Chapter 51 #2
Closing her eyes, Alora took a breath and placed her hands on Theia’s shoulder. A warm current bloomed from her palms. Not the harsh, red-gold light of her fury, but something else. Calmer. Softer. Like the embers of a fire that chose not to consume.
The bleeding slowly stopped and Theia’s breathing steadied as the wound stitched back together.
Zuma exhaled a curse and turned away, shoulders heaving. “I’ll make a tonic for the pain.” He strode into the kitchen, giving them space.
Alora remained kneeling beside her friend until Theia blinked open her eyes with a faint moan.
“I am so sorry I hurt you.” Her voice broke
Theia shook her head and patted her hand gently. “I’m all right, Alora. It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. When I saw Calla aim her weapon at you, I didn’t think…”
Alora hugged her. Theia had put herself in danger without a thought of her own life. “I could have killed you,” she whispered.
“You saved me.”
But it could have ended badly, too.
Sighing heavily, Alora sat back and looked down at her fingers, still faintly aglow. “Maybe Delphi was right. Maybe I am cursed. This power… it doesn’t feel like mine. It feels like something waiting to overcome me.”
“No.” Theia’s voice was firm. “You were distracted. I saw it while you trained. Your body was in the clearing, but your mind was miles away.”
Alora flushed, cheeks warming. “That obvious?”
Theia tilted her head, playful. “Your mind is on him, isn’t it?”
Alora sighed, then huffed a reluctant laugh. “Odd, isn’t it? Not long ago I was desperate to escape him, and now that he’s pushed me away…”
“You want nothing more than to be near him,” Theia finished softly, her gaze drifting toward the kitchen where Zuma clattered softly with mugs and kettles.
Alora narrowed her eyes, then grinned. “You haven’t asked about Caelum once since you arrived. Nor has he come to see you. Is the engagement still in place?”
Theia pulled a face, a strange blend of embarrassment and relief.
“The engagement was never truly ours. Our fathers arranged it long ago, but when they both passed during the siege, Caelum and I agreed it was best to end it. Neither of us wanted it to begin with.” She folded her hands in her lap, then added with a small frown, “Though I did wonder why Caelum didn’t come my rescue himself… ”
Alora smirked and glanced toward the kitchen. “Are you really complaining?”
Theia bit her lip, failing to hold back a smile. “Not in the slightest.”
Alora leaned in close, lowering her voice in mock conspiracy. “Am I to understand that my best friend is in love with a Minotaur?”
Theia turned crimson but didn’t deny it. “Is that so awful?” She peeked toward the kitchen. “Most would call him a beast. But he’s gentle. Protective. Kind. And, well. there’s a certain... vigor to him. And those horns...”
Alora clapped a hand over her mouth to smother a squeal. Her mind drifted, unbidden, to Rune. His horns. His strength. The way his presence once overwhelmed her, and how now, in his absence, she missed him like air.
She felt lost and unmoored without him.
“How does Lord Zuma feel?” Alora asked quietly.
“I think he knows our places,” Theia sighed. “Society would balk at the thought. I’m a noble daughter. And he’s…” She smiled wistfully. “But none of that truly matters. I simply need to find the courage to go after what I want.”
Alora stared at her, thoughtful. “You’re braver than you know, Theia.”
“And so are you.” She looked at her meaningfully.
Alora glanced away, the shadows on her skin pulsing faintly. If she could claim her magic, even when it frightened her, then that shouldn’t stop her from claiming her mate, too.
But… what if he didn’t want the same?
Lord Zuma returned, setting two mugs on the side table, Alora rose. Her expression shifted, resolute and calm. “Perhaps it’s best that Theia returns to Argyle.”
Theia sat up, clutching her bleeding shirt. “But Alora—”
She shook her head. “I cannot risk hurting you again. To fully submerge myself in this power, I need to not be distracted or put you at risk. Besides, I need someone to be my eyes in Argyle. Rihan will need more friends to watch over him.”
Sighing, Theia nodded.
Zuma’s shoulders slumped with visible relief. He didn’t want another repeat of today either. “I will escort her myself.”
Alora smiled. “And stay with her.”
He blinked, surprised.
