Chapter 14 #2
“They don’t even see us as people,” she continued, her voice raw, small in the quiet room. “We’re just…thieves. Liars. Strangers in their city. And no matter what we do, no matter how quiet we try to be, how careful, how grateful, it will never be enough.”
Her words cracked on the last breath, shattering against the heavy silence. She dropped her face into her hands, shoulders curling inward, trembling hard enough that her scraped palms pressed painfully against her skin.
Val-Theris crossed the room in three strides and lowered himself onto the bed beside her, silent, steady, his presence grounding even before his touch reached her.
“This is my fault,” he said, his voice low and rough around the edges.
“No—”
“Yes,” Val-Theris said softly, cutting across her protest without force, only certainty. “I should have seen this coming. I should have stopped it before it reached this point.”
“You can’t stop a city from hating, Val-Theris,” she whispered, her voice breaking despite her effort to hold it steady.
“I should have tried harder,” he murmured, his gaze fixed on the floor. “I put you in their sights when I defended you. I gave them a name, a face, a reason to sharpen their blades.”
Val-Theris’s jaw clenched, his hands tightening into fists on his knees before he exhaled slowly, forcing himself to loosen them.
Then Jesenia’s composure finally broke. The sobs came slow at first, muffled against the soft fabric wrapping her hands, but when they deepened, Val-Theris moved without hesitation.
He slid his arm around her shoulders, drawing her gently against his chest, his other hand cradling the back of her head as he leaned forward until his forehead brushed her temple.
“Breathe,” he murmured softly, his voice low, patient, steadying. “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
She wanted to believe him.
Minutes bled into hours, her tears soaking through his tunic, her small tremors easing only gradually as exhaustion dulled the edges of her fear.
At some point, Val-Theris shifted, settling them more fully onto the bed, keeping her close as though the act itself could shield her from the entire weight of the city outside.
When she finally fell asleep, breath warm and uneven against his chest, Val-Theris lowered himself back against the headboard, his gaze fixed on the ceiling above them.
He didn’t sleep.
Instead, he unfurled his wings, pale and endless, and curved them carefully around them both, closing them off from the world.
Outside, Solmiris’s tension sparked like logs in a hearth. Inside, she slept soundly, perhaps for the first time since she arrived in his city.
And Val-Theris sat awake in the dark, holding her, his thumb stroking the edge of her sleeve absently—memorizing the warmth of her, knowing that when he left that room, backlash would come swift and cold.
“You humiliate this council!” Varin spat, his voice rising above the others. “Every time you parade that foreign girl at your side, you tell this city that its people matter less than hers. Our citizens will not forget this!”
“She has nothing to do with yesterday’s unrest,” Val-Theris said evenly, his voice immovable. It was a farce though, and he knew it. He had spent the night at her side, and he made no effort to hide it from anyone. It was a mistake he knew he would pay for, but no longer had the patience to care.
“She has everything to do with it!” another councilor snapped, slamming his hand against the carved table.
“You feed them, you house them, you walk their streets—and you do it all with her! They see her as your envoy, your chosen voice, and your citizens resent it. If you keep aligning yourself with her, Solmiris will fall just like the filth of Lunareth! And unlike those vagrants, Seraveth has no walls to turn to when ours crumble.”
Val-Theris stood up suddenly, his chair scraping sharply against the floors, pale wings drawn tight to his frame, his shadow stretching long across the room.
For a moment, no one spoke. The braziers along the walls guttered, their flames bending inward as if drawn toward the king. His wings were no longer relaxed at his back; they pulled tight, feathers overlapping with a particular rigidity, as though bracing for impact.
He did not shout. That was the unsettling part.
Val-Theris’s hands rested on the table now, fingers splayed against the carved stone. The marble beneath them creaked faintly, protesting the pressure. His gaze moved slowly across the councilors in a way that suggested his restraint was deliberately chosen as a mercy, not forced.
