29. Naera
Naera
I can’t stop thinking about the kiss.
It lives beneath my skin now—quiet, golden, warm. Like the embers of a fire I never meant to start, but now can’t bear to put out. It wasn’t like the first one, all fury and ache and heat. No. This one was soft. Intentional.
Like Selis had pressed something sacred into my hand and trusted me not to break it.
And her hands? The way they trembled just slightly when she cupped my jaw? The rare, raw edge to her voice when she told me I made her want to be better?
And I thought to myself— so do you. You make me want to be braver.
The forest hums around us, colder than it should be at twilight. Trees lean in close, their blackened limbs like reaching fingers against a bruised sky. Mist curls low over the road as we walk, each step parting the frost-dusted ferns that line the path.
We have no plan. Not really. Just a direction— away —while keeping an eye out for either a hot spring or town. Somewhere we can warm up. Rest.
Selis offered me her boots this morning. Practically shoved them at me while grumbling about “stubborn glowing girls who don’t value their feet.” I refused, gently but firmly.
I already wear her cloak, still faintly scented with steel and pine and her. I couldn’t take more.
Besides, I’m used to the cold. The Garden teaches you how to ignore it. Selis, for all her blades and bravado, has thinner blood. Her hands get cold first. She thinks I don’t notice.
The world around us hushes as the sun sinks lower. A raven croaks high above, a harsh warning rasp. Selis walks a half-step ahead, as always. She hasn’t spoken much since last night.
Something twists in my chest.
Her hand rests too close to her blade. Her head tilts—not enough to look back, but enough to listen.
Something’s wrong.
I touch her arm, gentle. “What is it?”
She doesn’t look at me. Her voice is low. “We’re being followed.”
My breath catches. The wind shifts again—soft, steady, threading between branches.
And I smell it.
Faint. Familiar. Wrong.
It curls into my nostrils like a whisper—sour metal and bitter herbs. Leather too fine. Something sharp underneath.
The hairs rise on my arms. “Selis…” I whisper, “I know that smell.”
She finally turns to me, her face unreadable but alert. “You’re sure?”
I nod. “It’s the same as inside the carriage.”
Selis’s guild.
Her jaw tightens. Her eyes flick over the trees, calculating.
“How far?” she asks.
I breathe in again, sharper this time. “Close. ”
Selis exhales through her nose. “Then they know who they’re following.”
A silence settles between us like snowfall. Heavy. Waiting. I wrap her cloak tighter around me, not for warmth, but for courage. My bare feet curl into the icy path. And I watch as Selis straightens to her full height, the way she always does when danger nears.
Not afraid.
But ready.
The wind stills. The trees stop whispering. Even the birds go quiet. And then they step out from the woods like they were carved from the shadows themselves.
Three of them. All cloaked in a deep ashen gray. Their faces are hidden as they approach, but one by one they lower their hoods. There’s the man that had taken Selis away to talk privately… Calder? A woman I don’t recognize… and then…
Veyra.
Alive…
A gasp escapes me before I can stop it. I step closer to Selis, drawn like breath to flame. Her shoulder brushes mine as I move behind her, my eyes locked on the woman who should be dead.
Veyra’s throat bears a scar. Dainty. Pink. Healed too quickly—like the gods themselves reached down to stitch her back together. But they missed something.
Her face is too pale, her eyes too sharp, and her smile… that smile is all wrong.
She only looks at Selis.
“Hello again,” she says like she’s picking up a conversation from before. “You made a mess of things, Selis. ”
Selis shifts beside me, her body all tension and readiness. Both blades are already half-drawn. Her voice, when it comes, is deceptively casual.
“Mess is my speciality. You should see what I do when I’m actually trying.”
“That so? You always did ruin things just before they got interesting. Still—” Her gaze drags down Selis like a blade. “Let’s see if you bleed the way you used to.”
Selis lets out a low, breathy laugh. “You really should’ve stayed dead.”
Then, to me, she says, “Naera, stay back.”
Naera.
My name again. Not starlight. Not a tease. And that’s how I know it’s serious.
“Selis…” I breathe, barely more than a whisper.
But she’s already moving. Like a storm breaking open. Like she’s not afraid of bleeding. Like she’s afraid of what will happen to me if she doesn’t.
