✧ Chapter Twenty-Eight ✧
The Vow in Violet
from Have You Someone to Protect? By ©Amer
He was only seventeen.
The attack had ended weeks ago, but the smell of ash and blood still clung to his hands. Screams—those always returned in the quietest moments. But none of it had prepared Thorne Amer for what he was handed in that forest clearing: an infant wrapped in violet silk, not crying, just staring up at him with impossibly steady eyes.
She had her mother's lashes. Her father's solemn mouth.
Thorne had known them both. Loved them in a way that never needed to be named. He was the adopted son, the quiet shadow who watched the Lady die giving birth and the Lord fall trying to protect the newborn child.
He had barely stopped shaking when he stumbled into the clearing, smoke curling like serpents through the air. The manor was ablaze behind him, its great hall reduced to a skeleton of stone and fire. The guards had fallen. The last of them.
And then he heard it—a rustle. A whimper.
He dropped to his knees and found her beneath the canopy of a scorched tree, cradled in what must've once been the Lady's traveling cloak. Violet silk—so out of place in the ash-darkened woods—clung to her like moonlight, barely smudged with soot. And the baby beneath it was untouched. Quiet. Watching.
For a heartbeat, the air shimmered faintly around her. A hush, like the world holding its breath. The embers near her curled in patterns instead of scattering. Not enough to notice—unless you were looking. Unless you already knew.
A cry ripped out of his throat.
"I'm here," he whispered, hands trembling as he gathered her to his chest. "I've got you. I won't let them—"
He couldn't finish the sentence. Because they were already gone. The Lady. The Lord. The family that had taken him in when he was nothing.
He held the child tighter. The heat behind him grew louder, more violent. The forest itself was beginning to catch.
"We have to go," he said, more to himself than to her. "We have to go now."
She blinked. No tears. Just that steady, uncanny calm.
Thorne ran.
She was only hours old. And already, everything had been taken from her.
He named her Lhady. For her mother. For the light she'd never know she gave.
Thorne raised her in the southern mountains, in a town so quiet and so hidden it seemed forgotten even by the stars. Mystic. That was the name of the place—half legend, half exile. There, tucked within the crumbling bones of an old Amer estate, they built a life. No staff. No banners. Just the creaking of pinewood and the slow rhythm of survival.
For three years, it was enough.
On her third birthday, he made her a crown of violets. Tiny things with faces like ink drops.
She clapped her small hands when he placed it on her head. Her cheeks were sticky with honeycake. Her hair was wild and tangled. Her joy was louder than the wind outside.
"Do I look like a real princess?" she asked, blinking up at him with sugar-glittered eyes.
"The realest one there ever was," Thorne said, adjusting the crown with exaggerated care.
She twirled. Laughed. Fell in a heap at his feet.
He scooped her up, nuzzled her cheek. "You're getting too big for my arms, you know."
"No I'm not," she protested. "You're just getting smaller."
He laughed—a rare, true sound—and held her a little longer.
That night, as the firelight settled and the house fell into a hush, Thorne watched her sleep with a weight in his chest he couldn't name. He told himself he was tired. That he'd worry tomorrow. That the sweetness of the day would carry into dawn.
Then the vision struck.
It didn't creep. It carved itself into the lining of his skull, brutal and vivid.
Flames. Screams. A sky choked with smoke. And there she was—Lhady—bleeding, reaching for him. Her eyes wide with betrayal.
His own hands were slick with blood. Not from a blade turned outward. But from something he had done.
He saw himself whispering an apology with lips too late to save her.
He woke gasping, the bedsheets tangled like vines around his legs. The fire still flickered in his mind. And the image wouldn't leave.
He would kill her. Or worse, he would be the reason she died.
He tried to dismiss it. For weeks. Then months. He clung to every smile, every skipped step, hoping it would be the last time the vision haunted him.
But it always returned.
Every laugh of hers turned into an echo.
Every hug, a weight.
He loved her. And that was why he couldn't stay.
So before her fourth birthday, in the stillness of a winter night, he packed only what was needed. A single letter. A woolen cloak. A velvet ribbon for her hair.
She slept peacefully, curled against his chest as he rode through the dark trails. His boots crunched old snow. The wind howled between branches, but she did not stir.
They arrived at the old Amer house—one long abandoned, or so he had believed.
But there were lights. Fire in the hearth. The murmur of voices.
Inside, he saw a family. Two children. Parents. Warmth that didn't burn.
Perhaps fate had led them there. Perhaps they were distant blood. Or simply kind enough to belong.
It was enough.
He set her gently down on the old rocking chair by the door. Wrapped her tighter in the blanket. Her little hand slipped free, fingers curled like a blossom.
He tucked the letter into her coat. His hands were shaking.
"Her name is Lhady Amer," it read. "She is the rightful heir of this house. Please love her well."
He bent down, kissed her forehead.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm doing this for you. You'll be safer without me. Please… don't remember me with hate."
And then, with his heart breaking in the hollow of his chest, he lifted his hand to her brow.
A soft shimmer sparked at his fingertips. Barely visible. Like breath fogging on glass.
His gift—a rare, unsteady thing. The power to move within the mind. To reshape memory.
He had sworn never to use it on her. Once, long ago, he had used it on another—and the aftermath had nearly broken him.
But this wasn't for him.
"Forget me," he murmured, voice barely audible. "Let them be your beginning."
The glow faded. Her breath stayed steady. The violet crown slipped from her curls.
And he turned.
He walked into the dark.
Not because he didn't want to look back.
But because if he did—he would never leave.
Years passed.
Seasons folded like old pages. Spring melted into summer, into autumn, into cold. The girl in the house grew.
And in the shadows of Mystic, Thorne remained.
He never stayed long. Never close. But sometimes, he passed by the old path. Watched from the ridgeline. Saw her laughing, running through the violets, braiding them into her sleeves.
She looked happy.
He felt pride and ache in equal measure.
He trained alone. Deepened his knowledge. Learned to navigate minds, their folds and locks. Studied magic, quiet and strange, from the last hidden corners of the south.
Not to change the past.
But to understand it.
Every year on her birthday, he left a crown of violets at the edge of the house. Always at dawn. Always before she woke.
He never knew if she saw them. But that didn't matter.
He had made a choice. A vow.
And one day, if fate demanded it, he would make another.
For now, he would remain forgotten.
But not gone.
He was watching.
And if the fire returned—he would step from the shadows again.