32. Selis
Selis
Night hasn’t fallen yet, but it’s close. The sky’s gone from a tired blue to a deep, bruised violet—like dusk turned inside out, holding its breath. The forest is quiet, waiting.
After the spring, Naera had gone soft and sleepy, eyes heavy, limbs loose and warm from the water. She tried to fight it but ended up blinking slow like a cat in a sunbeam.
So I made camp. Lit a fire. Set our backs to the stone and our fronts to the warmth.
And let her use my chest as a damned pillow.
Which—
What the fuck is happening to me?
I’ve never been tender in my life. Not since Lior.
But Naera… she makes me want to try to remember how.
Naera sleeps curled against me now, one hand fisted in the fabric of my shirt like she’s holding on even in her dreams. Her breath is warm against my collarbone, slow and steady.
She trusts me.
That thought alone could cut me clean in half.
She looks… untouched by the things we’ve done. Not untouched like innocent, but peaceful.
Like she’s been rewound, rebuilt, made new.
Me? I feel like I’ve been taken apart and reassembled all wrong .
I can still feel the ghost of her mouth at my throat, the sting of teeth that somehow didn’t hurt. The heat of her blood-warmed body pressed against mine. And deeper than that—threaded into the marrow of me—is something else.
A hum beneath my skin.
Not magic. Not entirely.
Her.
Her glow. Her ache. Her fucking hope.
It lives in me now.
And I don’t know what to do with it.
I shift just enough to watch her sleep. Her face is soft in the dim light, lashes fluttering faintly. There’s a smudge of dried blood at the corner of her mouth. Mine.
She looks like something unholy.
Like something doomed.
I brush the hair back from her face, careful not to wake her. My hand lingers there, cupping the shape of her cheek.
“Too good for this world,” I whisper, barely breathing it. “Too good for me.”
I press a kiss to her forehead.
“Sleep easy, little star.”
Only fools wish on stars, yet the longer I look at her, the more I wish she’s right.
Right that we could find a place untouched by gods and ghosts and curses. Right that this thing between us could last.
That makes me a fucking fool, no doubt.
Yet here I am.
A fool for her.
I’ve spent my life cutting free from every chain ever thrown over me. I made a god of survival. I bowed to no one .
And now this woman beside me—glowing like a fever-dream even in sleep—offers me a chain I want to wear.
Not out of duty. Not out of fear. But want.
I want her .
Not just her body, though that still burns through my memory like wildfire. I want her belief . Her stubborn, foolish hope. The way she looks at me like I’m something worth saving.
I want to believe in her.
The moon has risen high above the trees now, pale and swollen. A soft wind stirs the steam from the spring beside us. I’ve barely moved in hours, too afraid of waking her, but now she shifts. A breath deeper than the last. A faint noise in her throat.
I glance down just as her eyes flutter open, lashes heavy with sleep.
She blinks up at me, dazed and soft. “Selis…?”
“I’m here,” I say, brushing a thumb gently across her cheek.
A pause. Then—
“Did you sleep?” she murmurs, reaching for me with one hand, her fingers curling loosely around my wrist.
“I’ll sleep when we’re safe.”
I take a breath. The kind you only take when something matters.
“I’ve been thinking,” I say quietly. “About where we go next.”
Her eyes search mine, like she already knows something’s shifted.
“There’s a town north of here,” I continue. “Far off. Tucked up near the borders between us and the shifters. I’ve only been through once, years ago. It’s small. Quiet. The kind of place people disappear to. Maybe even people like us.”
Naera’s lips part. Hope flickers there—tentative, almost afraid. “You want to go there?”
I nod. “ We’re going there. If that’s what you want.”
A beat of silence.
“You’re choosing me,” she breathes, like she’s still not used to being chosen.
I cup her face fully now, feel the warmth of her against my palm. “I already did. Yesterday. Long before that, if I’m honest.”
She presses into my touch, eyes glassy with something fragile and aching.
The glowing might be a problem. Might draw attention. Hunters. Fanatics. The Garden. But we’ll find somewhere remote. Quiet. A place the world forgot.
And if anyone so much as glimpses her—her light, her softness, her name —I’ll cut them down before they can speak it aloud.
“Say it again,” she whispers.
“Greedy little thing,” I tease. My hand finds her jaw, thumb brushing just beneath her lips. “Can’t stand to hear it only once?”
She just looks at me, eyes shining.
How could I ever say no to that face?
