Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
With the unexpected interruption, the council had run well into the night, the sun long since hidden behind the horizon when they adjourned. Jesenia’s heart had been heavy of late, and she disappeared into the quiet gardens of the palace with a piece of parchment she had taken from the chamber.
She approached a fountain at the center of the garden, and folded the paper meticulously against the stone edge until it created the shape of a bowl, meant to be used in place of a lantern. She plucked a flower from the beds near her knees and placed it in the paper.
She had no fire to light it, but it wasn’t as important as letting the lantern float freely in the water, even if it had nowhere to go but in circles in the fountain.
Jesenia had intended to release the lantern and leave, but her heart began to weep as she whispered her brother’s name into the night. She hadn’t expected anyone to notice her here as she murmured soft fragments of Lunarethian river songs beneath her breath.
“Do you mourn?”
The voice was low, deep, and resonated in her chest. Val-Theris stood a few paces away, moonlight soft across his pale features, his wings folded close and shadowed behind him.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trespass in your garden,” she said shamefully. “I will leave.”
Val-Theris didn’t seem to mind her presence though, coming closer and kneeling next to her before she tried to stand.
“Is this a Lunarethian tradition?” he asked, gently running his fingers along the delicate paper.
Jesenia nodded and her gaze fell back to the crude lantern. “My people send light to the river when someone passes. Today made me realize I never got the chance to properly mourn my brother, and I can only hope that the earth has been kind to his remains.”
He regarded her for a long moment, the silence stretching delicate and thin between them. He had no words of comfort to offer her—none that mattered anyway. It was his war with his own brother that took hers from her life.
Jesenia bowed her head, tears slipping silently down the curve of her cheeks and the lines of her jaw. After a long while, Val-Theris pulled a sheet of parchment from his coat pocket. An unimportant piece of paper that was from an earlier summons. He gently presented it to her.
“Would you teach me how to fold it into a lantern?” he asked gently, as if he was asking her for the world.
Jesenia blinked, but took it from his hand and folded it with the same care as before. She handed it back to him. He looked around for an offering before pulling a loose feather from his own wing. He set it delicately into the lantern and then pushed it into the water.
“For all those that Lunareth has lost,” he said mournfully. He had meant it sincerely, and Jesenia felt it in her soul. It caused her tears to fall harder.
The moment passed. Neither of them moved closer, and yet the space between them felt smaller somehow.
“I did not mean for you to see me weep,” Jesenia said softly, her eyes lowered. “It is not becoming of someone who claims to speak for her people.”
Val-Theris glanced at her, his blond hair catching the moonlight. “It is becoming of someone who carries the strength of her people alone.”
She did not have an answer for that. It felt like an eternity before Jesenia found the strength to stand again. He stood with her, helping her to her feet with gentle ease.
“Thank you, Val-Theris, for mourning with me,” she said.
A beat passed, and she looked up to watch an owl swoop over their heads and land in one of the well-trimmed trees of the garden.
“It’s peaceful here,” she murmured. “I’ve almost forgotten what pain lies in the city on the other side of these walls. ”
She began walking, following the stone path through the flower beds. Her fingers brushed the soft leaves of roses and the vines that fell from the balconies above them. Val-Theris walked at her side.
“That is the purpose of this place,” he replied. “It was built to be a fortress of calm and beauty amid chaos and war.”
“Fortress?” She smiled faintly. “That’s the difference between us. You make it sound like a prison with flowers, where I see a garden.”
They fell into comfortable silence for a time, the soft rhythm of their steps filling the space between them. Jesenia’s hand trailed across a low hedge of lilies.
“Do you ever think of what comes after?” she asked suddenly. “When the war with Korvath ends. When I return home with my people. When peace is no longer something you chase?”
He glanced at her, curious. “What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “What do you think life might look like then? For me, for my people. For you.”
Val-Theris considered this. “I’ve never thought of an after,” he said quietly. “Only of the next crisis. My life is a chain of moments spent averting disasters that have not yet happened.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is, but it leaves little room for imagination.”
She looked down, thoughtful, and then, so softly he almost didn’t hear her, she said: “I’d like a family one day. A large one. As many children as my body will carry.”
Val-Theris stopped walking. The image that rose in his mind startled him: Jesenia surrounded by sunlight and laughter, her hands gentle and her womb full, the world unbroken. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d pictured something so simple.
“You would make a good mother,” he said sincerely.
She turned to him with a gentle smile. “Do angels dream of families?”
He hesitated. The question was innocent, but something about it lodged deep in him. “I don’t know if I can,” he said at last. “In any sense that matters.”
Her brow furrowed. “You mean you don’t want to?”
“No.” He exhaled slowly. “I mean I’m not certain it’s even possible.
My brother has taken many wives, but none have given him children.
I’ve never…tried,” he cleared his throat, “but I suspect the same curse binds me.” Jesenia’s expression softened.
“It appears to be a flaw of godhood. We were not made to create life. Only to preserve or destroy it. The Light gave us its power, but not its gift. Perhaps it feared what we might become if we learned how to love as mortals do.”
The silence stretched between them, filled with the sound of wind through the vines. Jesenia reached for a blossom and twisted it gently from the stem. “Then perhaps that’s why it made mortals,” she said. “To remind you what it looks like.”
Val-Theris smiled faintly, though his eyes were far away. “I could never forget.”
She tucked the flower behind her ear and started walking again, as though the conversation were over, light as a passing breeze.
But when she glanced back, she found him still standing where she’d left him, staring at her as though trying to see the shape of a future he only just now realized he would never have.
He finally caught up to her after a moment.
“Have you eaten?” Val-Theris said softly from behind her. “The council ran late, you would have missed the ration line.”
“Not today, no. How can I eat when my people starve?”
“How can you speak for them if you grow so malnourished you can’t stand?” He stepped beside her, hands braced against a cold stone railing, close enough that she felt the faint warmth radiating from him. “I would invite you to dinner, but I suspect you’ll reject me.”
He paused slightly at the implication of that, as if it was a way of courting her as opposed to a courtesy. She didn’t seem to feel the same way. She sighed softly.
“I can’t, Val-Theris. Not until I can negotiate better conditions for my people.”
“Having your first meal of the day is not a sin, Jesenia.”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke, letting the city breathe below them, letting the weight of their choices sit between them. Val-Theris wanted to offer more, would have even gone without a meal himself if only she would eat, but she wouldn’t, and he knew it.
She shook her head once more. “I can’t have my people hate me as much as yours do.”
His head turned slightly, pale eyes catching hers. “Your people could never hate you, and mine don’t know you.”
Her throat tightened. “And you do?”
Val-Theris’s jaw shifted. “Better than I should,” he said, his voice roughened.
She turned toward him, her shawl brushing lightly against his arm, and the air sharpened instantly—the heat of proximity too molten to ignore.
He reached for her hand, and she let him. His thumb traced small circles against her knuckles, his gaze locked on hers like he was memorizing her face. Then, he placed a chaste kiss to her hand before pressing her palm gently to his chest over the steady, thunderous beat of his heart.
“I cannot promise we will convince the others in the council to share our cause, but by my heart, Lady Jesenia, I swear to you I will do what I can for Lunareth.”
She felt in the weight of his words that he meant more than just a promise that her people would eat, but knew there was so much he was unable to say.