43. The Gift
The Gift
After the Pouring of Grace was done, the Resh'Agar and his Sokar walked at a measured pace back to his wing. The moment the heavy marble doors closed behind them, their performative gauze and ceremony fell away like ash in rain. Auryn moved in jagged, anxious motions, shedding the weight of her mantle as she crossed the room. Lu’ma stepped forward to assist her, but Auryn shook her head.
“Forgive me, Lu’ma, but tonight…I wish to be alone. I will take care of it.”
Lu’ma signed her understanding. 'Your Radiance, you haven’t eaten. May This Nameless bring your meal in a few hours’ time?'
Auryn nodded, reluctant, and her friend bowed. In a few swift motions, she ducked out of the chamber.
Kailorien searched her face, gauging her mood. “Starlight—”
“Don’t.” Her voice was sharp, frayed at the edges. “Don’t try to calm me, Kail. I’m far too angry.”
She paced to the window, then back again, the remnants of her gown sweeping against the crimson-veined black marble like wind through tall grass.
Auryn.
“I said no,” she snapped. I won’t let you use that soft voice of yours to smooth the wrinkles out of me right now.
You always say that, and then you fall into my arms and ramble while I kiss you until you’ve calmed down.
She stopped. Glared. And suddenly, Kailorien blocked her path. His hands gripped her waist, capturing her storm, and lifted her up onto a table.
“Would you be still for a moment?”
Her lips opened on a protest when he slid up the hem of her skirts and took one of her sandaled feet in his hand. It was the same one with the broken strap, the skin beneath the torn leather red and swollen.
“I’ve wanted to do this since it snapped on our way to the reception. But you looked so Voids-damned proud of yourself that I didn’t dare take the wind out of you.”
Auryn lapsed into silence as he slipped the straps off of her ankle and massaged the swollen skin. As though in reaction to his touch, her magic shimmered at the seams of the wound.
“You noticed…”
“Of course I did.” He raised a brow. “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t?”
“But, how?”
Standing straight, he braced his weight on either side of her hips on the table and leaned in close. “You are my Bonded. That is how.”
Tears stung her eyes. From his kindness. And from everything else.
"It was you…your magic that snapped Zeera's—"
He kissed her forehead, and that finally broke through all of her restraint. She shook her head.
“That gauze, Kail. Wrapped around the balconies like a blindfold. The Han hidden behind silk while the Council pretends it is whole. The hypocrisy in every word and every bow."
Her hands settled on his shoulders, grasping at the buckles as though he could hold her tethered in the hurricane of her emotions. She shuddered and bit her lip.
"Kail…you can feel them, can't you? Their vile intent. Their venomous hearts…you can silence them. You are the Resh'Agar. You are the Arm of the Void. Why can't you—"
She stopped. Gritted her teeth. Shook him, though he didn't budge. No more words would emerge. Her grief had swallowed them whole, and though she wanted to scream, she could only press her lips together and try to hold back her tears.
Just because I can does not mean I should, starlight. Because if I do, I will be no different from my brother. From the very vermin I would seek to subdue.
"Because the Void must be—" she began.
"No," he stopped her. "Because I am not a tyrant. A man who leads with his heart, with only his own voice in his ear, is nothing but a man. Flawed. Selfish. Blind."
She gripped him harder. "How?" she asked, her voice cracking. "How can such corruption have any place in justice?"
He tipped up her chin. "What is justice to you? If I asked Draevan Sol or Sevrion Hale…or even the Companions…would they have the same answer?" He stroked her cheek. "Or the Crafters in the ruined Han?"
When her tears spilled over, he kissed them away.
"I hate this, Kail…"
She pressed her forehead to his and took a ragged breath. "No one sees the weight you carry. No one sees the thousands of souls upon your shoulders. No one knows your truth. Your heart."
He smiled softly. "Because only you were meant to."
She made a frustrated sound. "That girl—Liora. She didn’t honor you as you deserve. She should have bowed in joy. Should have been honored. Instead, she flinched from you. She feared you.”
He tilted his head, the faintest crease at his brow. “Auryn…there is not a single soul in this city who does not fear the Resh’Agar. You alone… are the exception.”
His eyes held no pain at the admission. No regret. Centuries had robbed him of the immediacy of the ache, perhaps, but not the scars. In that moment, she saw the truth in his vast azure eyes—the isolation, the years without a single genuine touch. She reached for him.
“Because I see you. Not the mask, not the runes, not the god—but the man beneath.”
