits outside, clothing soon felt unnecessary. Ayoka moved through the room unclothed not to provoke, but simply because it was the sole freedom she could claim in a place where everything else was governed.
Since the night she devoured the trespasser who stepped into the wrong house, she had not turned her hunger toward Viktor. He was grateful for the restraint, though unsettled by it—her calm felt like a surface stretched too thin over something waiting beneath.
He longed for the doctor's return. Aside from the Shadowman, he alone could read the order of Ayoka's soul. But he had vanished again, consumed by errands he would not explain, leaving Viktor with questions and no guidance.
Nicodemé appeared only when she pleased, her visits as unpredictable as the judgment-town itself. Some days she brought tea and sharp, measured conversation; other days she vanished without warning, leaving only the faint scent of jasmine behind. She was no stable comfort, yet Ayoka grew closer to her than she ever had to Sabine.
Perhaps it was because Nicodemé never pretended this place was anything other than what it was. Perhaps it was because she spoke to Ayoka as though she were not a creature to be managed but a force the world had failed to name. Or perhaps Ayoka simply felt she had nothing left to lose, and Nicodemé treated her as someone worthy of being heard.
So Ayoka remained—confined, restless, yet no longer entirely alone.
And that was the sight Viktor walked into when he finally opened the door.
Ayoka's eyes snapped toward Viktor the moment he entered—sharp, irritated, the kind of glare that made it clear he had interrupted something meaningful.
Nicodemé lounged beside her on the settee, one leg crossed elegantly over the other, a half-finished cup of acholo-spiced tea cradled in her hand. The drink's warm, earthy aroma curled through the room, thick with cinnamon, clove, and that sharp, peppered heat only acholo root produced.
She glanced up at Viktor with mild amusement, then continued her story as if he were merely a draft slipping in through the door.
"As I was saying," she told Ayoka, her voice smooth and unhurried, "there is a town far inland on your continent, a quiet place where the people claim descent from the Weaver-Mother. They say her daughters grew with eight hands instead of two and built their homes from silk strong enough to stop a charging ox."
Ayoka leaned forward, utterly absorbed. "And they never hunted?"
"No," Nicodemé replied, swirling her acholo tea. "Their webs were edible—sweet as ground cassava, tougher than cured leather. They harvested what they spun. The men fished. The women wove. And the elders promised the Weaver-Mother would always keep them fed."
Viktor bowed low—lower than he ever had to another living soul. His spine curved in a gesture meant for nobles, not for him, and yet here he was, bending before Nicodemé with the quiet obedience of a butler. It did not bother him, not today; not when Ayoka's glare cut through him for interrupting her moment of peace.
He kept his head bowed longer than needed, letting the posture shield the thoughts he did not want either woman to glimpse. He had already tampered with her freedom papers, already twisted ink and signature in a way that bound her to this place more tightly than she realized. She believed her recent surge of power came from him—accurate in part—but she did not know the truth of it. She did not know Viktor was the reason she remained. She did not know he was the one who told Sabine to leave, believing distance would keep Ayoka calmer and safer. Instead, it only left her lonelier, and the guilt gnawed at him relentlessly.
He thought of the nights she paced the room, bare skin catching lamplight, restless and confined. She offered Nicodemé small truths, shared pieces of herself without hesitation, yet she rarely opened to him. He understood why—his hands had shaped too much of her life, his authority had pressed against choices she never freely made. Trust struggled to grow under those conditions.
Still, watching her lean closer to Nicodemé, listening to that soft, patient storytelling, stirred something sharp beneath his ribs. He straightened slowly, smoothing his coat as if that simple gesture could hide the turmoil. Ayoka had already turned half away, her attention drifting back to Nicodemé and the half-finished acholo-spiced tea.
Viktor remained near the threshold, feeling far less like the nobleman he was raised to be and far more like a servant waiting to be dismissed—or noticed.
And for the first time, he wondered with painful clarity what they truly were: jailer and captive, guardian and danger, two souls bound by a ritual neither had meant to invoke, or something softer and far more treacherous than either dared to claim.
Nicodemé lifted her cup with a small, indulgent sigh.
"You may rise, Viktor. Truly. My brother delights in presenting himself as some grand, terrible architect of destinies, but in truth he is little more than a clever dealer of bargains with a flair for theatrics. He insists upon telling everyone that I am the darker half of the family—usually while making some absurd bargain over someone's soul."
Ayoka's brows lifted, amused.
