"You weren't surprised." Elha's voice broke the silence that had settled, as she and Avelon walked side by side.

The hallway stretched longer than any other she had walked inside the palace. Very few dark wooden doors lined the walls, illuminated only by the flicker of torches stationed outside. Oddly enough the stone walls complimented the dark wood. Avelon had no idea what these rooms held, but if she had to guess she would think they were rooms. Perhaps even servant quarters. Elha's words hung in the air, yet Avelon did not answer.

Ernin had bid them a swift farewell right after she had requested that they find Fallon. Elha wasted no time pulling her along in the direction they had been heading in originally- toward Balor's experiment room, but she neither blindfolded Avelon nor made any effort to obscure their path to Balor's experiment room.

Avelon remembered the way, a faint recollection left over from her half-hearted attempt to escape.

She suspected that was why Elha had not bothered with precautions. Or perhaps it was simply because they were now, in a way, on the same side.

Weren't they? Avelon's brow furrowed.

Elha cleared her throat, reminding Avelon that the quiet had been shattered by her earlier remark. She furrowed her brow, trying to place what she should have been surprised about.

"About what?" Avelon wondered, not quite following Elha's train of thought.

"You were particularly unphased when Ernin admitted that Lugh was not who he said he was. That he was betraying you for information." Avelon's chest tightened at Elha's words, her throat suddenly dry.

Reluctantly she unstuck her tongue from the roof of her mouth before she spoke.

"No, I wasn't surprised. It seems everyone in Teine has an alternative persona so..." Avelon shrugged as she trailed off.

"I suspect you knew as well and did not tell me." Avelon shook her head, her voice distant. Elha's lips pursed, confirming Avelon's suspicion.

She silently loathed herself for allowing so many misjudgements on her account. Since she arrived in Teine she had been lacking. She had always been careful, and had always thought things through thrice before acting, but since arriving in Balor's palace she had been reckless.

And Lugh. Avelon sighed deeply. The thought of him sent a frown settling onto her face, so deep that she was afraid it may never fade. The walls of the hallway suddenly felt too close to each other.

"I was not surprised, but that does not mean the clarity does not hurt me. I clung to the hope that all of the signs I was seeing was just my paranoia. My ability to think rationally was washed down the drain the moment I set foot in this palace." Elha's gaze lingered on her, though Avelon did not meet her eyes.

"Sometimes, we see only what we want to see and ignore the rest," Elha murmured, her voice tinged with exhaustion. "It's okay for that to happen."

Avelon's gaze was as cold as her voice when she spoke. "Did you feel anything when you murdered my parents?"

Elha's expression faltered, but she did not flinch. Her voice was steady, but tinged with sorrow. "I felt many things. But the need to protect the world from Balor's plans... that overshadowed them all."

Somehow, Avelon could understand the reasoning and the thought of her real parents did not hurt her as much as she thought it would. She never knew them and never had the chance to love them. Yet, anger still pierced her heart. Elha had robbed her of a life possibly filled with all the things Helena and Phelan certainly did not give her.

Mainly love- Raw undiluted love.

Avelon looked at her then, and for a brief moment, Elha's sorrowful eyes met hers, before her face cast downward in regret. Avelon's eye twitched involuntarily as she took a moment to process the events that had taken place. Dana's warning. Lugh's betrayal. Elha's confession and Ernin's assistance. Her body, being the drama queen that it was, threatened to give out.

"What affinity does Balor want to test Today?" Avelon asked, steering the conversation into another volatile subject, her voice cool but edged with a flicker of apprehension.

Elha hesitated, chewing anxiously at her bottom lip. It felt like an eternity before the spoke. "Fire."

Avelon's fists clenched. Fire. Her mind was already racing ahead.

No. It couldn't be.

They rounded a corner, stepping into the final hallway that led to the door of the experiment room. Avelon's memory served well, though the presence six guards stationed outside the door was a dead giveaway of the room's importance. If the guards were not enough of an indicator, the familiar pair of golden eyes standing before the door, awaiting their arrival, was the cherry on the cake.

"Lugh..." Avelon muttered under her breath. Another strike of pure betrayal pierced her heart. Her hand shot instinctively to her neck, as though she could somehow shield herself from the sharp and unwelcome ache his presence caused.

"Avelon." Lugh nodded, his head dipping with a strange, almost apologetic grace. His eyes flashed with a fleeting pulse regret before darkening to an amber-hazel hue. Avelon swallowed hard, her throat constricting. His eyes had changed.

"I trust you have informed the host of the experiment taking place?" Lugh turned his attention to Elha, his voice even.

The word host felt like an insult. Avelon's anger simmered.

"I did. She is ready to comply." Elha's voice hardened slightly on the last word, snapping Avelon from her thoughts and forcing her face into neutrality. Avelon squared her shoulders and raised her chin. Her eyes narrowed as she regarded Lugh, who intently watched her every move.

