38. Selis
Selis
The first thing I spend her bounty on is liquor.
Not food. Not a room. Not a blade.
Liquor.
A glass of something dark and mean, thick as syrup and twice as cruel going down. It scorches all the way to my gut, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
“Make it a bottle,” I’d told the barkeep, tossing silver I didn’t want onto the counter
Now I’m two-thirds through, slouched in a splintered booth that stinks of old pine and older regret. My boots are kicked up on the bench across from me, crossed like I’ve got nowhere better to be—like I’m not hollowed out and waiting for something I can’t name.
The tavern’s a mess of voices and smoke, packed with wanderers, drifters, half-saints and whole bastards. Some of them came for the eclipse. Sky gone red. Stars swallowed.
A man mutters it near me, like prophecy.
“The moon will go dark tomorrow,” he says.
I take a long pull straight from the bottle.
“Good,” I mutter.
Let it.
Let the whole fucking sky collapse .
The blade at my hip gleams in the candlelight, like it’s waiting. I stare at it long enough that my knuckles go white around the glass in my hand. Like it might say something. Offer some kind of answer. But it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t.
Still, I keep watching it—because the alternative is worse.
Because when I blink, I don’t see steel.
I see her hands.
The way they shook when she healed me up with her glow the first time. The way she cupped my face like it meant something. The way she said my name the very first time. Like she’d always known me.
"Let me be worth dying for," she’d said.
It hit me like a blade then. Like something I didn’t have the armor to block.
It still does.
Still wrecks me.
I toss back another mouthful of burn. It doesn’t help.
The bottle’s nearly empty. I reach under my cloak for more coin, fingers brushing the inside hem and find… loose fabric instead. I pinch it between my thumb and forefinger and pull it free.
A scrap of white. Tattered. Frayed at the edges. The scrap of cloak I found in the forest while I hunted her, before we met, before everything became complicated. The one I kept, like a fucking fool.
I thought I’d lost it a while ago.
I stare at it for too long. Then, I bring it to my nose.
It doesn’t smell like her. Doesn’t smell like anything at all.
Something cracks in my chest. I laugh. Bitter. Quiet. Still, I fold it and slip it back into the hidden pocket and take another sip from the bottle .
Someone drops a chair behind me. A drunken cheer follows, loud and shapeless. Laughter sloshed with spilled ale. Off-key singing, half a verse behind the music. It all swells and curdles into that old mercenary blur—noise, stink, warmth that doesn’t touch the cold inside me.
I sit in it. Let it fill the space I carved out for grief.
"Selis."
My name. Not loud. Not shouted. Just spoken. Low. Even. Measured.
Like a knife pulled from a sheath.
I don’t look. Not right away. My fingers curl around the glass like a lifeline. I take one more sip—slow and deliberate—and let my other hand drift beneath the table. Find the hilt of my blade on instinct.
Only then do I lift my eyes, and I see him.
Kael.
Black Lantern bastard. The very one that got me into this mess with Naera.
He’s smiling.
Of course he’s smiling.
“I thought I might find you here,” he says, like we’re friends. His eyes sweep the tavern once—then land back on me. “Where’s the girl?”
The girl.
Naera.
The name doesn’t come out of his mouth, but it echoes all the same. Hits me slow, through the molasses haze of drink and grief. My jaw clenches around the rim of the glass.
I give him a long look. Let it drag.
“I turned her in.”
He blinks, just once, as if waiting for the punchline .
“How do you think I afforded this liquor?” I tip my bottle in a mock toast, let the corner of my mouth curl into something that might be a smile if you were generous and stupid.
Kael whistles. “Shame. Guild had a hefty reward for her.” A pause. “Guess I’ll have to settle for the one they’ve got on you.”
He slides into the booth across from me without asking. I don’t move my feet. He puts his boots up anyway, bracing against mine like we’re old friends catching up over drinks.
That’s the trick of it.
Make it look easy. Make it look like no one’s about to die.
“They sent you to kill me,” I say.
He grins. “That obvious?”
“You’ve never been good at playing coy.”
Kael shrugs, all teeth and laziness. “Didn’t have to be coy. Just patient.”
And I feel it then—the shift. The steel beneath his smile. The weight in the room leaning toward violence.
And fuck, maybe I welcome it. Violence is something I know. Something I can hold without it shattering me. It doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t leave in the night. Doesn’t glow like moonlight and whisper vows.
Violence stays.
He moves fast. Faster than I remember.
His dagger’s already halfway across the table before I slam my boot into the edge and kick it off its hinges. The table flips. The bottle shatters. Screams erupt as chairs topple and bodies scatter.
Panic floods the tavern—but not me.
