“And who might that be?” I asked, feigning curiosity.
“Her name was Eryndis,” he said, emptying his glass in one smooth motion. He poured another. Then one more, and held it out to me. “The Veiled Keeper. Goddess of secrets and thresholds… though some would say she spent too much time pretending to be mortal.”
I didn’t reach for the wine.
Kaelith chuckled, low and amused. “The Nightmother made the goddesses for love,” Kaelith said, eyes glittering. “Not mortal love—the fleeting kind that leaves you broken. Eternal love. A love so consuming she tore herself to pieces to birth them. And yet… even that wasn’t enough to keep the realms from fracturing. Tell me, Aurelia—what do you think your blood was made for?”
He took a sip, eyes dragging over me slowly. “Eryndis always did have a fondness for fragile things.”
A white-hot flash of heat surged through my body—sharp, sudden, searing. My breath caught. The air in the room shifted, too close now, thick and humming with something unspoken.
I couldn’t wear these. Not when Malachi’s people had bled for her. Not when Gabriel would stand in that hall, watching.
I couldn’t do that to them.
My face must have betrayed me, as it often did, because Kaelith stepped forward.
“Now, now,” he crooned, his voice a slow drip of honeyed poison. “There’s nothing wrong with that, my nýchta.”
“People are going to love it,” he added, eyes gleaming. Whether it was the wine or lust, or both, I couldn’t say. But there was something darker there too, something sick. “In fact,” he murmured, making a slow twirling gesture with one finger, “turn around.”
I hesitated.
His smile deepened, all teeth and anticipation.
Reluctantly, I turned.
The heat of his body pressed close behind mine. His fingers brushed the small of my back, deceptively gentle as they found the silk ties Malachi had just fastened.
The laces began to loosen.
I stiffened. “I can remove it myself, Kaelith.”
“Ah-ah,” he chided, voice thick with amusement, “but why waste the moment? I’d like to see you in something else.”
My fingers shot to the laces, but his hand shot faster.
He fisted a handful of my hair and yanked—hard enough to drag me flush against him. My hands flew to his arm to keep from stumbling.
Try not to scream this time.
The words weren’t Kaelith’s, but memory’s. The cold stone biting my spine. Restraints biting deeper each time I thrashed. A masked voice above me:Push her harder. We’ll find it if it’s there.The sterile tang of iron. The blade tracing me open like a map they meant to redraw.
My breath stuttered. For a moment, I was there again.
Then—another voice. Hayat’s. Gentle. Steady. The opposite of force.
“You’re stronger than storms,”he’d whispered, braiding my hair by firelight. His fingers never yanked, never claimed—only wove.“You don’t have to roar to survive.”
The memory cut through the dark, sharp as lightning. My grip on Kaelith’s arm steadied—not yielding, but holding. I clung to it. To Hayat. To the reminder that I was not broken.
So I let Kaelith keep pretending I was his to unwrap, knowing the truth was mine alone. This wasn’t desire. It was theater. And I would not forget my lines.
I lowered my hands from the knot of hair Kaelith had gathered, pressing them against the front of my dress. He leaned close, his voice curling low.
“That’s my good girl,” Kaelith purred.
My body moved before fear could stop it. I drove my elbow back, sharp and fast, aiming for his ribs.