I lean in, foreheads brushing, voice dropping to something hoarse and low. “I’m choosing you, Naera. I think I’ve been choosing you from the moment you looked at me like I was worth saving. And now I’d burn down the whole fucking world just to keep you.”
Her breath stutters. Her whole body trembles with it.
And this time, when her tears come, they fall in silence between us—soft and glowing in the moonlight like starlight taken form.
And I hold her like I never plan to let go.
Because I don’t .
Naera’s tears slip soundlessly down her cheeks, and I brush them away with the backs of my fingers, careful as anything. She laughs—just barely—and shakes her head like she can’t believe any of this is real.
Her voice is thick when she says, “That was surprisingly poetic, Selis.”
I smirk. “Don’t get used to it. I think that little speech used up my lifetime quota of feelings.”
She snorts, smiling wetly. “You’re ridiculous.”
“And devastatingly handsome. Don’t you dare forget that part.”
Naera leans in, forehead pressed to mine, her voice low, steady. “You are,” she says. “Devastatingly handsome.”
I go still.
A joke would be easy. A deflection. But the way she’s looking at me—like I hung the stars she was meant to worship—roots me to the spot.
And just like that, my chest squeezes so tight it aches.
“Naera,” I murmur, like saying her name might keep this moment stitched to the earth.
She hums, soft and content. “Mm?”
“I’ve survived a lot of things,” I whisper. “Loss. Betrayals. Damned winter without boots one year. But I don’t think I’d survive losing you.”
She goes still.
Then her arms wrap around me tighter, her voice fierce and certain against my skin.
“Then don’t.”
And I don’t plan to .
Not now.
Not ever.
***
We’re heading north.
Toward a town I barely remember the name of, just the feel—cold air, red roofs, a quiet so thick it could drown a man.
Veln’s Lodge.
It sits at the edge of the map, pressed up against the old mountain spines like even the gods forgot it was there. Which is perfect. We’re still too close to The Garden. I want distance.
Distance between Naera and anything that’s ever tried to claim her.
Distance between me and any guild outpost where someone might recognize my face and ask questions I’m not in the mood to answer.
We’ve been walking all night. Boots damp. Shoulders sore. The forest still around us, heavy with that thick undergrowth that muffles sound.
We crest a ridge just before dawn.
And everything stops.
The air goes tight, like a held breath. Stillness that wraps around your ribs and stays there. The kind of stillness that means you’re not alone.
More forest-borns?
I stiffen. So does Naera.
Then I see her.
A woman steps out from the trees like she’s been waiting for us. Or worse—following us .
Pale gray silks drape her like mist, finely woven, too delicate for travel. Silver pins glitter through her dark hair, catching the dying moonlight.
Skin like glass. Eyes like milkglass.
She doesn’t glow, but she doesn’t need to. There’s something about the stillness in her limbs. The eerie poise.
She’s a vampire. Or close enough.
And she’s smiling. Soft. Hesitant. But it’s not for me.
“Naera,” she breathes. Like she’s relieved. Like she’s found something she lost.
Naera gasps—sharp, unguarded. It lands just beneath my ribs, sharp as a blade I wasn’t ready for.
“Ria?” Her voice cracks on the name. “I don’t believe it… You’re here?”
The woman—Ria—nods. Just once.
And before I can reach for her, Naera runs.
She runs .
Straight into Ria’s arms.
Ria catches her like she’s done it before. Wraps her up tight, one arm around her waist, the other curling up her back.
Too long. Too close.
My hand twitches toward my blade.
Who the fuck is Ria?
Naera’s never said her name before. Never mentioned a woman with milkglass eyes and silver pins and a mouth too close to hers.
They pull apart slowly, like it hurts. Like they were stitched together and someone’s just started cutting the thread.
Ria reaches out, brushes her fingertips down Naera’s cheek like she belongs to her.
“You look different,” she says softly. “Stronger. ”
I’ll kill her.
The thought comes easy. Cold. Clean.
Because I see it now—clear as the breath clouding in front of me.
This is the girl. The girl.
Naera told me once I wasn’t her first kiss. Said it fast, half-angry, like she wanted me to know.
I’d let it go, but it stuck. Because who the fuck could it have been? Who could she have kissed in a place like The Garden? She never talked about anyone. Never named them.
Well. Now I know.
It was this bitch.
I should stay quiet. Should keep my hand off my blade and my mouth shut.
