6. Tipping Point #3
He glanced at Auryn. Her eyes were fierce. Protective.
Lu’ma is mine. Not my Attendant, but my friend. Don’t look at her like that. Not with the same eyes she must face every day of her existence. She is worthy, Kailorien. Of life. Of magic. Of love.
How has she survived?
She is strong. I have helped. I do not ask for much, so when I do, the Sovereign Flame listens. As long as it is within reason.
Kailorien ran a hand through his hair, the weight of too many revelations pressing against his skull.
His thoughts jumped in all directions. He tried to see this as a war—no doubt, this was a battle—but no strategy came.
Not even a contingency. Just…nothing. Static in his mind, like the sound of wind churning sand in a metal barrel.
“Lu’ma, come this way,” he called. The Attendant turned, eyes hard. Determined. But Kailorien caught the tremor in her steps. The tension in her shoulders. As soon as she stood near him, she made to bow. He caught her arm. Stopped her.
“No need. Not here,” he told her. “I only need truth from you now.”
Auryn stirred on the mattress, her voice rough but laced with the fraying threads of resistance. “Kailorien, don’t—”
He stood, crossed the short space between them, and sat.
Not on the narrow cot, but beside it, on the floor, knees bent, braced near Auryn's side.
One hand reached up. His fingers steady, he brushed the damp strands of hair away from her face, tucking them behind her ear.
With his thumb, he traced the shape of her mouth. Not intimate. Not loving.
Claiming.
A warning given in gesture.
He’d had his fill of her secrets, and he would brook none of her protests in this. His eyes locked with hers—unmoving, unwavering. And the words passed not with voice, but with heat and weight and finality, humming along the Bond until they buried themselves in her chest.
Enough, Auryn. Be still. For once, you will not fight me. For once, you will let me carry what I should have from the start.
Her breath left her body like a whispered surrender. Her muscles slackened. Her mouth parted under his thumb. Her eyes closed, and she said nothing more.
You will rest now. Understand?
She nodded, and he lingered for one heartbeat—two—before his hand fell away, and he turned from her.
Back to the warding Attendant. He gestured for her to approach, sitting in such a way that his large body blocked Auryn from seeing the girl’s signing.
Lu’ma obeyed, chin lifting, hands already moving.
Her signs were slow, halting, but unmistakable.
‘This Nameless shows respect to the mighty Resh’Agar.’
He watched her hands, waiting.
‘Your Quintessence has saved Her Radiance. This Nameless is grateful.’
“Tell me,” he said, “why this room?”
‘Her Radiance walks when sleeping. This room is near the Servitor. This Nameless comes at night. Wards the doors. Ensures Her Radiance stays.’
She hesitated, her hands fumbling.
“Speak.”
Still, she paused.
“Lu’ma, please.” The edge in his voice softened a fraction.
The Attendant took a halting breath. ‘Her Radiance sometimes screams. In sleep. They laugh. They remember. This room is in darkness. No one to hear the screams. But this Nameless hears.’
Kailorien’s fists clenched at his sides. He forced his thoughts to stillness, not wanting to relay his fury through the Bond. Not now. She needed to heal. To rest.
‘This Nameless will ward the room again. Wards taught by the Sokar. Shaped to repel.’
“Repel who?”
‘Companions. Other Attendants. Those who come to steal and rip Her Radiance’s journals. To steal her furs. To find lost hair.’
Kailorien’s jaw clenched. “You will show me these wards. I will reinforce them.”
Lu’ma nodded.
“Now.”
He turned his head. Auryn was watching him, eyes drowsy but still lucid. He did not speak to her again, but the Bond shimmered between them like a held breath.
Sleep. I’ll keep this place sealed until it bends to my will.
Kailorien sat by the wall long after Lu’ma left, shirt half-loosened, boots unlaced, his jaw set in a way that made the Polis-light look like it was cast from inside him.
Every muscle in his back spoke of restraint—the barely leashed kind that wasn’t borne of fury alone, but something worse: helplessness.
Kail…
Auryn couldn't sleep. Hadn't bothered trying. Though Kailorien had hidden most of what Lu’ma told him, she needed no visual confirmation of what the girl had revealed. Lu’ma was honest and straightforward, and she’d been begging Auryn to speak to someone about the truth of her situation for many years now.
Lu’ma had signed to her one day, 'You call his name in sleep. The Resh’Agar. Will you not tell him? Will he not help Your Radiance?’
