Chapter Forty-Eight #2
I smirk. Stars, she’s beautiful when she’s flustered.
The fire crackles and rises against the mountain, enveloping the space in warmth that belies the icy wind.
The drumming shifts into something slower, deeper.
The Vaythari begin to dance—bare feet kicking up dust, bodies twisting in fluid, hypnotic movements, losing themselves to the celebration.
Their skin glistens in the glow of the fire, sweat forming droplets on their brows as they let the beat of the drum command them.
Two women approach Elyssara, their hands streaked in shimmering golden ink. They gesture to Elyssara to stand and remove her leather vest.
“What—What do you mean? Take off my clothing?” She exclaims, voice laced with horror, though she still stands.
She looks over at Seren for solidarity on the matter, but she’s also been approached by other women, and she’s already undoing the laces on her leather bodice, and losing the ties on her billowing sleeves.
“You can’t be serious, Seren!” Elyssara exclaims in shock.
“What?” Seren says indignantly, though her smile is all mischief. “We’re here to celebrate, El. I want to dance for once in my Starsforsaken life!”
“Oh fucking Stars,” Elyssara mutters, and submits to the women in front of her. They grab at her arms, unbuckling her bracers, and immediately move to her vest. I know I shouldn’t look but Stars help me, I can’t look away. That one taste of her wasn’t enough.
My hands twitch at my sides, half a breath away from reaching for her, from stopping them from touching my—
I have no right.
Not after everything I’ve put her through.
But Stars help me, I want to tear them away from her. I want to be the only one who sees her like this.
I steel myself, knowing that what she does with her body is not my decision, but my hands curl into fists at my side, nonetheless.
The women begin untying the laces on the front of her tunic. She pulls it over her head, flustered and flushed, and presses it on top of the pile one of the Vaythari women is holding for her.
In front of me, stripped bare, save for the undergarment covering her breasts, and the luminous auburn hair framing her face and falling over her shoulders.
Holy fucking Stars. She’s stunning. Regal, like a deity. She has no idea of her own beauty, and that only adds to it.
I drink her in, unwilling to give up the moment I have to take her in like this. Her eyes don’t move from mine, locked in a silent conversation that says a thousand words, and nothing at all. I can’t help but roam her body, tracing every dip and curve with my eyes, locking it away in my mind.
Without a word, the Vaythari dip their fingers into the mixture and begin making swirls, symbols and shapes on her slightly sun-kissed skin from years on rooftops in the Virellin slums.
The symbols glow faintly before sinking into her flesh.
“Runes, El!” Seren’s excited voice cutting through the weight of the moment. “They mean prosperity, love, and protection,” Seren calls over the heads of the women painting her body, too. “Aren’t they beautiful?” She giggles with an innocence that I know Elyssara has protected with her life.
The runes shimmer golden against her skin, catching the firelight in flickers of movement. It makes her look almost otherworldly—like something out of legend. Something untouchable.
And yet, my hands itch to touch anyway.
Elyssara watches in awe as the women mark her body with precise and intentional shapes from the waist up, moving gently around her Lightborne marking, over the soft skin of her stomach, around the swells of her breasts.
A smile tugs at her lips, and despite herself and her obvious uncertainty, she is enjoying this.
This is their rite of passage. Their way of marking her as one of their own.
Then, Syphra approaches, and the Vaythari fall silent.
The silence is more deafening than the music had been. The weight of it presses into my ribs, thick with meaning.
Then—
“Zhari!”
The ground trembles beneath the weight of a hundred stomping feet.
With command and certainty, Syphra’s booming voice projects across her people. Though the language is unknown to us, there is no mistaking the power and conviction in her statements, nor the weight of the moment.
Seren’s hushed voice reaches Elyssara and me, “They are proclaiming you as Skaedor’s rightful heir, and the savior of their people.” Elyssara nods in agreement, as if for the first time, she is accepting that this is... right. That she accepts the role and the duty that comes with it.
Syphra’s voice booms again, her people respond with primal cries and cheers, feet, staphs and drums reverberating and mingling in agreement.
“They bow to you, serve you, honor you as the leader of the Vaythari,” Seren translates.