Nicodemé continued with a dry smirk, "According to him, I once felled ten thousand soldiers in a single night using nothing but an astral projection of my thighs. They claimed the shock traveled across three realms and, as a result, some scholars now classify me as a 'walking war atrocity.'"
Ayoka laughed—bright and startled—and the entire room softened around her. Warmth stirred through the walls as if a hearth had been stirred to life.The shadows thinned, losing their heavy edges. Light crept more boldly across the Turkish rug.
Nicodemé took another slow sip of her acholo-spiced tea. "An exaggeration, naturally. I have never dispatched more than eight thousand in one evening. And even then, it was my brother who negotiated the terms."
Viktor blinked, not entirely certain whether to laugh or cross himself.
Viktor shifted his weight, tugging once at his cuffs, though his pulse had not yet settled from Nicodémé's storytelling. The shadows along the walls remained soft, still warmed by Ayoka's unexpected laughter—an echo of something freer, wilder, and deeply old. He felt strangely out of place, as though he were an intruder in a room that had chosen its own mistress.
He cleared his throat. "I came to ask something of you."
His gaze flicked between the two women before settling on Ayoka.
"I obtained your brother's permission," he said carefully, "to take Ayoka for a walk through the town."
Ayoka's head lifted sharply. Light seemed to catch in her eyes, brightening them with sudden, unrestrained joy. For a heartbeat she resembled someone who had been drowning and finally tasted air.
"Truly?" she whispered.
She shifted as if to stand, but the shadow-chains at her ankles tightened instinctively, tugging her back with a reminder of the town's rules. The brightness in her expression dimmed, though it did not vanish. She steadied herself, drawing a slow breath through her nose.
"I thought this place was a ghost town," she murmured. "Nothing but spirits and judgment."
"It is," Viktor replied, "and yet… not entirely. The lines blur here. The living and the dead walk close, though rarely in the same condition. Only Nicodemé's brother can explain its nature fully."
Nicodemé gave a dramatic groan. "Ah yes—my illustrious sibling. The twisted deal-maker himself. Ask him for directions and he'll give you a lantern, a warning, and a contract for your firstborn." She waved a dismissive hand. "Best not to involve him unless you enjoy headaches."
Ayoka laughed again—softer this time—and the room answered with a faint, comforting shift, as if remembering how to breathe.
Nicodemé rose, gathering her silk robes with languid elegance. "I shall leave you two to your outing," she said with a knowing smile. "Do try not to tear each other apart before supper."
Her form shimmered with gold light, and then she vanished, leaving behind the faint perfume of jasmine and acholo spice.
Silence filled the room, heavy and expectant.
Viktor let out a slow breath, one he had not realized he'd been holding. His hand lifted toward Ayoka's wardrobe by instinct alone—an old habit, a trained gesture. In his homeland, noblewomen rarely chose their own garments. A household provided for them. Maids laid out silks and linens according to the season, the weather, the hour of supper. A lady of high standing need not reach for her own cloak or decide which gown best suited an afternoon walk; such matters were considered beneath her rank.
And so Viktor had treated Ayoka the same way—out of misguided respect, out of habit, out of the old manner of noble care that assumed a woman's choices should be made prettily for her.
But Ayoka was not a noblewoman of his world.
She had never been granted the soft luxuries of indecision.
For her, life had never been curated.
Life had been survived.
Even before Viktor met her, others had dressed Ayoka, posed her, adorned her, and stripped her—not as a lady of any noble house, but as a doll. A body to be displayed. A thing arranged for another's pleasure, never her own. He knew enough of the markets to guess the rest. Ayoka had been purchased cheaply not because she lacked worth, but because she had been visibly pregnant when she stood upon the block. In the slave markets of the American South, a woman heavy with child was often priced low; buyers feared the dangers of birth, the risk of losing property, or legal disputes about a mixed infant. Yet Viktor knew the truth was twisted: if Ayoka had not been pregnant, she would have sold for a high and terrible price.
History carried many names for such women—"fancy girls," "high yellow," "placées"—all euphemisms for the same cruelty: young women appraised like jewels, coveted by wealthy collectors who hoarded beauty as a private indulgence. These men and women cataloged mixed features, unusual eyes, rare skin tones, and particular textures of hair as though they were botanical specimens. And their children, especially those born with striking features, were not spared. Pretty sons and daughters were raised carefully, fed well, trained to obey, groomed until they reached the age at which their bodies could be turned into profit. To such collectors, a child was not a blessing—it was an investment waiting to be harvested.
