45. Mirrored Envy
Mirrored Envy
Two days passed in a blur.
Training with Kailorien and Zarrek.
Archery practice until her fingers bled.
Veilstepping until exhaustion gnawed at her bones.
And not a word spoken to Kailorien about that night.
Still touching. Still kissing. Still laying together and holding each other.
Floating and sighing as he made love to her and shared his breath.
But the silence stretched.
They did not circle the topic. They simply pretended it wasn’t one. Auryn didn’t want to think on it more than she had to. Already, she saw Vargrún in every shadow and corner. Already, she jumped every time his voice rumbled in her thoughts.
And Kailorien? He did not want the distraction for her. He feared it would dilute her focus. They’d been preparing for the Path of Fire and the Rite of Judgment tirelessly for more than a year.
The Mandate of Unbroken Shields hinged on her success. And not just that. Her credibility as Sokar. A step towards thwarting the Council’s constant attempts to silence her voice. A path towards independence.
Towards a time when Kailorien would have to go on Campaign once more.
That wasn’t a question any longer. They didn’t address it, but the reality and finality of the decision crushed them both beneath its weight.
It wasn’t if. It was when.
The night before the Path of Fire, Auryn could not sleep.
Whenever her eyelids drifted closed, she saw him.
Red eyes in the dark. Teeth gleaming in the shape of a wolf.
Vargrún’s whisper licked across her skin, just as it had when he had pressed through Kailorien’s body and claimed her lips in a heated kiss—as it had when his will had tried to claim her.
Now, even in silence, the echo of his possession suffocated like smoke lodged in her lungs.
She turned in her bed. The silk sheets tangled at her knees, clinging with damp heat.
A tremor shook through her.
She could not breathe lying down. Could not risk sleep when every heartbeat drew her closer to tomorrow—the Path, the Cycle of Fire, the endless line of torches blazing across Krystopolis.
Something foreboding lay ahead. She did not know where, only that her enemies were waiting for her to stumble. Waiting for her to fall.
For a fleeting instant, she considered using her Sight. She had done it once before, with Kailorien at Stonewake—long before their dark descent into the Veinroads. That one glimpse of the threads had burned. It had almost cost her everything.
She whispered to herself, I cannot risk it now. Not when they are already watching for me to falter.
Using the Sight was not like Weaving. It was not controlled or deliberate. It drew from something deeper, something older, something that stirred wrongness inside her blood. Touching that power was akin to opening a door to a place she did not belong.
So instead, she rose.
She paced.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
The chamber stretched long and shadowed in the dark. The Polis lights outside the window flared, throwing jagged lines of orange across the black marble floor. Each flash felt like a pulse of accusation. Memories came. Cruel words and slurs thrown her way over more than half a century.
Ornament.
Shapeless.
Cursed.
Colorless.
Impostor.
Heretic.
She tried to distract herself with her journals, but when she opened the cabinet where she kept them, she grimaced.
She’d hidden the volumes behind other tomes related to the Resh’Agar’s Runesgram—so carefully stashed it would take time to dig them out.
By the time she pulled them free, sunlight had begun to bleed through the latticework of the city. Acrid, burning light. The sun of Fire.
This Cycle was always too bright. Always too hot. On the Surface, fires would claim entire fields and valleys. Here, within the Shields, the city would burn without flame. Melt. And today, the sun glared like a predator, pouring molten heat into the chamber with a warning.
I’ll walk in that for hours today. My sandals will blister. I’ll sweat until I want to scream. And worse, I cannot cast a web to ease it. The heat will devour my magic whole.
She pressed a hand to her brow. Already she could feel her own mana resisting, colliding with the heavy air.
Her body rejected the heat as though it were poison.
Her lips parted on a sharp inhale. She bit down until she tasted blood.
Auryn’s teeth unclenched slowly, copper sharp on her tongue.
She lifted her head—and startled when a shadow moved across the floor.
“Kailorien,” she breathed.
He had risen from the divan at the far end of the chamber, broad shoulders limned in Polis-light. His armor lay cast aside, his hair loose and shadowing his face. He must have woken when she rose, but as always, he had given her the dignity of silence until she broke first.
He crossed to her and pulled her into his embrace. “Starlight,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep. His hand touched her elbow, grounding. “You’re shaking.”