“Keep her close, Lord Zuma,” she said warmly. “Do not allow any harm to befall my dearest friend.”
Zuma dropped to one knee and clanked a fist to his chest. “On my life, my lady.”
Alora went to sleep that night restless and sore.
Her dreams were fragmented nightmares of voices in mirrors and running in fear through the dark woods. The red sky loomed above her, rumbling with thunder. But then she ran through a pair of trees and entered a glade where a spindle waited.
The sharp crimson spindle glinted in the moonlight.
It shone like a beacon, calling to her.
She reached out, her fingertip hovering above the sharp point.
“Alora!” Salvia caught her wrist, and she was a child again, standing in her mother’s workroom. “How many times have I told you, never touch the spindle!”
Her eyes welled. “Why, mommy?”
Sighing, her mother kneeled and gently cradled her hands. “Your essence is precious, my sweet bloom. And the darkness is eager to drink it.”
Alora woke with a soft start to find Rune’s shadowed form beside her bed, so close she could feel the warmth of his breath brush her neck. Her gasp caught in her throat, heart pounding. She reached for him, whispering his name, but he dissolved like smoke in the dawn.
And she was half convinced it was only a dream.
The days that followed bled into each other. And routine replaced rest.
From dawn to dusk Alora trained.
Moonlight filtered weakly through the canopy, swallowed by shadows that lingered in the corners of the cottage. Her small garden rang with the clash of metal and the thrum of magic. Her muscles ached. Her body stiff in leather armor, stained with sweat, dirt, and blood.
Calla was ruthless. Her voice like a whip and a stare sharp enough to cut. On the seventh morning, Alora was so exhausted, she collapsed into the moss and wept.
The female Harbinger stood against the sun, looking down at her stoically. “Stand, my lady.”
“I can’t.”
“Even when you falter, when all seems lost, you must never stay down.”
Alora looked past her toward the woods. Sometimes, in the hush between breaths, she sensed Rune. Like a wisp of shadow in the branches or a tendril of smoke in the heart, but he was never truly there. Her chest ached every time it hoped he was.
“Why does he push me away?” Alora asked, her voice breaking.
“Because he mistakes distance for protection,” Calla said, kneeling beside her. She wiped Alora’s face with a damp cloth, gentler than her voice had ever been. “Males occasionally forget how enduring we are and it falls to us to remind them. Now stand. To wallow is beneath you.”
Even if she was right, Alora was too exhausted to do anything else.
So Calla sent her off to eat and bathe before she collapsed into bed with her hands still aching and her heart sore.
And dreams came swiftly for her again.
Sometimes they were wisps of images, a voice in the dark, a song on the wind, her mother dancing, then Alora dancing with a shadow in the moonlight.
This time it was different.
Rune stood in the center of a stone tower at the top of Karag D?r, wind howling, with a view of the land in the dawn. His shoulders were bare, cloak gone, his eyes molten red. His gaze was fixed on the horizon like it was everything he couldn’t touch.
And then she saw it, the sun rising.
Alora gasped softly. Rune?
The first rays spilled across the land like beams of gold—and Rune did not flee. He stood there, calmly watching them rise up the mountain and land on his face.
And he burned.
Angry red streaks scorched his chest and face, skin blistering and charred.
She screamed his name.
He flinched away and vanished into the shadows.
Alora woke with a start, breath caught in her throat. The scent of smoke lingered in the air, but the fire in the hearth was cold.
Later, that morning, she sat at the table, staring at her cold porridge, the dream still clinging to her skin.
“Does the light always burn him?” she asked faintly.
Calla arched a brow from where she sat across from her. “Of course. He’s shadow-cursed. Light is his antithesis.”
Alora hesitated. “Does he … willingly endure the pain?”
Calla’s expression faltered.
Alora pressed, voice sharper. “Calla?”
The she-demon turned slowly, facing the fire. “Yes.” Her voice was quiet now. “When he lets it.”
Alora’s heart twisted. “Why…?”
Calla looked over her shoulder. “There are times when even he cannot bear the dark.”
The words landed like a blow.
He wanted the light, even if it hurt him.
He wanted her.
If Rune would stand in the light for her, she would step into the dark for him.