Steel sings as she draws her twin blades in one smooth, fluid motion—sharp as a scream cutting through the woods. The sound jolts something primal in me.
Then she’s lunging.
And I can only watch—heart hammering, breath caught halfway—as Selis becomes all momentum and fury and purpose. The world breaks open around her.
She barrels straight toward Veyra, blades gleaming, murder written into every line of her body. But the woman I don’t recognize moves first, stepping in with a grace that feels rehearsed, ritualistic. She doesn’t carry a sword.
No—she has a chain, coiled tight at her hip.
In one smooth motion, she unspools it, and the thing lashes out like a serpent. The metal glints red in the twilight, its links tipped with carved bone charms that rattle as they fly through the air. It whips toward Selis cracking just inches from her face.
Selis drops low, ducking under the strike with a snarl. The chain sings past her ear.
Then she’s on the woman.
Blades flash—left feint, right strike—but the woman dances back, wielding the chain like an extension of her body, fluid and deadly. It coils around one of Selis’s knives, yanking it off angle before it can connect. Sparks fly.
A sharp curse tears from Selis’s mouth. She twists, pivots, slicing upward with her other blade, but the chain-wielder’s already moving again, dragging the weapon wide in a looping arc that forces Selis to retreat two steps, then three.
Veyra stands behind them, watching. Smiling.
The chain-wielder moves like a ghost with purpose—unflinching, unreadable. Selis ducks and parries, her blades meeting metal and bone again and again, but every strike is met with eerie precision. The woman doesn’t grunt, doesn’t cry out. She fights like she’s sleepwalking.
I hover at the edge of it all, the cold gnawing up my legs, breath caught between my ribs. Should I run? Help? But how? I’m no fighter. Not like Selis.
I shift my weight forward—maybe I can distract her, throw a rock, do something —
But then a shadow barrels toward me from the side.
Calder.
The man who'd led Selis away in The Black Lantern. He’s a mountain in motion, broad-shouldered and fast despite his size. I don’t even have time to scream before he’s on me, arms like iron bars slamming into my waist and dragging me down.
My back hits the earth hard. My breath leaves me in a wheeze. His hands grab for my wrists, trying to pin me.
No.
Not again.
The weight of him. The crushing force. The way his fingers dig in, trying to pin me down—just like before . Just like the man from the forest.
I panic.
The light comes instinctively: a blinding flare—hot and sharp and searing. It explodes from my chest in a wave. Calder snarls, recoiling, the whites of his eyes lighting up with shock as the glow scorches across his face. His skin smolders. But he doesn’t let go.
“ Selis! ” I manage to scream.
And then I hear it: Selis screaming back.
Not words—just fury. Raw and jagged and close.
A heartbeat later, the chain-wielder crumples, her chain tangled in the leaves, her throat opened clean. I smell it more than I see it.
And Selis is already sprinting for me.
“Don’t—”
She’s a blur of movement, fury in motion, blades flashing like vengeance torn from bone. Calder starts to turn, face contorted, but it’s too late.
Her blade slices down across his shoulder, fast and deep—so close to me I flinch, the air itself screaming past my cheek.
Warmth sprays over me. Not mine.
“—touch her.”
The words land like a curse as Calder crumples, his weight toppling beside me in a heap of blood and groaning muscle .
And then Selis is there, crouched low, eyes wild and locked on mine. Her breath comes in harsh pulls. Her blade drips red beside my face. Her free hand finds my arm, anchoring me like she’s making sure I’m still real.
I am.
Barely.
I push up on my elbows, heart hammering in my throat. “I’m okay,” I whisper, though my voice trembles.
Selis’s eyes flick over me, sharp and searching. “He didn’t hurt you?”
“No,” I say, and then, more honestly, “Your knife scared me more than anything.”
That cracks something in her face—just a flicker of a smirk—but then she’s standing again, all lethal grace as she turns back toward Veyra.
“Well,” she says, blade rising, smirk cruel and sharp, “then close your eyes for this next part, starlight—because I’m going to take this snake’s head clean off this time.”
Veyra only laughs. “Still with the dramatics. You should’ve finished the job when you had the chance. But then, you never could best me, Selis.”
She’s fast.
Selis kicks off the nearest tree trunk, using it as leverage to spin, blades slicing through the twilight like silver lightning. I shout her name as Veyra lunges.