Auryn leaned into him, desperate for the steadiness of his chest, the warmth of him against her fevered skin. He smelled like glyphing oil and Lustral mana, the scent of last night’s bath still clinging to him like a pining lover. She closed her eyes. For a heartbeat, she let herself breathe.
I can still smell your warmth. Your magic.
The voice licked up her spine as though it had never left her. His voice lingered in her skull like smoke that would not clear, acrid and clinging.
She stiffened. Her nails dug into Kailorien’s arm.
He felt it at once. “Is he speaking again?”
Her nod was small, sharp.
Kailorien’s jaw locked. For the first time since she’d met him, she heard him curse—truly curse. An Old Krystopolitan word spat low and vicious, foreign and ugly in his mouth.
Her eyes flew wide. “Kail…”
“Forgive me, love.” He raked a hand through his hair, furious with himself. “I just—” His voice broke off, the violence swallowed. He shook his head. “I hate that he can reach you. That he can still touch you.”
She pressed her forehead to his chest, hugging him tighter. “He can’t have me,” she whispered. “Not while you’re here.”
He held her close, breath deep and ragged against her hair. But even as he held her, the weight of the Path of Fire—and of Vargrún—pressed between them.
“I need to prepare for the Path,” she said, reluctant.
His hand cupped her jaw, thumb brushing the edge of her lip where silver blood had risen. “And I for my own part. I cannot walk beside you today.”
But I will walk beside you, little Sokar. Every step. Every falter.
Her breath caught at the similarity in their words. The wolf and her Resh’Agar. Nausea rose up in her belly. Thick and dizzying.
“As Resh’Agar,” he said, eyes blazing azure in the dim light, “my place is above. Watching. But know this: whatever happens—my eyes will never leave you.”
Her throat tightened. She wanted to beg him to come anyway, to hold her hand through every step. Instead, she whispered, “Then I will walk as though your gaze is the only one upon me.”
He kissed her brow, lingering, reluctant to release her. But at last, he pulled away, shoulders straightening, donning the mantle of the Resh’Agar once more. He walked to the adjoining chamber to start his own preparations.
Auryn stood alone in the silence. She exhaled, slow and steady, and rang the small bell at her bedside. The sound was hollow.
Lu’ma entered, her silent feet whispering across marble. Her hands signed low, 'Your Radiance, This Nameless is ready. Shall we don the gown?'
Auryn nodded, but they did not remain in the chamber.
Instead, they left the Resh’Agar’s wing and moved to the temporary Wing of the Sokar.
Some construction had been completed on the new residence, though it would take several more years to outfit the Wing with the amenities Kailorien had demanded of the Council.
Still, at the moment it was the best place to prepare for processions like the Path of Fire.
The dressing chamber was massive. Each of the four walls were devoted to shelves, hangers, wardrobes, and cabinets that housed all of the Sokar’s gowns, dresses, accessories, and shoes.
A large mirror hung on the northern wall, etched with runes and sigils that reflected back any hexes, curses, or adverse enchantments on what the Sokar wore.
Once Auryn stood in the center of the room, the dressing began. She sat on the cushioned stool before her tall mirror, spine straight, jaw clenched, as Lu’ma fluttered around her in a flurry of efficient motion. She worked swiftly, layering garment over garment.
First the shift, cool and close to her skin. Then the underlace, binding her thighs and calves in shimmering thread. Then the gown, the ceremonial robe of Ashborne. This piece took nearly an hour to assemble. Silk upon silk. Hook after hook. She was fitted not as a woman but as a shrine. A symbol.
The garment was a masterpiece. Black at the collar, deep as charred wood, fading into ember-orange across her torso, then brightening into gold at the hem.
The pattern shimmered like living fire. Woven into the fibers were hidden sigils—stylized wings and eyes—that revealed themselves only when her body heat rose.
On her back, the cloth was folded into a flare of plumes, reminiscent of wings ready to ignite.
Legend whispered that the Ashborne was once worshiped as flame-essence: the Destroyer’s final mercy, light after devastation. Now it was nothing more than Shu’Khan’s artifice. Another mask.
When Lu’ma finished pinning her hair in intricate knots atop her head, Auryn stared into the mirror.
Her reflection stared back, golden, holy, untouchable.
She did not recognize herself. This was not the girl who had stumbled barefoot through the Emerald Moores with Kailorien and Zarrek.
Not the survivor who had clawed her way through contempt and neglect.
Not the Sokar who had faced a city’s scorn and now carried the weight of its worship.