Beyond the human world, the danger grew even darker. In Ayoka's homeland, older creatures stalked the night—skin-walkers and spirit-eaters that hunted beauty with ruthless efficiency. A woman with Ayoka's face would have been bought only to be flayed. Her skin, once stripped, would become a mask for the creature to wear, used to lure unsuspecting villagers toward their doom: into the savannah after dusk, into the forest's teeth, into river mouths that swallowed sound. And a child bearing her features—a boy with her glow—would be raised only long enough for his skin to mature. Then he, too, would be taken, sewn into the spirit's shifting arsenal like a prized pelt.
That was the world Ayoka had survived. A world that saw her as something to be possessed, consumed, or collected. Yes—she had made choices, but they were choices carved out of captivity. Choices born from danger. Choices shaped by predators, both human and otherwise. Her entire life had been a performance of survival dressed as agency.
Real choice—true choice—was a luxury she had never been taught to hold.
Viktor felt the weight of that truth settle heavily in his chest, an ache made of guilt, fear, and a dawning awe that left him strangely breathless.
Even with all he knew of Ayoka's past—of markets that priced pregnant women low, of collectors who hoarded beauty as though it were currency, of creatures in her homeland who would have flayed her for her skin—Viktor could not shake the darker thought pressing at the edge of his mind. Was any of this truly fate, or was it simply his dragon nature binding her more tightly than any shackle could? Dragons hoarded; it was in their marrow. They gathered gold, relics, memories, people. Ayoka had become part of his hoard. So had Sasha. So had the few others he called family. The instinct to protect, to keep, to hold, ran ancient inside him—older than his human name, older than the Shadowman's town.
It would have been easy to blame everything on that instinct. Convenient. Clean. To tell himself that dragons were possessive by nature, and thus he had done nothing truly wrong. To excuse his tampering with her freedom papers, his quiet interference, the way he kept her close even when she pushed against her cage. But that was a lie, and he knew it. What a stupid, pathetic excuse—to hide behind a beast he had inherited rather than face the truth of the man he actually was.
Viktor wanted Ayoka near because he wanted her. Not because of scales buried beneath his skin, not because instinct demanded a hoard, but because the flawed, frightened, selfish human part of him feared losing her more than he feared her power. He could not pretend otherwise. She had been caged by humans, hunted by spirits, priced by collectors, and nearly claimed by monsters; she did not need another creature—dragon or man—blaming instinct for the way he held her too tightly. The realization settled heavily in his chest, an ache he could not soothe with lineage or logic.
Ayoka watched Viktor from the corner of her eye as she weighed the key in her hand. Part of her—an old, wounded part—braced for him to turn and leave the room. Men did that. Women too. Masters, mistresses, overseers, caretakers, even fellow slaves who had whispered soft words in the dark. They came when they wanted her warmth and left once the need passed. They always left.
Her life was a series of hands reaching in and out of cages.
Freedom was never the opposite of captivity; it was simply the moment before someone else closed their fingers around her.
She had expected Viktor to fall into that pattern as well. He had the gentleness for it, the quiet hands that never struck, the soft voice that could deceive a weaker woman into believing she mattered. The kind who lingered long enough to warm a bed or steady a frightened breath, then disappeared when the sun rose.
But he hadn't left.
Even now, as he stepped back from her wardrobe, he did not turn his back. He did not move toward the door or make himself distant. Instead he stood with a stillness she did not understand—a stillness that felt like waiting, not abandoning.
It unsettled her.
She had begun to notice how differently he treated her. Not as property—though he had the right and the training to act as though she were. Not quite as family, either. And not like a woman to be handled, dressed, and guided the way other men did with their placées and concubines.
No… Viktor held himself like a man standing before a storm he respected, not one he believed he controlled.
Ayoka couldn't decide if that made her feel seen or exposed.
Her eyes flicked over him—his posture too careful, his breathing measured, his expression wary in a way he could not hide. There were times she thought he feared her. Other times it felt like he feared himself.
For a brief, unsettling moment she wondered if Viktor was like the old creatures of her homeland—spirit-eaters, shape-changers, things that mimicked men until they grew hungry. At her angriest, her wildest, she had been certain he was a skinwalker in human flesh. During her darker nights she wondered if he was a wendigo wearing gentleness over its bones.
But no.
Whatever Viktor was, he was not one of the old horrors she had known. Skinwalkers devoured and wendigos consumed without hesitation; neither creature knelt, nor apologized, nor placed the key to someone's chains gently in their hand. If Viktor had been one of them, she would have felt the coldness of their hunger long ago. Instead, there was something different inside him—something older, something hoarding, something warm in a way that frightened her precisely because she did not understand it. Ayoka had learned to fear what she could not name, and Viktor's nature was a riddle that pressed at the edge of her instincts.
