Chapter 17 #2
Rohannes hesitated before answering. “No. You were honest. And you were not wrong—feeding the Lunarethians without the council’s consent would start a civil war.”
Val-Theris looked at him, eyes hollow. “And yet?”
“And yet,” Rohannes said quietly, “she wasn’t wrong either.”
Val-Theris turned away, his shoulders heavy. “Do you ever tire of reminding me that I am both a savior and an executioner?”
Rohannes smiled faintly. “Every day, Majesty.”
He stepped forward, laying a steady hand on his King’s arm. “She’ll forgive you. She always does.”
Val-Theris didn’t answer, for he wasn’t sure he believed it.
Meanwhile, the corridors of the palace stretched endlessly ahead of Jesenia. The gilded marble and soft torchlight that held a beauty which mocked the emptiness and helplessness inside her.
She didn’t remember how she’d gotten here. Only that one moment she’d been standing before Val-Theris, her heart breaking with every word, and the next, she was walking away because staying had hurt too much.
Her footsteps echoed softly. She passed the carved archways, the murals of angels and kings, the gold-leafed symbols of divine grace. They seemed hollow now, like paintings made for people blind to the reality of the world they live in.
When she reached her chambers, she shut the door behind her and leaned against it, closing her eyes. For a long while, she didn’t move. The silence pressed against her ears until she could hear her own heartbeat, uneven and fast.
Outside, Solmiris glittered under the night sky, a city of light and gold.
But from where she stood, it was only a false reflection; the glow of lanterns hiding the hunger in the streets below.
After Val-Theris finished his work with the council, he found Jesenia’s chambers without thought, his boots soundless on polished marble. He did not knock, he simply entered her room and closed the door softly behind him.
She sat by the window, her knees drawn up, her bare feet tucked beneath her skirts, the late sun spilling sharp across her bruised cheek.
When Val-Theris stepped inside, she didn’t turn.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Jesenia said quietly, her voice steady but hollow.
He froze, his jaw tightening faintly. “I needed to see you. To apologize for what I said earlier.”
Her laugh was soft, bitter, and without warmth. “This is much bigger than you or I. You know this.”
“Yes I do,” he agreed, chest constricting. He forced himself forward, closer to her. “But what I’ve come for is about…us. Not politics.”
“Is it?” Jesenia finally turned to face him, her dark eyes flashing beneath the bruises and ash. “The entire city whispers about me. The foreign girl. The king’s whore. You put me there, Val-Theris—you made me this. All of this is because I asked for a warm meal.”
Her voice broke faintly, the words trembling in the stillness.
“I will not hear that from you.”
Jesenia lowered her gaze, fingers curling into the edge of her shawl.
“Since the day we met, everything has been worse,” she whispered.
“Your people hate mine. The council schemes behind your back to overthrow everything you’ve built.
And my people—” Her voice caught faintly, thin with exhaustion.
“They now look at me as though I’ve traded their safety for my seat at your table.
And today,” Jesenia whispered, trembling despite herself, “it was just a reminder that nothing I do can change that.”
The sound of her voice breaking where she rarely allowed it to sliced deeper than any blade. He crossed the remaining distance between them slowly, cautiously, until the sun caught the faint tremor in his feathers.
“I swore I would help you and your people,” he whispered, his voice barely audible, “and every time I fail, they find new ways to make you bleed for it.”
“Then stop,” Jesenia snapped, her voice louder now, the emotion breaking through exhaustion. “Stop choosing me, Val-Theris! Stop giving them reasons to punish my people for my existence!”
Her words echoed between them, the silence afterward heavy and sharp. But Val-Theris didn’t flinch. Instead, his voice came quiet, steady, and full of something deeper than command.
“I can’t.”
Jesenia shook her head sharply, frustrated tears stinging the edges of her vision. “Why?” she demanded, her voice shaking now as she stood to face him fully. “Why can’t you just let me go back to being a foreign girl in the shadows?”
“Because I don’t have time to.”
The words stilled her. Val-Theris exhaled slowly, his wings trembling faintly before folding tighter against his back, his gaze locked unblinking on hers.
