Chapter 39 Malachi #2
“Lest you forget,” Lysara cut in, her voice as steady as her gaze, “I am fully capable, Malachi. I stood beside you during the Rebellion. I’ve fought my own fights. I love you, my brother, but I do not need you to protect me.” I nodded once, conceding.
We moved together, each of us falling into the rhythm of setting up camp as dusk bled into something deeper. The air here was colder—older. Even the shadows felt thicker. The closer we drew to the Veil, the more it felt like the woods were watching.
Gabriel stoked the fire, coaxing it to life with the flick of his fingers and a word in the old tongue. The flames caught fast, golden and high, casting soft light over the camp.
Gabriel reached into the small satchel at his hip and began to produce—of all things—wine. A wrapped bundle of cheese. A parcel of cured meat and rosemary bread. Even a tiny pot of jam.
We all stared.
“I didn’t know we were going to be dining so finely on this trip,” Santiago said, adjusting the blanket around his shoulders like a nobleman.
Gabriel did not smile. “Every meal is to be treated as its last. We will always eat well—until we cannot.”
A beat of silence followed. Then Santiago blinked. “Right. Well. Cheers to that.”
Aurelia sat cross-legged beside the fire, her plate balanced on her knee. She looked more like herself now, less veiled in exhaustion, more rooted in the present. A faint flush had returned to her cheeks. I caught her glancing toward the trees, gaze distant.
“These woods,” she said softly. “Do they not have… starflowers? That’s what my mother used to call them.”
Lysara paused, setting down her cup. Her eyes softened. “Motes of Sylvarra’s favor. They’re real but rare, even for those marked by her. They appear when the land calls you forward.”
Aurelia didn’t speak for a moment. Then, quietly: “I saw them.”
All movement around the fire stilled.
“They were faint,” she went on, “like little pieces of floating dust. But they led me. Just a little ahead. Just enough to keep going.”
Lysara’s lips parted in surprise, but it was Gabriel who finally spoke, voice low. “Then the forest recognized you.”
Aurelia looked down at her hands. “I didn’t think they were real.”
“They are,” Lysara said. “But they don’t come for just anyone.”
She didn’t say what I knew she was thinking—what we all were thinking. If they chose to guide her, then perhaps Aurelia Moirae wasn’t merely walking toward fate. Perhaps fate had always been walking with her.
“Kaerani, here,” Santiago chimed in, raising a hand like he was answering a school roll call. “I don’t get shiny guides or helpful motes. I get to bleed, heal people, and love passionately enough for all of us.”
Lysara rolled her eyes, but her smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You do more than that, Santi.”
He leaned back with an exaggerated sigh. “I mean, yeah. I also look really good doing it.”
Gabriel didn’t glance up from where he was rechecking his blade. “Debatable.”
“Rude,” Santiago muttered, but he was grinning.
A soft laugh escaped Aurelia before she tilted her head toward me. “Malachi. I never asked… Who is your patron goddess?”
I thought of the mark of Eryndis at the nape of my neck. The tattoos that covered my body to honor the Nightmother. And how they’d failed me. Or perhaps, how I had failed them.
I met Aurelia’s eyes. “None.”
Her brows lifted, surprised.
“I was never chosen,” I said simply. “Nor did I seek them.”
Gabriel’s gaze stayed fixed on the flames. “Not all power comes by invitation.”
Lysara added, “And not all of us need to follow them to know where we stand.”
Aurelia looked between them. “You too?”
Lysara nodded. “I followed Kaerani for a time. Marked for immortality. But I walked away when the choosing became a cage. She needed me as a weaver more than I needed her as a god.”
“And you, Gabriel?”
There was a long pause.
He didn’t lift his gaze, only turned his cup slowly in his hands.
“I was born under Eryndis’s shadow,” he said at last. “Marked, yes. But my oath was always to the Keepers. To the balance. Not the thrones. Shadow Elves are all born of her,” Gabriel added quietly.
“Even if we live under other goddesses’ courts, our magic only answers to Eryndis’s line. ”
That earned a look from Aurelia, a flicker of something unreadable passing across her face. I wondered if she saw it now—that for all our differences, none of us had truly bowed. Not fully. Not in the way the goddesses demanded.
The fire crackled between us, warm and quiet.
Aurelia leaned back, tugging the tie from her hair. Midnight waves spilled down her back in a tangle still unruly from sleep, catching emberlight at the ends. She tilted her face toward the sky, though there were no stars here.
“It’s strange,” she said softly, “feeling so close… and yet still so far from helping him.”
No one asked who she meant. We all knew.
“Aeryn was always the brave one,” she went on.
“The loud one. He used to run through the house with a crown made of nettles and demand everyone bow. My mother called him our little wildfire. That all changed after they were gone.” Her voice caught for a moment, then steadied.
“His birthday is coming soon. Eighteen. I promised I’d be back in time. Promised I’d make him soup and we’d—”
She stopped, eyes darting to the firelight. “I just hope I’m not too late.”
Santiago glanced over, softer than usual. “You won’t be.”
Aurelia nodded absently, then glanced up again. “What day is it?”
Gabriel answered without hesitation. “Second moon’s eve. Fourteenth dusk.”
Her eyes widened faintly. “Oh. Then tomorrow is… my birthday.”
That pulled everyone upright.
“Wait, what?” Santiago said, mouth half-full of dried fruit. “Tomorrow?”
She nodded, brushing hair from her face.
“I hadn’t really thought about it. It’s always so close to Aeryn’s…
it gets overshadowed. This will be my twenty-fourth year.
” Santiago tossed an arm into the air. “Then we’re celebrating.
End of discussion. Gods willing, we’ll find that village and they’ll have a tavern.
” He paused. “Well, I suppose it should also be full of friendly, non-hostile people.”
Aurelia laughed, quiet but unguarded, her head tipping back as the sound slipped free. Her smile followed, the kind that took over her whole face. It was rare, that kind of smile. Beautiful in a way that wasn’t delicate, but alive.
And gods, it suited her.