The word snake echoed through her mind. He was a serpent, smooth and cunning.

Lugh nodded, then shifted, his movements controlled as he reached behind him to push open the door. Avelon's gaze flicked toward the stone door, which blended seamlessly with the surrounding wall—so seamlessly that, if she did not already know of the room's existance, she would have thought the hall to be a dead end.

She studied the curves of the door as it clicked open, and her eyes widened and her breath caught for the briefest moment, her pulse quickening and her mind racing.

Fallon.

Avelon drew up the conclusion that she had to be hidden in a room nearly identical to this one and that was why she had been so difficult to find. Thankfully, Ernin had known where she was. Well, that is what he had led her to believe. Avelon bit the inside of her cheek, the taste of blood sharpening her focus. She had not asked him directly if he knew Fallon's location. She had simply assumed...

Stop overthinking, child. Focus. Dana's reassuring barrelled through her mind.

She took a deep breath, silencing the chaos in her mind. Elha tugged her forward, and Avelon followed, stepping silently behind her into the room as Lugh gestured for Elha to prepare for the transfusion.

Silence ensued as Elha starting readying instruments on the tray standing beside the stone table. Lugh stood before her, watching. His fists clenched and unclenched every time Elha picked up an instrument. Worry surrounded his posture.

Avelon sneered. He had no right to feel anything.

"Was any of it real?" Avelon blurted out, the words tumbling from her lips before she could stop them. Elha froze mid-action, glancing at her with a look of bewilderment.

Elha's eyes darted between Avelon and Lugh, her hands trembling slightly. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again. Lugh turned to face Avelon, his movements slow and deliberate, as though he were considering how to respond.

"What part?" His voice was smooth, but there was an edge to it now. "The information sourcing, or the fickle romance?"

Avelon swallowed hard, but there was something about his tone now, something unrecognizable, that made her wonder if this had all been a game to him from the start. His eyes narrowed, his gaze darkening in a way that made Avelon feel like she was no longer addressing the person she thought she cared for. Avelon blinked, the weight of his tone crushing down on her. Her chest tightened, but she refused to back down.

Avelon clenched her jaw, the words "You're a dick" leaving her mouth before she could second-guess them.

Lugh smirked, his eyes darkening even more than it already had- looking much like his father's own dark orbs. Avelon could feel the faint prickle of fear at the nape of her skull. Lugh nodded, so subtly that Avelon almost missed the slight dip of his chin.

"I'm sorry about this." She barely registered Elha's sudden voice breaking through the tension. Her mind felt sluggish, like it was struggling to catch up. She blinked, but the sharpness of her vision blurred, the edges of the room becoming indistinct.

She had been too absorbed in Lugh's sudden persona shift that her situation and surroundings fell away. Avelon tore her eyes from Lugh's and turned her gaze toward Elha. The room spun as though the floor beneath her had shifted, and she grasped at Elha's figure for stability. Elha tensed as Avelon hand clasped her arm.

What was happening? Avelon's mind felt out of place.

Her body felt... strange. A heaviness settled over her limbs, a slow, creeping weight. The air thickened, almost suffocating. The familiarity of the feeling hit her with full force.

Ciorra.

Avelon coughed and sputtered, trying to catch a breath that was not laced with the paralytic drug. Elha had expertly directed a handful of ciorra powder at her, effectively rendering her useless. Balor, Lugh and Elha had full access to her, for whatever time it would take for her to become in control of her body. A chill ran down Avelon's spine.

Her knees wobbled and her hand shook. The paralytic effect of the drug was overwhelming and working too quick. Elha hastily threw Avelon's arm over her shoulders as she steered her toward the stone table.

The stone table loomed before her, its surface too smooth, too cold, too still. She blinked. The table resembled an altar. Snorting bitterly, Avelon had no choice but lay on the table and wait for the crushed ciorra to completely incapacitate her.

Offered up to the God of Chaos. How poetic. How pathetic...

Avelon lay wholly still, feeling her pulse slowing as her body became heavy. She was no longer in control of her own limbs. Fear trickled down her spine but disappeared almost as fast as it came. She would not be afraid. She knew what was coming and had to brace herself. Anger replaced the remnants of her fear. Beneath her skin, she could feel something dance alongside her angert—a faint hum. A tremor of something more, something alive, thrumming deep inside her.

Her power.

She wanted to smile at the comfort it provided, but her mouth would not move. Her vision blurred, but the hum grew stronger, vibrating in time with the slow beat of her heart. Avelon's gaze darted around the room.

