Chapter 2 The Starmap Truce
The Starmap Truce
When Resh and Zarrek returned to their mounts, the sky had turned a savage crimson. The Bleed rolled across the horizon, warning of the coming Cycle of Dark. The sun, dipping low, bore a dark shadow across its breadth.
Astenos stood exactly where Resh had left him. He could have been a statue. Still, vigilant, alert. Zarrek’s beast grazed beside him, calm beneath the war steed’s ever-watchful, glowing eyes.
“Still alive,” Resh said, relieved.
They hadn’t meant to be gone so long, and Zarrek’s horse looked parched. Astenos needed neither food nor water, surviving solely on mana from Resh’s runes.
“We’ll make a half circle back to the fork in the path. There was a stream not far from there.”
Zarrek grunted in agreement, silent as Resh swung astride Astenos.
He shifted the woman carefully into place, keeping his gaze from lingering too long.
They continued their descent, Astenos's six hooves unnaturally surefooted despite the slick stone.
The roaring winds among the Spine had stilled, leaving only the hush of steady rain—soft, exhausted.
The woman remained unconscious. She hadn’t stirred once since their departure—her breathing shallow, her skin cold despite the cloak Resh had wrapped around her.
He carried her in his arms, head tucked beneath his chin.
The rain slicked down his back, drumming against his armor.
The cold did not bother him. Not the wind.
Not the chill. Nothing made it past the numbness of the Runesgram carved into his flesh.
Nothing but the enigmatic warmth radiating from the center of the woman's chest. Each time she shifted, his heart stuttered. Her silver hair, matted to his collar, brushed against his face.
Zarrek took point, his gaze cutting through the fog as they crested the ridge just before dusk.
He’d activated the runes on his battleaxe, and the symbols glowed on the blade, ready to answer its master’s call.
Resh’s grip tightened—not just to steady himself on the slick path, but to keep the woman anchored against him.
His Second hadn’t spoken another word in protest against Resh’s verdict to take her back with them. Now and again, he glanced back as they rode south, his body coiled like a spring ready to burst at the slightest change in pressure.
“She’s not going to come awake and bite my throat, Zar,” he grumbled when the warrior turned around for the thousandth time that day.
Zarrek glared. “It’s dangerous.”
Resh frowned. “What part of her looks dangerous to you?”
“The parts you’re not considering,” Zarrek snapped back.
He turned his mount to face Resh and stopped.
His face darkened, his aura so hostile that even Astenos snorted and sidestepped.
“You see a woman when you look at that creature. But think of where we dug it out from. That place wasn’t meant to be found.
” His eyes slid lower. “This thing wasn’t meant to wake up. ”
Resh didn’t answer. Every word rang true—but it didn’t matter.
He couldn’t leave her, couldn’t find a reasonable explanation for the events that had led them here.
Not since he saw her waiting in that pillar like a star embodied—floating in magic outside of time.
Zarrek wasn’t wrong. They knew next to nothing about who this woman was, yet he was bringing her home. To his men. To his city.
To Shu’Khan.
All treasures and rarities found on the Resh’Agar’s Campaigns belonged to the Sovereign Flame.
He grimaced at that last thought.
No.
This was the one treasure he would never give his brother.
On the evening of the third day, their destination flickered on the horizon.
The town of Brackenrood was a tiny hamlet nestled in a crescent of jagged stone.
Resh and his company had saved these people from a Shade invasion months before.
Grateful, the residents treated them as honored guests with an invitation to stay for as long as they wished—an invitation which had lined up conveniently with Resh’s plans to travel to the hidden caverns in the Spines.
Brackenrood was a popular stop for trade flowing between the Ebon Sanctuary and the Shivering Vale, and its economy revolved around barter and serving caravans and merchants.
It boasted rows of colorful market stalls, peddlers selling anything from vegetables to the most curious of items from Northern Elendria.
As Zarrek and Resh approached the hamlet, smoke plumed upward from the cookfires and inns within. Men stood at sentry points. All belonged to the Resh’Agar’s company—the Kelvasari. Some waved. A few spotted them and stiffened, hands going to weapons.
Zarrek raised his arm in signal. “All’s clear.”
They passed through the outer perimeter in tense silence.
The men didn’t speak, but they stared. Not at Resh or Zarrek. At her. Some gawked. Others whispered. Resh tucked the hood of his cloak over her silver hair.
“As if that’ll help,” Zarrek said.
