Claimed By The Mistborne Alpha - Chapter 45: Loyalties
Chapter 45: Loyalties
The woman didn’t move at first, and only let her gaze sweep over me like she was peeling away each layer of skin to see what was beneath. Then, with a measured grace that spoke of years commanding people without ever needing to raise her voice, she rose from the chair.
“Valden,” she said smoothly, her voice low and rich. “Leave us for a moment.”
Valden stiffened. His arm was still around me, his jaw tightening as though the words were an order he really didn’t want to obey. “With respect,” he said, “I don’t think Maeve would be comf–”
Her eyes cut toward him, not harsh but expectant, as though she already knew what he would say. “Privacy, please, Valden. Give us some time, and I promise you can stay stuck to her side at all times after that,” she repeated, softer this time.
Valden’s eyes widened and then flicked to mine, uncertain. For all the wildness and defiance that clung to him like a second skin, I had never seen him look so reluctant to move. His grip on my hip stayed the same, and his eyes searched mine in silent question.
Will you be alright?
A dozen questions were waiting to break out from inside me. The most important being who this woman was, and why she was looking at me like she’d been waiting her whole life for me to walk through her door. But if he’d brought me here, it wouldn’t have been without reason.
I swallowed and straightened my shoulders. “It’s fine,” I said quietly. “I’ll be fine.”
He still didn’t like the fact that he had to leave. His eyes lingered on me as though he wanted to argue more, but finally he gave a clipped nod and left, the heavy door closing behind him.
The silence that followed was sharp and pressing against my ears. Once it started stretching longer, I felt another intense desire to follow Valden out that door.
The woman studied me for a long moment before speaking. “You look smaller than I imagined,” she said finally, almost to herself. Then, she extended a hand with a formality that looked natural to her. “My name is Avelora. I run this place. Every corridor, every soldier down there, every plan made, it’s all done under my command.”
I took her hand, her skin cool and her grip precise. “Maeve,” I answered, though she clearly already knew.
“Yes,” Avelora murmured, and her lips curved, but it wasn’t quite a smile but more like she was coming to terms with meeting me. “Maeve.”
“How are you? Feeling good again?”
“Much better, thank you,” I muttered.
“That’s good,” she said smiling. “And Valden? How are things between the two of you? I’m guessing you managed to forgive him after everything that happened?”
Heat rose to my cheeks. Of course, she must know about everything. Everyone here probably knew everything about what went on up there but the question still caught me off guard. Mostly because I knew I had more than just forgiven him for everything.
She nodded knowingly at the look on my face and thankfully didn’t probe further. She then continued to pace slowly around the room, her fingers brushing over the backs of the chairs and the edges of the maps on the wall. “I wasn’t always here, starting an entire rebellion against Parthenn, you know. I was once working here, actually, as a scientist even before the mist.”
She looked at me differently now.
“I was also once in love. But not in the kind of situation you’ve managed to end up in. So tell me, Maeve. Where do your loyalties actually lie? Is it with Valden, or your fated Alpha?”
My mouth dropped open and I realised that even though the answer to that was easy enough, it felt too hard to bring it past my lips. But I covered up the difficulty in no time.
“It will always be Valden. Being fated to Darek was an unfortunate circumstance that I’ve tried to get rid of. There won’t be a Darek in my life anymore…unless it’s to bring him down,” I said confidently but thankfully she didn’t notice the slight tremble in my voice at the end.
“So you have your priorities straight. That’s exactly what we needed. Exactly what we need to continue with our plans.”
Her voice dipped slightly, a shadow crossing her face. “I was here the day the Mist first spread. And unlike the others, I know, I knew, that it wasn’t some natural disaster.”
My stomach turned cold. “You think the scientists caused it, right? That’s what Lesra told me.”
“I don’t think,” she corrected, turning sharply toward me. “I know. But suspicion is dangerous when the ones you suspect hold all the power. I asked questions. Too many of them to count until it hit them where it shouldn’t have. And they went ahead and made sure I was silenced. And then banished me under false pretenses. There were quite a few of them who were happy to see me promoted to a rankless even though I was a human with no mutations.”
Her scoff was soft and bitter, a sharp crack in the air. “That was their way of trying to make me vanish and suppress anyone else who wanted to ask questions. But when the genocide came, when I watched them slaughter so many of them like…” she closed her eyes as if it pained just to remember it. “I realized disappearing and starting this place was the only way to fight back.”
She let the silence sit between us for a moment, heavy with memory.
“And then,” she went on, “I found your files.”
My breath caught.
“Your tests. Your mutation. Do you understand what you are, Maeve?”
I shook my head, unsure if I even wanted the answer.
Her eyes softened, but only slightly. “You survived the Mist because it recognized you. Because it belongs to you as much as you belong to it. The rest of us choke on it or die by it, but you are meant to wield it. To control it.”
The words landed inside me, rippling through everything I thought I knew about myself. Control the Mist? The same thing that had destroyed cities, ruined lives?
“I don’t even know how,” I whispered.
“Not yet,” Avelora agreed. “Your power hasn’t awakened. But it will. And when it does, you won’t just survive this war. You could end it.”
The air between us tightened, the weight of her words pressing down on me.
Before I could reply, the door burst open and a soldier staggered in, his face white and pale, and his chest heaving.
“Avelora!” he gasped. “We’ve been compromised.”
Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Book Empress