12. Selis
Selis
It’s quiet as dawn breaks. The wind hisses as it threads through pine and the frost crunches loose under the rising sun.
We’re down to nothing but what’s on our backs.
Both sets of clothes were ruined—mine stiff with old blood and half-mended seams, hers baked with gore from the forest-born attack.
I didn’t bother trying to scrub them. Just salvaged what I could, tore mine into rags for bandages and threw the rest into the trees.
Useless now. Filthy memories clinging to thread.
I had two extra sets buried at the bottom of my pack, tucked away like a secret. Now I’m wearing one. She’s wearing the other.
I’ve never seen someone else in my clothes before.
Not like this.
Not a lover. Not a comrade. No one.
And now here she is—curled under the same battered blanket, knees tucked tight, arms wrapped around herself like armor that doesn’t quite fit.
Damp hair clings to her neck, the ends drying silver where the sunlight kisses them.
My shirt dwarfs her frame, sleeves rolled and rolled again.
The waist of my trousers is cinched high and tight with the leather tie from my thigh sheath.
She looks wrong in them. And right. And that’s somehow worse .
The cuffs are back on. Chain looped once around a pine behind her, knotted like habit. Loose. More obligation than fact.
She hasn’t said a word since the spring.
There’s a crack in my chest I’ve kept sealed for years, and I can feel it now. Just the edge. Just the hairline. But it’s there.
She shouldn’t be in my clothes.
She shouldn’t be glowing like that.
She shouldn’t have saved me.
And yet.
Here she is.
And here I am—watching her like the gods might steal her back if I blink.
And every time I do blink? I see her there too.
Steam rising off her skin. Eyes half-lidded, glowing faint around the edges like the light couldn’t help but cling to her.
She looked—fuck, not divine. Not sacred.
She looked real.
Bare in a way that made something deep in my gut crawl.
I roll onto my side and glare at the sky.
"She’s just the job," I mutter under my breath.
She glows because of the moon. That’s it. Some freak bloodline thing. Divine blood, stolen prophecy, yadda yadda—I’ve heard stranger.
But it’s not the glow that’s the problem.
It’s her eyes.
The way she looked at me in that water—steady. Certain. Like she already knew how the story ends. Like she’s seen me at my worst and still didn’t turn away.
She saved me the other night. When I was bleeding out like a fool. She touched me and something ancient moved through her and I lived .
Idiot.
It’ll cost her her life.
I clench my jaw, the muscle ticking hard.
It would be easier if she cried more. If she begged. Easier if I could forget the way her voice sounds when she says my name like it’s a tether, not a warning.
I glance at her again, just for a second. She’s asleep now, but that low, flickering glow still lingers. Barely there. A pulse, like something alive under the skin.
I drag a hand over my face and exhale.
“What are you,” I whisper.
She doesn’t answer. She’s sleeping like someone who still thinks her gods might save her.
I roll onto my back and shut my eyes.
I don’t dream much these days. But if I did? It’d be of her glowing in the dark. And of me, reaching out like a damned fool. And maybe—for the first time—it wouldn’t be to hurt her…