Chapter 234: Purpose Of Power

Aveline walked away feeling defeated and hollow.

Was she too late? Would Lydia’s fate have been different if she had made Lucien listen to her sooner?

The questions followed her with every step, and guilt and shame clung to her more tightly than her own shadow, weighing down both her mind and body.

The morning breeze was cool against her skin, and sunlight spilled softly across the grounds. Birds chirped from the trees, oblivious to everything that had happened, but none of it could lift the heaviness inside her.

She wasn’t hungry. She hadn’t slept properly. She couldn’t sleep, and yet she was so exhausted that even keeping her eyes open felt like an effort. All she wanted was to find Hamilton again. She needed something familiar, something that did not ask questions of her.

“I found them.”

The familiar voice almost made her walk straight into him. Aveline stopped abruptly and looked up, still lost in her thoughts.

Lucien stood before her.

Aveline blinked, then her expression hardened. “Who are they?”

Her blood seemed to heat all over again.

“The ones who hurt your friend,” Lucien said quietly. “I found them.”

Aveline stared at him.

“What are you planning to do with them?” he asked. “How do you want them handled?”

Her gaze dropped to the hand holding the paper. Her fingers were trembling. She wanted to take it. She wanted their names. She wanted to find them, burn them, and make them feel every ounce of pain they had inflicted on Lydia.

Rage surged through her so violently that she could barely breathe.

She reached for the paper, but Lucien stopped her.

“You can do whatever you want with them,” he said. “But first, tell me what you want to do.”

Aveline looked at him.

Lucien understood that rage. He had felt it himself decades ago, when Leveret had been hurt. He still carried it, buried beneath years of grief, guilt, and regret. He knew how righteous vengeance could feel in the moment. When someone had committed an atrocity, it was easy to believe that no punishment could ever be enough.

But rage had a way of leaving something behind.

A hollow place in the soul.

Lucien had spent years running from the person he had become because of it, and he did not want Aveline to follow the same path.

If she chose to kill those men, he would not stop her. But he wanted her to make that choice with a clear mind, not while fury was burning through her veins.

Justice could be cruel, but it should never be blind.

Aveline’s fingers curled into fists.

She wanted to burn them. She wanted to hear them scream. The images came easily now, accompanied by the memory of the power she had felt only hours ago—their breaths caught in her grasp, the invisible currents of air responding to her will, the terrifying realization that she could feel the blood moving inside their bodies.

For those few seconds, she had felt invincible.

And she had loved it.

That frightened her more than anything else.

Aveline slowly drew in a breath. Her lungs felt tight, and the anger still clawed at her chest, demanding an outlet. She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe again.

She would not become that person.

Not because those men deserved mercy, but because she deserved to remain herself.

When she finally opened her eyes, the fury was still there, but something steadier had settled beneath it.

She looked at Lucien.

“What is the law here?”

Lucien’s expression changed slightly.

“I want to see them punished according to the law,” Aveline said, her voice quiet but firm.

Lucien stared at her for a moment before letting out a slow sigh. She had chosen the harder path. Perhaps he should have expected nothing less from the girl who had always tried to believe there was still something worth saving in this world, even after the world had given her every reason not to.

“Then I’ll make sure they face the law,” he said.

Aveline nodded. She did not say anything else. She simply turned and walked away, her steps slow but steady.

Aelion caught up with her a moment later, his expression troubled. “That’s the stupidest thing you could do.”

Aveline glanced at him.

“They’re nobles,” he continued, lowering his voice. “You know what that means. The law means very little to people like them. They have money, connections, families who will protect them. They’ll find a way out.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you doing this?” Aelion demanded. “You have the power to make sure they never hurt anyone again.”

Aveline stopped walking.

For a moment, her hand tightened at her side as she remembered the sensation of those men’s breath beneath her control, the terrifying ease with which she could have taken it away. She remembered the way power had surged through her, intoxicating and absolute.

“I know,” she said quietly. “That’s exactly why I have to try this first.”

Aelion frowned.

“I can’t spend the rest of my life hunting down every person who does something evil and deciding their punishment myself.” Aveline looked ahead, her expression solemn. “If I do that, then sooner or later, I’ll become the only law that matters.”

She had immense power now. Perhaps more than she even understood. But power alone could not make a kingdom just. If anything, it made the responsibility to seek justice without becoming a tyrant even greater.

“The law should protect people like Lydia,” she continued. “It should not matter whether the person who hurts her is a noble, a commoner, or someone powerful enough to buy an entire court.”

Aelion fell silent.

Aveline resumed walking.

“Maybe I’m being naive,” she admitted. “Maybe they’ll escape. Maybe the system is already too broken to fix.”

Her fingers curled gently.

“But I need to know that I tried.”

For the first time since discovering what she could do, Aveline understood that perhaps the greatest purpose of her power was not to make others fear her.

Perhaps it was to make sure no one else had to live in fear of those who believed they were above the law.

Aelion clenched his fists as he watched her walk away. This was not what he had wanted from her. He had imagined something far simpler: Aveline standing before the wicked with that terrifying power of hers, a glowing sword in her hand, cutting down every monster who had ever harmed the innocent.

A savior.

A force no corrupt noble or crooked law could withstand.

Instead, she had chosen the law.

And that made things far more complicated.

His uncle had asked him to convince her to stand with them. To bring her to their side. Aelion had thought it would be easy after what had happened to Lydia. Surely, after seeing how the nobles abused their power, Aveline would understand why the rebels fought outside the Crown’s laws.

But she was stubbornly determined to believe the system could still be made to work.

He watched her disappear down the corridor, frustration tightening his jaw.

Why are you so stubborn, Ava?

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