But I never have been good at that. And the way Ria’s looking at my starlight like she’s hers? Now’s not the time to practice my restraint.
Ria studies Naera like she’s a miracle she lost and just found again.
And worse—Naera looks back .
Soft. Familiar.
I smile, slow and sharp as a blade pulled halfway from the sheath.
“Well,” I say, voice low, almost a purr, “isn’t this cozy.”
Both heads turn.
Naera’s brow furrows, a quiet crease of warning. “ Selis… ”
That’s all she says. Just my name. Soft. Chiding.
And then she turns right back to Ria like she didn’t just peel my ribs open with one look.
“I thought…” Naera’s voice catches on itself. Fragile. Fraying. She sounds like she’s trying to speak around a stone lodged in he r throat. “I thought you were still at The Garden. How are you here, Ria? How did you—did you escape too? I thought… that you wanted me to go through with it.”
Ria’s expression falters—just for a breath.
Then something colder, quieter, settles over her face.
“I didn’t escape,” she says, the word curling like it tastes bad in her mouth. “They let me leave. They said I was the best chance to find you. I’ve been praying. Searching. For days.” Her eyes glimmer in the low light. “And here you are.”
“You came to take me back?” Naera sways slightly. Like her knees aren’t entirely with her anymore.
Ria answers with the kind of calm that pisses me off more than shouting ever could. Sacred calm. Temple calm. Like she’s still standing in a hall of incense and stained glass.
“The eclipse is nearly here,” she says. “And because you left, The Garden believes the rite is doomed.”
She doesn’t even glance at me. Doesn’t notice me moving.
Neither of them do.
I step forward, quiet as breath, just a few paces away now. I could reach her in seconds.
The bitch keeps talking.
“They’re going to kill the others, Naera. All the glowing ones. On the night of the full eclipse. A mass offering to wake Selene.”
The dread slides into me like a blade between ribs. Slow. Cold. No resistance.
Because I know how these zealots think. I know what they do when their rituals are threatened. And I know that look in Ria’s eyes. The way she believes what she’s saying. The way she wants Naera to believe it too. It’s not so different from the guild.
Naera’s breath hitches .
Her face goes pale, lips parting like she’s struggling to draw in enough air.
“No,” she whispers. “That’s not… they wouldn’t.”
“You were next. They think you ruined the balance.” And then—almost pleading, almost soft—she says, “Come back with me… please. If you return willingly, they will spare the others. You can fix this.”
Oh fuck no.
I reach for Naera.
My hand wraps around her wrist—not hard, just enough to pull her gently back toward me. To feel her. Anchor her. And she doesn’t resist.
She comes; she steps back, close enough that her shoulder brushes mine. Her hand shifts, fingers slipping from my grip only to lace through mine instead.
Like she chooses me.
"She's not going anywhere, and I'd like to see you try to take her," I snap.
Naera's palm is trembling, but she doesn’t pull away. That small, quiet touch does something brutal to my chest.
And Ria sees it.
Her gaze widens, as if surprised.
“You’ve poisoned her…” she says, voice low. Horrified.
I feel it before I speak. That heat. That rising fury. The old, familiar hunger for blood lighting up in my veins like dry tinder.
“I didn’t make her run,” I growl, stepping forward until I’m between them. “Your lot did that with your fucking doctrine.”
Ria’s voice drops. Steady. Steeled. “I loved her.”
Her eyes are locked on Naera—but her words? They’re aimed at me .
“And I still do," she says.
That’s when I draw my blade. The sound cuts through the trees like ice breaking underfoot. Cold. Final.
I let out a low laugh—mean and mirthless.
“You should’ve stayed in your little garden,” I say, stepping closer, blade low and ready. “Because I’m going to have fun killing you.”
Ria flinches—just barely, but it’s there. Surprise flashes across her face, followed by something tighter.
Fear.
But she doesn’t move. She doesn’t have to.
Because Naera does…
She steps between us again, trembling. Not from fear. With something deeper. Something cracked.
But she doesn’t pull her hand from mine.
“Enough,” she begs. “Please.”
She turns to me.
Not to Ria.
Me.
Her eyes meet mine—wet and wide, full of everything she’s trying not to say.
I can feel it in the way she holds herself. In the way she leans toward me without even realizing.
“We’ll figure this out. Let’s make camp for now… Please.”
Her words are made of hope.
Her face is made of guilt.
And that’s when I know—
Whatever choice I make next, it could change everything.