Chapter 5 Between Shadow and Flame
Chapter five
Between Shadow and Flame
-Maris-
Maris was dreaming. Kael stood behind her, breath hot against her throat, hands spanning her hips in a grip that was possessive and unyielding.
His finger tips rasped against her bare skin, and she shivered as if every nerve had been exposed.
He turned her in his arms with impossible gentleness, moonlight catching the edges of his sharp, inhuman beauty.
The silver in his eyes seemed to flare, swallowing up every shadow.
“Mine,” he whispered, voice low and velvet-dark.
Her heart tripped over itself.
When his fangs brushed the curve of her neck, she felt the spark of fear, but also a deeper, traitorous desire. Heat flooded her lower belly, pooling between her legs until her thighs trembled.
Don’t…
But he did. Slowly, carefully, he sank those perfect white fangs into her moon-pale skin. The pain was a strange, sweet ache, chased by a pleasure so sharp she nearly sobbed in his arms.
She felt claimed.
The dream was so vivid she could smell him, cold like winter air, spiced faintly with crushed roses and smoke. She could feel the weight of his body, the warmth that should not have belonged to a creature born of night.
“Mine,” he murmured again, licking the bite with a gentleness that made her toes curl.
Her pulse roared, hips arching against him in a shameful, desperate plea for more.
No, she tried to tell herself, this is wrong, he is a monster…
But her hands still clung to him, as if nothing else could keep her from shattering.
Maris jolted awake just as the first rays of dawn broke across the stained-glass windows of her chamber.
She gasped, flushed, hands fisting in the crimson sheets, heart hammering so hard it made her ribs ache.
Her skin still burned where his phantom bite had marked her thin flesh, her body pulsed with a raw ache that refused to die down.
But the air around her seemed different, as if someone had only just left her side, the faintest trace of dark spice lingering in the room, Kael.
She scanned the shadows of her chamber, breath ragged. Empty.
He wasn’t here, she scolded herself, trying to banish the leftover heat that tangled her thoughts. He wouldn’t have been here, after their argument and his condescending attitude. But it felt real. Gods, it felt so real.
Slowly, she pushed herself upright, skin prickling from the chill of dawn.
Her whole body felt awake in a way it never had before, like a spark had been struck too close to oil, and she couldn’t snuff it out.
Maris had barely laid her head back on the pillow, hoping to steal a moment of rest after that fevered dream, when the shadows near the hearth rippled.
Two shapes emerged, gliding forward with a silence that made her bones tighten.
The twin servants appeared as if the night itself had peeled away from the walls. Their voices were one, an eerie harmony that made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
“Dawn rises, mistress.”
Maris’s head throbbed, the dream still clinging to her like a half-forgotten bruise.
“Already?” she managed, voice rough.
“You must rise.”
One twin approached with a basin of water that smelled of rosemary and frost-mint.
Their hands worked with mechanical precision, peeling the nightdress from her shoulders and cleansing her body.
The wraiths then clothed her in training garments, fitted leather, still stiff against her bruises.
Maris shivered as the cold leather slipped across her skin.
The Wraiths combed her hair, braiding it and binding it at the base of her neck with a simple leather tie. They stepped away as one, dark eyes watching without a hint of feeling.
“You are ready mistress,” they intoned.
Maris rolled her eyes at the unless brief provided by the twins. She glanced down at the leathers that made her look like a warrior, when she most certainly was not.
Before the Wraiths could say farewell, the chamber door slammed open hard enough to make the iron hinges shriek.
Valea swept in, armor half-buckled, a streak of nightsteel glinting like a threat at her waist.
“You think you can lie abed like a court pet?” she snapped, voice cracking through the room like a whip.
Maris tried to stand straighter, but the ache in her ribs made her sway.
“I . . . I only just woke,”
“Not good enough,” Valea snapped. “The king said you are to train from dawn until high noon."
At the mention of the King, something shifted in Maris’s eyes, a spark she couldn’t hide, heat blooming in her cheeks against her will.
"First light crested the mountain peaks a while ago. Would you like a written invitation to join the rest of us in reality? " Valea pursed her lips in disapproval.
Valea caught Maris's dazed expression, a glint of amusement twisting her mouth.
“Apparently not, rather be dreaming about our kin?”
Maris’s heart slammed painfully in her chest.
“I— no — I . . .”
Valea smirked, crossing her arms as if she had peeled Maris open to read her secrets.