His jaw tightened faintly, his breath uneven as his hand lifted, stopping just shy of her bruised cheek—hovering there, close enough to feel the warmth of her skin.
“I’ve seen my death.”
Jesenia blinked, the silence ringing sharp between them. “What?”
“The day I kissed you,” Val-Theris murmured, his voice distant, reverent and haunted all at once.
“I saw it—the blade that ends me. And you were there, grieving for me. That’s why I can’t let you go,” Val-Theris said, his voice raw now, threaded through with something soft and devastating.
“I will die, Jesenia. Soon. And until that day comes, I am going to choose you over my council.”
Tears blurred her vision before she realized they were falling. She wanted to scream at him, to tell him she hated him for tethering her to his death, to his fate—and yet beneath the anger, fear churned deeper than anything she could voice.
She pressed a hand over her mouth, steadying her breath as she stepped back from him, shaking her head. “You should have told me,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the edges of the words. “You should have let me decide if I wanted this knowing what comes.”
Val-Theris closed the distance between them slowly, his hand finally brushing along her cheek, his thumb warm and reverent where it caught the edge of her tears.
“Would you choose any differently?” he asked softly.
“No,” she admitted.
For a moment, silence stretched, the weight of everything unsaid pressing sharp between them. Val-Theris’s forehead lowered, almost brushing hers, his breath unsteady, his wings half-spread behind him as if instinct sought to shelter her even now.
Jesenia’s throat tightened, her breath uneven as she finally met his gaze. For a long moment, she said nothing. And then, very softly, she asked:
“What would it take to stop this hatred between my people and yours? Is there really nothing you can do, Val-Theris? As king?”
Val-Theris stilled, his wings tightening faintly behind him. The silence between them stretched taut, filled only by the racing thoughts in his mind. For a long moment, neither spoke. Then Val-Theris drew a quiet, steadying breath.
“Marry me.”
Jesenia froze, the words hanging in the air like struck glass. “What?”
“I’ll make it official,” Val-Theris said, his voice calm but threaded with an urgency he couldn’t disguise; an urgency to fix what neither of them could see was broken beyond repair.
“If you become my queen, your people will be granted full citizenship—protections, provisions, freedom to move and trade without restriction. No more camps. No more slurs spat in the streets. No more riots.”
She stared at him, the sunlight painting sharp edges across his face, her pulse loud in her ears.
“You want to marry me for politics,” she clarified, hurt on her tongue.
“No,” he said quickly, leaning forward slightly, his gaze locked on hers. “I want to marry you because I care about you and don’t want to see any more suffering in my walls. It will give me the power to protect you and your people.”
Jesenia’s breath caught, but instead of relief, something sharp cracked in her chest.
“Do you?” she whispered, barely audible.
Val-Theris stilled. “Do I what?”
“Do you care about me?” she said, louder this time, her voice shaking.
“Or do you just value the ease I bring to your conscience?” She stood slowly, clutching her shawl more securely around her, stepping back from him as the words spilled.
“I was foolish,” she whispered. “I thought you…I thought we were real, Val-Theris. That what we had could have been more someday. But now…” Her voice faltered as she shook her head, staring down at her scraped palms. “Now I wonder if you only ever wanted me because I was useful.”
“That’s not true,” Val-Theris said sharply, rising to follow her, his wings flaring faintly behind him as if they reflected the strain in his voice. “Jesenia, I would bleed for you—”
“You would turn my name into a shield,” she cut back, her voice trembling. “A weapon I never wanted to be. Something to wield when the council corners you. An excuse to undermine them. And I would spend the rest of my life wondering if I was your wife or your banner of triumph."
The silence that followed struck harder than the shouting in the streets.
“I want to marry for love,” she whispered, her voice breaking softly around the edges. “Not to fix your ongoing war with your own people.”
Val-Theris’s throat worked, but no words came. He looked at her as if reaching for something already lost, his breath uneven as his wings slowly folded close behind him.
“Jesenia,” he tried softly, but she shook her head once, stepping away.
“No,” she said, her voice trembling but firm. “Not like this.”
