44. Selis
Selis
Our hands brush, gentle at first, and then I grab hers. Fingers clamp around her too-warm skin like a drowning woman locking onto a rope. She burns , but I’ll be damned if I give up now. She’ll have to burn my hand clean off if she wants me to let go.
She glows like judgment, like vengeance incarnate, but when she looks at me, I don’t see a goddess.
I see her.
Naera.
Softness behind the blaze. The woman beneath the goddess.
“Selene wants us to end it,” she says, her voice trembling like a blade just drawn. “She showed me… this place can’t stand. Not anymore.”
She’s not afraid. She’s resolved. And for a heartbeat, I want to follow her into whatever ending she desires.
But then she says, “We need to burn with it.”
Her gaze is steady. Certain. Like she’s already accepted it. Like she wants to be the final offering.
And the words… They sour in my chest.
I feel them boiling there.
Gods. Destiny. Prophecy.
The same shit that got her on that altar in the first place .
The same voices that never answered when I begged them to spare my brother.
I grit my teeth and snarl the only truth I’ve ever known, “Fuck what Selene wants.”
Naera blinks, those eerie white eyes hold mine. It’s not just her looking. The goddess wears her like a veil. And right now, she’s staring through her vessel, ancient and watching.
I glare back and tug her lower, closer, nearly into my arms. My blade falls from my grip, forgotten, my free hand catches her forearm, clinging tight. She hovers, weightless, but I stay grounded, near. Our breath tangles in the fire-hot air.
“I didn’t come back to play priestess,” I growl, voice rough. “I didn’t come back to burn altars for a dead goddess.”
My fingers shake as I hold her. My jaw locks. The heat presses in, but I don’t flinch.
“I don’t need divine plans. I don’t want her light. I didn’t follow some prophecy.”
My voice lowers—raw, aching, bitter.
“I came back for you , Naera . ”
She freezes.
“Selis…”
“I came back because you're mine .” My chest heaves. My grip tightens. “Because you looked at me like I was more than a blade. Because when I left you at those gates, it—”I choke on the words. “It didn’t feel like winning. It felt like I left a piece of myself behind.”
It felt like losing something I didn’t know how to name. But now, I know its name.
My voice drops—quiet now, but fierce, “So tell Selene she can’t have you. You’re already mine.”
Her voice is soft, like a fracture. “Selis, I don’t—”
“I love you.” It rips from my throat before I can stop it. Sharp and helpless and real. “And I’m not leaving here without you.”
I grab her face with both hands and crush my mouth to hers. Hard. Messy. No warning. Just fire and fury and every ugly feeling I don’t have a name for.
She gasps against me—but doesn’t pull away.
She leans in. She melts into me. Her mouth opens against mine like she’s been waiting for this—aching for it. Like the war in her chest finally found something worth surrendering to.
And then—something flickers.
Her knees give, and she drops like the moon falling from the sky.
One second she’s glowing—light spilling from her skin like it was poured from a higher place—and the next, she’s just Naera again.
Heavy. Real.Mine.
I lunge forward, arms catching around her ribs just in time. She crumples into me like a dying star—blazing, weightless, too much .
The heat still clings to her. Her skin is fevered. Her breath stutters. That glow—the one that lit her up like a holy fire—gutters out, candlewick-low, burning at both ends until there’s nothing left.
“ Naera !”
I say her name like it might hold her together. It doesn’t. She slumps in my arms, head against my chest, eyes fluttering shut.
“I’ve got you,” I rasp, tightening my grip. “I’ve got you, starlight.”
I don’t know if she hears me .
She isn’t unconscious. Not exactly. Her lips move like she’s still trying to say something—maybe my name. Maybe her goddess’s. Maybe she’s just trying to breathe.
But no sound comes out. She’s used everything she had.
“Fuck…” I whisper, sinking down with her as the heat radiating off her skin starts to fade.
Not dead.
Not dying.
But spent.
She burned herself out—completely. A divine fuse, blown. And for what?
She kissed me back. And then she dropped .
Because she gave all of it —the power, the prophecy, the fire meant for the gods—to me.
The temple groans above us. Screams echo through The Garden. Stone cracks. The blaze climbs…
The Garden is falling.
I should move. We should run. Get clear before this whole place comes down on our heads.
But I just sit there for one breath longer, one moment more, staring at her. All my life I’ve fought for coin, for blood, for silence.
And this—this soft, ruined creature in my arms—she chose me.
“You stupid, holy little thing,” I whisper, and press a kiss to her forehead.
She tastes like ash.
Around us, The Garden screams. Not the people. The place. The fire I unleashed spreads like a god in a rage—slashing up the walls, devouring prayers, drinking every inch of sacred wood like it’s been waiting centuries to burn .
The elemental wants everything .
And I know now—it won’t stop with the chamber.
It’ll eat the dormitories. The records. The other rites. Every altar. Every name. All of it.
Let it.
But not her .
I tighten my arms around Naera’s waist and lift, cradling her in my arms as I stand. She stirs weakly. Her head lolls against my shoulder. Her eyes flutter open, dazed.
“Selis…” she whispers. “It’s ending.”
“No,” I growl. “It’s beginning.”
A beam crashes behind us—stone explodes, sparks bloom like dying stars.
I think of the other glowing girls I cut free. Hopefully, they got far enough away.
Maybe they’ll live.
Maybe that’s the only kind of god we deserve—one who burns everything behind her so no one else gets dragged to the altar.
I shift Naera in my arms.
She clutches weakly at my cloak and doesn’t say another word. But she doesn’t let go, either.
I step off the altar and then glance back once. The altar’s still there. Blood-stained. Cracked. Empty . Just like they’ll find this place. If they find it at all.
And then—I run. Into smoke. Through flame. With the only thing I’ve ever saved held tight to my chest like she’s the only thing that ever mattered.
Because now?
She is.