“You think I don’t see it?” she teased, with an edge that was half-mocking, half-knowing.
Maris swallowed, suddenly cold.
“How did you , did you… see my dreams?”
Valea tilted her head, eyes dark as a midnight sea.
“You know nothing yet of the powers we wield here,” she said, cryptic, leaving Maris wondering whether the commander truly had spied on her sleeping mind or if she was just that transparent.
A chill swept down Maris’s spine.
How many of them can do that? she wondered, heart twisting. What powers do they hold that I cannot even name?
Valea’s expression softened by a sliver, barely there.
“You must train,” she repeated, voice low. “Mind and body. Nothing less will keep you alive here, I don't have the time to be your escort today. The wraiths will walk you to drills.”
Maris nodded, forcing the air back into her lungs, mind spinning with more questions than answers.
Valea turned on her heel, leaving the chamber steeped in the faint smell of iron and roses.
Maris watched the door swing shut, gooseflesh rising on her arms. Maris let out a shaky breath, shoulders stiff.
The Wraith twins were still there, watching with blank masks, patient as stone.
“Well?” she bit out, voice sharper than she meant.
One Wraith inclined her head, gesturing silently toward the door.
“Come,” they said in unison, that echoing voice making her skin crawl. “The yard waits.”
They guided her through the maze of hallways — moon-silver tapestries catching the first hints of dawn, ancient suits of armor lined up like silent judges. The air was cold enough to bite at her lips, carrying the distant clang of steel and the low murmur of nightbound voices.
The training yard was already alive with sound.
There were practice rings of smooth black stone, separated by pale gravel pathways.
Archery targets ringed one edge of the courtyard, painted with runes that glowed faintly in the weak sunlight.
Farther down, rows of dummies stood ready for sword forms, their straw bellies long shredded by eager blades.
A fountain in the shape of a coiled serpent poured a constant trickle of silver water into a basin, its hiss adding to the clamor of boots, voices, and steel.
Maris sucked in a breath.
Warriors in fitted leathers moved through drills with lethal grace, their movements so precise she almost forgot they were killers bred for war. The smell of sweat, metal, and crushed herbs clung to the courtyard, sharp in her nose.
Waiting at the far end, Astrielle stood like a carved statue, her copper-red hair catching a glint of light, eyes narrowed in that hawk’s gaze.
Maris kept walking to where she had worked the day prior.
You will not break, she reminded herself, even if every bruise still burned.
The generals Corin and Riven strode across the yard, grim and intimidating.
Riven with his boulder-like shoulders, hair in that coal-black braid, tattoos marking his loyalty.
Corin, lean and wolf-like, silver-flecked hair catching the dawn, scar drawing a harsh line across his otherwise handsome face.
“Your ours again it would seem,” Corin chuckled, voice ringing through the courtyard.
Maris forced herself not to flinch.
"It would appear so," she whispered.
For hours, they made her repeat every move.
The rhythm of it was punishing: strike, dodge, recover, again, again, again. Her palms burned where the dagger hilt bit in, and her shoulders ached until she thought they might tear free.
She stumbled. Corin swept her feet out from under her with a single movement, sending her sprawling on the cold stone.
“Up,” he growled.
Maris grit her teeth and rose.
Riven corrected her stance with one meaty hand, near lifting her off her feet to reset her shoulders.
“Don’t stand like a dying bird,” he barked.
By the time the sun stood high and bright in the courtyard, she was dizzy from effort.
Valea appeared from the castle doors and called a halt, nodding once.
“Enough,” she said. “Lessons now. with the lorekeeper, my lady.”
Maris tried to catch her breath, wiping sweat from her face with trembling hands.
The Wraiths reappeared to guide her from the yard, their silent steps brushing across gravel.
They led her to a side tower, a round chamber lined with endless shelves of dark books. A fire burned low in a carved hearth, giving off the smell of cedar and lavender.
The Wraiths guided her through the tower stair until she stepped into a round chamber lined with shelves taller than any tree. Books, scrolls, even etched runes on bone filled every corner, the air thick with the scent of ink and age.
A fire burned in a shallow hearth carved with strange animal shapes, its smoke smelling faintly of cedar.
At its side stood a tall man in charcoal robes, his long hair white as snowfall, eyes hidden behind a thin black cloth tied across the bridge of his nose. His face was all edges narrow, severe, but softened by the faintest flicker of kindness at the edges of his mouth.