Lugh stood a few feet away, his fingers poised over a sleek, silver blade in his hand as his eyes studied her. Avelon could feel the tension coiling in the air around him. He did not speak as he dragged the blade across his forearm- deep enough to strike a vein. Blood leapt from the cut, gushing in thick streams. Avelon almost wished he would bleed out.

Elha, silently attentive, was beside him instantly. She raised her palms, and his blood stopped momentarily. She nodded and steered herself toward the left of Avelon. Avelon heard the clatter of equipment and suddenly Elha was hovering above her. Her hands moved with practiced ease, positioning over Avelon's body with care. Her eyes flickered over to Lugh, and then to Avelon, an unreadable expression passing over her face. She hesitated, before nodding to herself.

"Stay still," Elha said, her voice a calm whisper, though before Avelon could settle the same calmness into her bones, a blade sliced through her forearm. The cut itself startled her enough to rouse a strangled cry from her throat.

The sound that left her lips both embarrassed and infuriated her. She sounded like a calf being slaughtered. The irony of being slaughtered on a makeshift altar was not lost on her.

Avelon tried to focus as Lugh stepped forward. Her eyes darted between him and back to Elha. Elha's brows were scrunched together in concentration, and the tip of the blade was still pressed against her skin.

Lugh growled as Elha continued to linger, unmoving. "Now" His voice snapped her into action.

She stepped back, waving her palms from Lugh toward Avelon.

Avelon flinched at the first touch of Lugh's blood. It was a strange feeling to explain. His blood met hers like a gentle graze of fingers, before flooding through the cut in her arm and barrelling toward chest. She felt a cold fire erupting in her as his blood moved through her veins, drowning out any whisper of her power she felt before. Her mind strained within herself as the cold spread from her chest down her body. Her body was engulfed in an icy blaze, taking over every inch of her mind and soul. Fire and ice did not mix, yet the cold that coursed through her veins made her feel like she was both freezing and on fire simultaneously.

The level of cold was unbearable.

Avelon's body trembled in response, and her mind screamed in protest, but she could not stop it and could not pull away. Her insides twisted from the cold. Unexplainable pain erupted from within her very core. Not even the paralytic effect from ciorra was able to stifle her body's response to Lugh's blood.

Cold fire. Not warmth. Desolate and cold- as he was.

She strained to keep herself focused through the pain. It felt as if the chill was crawling under her skin, building layer upon layer of frost and then setting it ablaze, until she could feel nothing but the emptiness. Utter isolation filled her chest. It was like being alone in an icy wasteland. The kind of cold that sank so deep it ate at her bones. Her blood felt like it was freezing. The warmth was being sucked from her body, replaced by a suffocating frost that clogged her senses and pulled at her mind.

Somewhere deep within her, her inner voice yelled to make it stop. Her voice was almost unrecognizable.

Her eyes shot sideways to Elha, who stood frozen, watching her with eyes filled with fear. Lugh coughed, snapping Avelon's attention toward him. His face was pale and his eyes dull as he stared at the blood gushing from his wound. He was losing too much blood.

The only good thing about that was that the experiment would end soon. Avelon could not help but wonder whether Elha was depleting his blood supply on purpose. Disgust coiled within her. Not only had she carried Balor's blood within her, but she also now had Lugh's blood flooding her veins.

Her vision blurred again, and she gasped for air, though her chest felt too tight, too frozen to let air in. The cold spread through her, a cruel trickle of ice winding around her spine, lapping at her heart, making it slower and weaker with each beat.

She would die from hypothermia if she could not somehow heat herself.

"Stop." Lugh's voice carried the fatigue that Avelon felt within her. Her chest burned and her body shook violently.

Just as it became unbearable, the cold suddenly stopped. Her body went utterly still. Somehow, and to her unfortunate surprise, she had managed to stay completely awake during the entire ordeal.

She could feel her legs shift sideways as Lugh sat down on the stone table with a thud. His breathing was haggard, and his head rested in his hands.

"You should eat something, sir." Elha's voice echoed somewhere next to Avelon. Lugh grunted in response.

Avelon's limbs felt like stone and her heart felt sluggish as she lay there, barely aware of the world around her. The echo of that cold gnawed at her insides, causing her to gag.

She swallowed the spit that accumulated in her mouth.

"You can move already?" Lugh whispered, his reddened eyes regarding her through narrowed slits. He looked like someone who had not slept nor eaten in several days.

Avelon refused to answer but could feel the prickle of feeling returning to her limbs. She could move her mouth and gag, and had felt him move her leg to sit down.

Lugh's face reddened as a deep frown found refuge on his mouth. "That's impossible. The ciorra should incapacitate you for a while. At least a day."

Avelon's nostrils flared. She remembered Brianne's surprise at her fast recovery as well. Avelon made the connection faster than she thought.

It was uncommon fornormal fae with normal bloodlines, but perhaps not for a fae with Daghlan blood.