The Vaythari ball their fists into a ball then, and hold it across their chests, beating it three times, and no matter what language you speak or where you come from, this is a sign of a warrior’s allegiance.
Syphra is the only one to move then, moving closer to Elyssara, before reaching to a golden chained belt around her own waist, that, until now, has been obscured by the heavy furs she wears.
The belt is intricate, ancient, its center adorned with a single black opal that seems to devour the firelight, and a single rune carved into its center.
“Sovereign,” Seren breathes, awe-inspired again. “It is a warrior’s belt that denotes the ruler of the tribe.”
Syphra unclasps the belt and holds it out to Elyssara.
She looks momentarily stunned. Not uncertain, just... still.
Like she is feeling the weight of this moment press into her bones. Into her blood.
She exhales, slow and steady, like she’s letting go of the girl she was.
Then, she straightens, like she’s stepping into the woman she’s becoming.
As if deciding she is a ruler, a leader, a queen. Her bare shoulders gleam in the firelight, the golden ink shimmering across her collarbones and down her arms.
She takes the belt and secures it around her waist, the opal sitting in the center. She lifts her eyes to the tribe of Vaythari staring back at her, and with more conviction than I’ve ever heard from her, she casts her voice far and strong, forging it with power, meaning and acceptance of her role.
“Zhari!” She bellows, emotion cracking through her voice.
They erupt in acknowledgement, chants and screams and hollers of joyous acceptance written through the camp, and the ashdrum and skyflutes pick back up with vigor.
She is one of them now.
A Queen.
And I can’t stop staring.
She is stunning, standing beneath the Stars, wild and untamed in a way that makes something tighten low in my gut. Her hair whipping in the night air, bare skin with the glint of golden paint and belt adorning it, dirt marring her face from the journey here—she is a vision.
Ronyn lets out a low whistle. “Well, your majesty. May I have this dance?” bowing low with mock formality and gesturing towards the uninhibited Vaythari dancing around the fire.
Elyssara laughs, throws her arms around his neck, “Oh shut it, Ronyn. Let’s fucking dance!” Ronyn’s movements are exaggerated and ridiculous, making Elyssara shriek with laughter that makes me tip my head back for the beauty of the sound. Gods, I’m so fucked.
Therion is still as stone at first, watching, but Seren grabs his wrist and tugs him into the circle and pulls him into a spinning dance, ignoring his grumbling. He lets her, and just like that, the tension breaks into joy.
And then there’s me. Watching these people who were meant to be an alliance that I could bend to my own will.
To be manipulated for the gain of my own people.
To be used in the war again King Maldrak and the curse on The Shadow Wastes.
But the further we go into this, the more I realize they have become something more, and I find myself in a war of my own—my people or my conscience.
My sister, or whatever this is between Elyssara and me.
Elyssara turns, smiling, her face flushed from the heat of the fire and the Silverwake. She approaches me, cheeks flushed, chest rising and falling with the effort from dancing and laughing with her friends, and I can’t bring myself to do anything to interrupt her feeling this way.
“You look like the entire realms are on your shoulders, Kael,” she says between breaths.
I huff a laugh, “Sometimes it feels like it.” Sometimes, it is. I exhale, “But tonight, we celebrate—regardless of everything.”
“That sounds like an expert way to evade a real conversation, but I suppose you’re pretty good at that by now,” she quips. Then, she holds out a hand. “If you’re not going to give me your honesty and trust, Kael, the least you can do is give me a dance.”
I arch a brow. “No.”
She huffs. “Come on, Kael. Give me a night to forget.”
I take a slow sip from the Silverwake flask, watching her wait with obvious anticipation. At least I’m not the only one riddled with desire and tension.
I let the silence stretch between us, let her anticipation simmer.
Then, slow and deliberate, I lean in just enough to make her breath hitch.
“If you had a night with me, Duskae, you wouldn’t forget.”
Her breath catches, her pupils blown wide. She bites her lip.
And then, the challenge flickers in her eyes. Dangerous. Reckless. Tempting.
She steps closer.
“Well then, Kael,” she murmurs, tilting her chin just slightly. “Give me a night to remember.”
Then, without waiting for a response, she turns—walking straight into the firelight, leaving me standing in the dark.