Piece by piece, Auryn unbuckled and unclasped his armor.
Chest piece, belt, pauldrons, bracers, boots.
One by one, she stripped the title from the man.
As she did, Morvane released its grip upon his runes.
The blue glow faded from his gaze, but his eyes remained brilliant and breathtaking.
He stood before her wearing only his black underlayers, Auryn’s hands shaking with emotion as she looked upon Kailorien.
Not the Resh’Agar.
Not even her Silari.
Just the man.
She took his hand and led him to the Lustral bath, steam curling upward in ghostly ribbons.
After they both undressed, he sank into the water, the scent of Sahtra lifting from his skin.
She slipped in behind him, legs bracketing his hips.
Coaxing him to tip his head back against her chest, she smoothed her palms down his shoulders until he relaxed against her.
She started with his hair, pouring water slowly down the length of it. Careful fingers combed through the thick locks, working the heat and water through them.
“You’ve always allowed me touch your hair,” she smiled. “When I first learned of the significance of hair in this world, I could not fathom how you’d let me touch it from those first days in the Moores. A stranger. A girl you knew nothing about.”
His hand came up to cover one of hers. We were never strangers.
She laughed. Soft. Resigned. Surrendering. You’re right. Even from the first, you were always my path.
Next, she worked oils into his shoulders, massaging his neck and temples.
She lingered on Hjarta on his upper arm, tracing its sharp edges, catching Krathar with her fingertips as she thanked both runes for protecting him from cold and giving him the strength to fight.
Her heart beat faster and faster with each touch, the image of where she wanted this to lead both thrilling and overwhelming.
But she wanted it. Wanted him. Not just to receive his love but to give it back. Her resolve settled, whole and strong, within her chest. When she murmured for him to shift to the ledge above, he obeyed without question. Auryn rose. Her hands rested on his thighs for a heartbeat, eyes holding his.
“I wore your colors to that den of wolves to show the world beyond the curtain that I was yours.”
She guided him to sit, the warm water streaming from his skin in rivulets, catching on the hard plane of war-forged muscle. Her fingers brushed over his runes. Dark, still, and unknowable.
“Tonight, I will have you wear my color,” she promised, and with each syllable of her vow, silver starlight bled from her fingers into his veins, the magic tracing the dips and curves of the symbols carved into his soul.
His Runesgram flared, transforming from black to shining white—the Sokar’s color. Her purity. Her flame.
“You’ll wear it in your skin,” she breathed, kissing Kenaz between his brows. “In your heart,” she trailed her lips down his neck and pressed them to Ansuz on his chest. “In your soul.”
Finally, she trailed her fingers down his sides, her body sliding down between his thighs, her lips touching Perthro over his ribs.
“Because you are mine,” Auryn sighed, her mouth caressing Dregnr at his hip.
He shuddered, gooseflesh rising on his forearms. With utmost gentleness, his fingers twined into her hair. She slid farther down, palms skimming over the rigid planes of his abdomen. And then, seamless, her hands wrapped around him.
A pause as fear struck her chest.
Not of him.
Never.
He was beautiful.
Her mountain. The forge of her soul. The shore where her heart would always find its berth.
But she feared herself. How small she was. That she couldn’t take enough of him. Could not hold all he was.
She hesitated only for a blink, and yet—immediately—he was there.
His hands cupped her face, coaxed her to look up at him.
“Auryn,” he whispered. Took a long, stuttering breath. As though he was building towards something.
And then her world tilted as he spoke.
“Auryn’reh…” His breath caught again, as though he had to pull the next word from somewhere deep and guarded. “Solah.”
She stopped breathing.
And then he said it again, careful, as though all this time it had waited on the edge of breath for him to speak it.
“Auryn’reh Solah.”
The sound of it broke through her like sunlight on black water. Her true name. The first words she had spoken to him, breath steaming in the frozen air as he pulled her from the ice. She had never heard it spoken. Not once. Not from anyone, in this world or any other.
It was the first thing she had ever given him, and the only thing he had never returned—until now.
The moment wrapped around her like warmth from another lifetime. And she realized, with dizzying clarity, that she had not merely chosen him. He had chosen her, too. Every day. Every hour. Every moment since that fated meeting in the temple hidden away from time and memory.
“You are a vision,” he said. “My vision. One I never want to wake from.”
The words left her before she could stop them.
“What if I am not enough?”
He pulled her up, kissed her lips, and then her cheeks.