Her thoughts drifted back through the darker corners of her past, to the elves who had once owned her for their strange, seasonal desires. Certain clans treated demi-humans like her as temporary familiars—pretty, soul-bound companions meant to amplify magic, absorb backlash, and adorn their homes like living talismans. She had served more than one. They treated the bond as a fashionable enchantment to dabble in, never caring what it cost her. Each time they grew bored, they severed the connection without warning, leaving her hollowed-out, trembling, and aching in her bones for weeks.
She remembered the first broken bond, then the second, then the third—her body sagging under the weight of magic that was never hers, her spirit bruised and cracked by the tearing-away. Those elves had called it art. She had called it agony. She was grateful every day to no longer serve them; the constant cycle of being bound, used, and discarded had drained her soul as surely as any sickness.
And beneath all of that, beneath every scar and memory, was the part of herself she remembered only in fragments. She was not human, not even half. She was her own creature, born of an ancient serpentine line whose power coiled deep in her bones. Sometimes she felt it—heat under her ribs, a ripple beneath her skin, a faint pressure along her spine as if folded scales wanted to stretch. She knew she shed her skin at times, though the memory was always blurred. She knew the cast-off pieces hardened into armor, though she remembered it dimly, like a dream she could not fully grasp. The truth of her nature lived somewhere behind a fog she had never managed to clear.
Comparing Viktor to those sharp-smiling elves should have made things simple. They had played with her spirit, taken what they wanted, and abandoned the rest. Viktor, for all his faults, did not do that. His presence felt heavier, warmer, something that pressed rather than pierced. It frightened her—not because it resembled harm, but because she did not have the language for a creature who held her without using her, watched her without consuming her, and stepped back instead of forward.
And that difference—subtle but undeniable—unsettled her more deeply than she wished to admit.
Ayoka looked up from the fallen chains, her breath slowly settling as the metal cooled on the rug. Viktor watched her from a respectful distance, his hands held still at his sides, his expression tight with something he chose not to name. After a long moment, he swallowed and spoke. "Ayoka… I should have asked you." She frowned slightly, unsure what he meant. "Asked me what?" He shifted his weight as though the answer embarrassed him. "If you wished to see the town. I forgot to ask. I merely assumed you would want to go."
Ayoka blinked, surprised by the simplicity of the admission. He did not step closer; he did not reach for her. He only stood in the warm lamplight waiting—waiting like a man bracing for a wound he expected to deserve. "I didn't want to drag you anywhere," he added softly. "Not after everything. Before I speak of anything else, I must see how you react." Her fingers brushed the last length of chain beside her, feeling its lingering warmth against her skin. "How I feel," she echoed, tasting the words as if they were a language long forgotten.
"Yes," Viktor said, his voice steady but cautious. "Your reaction matters first." Ayoka studied him, remembering a lifetime of being told where to stand, what to wear, when to speak, how to move. People led her, pushed her, posed her, used her, and left her. No one ever waited. No one ever paused long enough to consider her feelings as something worth hearing. The quiet hesitation in Viktor's posture unsettled her more than any command he could have given. It was strange to see him choose restraint. Strange, and dangerous in a new way.
"You forgot to ask me," she murmured.
"I did," he admitted, his voice roughening at the edges. "And I am trying not to forget again." She studied him for any sign of deceit, any hint of manipulation—the familiar tug of control she knew too well—but found only genuine worry. Viktor waiting for her was somehow more frightening than Viktor commanding her. She exhaled slowly and glanced at the open wardrobe before returning her eyes to him. "You want to know how I react," she said, testing the shape of the words. "Before anything else."
"Yes," he replied.
A long silence stretched between them, warm and uncertain. Ayoka lowered her gaze to brush a bit of dust from her knee—a small gesture, but one that helped her steady her thoughts. When she finally looked back at him, her voice was quiet but firm. "Then ask me properly," she said. "So I can answer properly."
Viktor straightened as though her words struck something fragile inside him. He met her eyes directly and spoke with care. "Ayoka," he said, "would you like to see the town?"
Her reaction began in the smallest shift of her breathing—deep, conflicted, impossible to predict—and Viktor braced himself, waiting for the answer he feared and needed in equal measure.
Ayoka held his gaze for a long, weighted moment, her breath steadying, her expression unreadable. Then her lips parted just slightly, and in a voice that carried equal parts fear, curiosity, and something Viktor could not name, she said:
"Yes."