38. Selis #2
I pull my coat tighter. The core’s heat licks through the fabric, steady and dangerous.
I start walking.
Toward The Garden. Toward the altar. Toward her .
Blade on my hip.
Lantern’s breath in my coat.
Naera’s name beneath my tongue.
She said she wanted to be worth dying for. She is. And now? Now I’ve got the fire to prove it.
I’m going to burn that whole place to the fucking ground. Sanctuary, altar, every lying priest who ever spoke her name.
Let them see what devotion really looks like.
Let them choke on it.
** *
Some plans only sound good drunk.
This one still holds up sober.
Which is saying something, because I’m very, painfully sober now.
I’ve spent the whole damned night walking back—through riverbeds and thorns, past every tree I swore I’d never look at again. And now I’m here. At the edge of The Grove.
The wind touches me wrong. Too gentle. Too knowing. It curls around my shoulders like fingers. Like breath. The kind of place that watches you back. Like the Grove itself is murmuring a warning in a language I can almost understand.
Too late for warnings now.
The lantern core is heavy against my ribs. Warm earlier. Hot now. The longer I keep it near my heart, the more it stirs—like it wants out. Like it’s hungry.
Of course it’s hungry. It’s fire.
And fire wants to eat.
I hate fire. Always have. Even before Lior.
But what better weapon against a place built on holiness and lies?
The outer wall rises ahead. Clean stone—smooth and pale, almost glowing. Moonlit bone. No guards. No spears. No priestly eyes watching from above.
All I have to do is get in without being seen. And once I’m in?
I’m finding her.
Naera first—always her. Then the others .
All the glowing girls they caged. All the daughters they called divine just to bleed them dry. If I have to drag every last one out of this place, kicking and screaming under moonlight—I will. Not because I give a damn about them, but because she does.
And then?
Then this place burns.
I’ll finish what the gods started.
Let them choke on the flames they never thought would turn against them.
What if you’re too late?
The thought cuts sharp. Cold.
I grit my teeth.
“I’m not.”
They won’t kill her before the eclipse. That’s what Rialeth said. That’s the story they’re spinning—ritual timing, celestial alignment, all that sacred bullshit.
She’s still alive.
But if she isn’t—
If they’ve already taken her, already broken her open and buried her in light…
Then this place burns anyway.
***
I circle the perimeter in the dark, sticking to the shadows just beyond torchlight. The Grove presses close behind me, branches shifting like they’re watching. Like they know what I’m about to do.
The first wall I test bites back.
The stone hisses as soon as I lay a palm against it—heat flaring, nerves fizzing like snapped wire. My skin goes cold beneath the burn, and I jerk back with a muffled curse.
“Fuck.” My voice is low, rough. The wall hums like it’s smug.
Warded. Of course it’s warded. With what, I don’t know. Moonlight, maybe. Prayer. Fear. I don’t care. What matters is that I can’t go through.
So I look for where the light thins.
I drift west, toward the edge of the fortress where The Grove curls tighter, where shadows thicken and the stone seems older. That’s when I see it—rising from inside the walls like it’s too ancient to be told no.
A tree.
Huge. Crooked. Bark dark as dried blood, limbs arching high enough to tangle with the stars. Its roots crack the foundation from the inside, gnarled and thick. A wild thing, wrapped in a tamed world.
The wall near it hums quiet. No burn when I reach out. No ward.
My lips curl.
Found you.
The wall’s tall. Too tall, maybe, but I’ve climbed worse. I’ve scaled guild towers slick with rain. Dropped into palaces crawling with monsters and worse—humans who smile while they skin you alive.
This? This is a fancy prison for the devout.
I scale the wall after first light.
I drop silently onto the stone path below. Roll once. Come up crouched.
No alarm.
No scream .
Only silence.
Good.
I stick to the hedges—blue leaf thick enough to hide a body, iron root taller than I am. I keep low, circling wide past a greenhouse glittering with dew and spells. It smells like moonlight and damp herbs. Pretty. Too pretty.
No movement.
No footsteps.
Where the hell is everyone?
The lantern core in my coat flares once—hot. Eager.
Soon, I promise it. But not yet.
First, I scout.
The compound unfolds like a prayer wheel—perfectly symmetrical, perfectly serene. Everything about it hums with holy intention. Smooth white stone, curved paths, quiet courtyards where not even a bird dares break the stillness.
The whole place looks empty.
No acolytes tending altars. No guards watching from the rooftops. Shadows stretch long in the morning light, and I move with them, slow and deliberate.
Maybe most of them are like Naera. Like Rialeth. Born in moonlight, able to walk beneath the sun.
But perhaps some are Turned, bound to the shadows, to night. Creatures like the one I once was told stories about in blood-soaked training yards.
Still. It’s too damn quiet.
I slip past another courtyard—this one overgrown with frost-tipped ivy and night-blooming sage. Pale flowers sag on their stems like they’re mourning something. Or waiting for it.
And then I see someone .
I jerk back, breath catching, blade halfway drawn before I realize—
It’s a statue.
The thing rises from the center of the garden, carved in flawless moonstone.
Selene. Or someone’s idea of her. She’s tall, inhumanly so, draped in robes that shimmer like real silk in the daylight.
One hand raised in eternal benediction. The other rests lightly—too lightly—on the hilt of a ceremonial blade.
Probably just like the one they plan to use on Naera.
I stare at her for a long moment. At her serene, sightless face. At the soft, pitying curve of her mouth.
“You can’t have her,” I whisper.
Not gently. Not pleading. A threat. A promise.
I step closer, just enough to let the statue loom. Just enough to make it personal.
“You hear me?” My voice shakes, but not with fear. With fury. “She’s not yours. She was never yours.”
I spit at her feet.
Let it freeze there, sharp and ugly against all that polished moonstone.
Then I turn and walk away, before the hunger in my cloak decides it's time to burn.
If Selene wants to stop me from taking Naera back, she can come down and stop me herself.
The path curves inward, toward the heart of The Garden—the temple…
It's unmistakable.
The main structure towers above everything else, a pale dome wrapped in silver-veined stone, the surface gleaming like a second moon even in daylight. It looks delicate from a distance—elegant, divine—but up close it’s vast and cold .
I slip through one of the side entrances. The air changes the moment I cross the threshold—cooler, thinner.
My boots scuff against stone. The echo rings too loud.
Inside, it’s all columns and shadows. Vaulted arches climb toward the stained-glass dome overhead, each panel filtering sunlight into colored shapes across the floor. Moons. Flames. Vessels with light spilling out of their chests. Saints and martyrs and girls with glowing eyes.
How many of them died here?
I think of the graveyard… of the tiny, unloved headstones sunk into frozen soil.
I shake the thought loose before it eats me alive.
The altar stands at the center. Circular. Polished. A slab of moon-glass veined with silver, like it was carved straight from the night sky and given one purpose: sacrifice.
I scoff. Dress up the slaughterhouse, and maybe no one notices the blood.
There are places to hide here. Behind the heavy curtains draped around the inner sanctum. Within the alcoves flanking the main platform.I settle there and crouch low, heart thudding too hard for comfort, hand curling around the lantern core beneath my cloak. It's warm. It knows what's coming.
So do I.
They’ll bring her here.
And when they do?
I’ll be waiting.