42. Selis
Selis
There’s a kind of stillness that doesn’t belong to silence… it belongs to slaughter. I’ve heard it before in the breath before blood hits the floor. But never like this.
They forget me.
For a moment—just a moment—it’s like I’ve ceased to exist. Because all eyes are on her.
Naera .
Or the shape of her.
Because fuck, it looks like her. But it doesn’t.
Not completely. She’s glowing, really fucking glowing this time.
Her skin radiates silver-bright, like moonlight has crawled up from her bones to touch every inch of her.
Her hair lifts around her face like gravity has forgotten her. And her eyes? Pure white.
No iris. No pupil. No fear.
She rises, her body lifting just an inch, and her bindings don’t snap. They don’t strain. They just… fall. Like they were never real, never meant to hold her.
It’s enough to make the priests lose what little spine they had. One sobs something like forgive us into the stone. The third whispers, reverent, hollow with awe, “ Selene… ”
Idiots .
She’s not Selene.
She’s Naera.
And she’s not theirs anymore.
Something cracks in me. Mine, I think. She’s mine.
The ache behind my eyes pulses, but the pain sharpens me, grounds me. The lantern core presses hot against my ribs, a low, furious thrum like it wants out. Like it’s begging me to join the fray.
My eyes darting across the chamber as the priests cry and worship and lose their minds. Keep them distracted, starlight.
My fingers twitch toward my boot.
I shift, slow and steady, curling one leg toward my chest. The knife tucked along my calf is still there, pressed flat against skin beneath the wrap.
Thank fuck.
I grit my teeth and twist. It’s hard, I’m still sluggish from being knocked out cold. My head pulses with every heartbeat, my vision still a little doubled. But I drag the blade free.
My wrists are bound in silk: beautiful, ceremonial, stupid. Good for tying up little glowing girls. Not trained killers.
I saw. Quick, practiced. The blade bites through one cord. Then another.
Almost there.
A few feet away, the priests are weeping. Naera is still rising. Higher and higher…
The last silk falls.
I flex my fingers. They tingle, blood rushing back in a hot wave as I twist onto one knee. Blade in hand, pulse in my throat. I stay low, let the shadows hold me.
But one of the bastards notices. His head jerks. His eyes snap to mine—wide, startled, too late.
I lunge .
The heel of my boot slides against the stone, gives me momentum. My knife meets the soft flesh of his face and doesn’t stop.
The hilt drives into his eye socket with a wet, crunching sound.
He screams—short, sharp—and then he drops. His knees hit first. Then his chest. Then his face.
Blood spatters across the stone floor like an offering.
The others whip toward me, robes flaring, mouths open. I’m already moving, already standing… already where I was always meant to be— between her and them.
Naera floats behind me. Still shining. Still burning. Still not quite her, and still everything.
I draw the lantern core from my cloak.
It hums in my palm, heat pulsing low and steady, a contained storm. The stone beneath my feet seems to feel it, begins to thrum back like an echo.
The two remaining priests freeze.
“Let’s end this,” I smirk.
Then I slam the lantern core into the stone.
The iron shell shatters.
It screams.
Actually screams —a raw, howling sound that splits the air like lungs turned to ash and war made music. It’s cruel and victorious, and it pours out of the cracked metal like it’s been waiting.
The whole room tilts, like the moon itself has turned its eye on us.
The flame isn’t red. Isn’t gold. It isn’t anything I know.
It’s white.
White as bone. White as blind rage. White like the absence of mercy.
It lashes upward, hunting something—hungry, intelligent, wrong. I stumble back a step before I can stop myself. My throat is tight. My instincts scream at me to run, to hide, to not trust this thing I just let loose like a damn curse.
Because I don’t trust fire. Never have.
Fire doesn’t ask. It takes.
And this?
This is fire that remembers.
The white blaze devours the air. It sears up the walls, slick as oil and twice as fast. Ancient sigils ignite with a sound like hissing breath. Holy scripture written in powdered gold bursts into flames mid-air, curling and blackening and drifting like ash snow.
It eats this place.
The robes of the nearest priest vanish in a heartbeat, burned away. Skin beneath turns black. Screams rise. He tries to run but slips in his own melting shadow. Another sobs and calls it divine judgment.
And then I turn away and look up at Naera through fire, through smoke, through the screams of gods and ghosts.
The heat is a living thing, snarling at my ankles, licking at my sleeves, clawing for skin. The air tastes like burnt copper and crushed flowers, and the weight of what I’ve done beats at my back with every step.
But I move anyway.
One step. Another. I reach the dais. My boots scrape stone slick with ash. I climb, hauling myself up onto the altar they built for her.
She’s still floating. Higher now. Upright. A breath above the ground, held aloft by power I don’t understand and rage I might.
Still shining. Still terrifying. Still—somehow—herself.
I hope.
“Naera,” I rasp.
My throat burns. My chest feels cracked open. Every breath is fire and longing. And still I say her name like it’s the only one I’ve ever known.
She turns her head.
And fuck—her eyes.
Still white. Still holy. Still glowing like judgment. But beneath all that—beneath the goddess, beneath the light—she sees me.
Like I never left.
Like I was always going to come back.