One of the Reskala warriors signed something crude to another—something about a “new Companion for the Resh’Agar.
” Zarrek shot him a look full of meaning.
The warrior paled, as did his comrades. One of them knocked the original speaker on the head with his arm, signing in Krystopolitan—'madness has taken you.’
Resh faced forward, too far in deliberation to focus on them. Though there were plenty of inns and accommodations, he wanted to avoid unnecessary entanglements and had ordered his men to camp out around the town. He and Zarrek rode their horses to the Commander’s tent.
When Resh dismounted, Astenos reared his head, tossing his wild black and indigo mane in the air.
He stared down at Resh with fiery glowing blue eyes, mana pulsing in long winding veins through his onyx body.
Twenty-four hands tall at the shoulder, the beast terrified most of his men.
He obeyed only Resh, and Zarrek was the only one who could take his reins and lead him anywhere.
Cradling the woman with one hand against him, Resh patted the horse’s plated shoulders. He gave him a mental nudge to follow Zarrek, then turned away, relieved to be back in a secure location after so many days spent in uncertainty.
Inside his tent, Resh hesitated. The interior was simple—bedroll, travel satchel, weapon rack, a small table with charts and old scrolls. One corner served as a makeshift cot for injured men when needed.
He glanced at the cot. Then at the bed. Then at his charge.
“Well, I can’t put you on the floor; now, can I?” Resh muttered.
He moved to the bed, adjusted the furs, and carefully laid her down. She didn’t move.
A few men saluted outside. The tent flap popped as Zarrek entered behind him. He examined the arrangement. Raised a brow.
“It’s not a stray pup, Resh.”
“I wouldn’t put a dog in my bed,” he countered.
“Stop acting like it’s harmless.”
Resh tucked the cloak tighter around her shoulders. “She’s barely breathing.”
Zarrek exhaled and ran his hand up the back of his shaved head. “Just don’t leave it unguarded. I’m posting three men outside.”
“Fine.”
Zarrek left. The tent flap rustled closed. Resh pulled up a stool beside the bed, rubbing a hand over his face. He stayed there for a long time. Listening. Watching. Waiting.
The Polis lantern flickered, casting long shadows against the tent’s canvas. The sounds outside had quieted—no more voices, no more horses. Just the hush of night falling over the Moores.
Resh sat with his elbows on his knees, staring at the bed. His body ached. His mind throbbed. But it wasn’t lack of sleep or exhaustion.
It was her.
She still hadn’t moved. Strands of her hair scattered across his pillow like a spilled libation—an offering and an omen both.
His gaze lingered. Not on her face this time.
Her throat. The delicate hollow just above her collarbone.
The gentle rise of her chest beneath the cloak.
The fine bones of her ankle, where the fabric of her clothes had slipped aside.
Resh knew desire. He was bred to embody it.
But this was different.
This wasn’t lust he could slake in ritual sweat and whispered indulgences. This was want—yearning—in its cruelest form. The kind that slipped beneath one’s skin and made a man forget his purpose.
Resh reached out, tucking the edge of the cloak back around her shoulder where it had fallen.
His fingertips brushed the silk of her sleeve.
A chill swept through him. His hand trembled.
He curled it into a fist and drew it back to his chest as if it had been burned.
Then—half-laughing at himself, half-drowning in something else entirely—he rose and stepped away.
Not mine. Not now. Perhaps not at all.
He stood in the silence for a long time, watching her.
“Don’t wake up yet,” he bid. “If I see those silver eyes again, I may forget myself.”
As he observed the slow rise and fall of her chest, the thrum of his own blood surged as if his heart echoed hers. He should meditate. Rest. This was delirium. Delusion. He hadn’t slept in too long. But his body pulsed with restlessness—an ache deeper than hunger.
He reached for a flask on his table, tugged the cork out, and downed a few gulps of bloodwine. The bitter warmth slid down his throat, but still his eyes stayed locked on her. He imagined—just for a breath—her eyes opening, her lips calling his name, her body arching beneath his hand.
The thought scorched him—set him aflame and shamed him.
Too pure. Too beautiful. Too sacred for the war in my blood.
Still watching her, his thoughts drifted.
The hum of her breathing lulled something in him he hadn’t realized was fraying.
The buzz of adrenaline from the discovery in the cavern and the journey here still thundered in his blood.
He drank again, deeper this time, chasing the scorch as if it might cauterize whatever was unraveling inside him. He scratched at the nape of his neck.