She left him standing in her room as the sun climbed higher, his shadow stretched long across the pale marble floors. The seconds ticked away, the vision of his own death burning beneath his ribs, knowing time was a luxury he could not afford to lose, and somehow lost it anyway.
From that day forward, something in the city shifted. Anytime Val-Theris came searching, Jesenia always found some reason to disappear before he arrived. She was avoiding him, and that hollowed him out in ways he never expected.
The council noticed her absence in the halls of the palace, and Varin was the first to use it like a poison. Softly. Skillfully. Like slipping a few drops into his wine just to see how much it would take to kill a god.
At first, Val-Theris ignored his remarks. But the whispers grew louder, spreading beyond the marble halls and into the streets until even soldiers murmured questions in the guardrooms, until traders passed gossip across stalls as if trading currency.
And Jesenia, hearing the same words echoed in shadows, pulled further away.
He tried to reach her.
He tried until exhaustion carved hollows beneath his eyes, until the parchment stacks on his desk blurred beneath sleepless nights. He tried to speak to her. To explain. To hold her without words and let her feel what he couldn’t seem to say out loud.
To let her hear the words that were too dangerous to leave his throat.
The high council chamber glimmered with cold light, the dawn spilling warm gold through its high arched windows.
Val-Theris stood at the head of the marble table, his wings folded tight against his back, the weight of a dozen eyes fixed on him.
They had called him for an emergency session which he had denied—thrice—before answering the summons.
Councilor Gena’s voice was the first to break the silence. “You shame us, Your Majesty.”
The words echoed sharply across the marble floor. Val-Theris’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing as Gena leaned forward, her thin fingers tapping against the table.
“You bring that Lunarethian girl into our sacred halls, and now the entire city whispers of it. Do you think your people kneel to you because of sentiment?” Her smile was faint, cold.
“No. They kneel because they believe you are more than a man. And yet for nearly a week’s time, you mope about like a heartbroken boy. ”
A low murmur of agreement rippled through the chamber.
Councilor Varin struck next, his voice heavy.
“We tolerated the refugee’s presence because she kept her head bowed.
But now you flaunt her, let her into your chambers overnight, sulk when she denies you, and worse—rumor says you’ve laid with her!
Tell me, your Majesty, are you Solmiris’s king or a reckless child playing house? ”
Something in him snapped.
Val-Theris’s wings unfurled wide with a sound like thunder, their span filling the chamber, feathers scattering faint motes of dust from the air. His eyes, usually soft and unreadable, burned fierce as steel struck with flame.
“I am your king,” he said, his voice low, carrying like a blade through silence.
“Do not mistake my patience for weakness.” The councilors stilled, but he did not stop.
He stepped forward, his boots striking the polished marble, his gaze cutting across them like fire.
“You sit in these gilded chairs and scold me as though I am your son. But it is I who bleeds for this throne. It is I who sees futures none of you dare imagine. And it is I who carries Seraveth upon his shoulders while you trade whispers and count coins.”
His hand slammed flat against the marble table, the crack echoing through the dome. “You call Lady Jesenia a weakness. I tell you this: she holds more strength than all of us combined. You will not speak of her as filth beneath your shoes again.”
The silence that followed was suffocating. Gena’s lips pressed thin, her knuckles against the table edge. “This city bows to a god, not a man who gives his heart to foreign blood. If you insist on dragging us into ruin, we will—”
“You will what?” Val-Theris cut her off, his voice low, dangerous.
His wings spread wider still, the sunlight catching their edges until they glowed faintly.
“Depose me? You forget yourselves. Without me, Seraveth is nothing but marble and dust. Remember that before you ever dare raise your tongue to me again.”
No one spoke after that.
One by one, the councilors rose, their expressions tight with fury and fear.
They bowed stiffly with the hollow submission of those already planning treachery, and filed out of the chamber.
When the doors shut, Val-Theris stood alone, his chest heaving faintly, his hands braced hard against the marble table.
The council would never forgive him for allying himself with Jesenia.
And she would never forgive him for making her a symbol of mercy in a kingdom too proud to accept it.