I breathe easier in chaos. I was made in it. He should’ve remembered that.
My blade’s out in a blink, slicing wide and low—not elegant, but deep. His coat splits like meatcloth. He grunts, stumbles back.
“You should’ve brought friends,” I snarl.
He lunges.
We crash into the next table—splinters and tankards, the smell of piss-warm ale and panic. His fist cracks against my ribs. My elbow slams into his throat. Someone’s shouting for the guard. Someone else starts laughing like this is the best thing they’ve seen all year.
A cut lands across my jaw. Hot. Shallow. Meant to rattle, not kill.
I return the favor with a slice across his ribs. Blood sprays—thick, fast—painting someone’s half-eaten stew red. There’s a scream. A mug crashes behind us.
His eyes flare. Too much pride. Not enough fear.
I can fix that.
But my grip slips.
It’s not him—it’s me. The booze hits like a brick behind my eyes. The room tips sideways, my vision doubling at the edges. He moves and it’s like he’s two of him—one real, one ghost—and I don’t hit either fast enough.
His knee slams into my ribs. Air punches out of my lungs. My spine hits the floorboards with a crack and the ceiling reels above me, swirling in smoke and swinging lantern-light.
I hear someone yell, “Gods, she’s gonna die!”
Someone else laughs.
He’s on top of me now, weight pressing down, blade angled for my throat.
“Should’ve just handed her over to us,” he breathes.
That’s what does it .
Rage cuts through the fog like a blade of its own. I slam my head forward—crack against his nose. He rears back, swearing. I twist. Knee his side. Shove upward.
We roll. I’m on top now. My blade finds the soft gap between his ribs. And I drive it in.
Once.
Twice.
He chokes on his own breath, lips bubbling red. His hands claw at me, feeble now, more like flinching than fighting.
It’s not elegant. But I win.
Because I always fucking win.
The tavern’s chaos fades into muffled static. I rise, shoulders heaving, blood soaking down my front.
Someone pukes in the corner. Someone else stares, wide-eyed, holding a piece of broken chair like it might save them. Fucking pathetic lot.
I wipe my blade on his coat. Tuck it back like this was just another job. Because it was. Because that’s what I do.
I survive.
No matter who I have to kill to do it.
I think of Naera. Her eyes. Her voice. The way she looked at me like I was worth saving. It hurts—sharp, sudden. Like I’ve been stabbed somewhere I can’t reach.
I shove it down. Hard. And focus on Kael.
His blood pools around my boots.
Sticky. Warm. Familiar.
Kael doesn’t twitch anymore. His eyes are stuck open, glassy and wide, staring up at the ceiling beams like he can’t quite believe I did it .
The tavern’s emptied out. Chairs splintered. Smoke curling thick in the rafters. A few fools hover outside the shattered door, gawking—half-curious, half afraid. But no one steps in.
Good.
I’m not in the mood to hurt anyone else.
Unless they’re holding the moon over a vampire’s throat…
I crouch beside Kael’s body. My hands move on instinct—quick, practiced.
Pockets. Belt. Coat.
Daggers. A coin satchel. Guild-marked tags, still slick from his neck. A flask—pine tar and regret. Typical.
Then—beneath the lining—something catches. My fingers snag on it. Something hot .
I pull it free, and stare into the glass at the fire elemental.
It’s lantern’s breath. Black iron. Runes sealed deep, still glowing faintly. It pulses in my palm like a heartbeat carved from ember.
“What the hell were you doing with this, Kael?” I murmur.
The Guild only sends these outside their walls to purge things. Castles. Sanctuaries. Temples …
You don't bring one unless you plan to use it.
“So this was the plan all along…” I laugh.
Capture Naera. And then burn The Garden to keep the secret quiet, to keep them from looking.
Of course. Can’t have miracles lying around loose.
Not when it’s easier to burn the whole fucking thing down.
The core thrums against my palm. A heartbeat made of fire and memory. The elemental stirs—furious, waiting. Trapped flame. Bottled wrath. It doesn’t want to be carried. It wants out .
“So do I,” I whisper.
I curl my fingers around it, tight enough to bite into my skin. The heat pulses once—like it hears me. I slip it into the inner fold of my cloak, close to my ribs. Let it burn there. Let it mark me. A promise pressed to bone.
Because really—how many Guild attacks can I survive? Kael’s just the first. There’ll be more. There always are. They’ll come for me the way they come for anything that slips the leash.
“So if I’m a dead woman anyway…”
I spit blood onto the floor.
“Might as well die for something that bleeds like her .”
I walk out the back before the guard arrives. Outside, the wind howls over the hills like a warning. Tomorrow night, the moon will vanish. The eclipse will come. The whole world will hold its breath.