Their swords meet with a clash loud enough to wake the woods. Sparks fly where steel kisses steel. Selis grits her teeth, sliding back, feet digging grooves in the frostbitten ground.
“You’re slower,” Veyra purrs, circling like a wolf. “Shame.”
“You’re still talking,” Selis spits, twisting her wrist. “Shame.”
Her blade arcs. Fast. Precise .
Red blooms across Veyra’s shoulder in a perfect line.
But Veyra only smiles wider.
“You always liked to leave your mark.”
Selis huffs, eyes flicking sideways—for me. “Go! Run!”
“No,” I say, firmer than I feel.
My knees are still unsteady. My ribs ache where Calder tackled me. But I don’t move. I won’t leave her.
“Damn it, Naera—” Selis growls.
But it’s already too late.
Veyra lunges. Selis meets her mid-stride with a clash of steel that splits the air like lightning. Their blades screech against each other, two halves of the same violent rhythm.
Selis ducks. Swings. Veyra blocks. Parries. They spin, blades whirling, kicking up snow and leaves and sparks. Selis grits her teeth, lashes out with a brutal slash that nearly takes Veyra’s throat—but Veyra bends like smoke, slips under it, and laughs.
“Oh,” she purrs. “You’re slowing down.”
Selis snarls. “Still fast enough to bury you.”
She glances at me—just for a second.
A mistake.
Veyra feints left. Selis counters. Too late.
Veyra’s hand whips out like a viper and catches her braid. A vicious yank. Selis’s head snaps back, body thrown off balance. Her boots skid. She stumbles—teeth bared, neck exposed to the sky like an offering.
Veyra moves close. Her mouth brushes Selis’s ear, voice low and thick with promise.
“My turn.”
“Selis!” Her name rips out of me, raw, panicked, too loud. It tastes like blood in my mouth .
Selis thrashes, body writhing like a cornered thing, trying to twist out of the hold—
But Veyra’s knife is already coming down, aimed right for her throat.
I don’t think.
I move.
Something ancient and low inside me snarls to the surface.
Light erupts beneath my skin, not soft this time, Violent.
Bright as wildfire. My body blurs, faster than I knew I could move.
I crash into Veyra with enough force to knock her sideways, away from Selis.
She hisses, stunned, as I grab her arm—skin on skin—and her blade clatters to the ground with a metallic shriek.
She screams .
Light, raw and seething, rises beneath her skin. Not fire, but something colder. Holier. Like a star opened its eye inside her and decided she didn’t belong.
“What—what is this?” she rasps, clutching at me.
Her eyes go wide. White creeps in around her iris like her soul is trying to claw its way out, to escape.
I bare my teeth.
And for once, I want her to see my fangs.
I don’t let go.
I can’t .
The heat tears through me like a rapture—bright, endless, absolute. Not flames. Not rage. Judgment. Something ancient wakes in my blood, and it wants. It wants to consume . To burn through bone. Through soul.
She claws at me. At the dirt. At herself.
But it doesn’t matter. The light has her now .
Her body jerks, spasms; her jaw unhinges in a scream so high it splinters into silence. Her eyes go milky. Veins glow white under her skin, spiderwebbing out from my grip like she’s being lit from within—like I’ve cracked her open and the light is eating her alive.
I don’t stop.
Not when her body sags.
Not when her mouth gapes around a scream she can no longer voice.
Not when her pupils fade completely, swallowed in a gleaming, blind white.
Only when she goes limp—when the light gutters out like a breath leaving her—do I let go.
She falls to the ground with a thud. Still whole. Mostly. But hollowed.
And I sway.
“Shit, starlight…”
Selis’s voice is soft. Uncertain.
I turn.
Slowly.
The heat still pulses beneath my skin, lighting me from the inside out. My gaze finds hers—and for a moment, I don’t see her. Not really. Her shape is just light and motion and sound, blurred and indistinct.
She steps closer, cautious. “Remind me never to piss you off again.”
I don’t smile. I don’t move.
The world is heat and silence and something foreign running through my veins.
Selis lifts a hand. Slow. Gentle. Hesitant.
“Hey,” she murmurs. “It’s me. ”
Her hand brushes my arm. Warm. Solid.
All at once—the fire goes out.
The light leaves me like it was never mine to hold. My knees give out.
“Selis,” I breathe, soft and slurred.
And then I collapse into her arms.