13. Naera
Naera
I dream again.
Not of fire, not of altars, but of her.
Two Selises.
Two futures.
One turns away without a word—gold clinking in her bloodstained hands, boots echoing across temple stone. She doesn’t look back. She never does.
The other is crawling. Dripping red, throat torn raw from screaming. Clawing her way across shattered stone toward me, leaving streaks of herself behind. She’s bleeding everywhere.
And smiling .
Like saving me costs her everything and she’s grateful for the price.
I reach for her, but the dream dissolves into light, and I wake up cold.
My fingers ache where they curl around the edge of the blanket, tightly, like I’d been holding on to something.
I breathe in slow… and freeze.
She’s watching me.
Selis. Awake, arms resting loosely on her knees. Her face is unreadable, half-shadowed by branches overhead, but her eyes…
Her eyes don’t leave mine .
“Bad dream?” she asks, voice low, dry. More curious than cruel for once.
I sit up, slow and careful, brushing hair from my face, blinking away the shards of the dream. It clings, heavy behind my ribs. I wrap the blanket tighter around my shoulders.
“It’s nothing…” I murmur.
Her brow lifts slightly as if she sees straight through me.
“...You… were in it…”
“Flattered,” she says, tone teasing but quiet. “If you’re still dreaming of me, I must be making quite the impression.”
I remember her bloody smile. “You were smiling… at one point, anyway.”
That finally gets her attention. Her mouth tilts, like she’s not sure if I’ve said something funny or dangerous. Like she’s not sure if she should laugh or not.
“If I was smiling,” she says after a long stretch of silence, "it must have been followed by something sharp.”
A beat.
“It was,” I say, softer than I mean to. “That wasn’t the part that scared me.”
That makes her look up again, fully. A muscle ticks in her jaw. She doesn’t joke this time. Doesn’t smirk. The quiet stretches. And I realize I’ve said too much.
The dream still burns behind my eyes—the sight of her broken and bleeding, crawling through the dark like I was worth the ruin. Like she already knew she wouldn’t make it, and chose to reach for me anyway.
I don’t tell her that. I can’t.
Not yet.
Instead, I lie back down and face the trees, pretending the weight in my chest is just tired bones .
She doesn’t say another word. But when she stands and moves toward her pack, I hear it—her sigh, sharp and frustrated. Like someone trying to forget something they never meant to remember.
And me? The dream still clings to my skin like mist.
The Selis who left.
The Selis who stayed.
And here, with her back turned toward me—I don’t know which one I’ve got. Worse? I’m not sure which one I want .
***
I don’t sleep the rest of the day. But Selis? Some time passes and she falls under.
She sleeps like a wolf. Still. Sharp around the edges.
Every breath measured, like she’s waiting to be hunted.
Her braid’s come loose, trailing along the ground like it’s its own entity.
But the scar that splits her eyebrow catches in the dim light every few minutes.
That’s how I know she’s real. That she’s still here.
Still close enough to ruin everything.
I’ve been obedient, trusting Selene’s guidance. But is this truly what Selene desires? Me, on the altar? Selis, bleeding for it?
No.
I can’t believe that. I won’t.
The gods I believe in—the goddess I still pray to—would not send me a monster to care for only to have her die for me.
I shift under the blanket, slowly. Carefully. The chain rattles faintly. It’s cuffed at my wrist and looped around the base of the tree in a practiced knot, then locked. No magic. No blessing. Just raw strength and locks .
But I know knots and locks.
I grew up braiding vines into garlands, looping ropes around beams for the offering bells—small, sacred things done with quiet hands and lowered eyes.
And when I was thirteen, I learned how to open the side door to the main temple.
The lock was old, bronze green with age, and I spent weeks watching the priests twist the key before I tried it myself—with a bent spoon handle and a prayer I never said out loud.
Not because I wanted to defile anything. I just wanted the silence.
I wanted to sit in the heart of that stone sanctuary after curfew, alone with the carvings and the cold. To feel the moonlight through the glass high above and pretend it was for me.
And maybe—sometimes—I stole candied rose petals from the altar bowls too. Just enough for two. Just enough to share with Ria when she slipped in after me, her hands colder than mine and her smile soft in the dark.
She called it wicked. I called it peace.
So yes… I know locks.
This one is nothing. Just steel and a stubborn pin.
My pulse beats fast and steady in my throat. I ease my bound hands forward and press my fingers to the chain’s center link—where the tension rests.
Cold. Metal. Stubborn.
But not unbreakable.
Selis doesn’t believe in ceremony. She trusts strength and steel. But metal rusts. Even locks have catches if you know where to press.
I breathe in. Out. Then brace the chain against the bark and pull. Hard .
The metal groans. My wrist burns as the cuff bites down.
It doesn’t give.
I grit my teeth, try again. Still nothing. Just pain. Just the cruel whine of iron laughing in my grip.
My head drops forward. Forehead pressed to my arm. The cold of the bark anchoring me.
"Selene," I whisper, breath catching. “Please…”
I pull one more time. Every muscle straining.
Then—crack.