His voice carried without effort. It did not rise, yet it pressed outward, filling the chamber until even the smallest breath felt too loud. “If Solmiris falls, it will not be because I walked among the starving, it will be because those entrusted with its future chose cruelty over patience.”
The silence that followed was absolute. No one dared interrupt him, but Val-Theris could see it in their faces that they cared not for his truth.
He drew a slow breath, visibly reigning himself back in, the faint glow along his wings dimming as control reasserted itself.
When he spoke again, his voice was calmer—but no less final.
“You will not use Lady Jesenia or the Lunarethian refugees as a scapegoat for your failures,” he said.
“And you will not threaten my kingdom with the consequences of your own unwillingness to govern our people with their best interests in mind.” His gaze hardened.
“Not while I still wear this crown. Not while murals of my father paint these halls. And not while it is by my rule you do not live as the Korvathians do under my brother. You have all grown complacent in your service to me, and I will hear no more of your baseless fears of pacifist refugees. You govern everyone within my walls, or none at all.”
He remained standing long after the words settled, and the distance between king and council was suddenly vast.
Moonlight spilled across the polished stone floors, silver threads glinting between pools of shadow where the torches had burned low.
Jesenia’s soft shoes made no sound as she slipped through the long corridor, her shawl drawn close around her shoulders, the weight of her decision pressing heavily against her chest.
She couldn’t stay in the palace any longer, and she certainly couldn’t risk appearing closer to Val-Theris.
Not after the shouting, the riots, the whispers cutting like shards of glass through the square. Her presence was making things worse. For him. For her people. For everyone. If she left quietly, without a word, perhaps she could still disappear into the quarter again. Become no one.
She rounded the corner into the shadowed side hall that led toward the servants’ gate—and stopped dead. Val-Theris was already there.
He stood beneath one of the tall windows, where moonlight spilled across the marble, his wings half-furled. His arms were folded loosely, but there was nothing casual in his posture; he’d been waiting for her.
“Lady Jesenia.”
The sound of her name on his tongue made her throat tighten, sharp and aching, but she forced her voice steady as she drew her shawl tighter around her.
“You shouldn’t be awake,” she said softly.
“Neither should you,” Val-Theris replied, his tone quiet but edged with something deeper. “Where were you going?”
Her grip on the shawl tightened until the fabric bit into her aching palms. “To the refugee quarter where I belong.”
His gaze sharpened faintly, though his voice remained soft, restrained. “You belong here, Jesenia, in these halls. As much as any of us.”
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t. And I never will.”
He stepped forward then until he stood close enough that she had to tilt her head slightly to meet his eyes.
“You think leaving will protect your people,” he said quietly, his voice low and steady, as if he’d pulled the thought directly from her chest. “That if you step back into the shadows, mine will stop whispering your name.” Her jaw clenched, but she didn’t answer.
“They won’t,” Val-Theris continued, softer now.
“They will only sharpen the blade they’ve already drawn, and blame you for being too weak to fight it. ”
Jesenia closed her eyes briefly, forcing breath into her lungs.
“You’ve seen how they look at me, Val-Theris.
How they speak when they think I can’t hear.
I’m not one of you. And every time you call me into that chamber, every time you walk beside me in the quarter, you make me something I never wanted to be. ”
“What is that?” he asked softly.
“A symbol,” she whispered. “And symbols burn.”
The silence stretched between them, taut and fragile, as Val-Theris’s jaw tightened faintly, shadows cutting sharp across the lines of his face.
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” Jesenia said finally, her voice trembling before she forced it steady.
“I didn’t ask for your favor, or your protection, or for people to hate me for standing beside you.
My people don’t need a voice in your halls, they need safety.
They need to survive. And if my leaving spares them…
” Her throat closed briefly, and she swallowed hard before finishing, “…then I will go.”
Something flickered in his expression before he closed the distance between them fully.
“You are not leaving.”
