15. Calla
CALLA
The storm follows us all the way back to Rothgar’s spire. It clings to him long after we leave the ballroom behind.
The moment the doors to his private chambers close behind us, the silence presses against my ears with the same force as the laughter had only moments before.
Though the chambers are larger than my own, the air feels strangely close, charged with the anger Rothgar carries into the room as though it followed him across the city.
His boots carry him toward the storm-swept windows overlooking Ti’lith, where dark clouds churn endlessly around the towering spires.
He stops there briefly before turning away again, restless energy refusing to let him remain still for long.
The measured composure he wears before the court has fractured somewhere between the ballroom and these chambers.
I’ve never seen him like this.
The gown clings unpleasantly to my skin where the aspic has dried against the embroidery, but I can’t bring myself to care.
My hands refuse to stay still, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from my skirts before drifting to the ring resting against my collar, the one thing I insisted my attendants leave untouched.
I don’t realize he’s watching me until his restless pacing slows. His gaze flicks to my hands before he crosses the room and presses against what I’d mistaken for another carved wall. A hidden door swings inward.
“My chambers connect to yours,” he says quietly. “If you would rather be alone for a while...”
I hadn’t even realized. Apart from the few times he has visited my rooms or summoned me to his study, there’s never been a reason to wonder how closely our lives were arranged beneath this roof.
I manage a small nod before stepping through the doorway.
My room greets me with familiar stillness. The silver-leafed plant rests beneath the window where I left it, its delicate branches catching the glow of the storm beyond the glass. Beside the wardrobe, my lute waits exactly where I left it. My shoulders loosen before I even touch it.
I kneel beside the instrument, brushing my fingertips across the worn wood before lifting it into my hands. The neck bears the faint scratches of years spent traveling from taverns to noble halls, and beneath my palm the smooth polish feels wonderfully, achingly familiar.
Everything about it belongs to the life I carried with me before crossing the threshold of House Stromgarde, and since leaving Father's cottage, nothing has felt so completely my own.
I sink onto the rug beside the hearth without bothering to rescue the ruined skirts gathered beneath me. The stain across the front of the gown fades from my thoughts as my fingers find the strings of their own accord.
The melody slips into the room before I’ve consciously decided to play it.
Mother used to hum it whenever Father fell ill during the long winters. After she was gone, I learned to carry it for her, sitting beside his bed through sleepless nights until his breathing finally steadied.
As the song unfolds, I remember the girl who measured her days by songs instead of court etiquette, who believed music could not mend broken lives but could make even the hardest evenings a little easier to endure.
Father always smiled when I played this one.
The memory steadies me enough to lose myself in the melody once more.
Before long, the music carries me so completely that the ballroom, the laughter, and the stain across my gown drift quietly beyond my reach.
When the final note finally dissolves into the quiet, I lift my eyes to find Rothgar standing exactly where I left him.
My breath catches.
He hasn’t interrupted once.
The hard edge I’ve come to expect from him has softened. His attention rests on me with complete stillness, and for reasons I can’t explain, it feels less like being observed than understood.
The tension that had lingered between us quietly slips away.
His gaze never leaves mine.
“They have never heard music like that here,” he says, so softly that the roughness in his voice almost escapes me.
I glance down at the lute resting across my lap.
“It isn’t anything remarkable.”
“It is.”
I can’t argue with the certainty in his voice, so I simply smile to myself.
“It was written for ordinary people,” I say. “For sick children, exhausted mothers. Music has never cured anyone, but it makes fear easier to carry.”
My fingers brush absently across the instrument without sounding another note.
When I look up again, Rothgar has crossed the room.
He lowers himself onto one knee before me so naturally that I forget to speak.
Every lesson I’ve ever learned about demon nobility insists this should be impossible. A Spire Lord does not kneel before anyone lightly, least of all a human sitting on the floor with a stained gown pooled around her and a lute still resting across her lap.
Yet he does.
The distance between us disappears until I can see the silver threads woven through his coat and catch the familiar scent of rain beneath the sharper trace of ozone that always follows him.
He searches my face with a quiet intensity that strips away every careful mask he wears before the rest of the world. Weariness lingers there alongside an openness I’ve never seen from him before, and the steady rhythm of my heartbeat betrays me.
His hand rises slowly.
One finger slips beneath my chin, lifting my face until I have no choice but to meet his eyes.
“You asked me to leave tonight,” he says.
He’s talking about the ballroom. With Rothgar here, touching me, it feels like a lifetime ago. “I did.”
“I would have destroyed him,” he whispers low, his nose brushing against the shell of my ear. The confession is so calm that it sends a shiver through me.
“I know.”
His thumb traces the curve of my jaw before he draws a slow breath.
“For longer than I can remember,” he says quietly, “I believed strength meant restraint.”
He falls silent, searching my face with an intensity that makes my heart ache.
“Tonight,” he continues quietly, “you reminded me there is strength in gentleness as well.”
His forehead comes to rest against mine, and I close my eyes instinctively.
The warmth of him seeps through every place we touch until the world beyond this room begins to fade.
Outside, lightning still flashes beyond the windows, but it feels impossibly distant beside the quiet rhythm of his breathing.
When I open my eyes again, he is still there, watching me, waiting for permission I can’t find the words to give.
Instead, I lean into the hand cupping my cheek.
Whatever fragile restraint he has been clinging to finally gives way.
He kisses me with a hunger that catches me completely off guard, one hand cradling my face while the other slides firmly around my waist, drawing me toward him until every inch of space between us disappears.
The kiss steals the breath from my lungs, fierce with relief, carrying the weight of a man who has weathered a lifetime of storms before finally finding shelter in me.
My fingers tighten in the front of his coat as the lute slips forgotten onto the rug beside us, and I rise to meet the fierce certainty of his kiss.