11. Naera
Naera
The forest breathes steam.
We find the spring just before dawn—tucked behind a spill of ancient stone and a curtain of mist so thick it curls through the trees like something alive.
The air here is warmer. Softer. Fragrant with moss, wet bark, and something older than either of us.
The pool itself glows faintly under the blue hush of moonlight—not from magic, just the minerals—but it feels sacred anyway. Like a forgotten shrine.
Like something Selene might’ve touched once and never spoken of again.
Selis stops at the edge and exhales like she’s been holding her breath for miles. She glances back at me, eyes sharp but not cruel.
“If you run,” she mutters, “and I have to chase you bare assed through the woods, I swear—I’ll be more than a little annoyed.”
A beat.
I meet her gaze. “I won’t.”
Her stare lingers a moment longer—just long enough to scrape at something under my skin. Then she reaches beneath her cloak and pulls out the key. The cuffs come off with a click.
My wrists sting in the cold air. I rub at them absently, half-afraid to move too fast and shatter the moment.
Selis doesn’t wait. She tosses down her pack, unbuckles her cloak, and begins stripping with brisk, unapologetic movements—peeling away layers of blood-stiff leather and torn cloth like she’s done this a hundred times.
Like I’m not even here.
I turn away fast—too fast.
But not before I see the curve of her back—all lean muscle and old scars, the braid loose down her spine, glinting like a blade in the dim light. Her skin is smeared with grime and dried blood, but she moves toward the water like it owes her something, like it’s a debt long overdue.
And Selene, help me… I look.
She sinks into the spring with a hiss and a muttered curse. Her eyes close. Her head tips back. Her mouth parts just slightly, and for a moment—just a breath—she doesn’t look like a mercenary or a monster.
She looks like a woman remembering softness.
I look away again, staring at the mess she left behind: her ruined cloak, her bloodstained shirt, the long, jagged gash still drying into the collar. I can still feel her grip on me from earlier. The way she caught me. Steadied me. The way she held on too long.
Why her?
Of all people, why this one?
Why the monster? Why the one who drags me through frost and dirt and dares to bleed for me anyway?
Why her, Selene?
What lesson is this?
But there’s no answer. Only steam and silence, then—
“Strip,” she says.
My spine stiffens.
I lift my gaze toward her, but she’s not looking at me. Just watching the moonlight drift in lazy silver ribbons across the water’s surface, eyes half-lidded, mouth slack with exhaustion.
Every instinct in me rebels. Not from shame. Not exactly. But from caution. From the war between skin and trust.
I’ve spent my whole life being watched. Weighed. Measured. Revered and caged in equal measure. Now here I am, glowing and bare before the blade that drags me to The Garden.
Selis doesn’t glance my way, but she must sense it—my stillness, the hitch in my breath.
“This is no time for modesty,” she mutters, voice rasping with heat and tired humor. “You’re covered in gore and freezing. I can hear your teeth clatter from here.”
I don’t reply.
Can’t.
The words tangle behind my ribs.
She exhales—long and sharp, like she’s barely tolerating my dignity.
“Get in, starlight. I’m not going to be gawking at you like some lusty lad in a tavern. You’re not that special.”
I give her a sharp look anyway.
“Turn away,” I say, voice tighter than I mean it to be.
Her brow arches. For a beat, I think she might refuse. But then she rolls her eyes and turns her head with an exaggerated sigh, reclining against the stone with her arms spread along the rim behind her, as if to prove her disinterest.
The implication still hangs there—thick and unspoken.
She’ll let me bathe.
But she won’t leave.
And I’ll have to be brave enough to be seen.
I open my mouth. Close it. Then say nothing at all .
I peel off my ruined cloak quickly, each movement jerky and cold-bitten. My heart hammers like I’m preparing for battle, not a bath. My fingers fumble at the last clasp, and I shoot another glance at Selis.
She doesn’t move.
Doesn’t peek.
I step into the water, slow and careful. The heat surges up my calves, around my thighs, and I hiss without meaning to—a sharp, involuntary sound as it hits bruises and frozen skin. By the time I sink to my shoulders, the sound changes. A small breath escapes me—content, shaky, real.
