21. Naera
Naera
She hasn't spoken to me since she walked in.
Selis sits across from me, her blade tossed onto the table between us like punctuation. Her cloak is still damp with fog—dark patches clinging to the worn leather. Her braid is half undone. She smells like iron and wood smoke and something else I can’t place.
She looks tired. Not in the way people look tired. In the way cliffs do——like the erosion is happening slow and underneath. The kind of tired you don’t sleep off.
Once I can find my voice, I ask, “What did they say to you?”
She shrugs. The motion’s too loose. Too rehearsed.
“Just politics. Logistics. They’re giving us a ride.”
“A ride…”
She doesn’t even blink. “Don’t sound so grateful, starlight.”
I watch her mouth—watch the way it twitches at the corner. Not into a smile. Into something smaller. Tighter.
“You’re lying to me,” I say, the words coming soft but steady.
Her gaze lifts, slow as a blade unsheathed. “You don’t matter enough to lie to.”
It should sting… and it does, but not enough to stop me. Not after what I heard Veyra say. Not after sentiment .
I rise and close the distance between us in two steps. She stands too, like she always knew I’d come closer. Like she wanted me to .
“They want to keep me,” I say, voice low. “I’m not stupid.”
She doesn’t deny it.
“Is that why you won’t look at me?” I ask, quiet and cutting. “Because you think if you say nothing, you didn’t choose it?”
“Naera,” she says, sighing my name like it’s heavy. “You’ve been raised in a cult that kills glowing vampires and calls it devotion. Forgive me if I don’t think your instincts are sharp enough to sniff out politics.”
I step closer.
Close enough to catch the flicker in her throat when she swallows. The way her shoulders set too tightly. She’s trying to hold onto the version of herself that doesn’t care. Trying not to let me see how much she already does.
“I’m not some locked box you can hand off with a nod,” I say. “You think walking through these halls like you don’t flinch makes you strong?”
She scoffs. “What do you want from me? Guilt? Redemption? I don’t have either. I took a contract, I followed it. I didn’t lie to you about that.”
“No,” I murmur. “You just keep pretending it’s not a choice.”
That lands. I watch it hit, subtle and deep.
“None of this is a choice,” she snaps. “Not for you. Not for me. The Guild wants you because they want a weapon they can wrap in silk. The Garden wants you because they think killing you means salvation. What do you want, Naera? To bleed slower? Faster? Which one?”
“No,” I say. “I want you to stop hiding behind orders and pretending that makes you clean.”
Her jaw clenches.
“I’ve done things,” she growls, stepping forward, “that would make your little holy stomach turn . And I’d do them again. For coin. For survival. Don’t mistake a moment of softness for something that makes me safe.”
“I don’t want you to be safe,” I snap, heat rising. “I want you to be honest.”
We’re inches apart now. My hands shake. My heart hurts.
“Say it,” I whisper. “Say you’re afraid. Say you’d rather be cruel than care.”
She doesn't.
She stays infuriatingly quiet.
So I do something I’ve never done in my life. I shove her, hard, the flat of my palm to the center of her chest. She barely stumbles, but her eyes go wide like I slapped her.
“You’re a coward,” I say, breath ragged. “You wear all that armor like pride, but it’s fear. And I see it now.”
And for the first time since she chained me—she doesn’t say a word.
She catches my wrists before I can pull away. Fast. Hard. Her grip is rough—instinctive—but not cruel.
We’re close, too close. The air between us sharpens, charged like a drawn blade.
I can feel her breath. Smoke clings to her cloak, along with the faint metallic edge of blood that never quite washes out of her.
Her eyes flick to my mouth. Just once.
A flicker. A fracture.
But that one look sends fire down my spine.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t let go. Neither do I.
My pulse thrashes under her fingers.Her thumb brushes the bone of my wrist—unintentional. Barely there. But it sends sparks under my skin.
I hate how it makes me ache.
“You don’t know shit about me,” Selis murmurs finally, voice low and rough as gravel.
“I know you flinch every time you think about choosing anything that isn’t survival.”
“I flinch,” she snaps, “because you’re deluded enough to think I was sent to you like some divine answer instead of a paid knife with good aim and no conscience—”
“Then why haven’t you turned me in yet?” I fire back. “Why haven’t you—”
She lunges.
It isn’t gentle. It isn’t sweet. Her mouth crashes into mine—hot, hungry, all teeth and heat.
I gasp, and she takes it like an invitation.
For one long, breathless second, I melt. My body leans into her like it remembers something I don’t. Like it’s been waiting.
My wrist stays pinned in her grip—but her mouth, gods, her mouth is everything I’ve dreamed and feared at once.
Then, I remember myself.
I wrench back. My breath comes in harsh, uneven pulls. My lips sting. Her taste lingers—salt, smoke, the ghost of something sharp and bitter.
She’s watching me. Eyes dark and guarded and yet somehow still angry.
“What is wrong with you?” I whisper. It escapes before I can soften it. “How can you kiss me like that—and still think about giving me away?”
Selis doesn’t flinch, but something closes off behind her eyes. In that moment, I lose her.
“Don’t be naive. Kissing,” she says flatly, “is only good for blowing off steam and shutting you up. Nothing more. It isn’t about affection. Or love . ”
I stare at her, and she meets my gaze without flinching, unwavering in her cruelty.
“Maybe not to you,” I say, voice quiet but steady. “But to me it is.”
She scoffs and rolls her eyes like I’ve said something ridiculous. “Wait… don’t tell me I’m your first kiss.”
My cheeks flush before I can stop it, embarrassment and anger flooding me.
“I assure you, you are not,” I bite back. “But you will not touch me again unless it means something very different to you.”
Silence.
Heavy.
Something shifts behind her expression, something flickering and quick, but it’s gone before I can name it.
I lift my chin. My voice drops.
“Are you going to give me to them?”
It’s barely a whisper, but it lands like thunder.
Her jaw tightens.
She doesn’t speak.
That silence is her answer.