A weak link gives. The chain snaps at its center, the shudder of it shooting up my arms. The noise is louder than I’d like. I freeze, clutching the chain tight so it doesn’t swing or clatter.
Selis doesn’t stir. She’s still asleep, breathing shallow, one hand curled near the knife at her hip.
I watch her. Just for a moment.
She looks too human like this. Less like a monster. More like someone I was meant to mourn.
I creep closer. One step. Then another. The world holds its breath with me.
I kneel beside her, heart hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to warn me. My hand trembles as I search beneath her cloak. Her breath stutters, but she doesn’t wake.
The key is tucked inside the inner lining, where her blade usually rests. I slide it free. Still, she doesn’t move.
Now for the real test.
I fumble with the lock—wrists awkward, fingers clumsy from the angle. The key slips once. Twice. My breath catches, throat tight with panic.
Click.
The sound is so soft… just a whisper of metal against metal. But it slams through me like a thunderclap .
The cuffs fall open, releasing me.
I’m free.
But I don’t run.
Not yet.
Selis’s face twitches in sleep—like she’s still fighting something in her dreams. Something with teeth and fire.
She’s not good. She’s cruel. She enjoys fear like it’s a melody and pain like a second language. But I don’t want her to die… Even if she is the one dragging me toward death. She’s also the one standing between me and the knife in my dreams. Again. And again.
And I won’t let her do it.
I’d rather bleed than watch her become someone worth mourning.
I rise and cast one last glance at her.
Then I run.
Not to escape her, but to save her before it’s too late.
***
The forest swallows me whole.
Cold air rushes past, sharp against my skin, and the trees close in too fast. Their black branches claw at the sky and my heartbeat thunders, trying to escape my chest.
I run until my lungs scrape. Until I can’t hear Selis’s breathing anymore.
And I start to believe I might actually be free.
Can you run from fate?
I whisper it like a prayer, lips cracked and dry, “Selene, guide me. ”
The prayer disappears into the dark.
And then—
A cough.
Too close. Too wrong.
I spin.
How did she catch me already?!
A figure steps from the trees like the forest made him. No sound. No warning. Tall, broad-shouldered. Dressed in furs darkened with old blood. A deep scar pulls across his face from temple to jaw, warping one side of his mouth into a permanent, lopsided grin.
“Evening,” the man drawls.
I don’t breathe.
His eyes drag down my form, and he smiles.
“Didn’t expect her to be sloppy.”
Her.
Selis.
He knows her.
A flash of her sleeping face—unguarded, jaw slack—flares in my mind. My blood turns to ice.
“Who are you?” I ask, voice low.
He grins wider, all teeth. “Someone smarter than her.”
He takes a step forward. I don’t move.
“You’re a hard girl to follow,” he adds casually. “But not impossible. ” His tone sharpens. “Forest-borns didn’t even slow you two down. Impressive.”
He claps his hands once, twice, soft. Mocking.
It was him.
The presence I’d felt. The eyes that had scraped over my skin. That wrongness that pressed in at the edges when the forest went quiet. It wasn’t the forest-borns.
It was him .
“Didn’t think you’d survive that. But here you are. All glowing and half-wild, just as the bounty said. That bounty’s big, you know. Real big. Enough to buy a village. Or a nice manor with servants and women.”
He tilts his head, mock-thoughtful.
“I was gonna slit her throat in her sleep. Thought I’d have to pry you off her corpse. But this?” His smile sharpens like a knife. “This is easier.”
The trees seem to lean in as he meanders closer.
“You ran right to me,” he says, delighted. “And hey, before I haul you back to The Garden for coin and praise... maybe I’ll find a better use for you. It’s been a while since I’ve had the company of a woman.”
He steps closer.
I back away.
“She’ll kill you.”
He laughs. “She’s asleep.”
Then he lunges.
I twist away, but he’s faster than expected—his hand snags my arm, yanks me off balance. We slam into the dirt, my breath knocked clean out of me. I writhe, kicking, clawing—fingers scrabbling for anything—and my fangs catch skin.
I bite into his arm.
Hard.
His arm jerks, but I don’t let go. Blood floods my mouth—hot, metallic, wrong—and gods, it’s good. Too good. I haven’t fed in days. My throat burns like it’s tearing open from the inside. The taste rushes down, rich and violent, and my body shudders with it—bones singing, blood roaring .
He screams, thrashing hard, trying to throw me off. My eyes flare, vision snapping white-blue.
I want more .
I sink my fangs deeper, swallowing down blood—and that’s when he punches me.
His fist connects hard with my cheek, splitting something open. Pain explodes through my skull. I reel back with a cry, teeth slick with red, blood dripping down my chin.
“Fucking little leech,” he snarls, fury rising.
He grabs me by the throat and slams me to the ground. I choke, gasping, legs kicking. His knee pins my chest. One hand fumbles for a knife at his belt.
No. No. No —
I twist hard, elbow catching his ribs. He grunts, loosens just enough for me to roll sideways and scramble to all fours.
I don’t get far.
His hand snatches my ankle, drags me back through the dirt.
I scream this time—raw and ragged—but there’s no one here to hear it.
No one but her.
And she’s not awake.