Relief, pure and blasphemous.
The water smells faintly metallic, mineral-rich. My glow flickers across the surface, soft and silver. It halos me.
Like I belong here.
I sink deeper, letting the warmth swallow me, until only my head and neck remain above water. For the first time in days, the tremble in my bones begins to fade.
Steam curls around us like misted silk. I close my eyes, listening to the water stir gently against stone, the distant rustle of forest birds just waking. For a brief, impossible moment, I pretend we are two strangers at a roadside spring. Not predator and prey. Not weapon and sacrifice.
Just women.
“Feeling better?” Selis asks suddenly, breaking the quiet.
Her voice is rough, a little raspier than usual. I can’t tell if it’s the steam or the exhaustion.
I nod. “Yes. Thank you.”
She snorts. “Don’t thank me. You earned it. Healing me like that. ”
A silence stretches between us again, softer this time. Not biting. Just full of things unsaid.
I brush damp hair off my shoulder. “You didn’t have to bring me here.”
“Didn’t have to do a lot of things,” she mutters.
I look at her. And that’s when I catch her. Just a flick of her gaze, fast and low across the water. Lingering on my collarbones. My throat. The way my glow softens in the steam.
I arch a brow, biting back the smallest smile. “Thought you said you weren’t going to gawk.”
Her head jerks up, eyes sharp. “I wasn’t gawking.”
“You were.”
Selis doesn’t blush, but she does clear her throat and shift her weight like the stones beneath her suddenly got too hot.
“I was making sure you weren’t about to pass out and drown in front of me,” she grumbles. “Can’t have you dying on accident.”
“Of course,” I murmur. “How thoughtful of you.”
We lapse into quiet again, but it’s short-lived.
“You glowed like the moon itself when you healed me. You’ve really never done that before?” she asks, as if the question had been locked behind her teeth all this time.
I shake my head. “No. I’ve glowed my whole life, but never like that. Never with purpose.”
“And now?”
I glance down at my hands under the water. “Now I think I was waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you.”
The words escape before I can second-guess them .
Selis tenses. I can feel it, even from across the pool. Her fingers curl around the edge of the stone.
I look up to meet her eyes, expecting mockery. Or worse—silence.
Instead, she says, very softly, “You’re making this harder than it should be, starlight.”
I open my mouth. Then close it again.
Because I don’t know if she means the journey.
Or leaving me behind.
Or not killing me at all.
And I’m not sure which answer would hurt more.
I sink lower in the water, letting the heat eat the last of the cold in my bones.
Across the spring, Selis tilts her head back, eyes closed, the line of her throat bared to the moonlight.
She disappears beneath the surface, a quiet, fluid motion.
When she resurfaces, her hair fans across her shoulders like threads of molten gold.
The last of the blood slides off her in slow ribbons, vanishing into the water.
Even like this—at peace, half-shadowed—she still looks dangerous.
The braid I’ve come to recognize like a dream lies undone now.
She’s working the knots out with careful fingers, dunking it beneath the surface, then pulling it free to smooth it again.
It fans around her in molten threads. It's intimate, watching her like this. Ordinary. And I hate that it feels more personal than anything else she’s done.
I turn my face away, embarrassed. But not fast enough.
She catches me.
One eye cracks open, a faint grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Careful, starlight. Now you’re the one gawking.”
“I am not,” I say too quickly, then regret it .
The grin deepens. “Liar.”
A beat of silence.
Then she asks, quieter than expected, “What are you anyway?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, voice barely above the steam rising between us.
Selis doesn’t look at me right away. Just lifts one hand, watches a droplet trace down her wrist like she’s trying to follow the shape of something unspeakable.
“You,” she says finally. “The glowing. The light. All of it.”
I freeze.
Not because I don’t know what to say.
But because I do.
I glance at her. Her tone isn’t mocking. Not sharp. Just... curious. Like she’s finally trying to see me beyond the cuffs and the glow.