He couldn’t. Even now, after learning the truth, he couldn’t stop what was happening. Not without risk to himself and his position in the city.
The Void was impartial. The Void did not favor.
Kail…please say something…
She pushed the furs off with a sigh, bare feet sliding to the stone. Her ankle twinged, but the pain was a shadow now that she’d had time to heal. Her shift clung to her skin as she crossed the room, translucent in places with sweat and torn in others from her fall.
He didn’t look at her when she stopped beside him.
Didn’t have to. She could feel the hum of him through the air, could taste the weight of the words he hadn’t spoken.
She laid her hands on his shoulders. His skin was hot through the linen, tension vibrating beneath her fingers.
She kneaded a little, unsure if she was trying to soothe him or herself.
“Your silence hurts,” she said. Her voice was low. Tired. Frayed. “It always does.”
He let out a sharp breath, nostrils flaring. “So does yours,” he countered. “Starlight, did you think I wouldn’t help you? Protect you?”
Her hands stilled. “I was…trying to protect you.”
“From what, Auryn?”
“The Companions are untouchable, Kailorien. You know it well. They may not have a voice, but their bodies are sacred. They cannot be harmed or stopped or warned. If you threaten them, there will be a reckoning. The Void is impartial. The Resh’Agar must be—”
“Stop repeating that,” he cut in. “You think I do not know the drivel that the Litany forces you to say?”
Kailorien turned to meet her gaze. Auryn moved around him, coming into view, and he straightened. The emerald Polis light caught on the sheen of her skin, the swell of her breast beneath the thin shift, and he had to clench his fist to keep from touching her.
“You should be resting,” he chided, gruff.
“I can’t.”
His eyes roved over her body, and when his gaze found the fading bruises there, the smudge of silver at her temple, the slight favoring of her weight on one side, his jaw clenched.
“You still should have told me.”
She swallowed. “I know.”
“I should burn their entire wing to ash.”
Her fingers curled into the armrest beside him. “I know.”
“I still will, if you tell me that’s what you desire—Doctrine and Council be damned.”
Her hands smoothed against his arm. “I know you could, but that’s precisely why you shouldn’t.” She took a slow breath. “Kail…I know about the Rite of Scars. I know what you gave up for me.” Her voice thinned. “I do not know what it is the magic took from you…”
His heart swelled in his chest, so much he thought he might choke. He made a bitter sound. Something between a laugh and a grunt of pain.
“I have failed, then, for you were never supposed to bear that burden.”
“Don’t say that,” she hissed, pulling on him, forcing him to meet her gaze.
“I only told you because I would have you know my intent. I will never allow you to give a single piece of yourself again. Not for me. Not for this city. Not a single hair. Not a single heartbeat more than what is needed. How could I add to your burdens when you already carry all of us?” She shook her head, biting at her lip.
Silence stretched between them, thick with all the things she hadn’t said. Not in more than fifty years since he’d brought her to this place.
He rose—towering, barefoot—loose black linen pants and his rumpled undershirt the only things soft about him in this moment.
The rest of him felt brittle, like a shard of something left untended to scrape against the soft underbelly of the world.
Perhaps he should have smoothed the edges.
He didn’t want to hurt her. Not more than he already had.
But tonight, he wanted her to feel that scrape.
To see those edges and know the price of them.
He reached for her.
No permission. No asking.
And without hesitation, she approached.
His hands landed on her hips and pulled her close, mouth finding hers in a kiss that wasn’t gentle, patient, or restrained. Fingers threaded into the hair at her nape. His tongue was desperate, hard, claiming, anchoring his actions in fury and fear and love so vast it terrified them both.
She gripped his arms to steady herself as he devoured her sigh, as he swept across hers with the heat of the resentment still hissing beneath the surface of his self-control. He growled against her lips as he pulled away, panting, bleeding pain against her mouth like a wounded beast.
“You should never have kept any of this from me.”
“You worry—”
“I worry when I know nothing.”
His teeth grazed her lower lip before he deepened the kiss again, one hand sliding up her back, pressing her closer until every line of her body fit to his.
“I need to feel you…” He broke the kiss only to murmur the words against her. “I need to know you’re still mine.”
“Always yours...” she gasped. Her voice cracked with truth. She shivered when his hand cupped her jaw and tilted her back for another kiss.
Hotter.
Darker.
The fire roared between them. The Bond rose like a tide, ancient and aching and demanding.
And somewhere between his lips and her breath, Auryn prayed he would forgive her.