The words were soft, but there was steel beneath them, quiet and unyielding.
Jesenia lifted her chin, meeting his gaze despite the sudden rush of heat in her chest. “You don’t get to decide where I belong.”
His wings shifted behind him, pale feathers brushing faint motes of light from the air. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, rougher, like something held tightly beneath restraint: “I know.” A pause, heavy enough to carry meaning she couldn’t name. “But I can’t watch you walk away.”
Val-Theris’s hand lifted, slow, hesitant, his fingertips hovering just shy of her bruised cheek—close enough that she could feel the faint heat radiating from his skin. But he didn’t touch her fully, he simply felt a loose strand of her hair between his calloused fingers.
Jesenia couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, caught in the fragile stillness between the impulse to step back and the pull to move closer.
“I will not force you to stay,” Val-Theris said softly, his voice careful and composed, though his breath came slower than before. She knew he meant for more than just a bed in his home, but she also knew he would not admit it.
Jesenia nodded once, unable to trust her voice, and stepped around him. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t.
The next time they saw each other, Val-Theris found her near the plaza overlooking the city, her shawl pulled tightly around her shoulders against the rising wind.
“You missed the evening session,” he said quietly.
“I know,” Jesenia said softly, her gaze fixed on the lights scattered across the lower district. When he did not move on, she added: “I told you I would not be there.”
“Jesenia.”
Her name carried weight, his voice soft but unrelenting, and she finally turned to face him, forcing her expression into something steady despite the heat pooling behind her ribs.
“You know as well as I do that it’s better if I don’t attend the council sessions anymore.”
Val-Theris stilled. His wings shifted faintly behind him, pale feathers catching the fractured moonlight. “So you will just let them win?”
“They don’t want me there, Val-Theris,” Jesenia murmured. “And I…I don’t want to make things harder for you than I already have.”
His jaw tightened, his silence heavier than any accusation.
His eyes held hers, searching, as though there was something in her refusal to yield that unsettled him more than any battle could.
Her breath caught, just faintly, and she turned away before the sound could betray her.
“You have a kingdom to lead, Val-Theris. A kingdom that is not my home.”
He stepped closer then, but stopped himself when he remembered they were in public, under the scrutinizing gaze of their people.
“You will not leave,” he said softly, but there was steel beneath the quiet. “I will not have you hiding in the dark while they tighten the noose around us both.”
Jesenia shook her head, pulling the shawl tighter around herself, the words breaking from her lips like glass under strain:
“This isn’t about us.”
“It is,” Val-Theris said, his voice rougher now, though still quiet.
“That’s what they want,” she said softly. “For you to choose me. To let them call it obsession. To let them turn your people against you. And when they do, it won’t just be me who pays for it, but all that remains of Lunareth’s people.”
“I don’t care what they call it.”
Her breath caught; her hands stilled in the folds of her shawl.
“You should,” she whispered. “I can’t stay at your side,” Jesenia breathed, though her voice faltered, betraying the ache beneath her words. “I can’t make my people pay the price for what I—” She broke off sharply, catching herself, forcing the thought to fracture before it could leave her tongue.
“For what you what?” he asked. “For what you what, Jesenia?”
Her lips parted, but no answer came. Val-Theris’s hand lifted, slow and uncertain, stopping just shy of touching her cheek—so close that the faint warmth of his skin brushed against hers like ghosted heat. Neither of them moved. Neither of them breathed.
It was the closest they’d ever been to breaking.
Then, he lowered his hand, forcing his composure back into place as though it burned him to hold it.
His voice, when it came, was quiet. “You resign then.”
“I do,” Jesenia whispered, her chest tightening with the ache of it.
The tension hung between them like the moment before lightning breaks the sky.
Then Jesenia stepped past him without another word, her shawl trailing faintly in the sunlight as the low wind caught against the sweep of his wings.
He didn’t follow.
But she felt his gaze on her back until she vanished into the quarter.