I hug my knees closer, eyes fixed on the steam curling off the water.
“A holy daughter,” I say softly. “A vessel, they called it. A living thread between Selene and the waking world.”
Selis snorts. “Sounds like cult talk.”
I say nothing because maybe she’s not wrong. She’s watching me now. Really watching.
“My bounty,” she says slowly, “listed your crime as ‘theft of sacred power.’”
I huff a laugh. It tastes bitter.
“They called it a gift my whole life,” I admit. “How can one steal what’s gifted to them?”
There’s a silence that settles in the wake of my words—thicker than the steam, more fragile than the morning light breaking through the trees .
Selis shifts, water rippling. “That’s the problem with gods,” she says, running a hand through her hair again. “Their gifts come with strings.”
I look at her, lips parting before I can think better of it.
“No,” I say softly. “Selene never asked for blood.”
She glances at me, brow arched. “Didn’t she?”
“It’s The Garden,” I murmur, the words tasting bitter as they fall.
“The high priests... They’re the ones who twist it.
They think sacrifice is devotion. That death is proof of faith.
But Selene…” I trail off, eyes fixed on the faint glow still clinging to my skin beneath the water.
“She never spoke to them. She never asked them for anything.”
Selis watches me, expression unreadable. Then she asks, blunt and quiet, “How do you know?”
The steam curls around us, thick and warm. I think of dreams that felt like prophecy. Of light pouring through my skin. Of the feeling I had when I healed her—that surge of power, of purpose, like the divine wasn’t above me but moving through me.
“Because she asked me to live,” I say.
It’s not loud.
But it’s steady.
That quiet stretches again—long enough to make my chest ache.
Then Selis lets out a breath and tips her head back against the mossy stones behind her, eyes fluttering shut.
“Gods asking for mercy instead of mayhem,” she mutters. “What a novelty.”
She flashes a crooked grin—sharp and cocky, slipping back into herself like a blade into a sheath. “Though you’re more useful than most priests I’ve met, considering.”
I roll my eyes. “Is that supposed to be a compliment? ”
“It’s a fact.”
I don’t answer. Not out loud. I look at her then—really look.
Not the blade-sharp mercenary. Not the woman who shackled me and dragged me through frost and mud. Something else.
“You asked what I am,” I say quietly. “But what are you?”
Selis raises one eyebrow. “Alive.”
She leans her head back again like the question bored her, but her jaw shifts—clenched, like something behind her teeth didn’t want to be spoken.
“You’re more than that,” I say before I can stop myself.
One of her eyes cracks open, lazy and dark. “Oh?”
“You fight like it’s the only thing left,” I murmur. “You bleed like it doesn’t matter.”
Silence opens between us again, wide and weighted.
She chuckles, low and sharp. “Careful, little star. You sound like one of your robed little moon priests.”
I should stop. She’s bristling already, tensing like she wants to throw the moment away. But something in me keeps going.
“I think that’s why you unsettle me,” I admit on a whisper. “Not the blades. Not the chain. But the way you look at the world like it’s already ash. Like nothing can be saved.”
The words land softly. Too softly. And still—I see her flinch like I slapped her.
Selis’s smile goes flat. And then she stands. And Selene help me, I cannot look away.
Her body rises from the water in one long, unbroken line: scarred, strong, devastating. Light clings to her like devotion, glinting off old wounds and sharp curves, tracing every muscle like it was carved into her by something holy and furious.
Her breasts are bare, unapologetic in the morning glow. I blush—heat blooming up my neck, impossible to hide .
When I lift my eyes, hers are already waiting. Stormy. Steady. Unflinching.
“Nothing is ever saved in the end, starlight,” she says, voice low and near enough to scrape. “You’d do well to learn that.”
She reaches for the edge of the spring and pulls herself up onto the rocks, water trailing down her spine in rivulets.
My breath catches without permission.
She doesn’t notice. Or pretends not to.
“You’ve got five minutes,” she calls over her shoulder. “Then I’m chaining you to a tree and you’re sleeping in the mud.”
I watch her disappear into shadow and steam.
And I burn.