Amaya’s chest was tight and painful as she looked at the table — the
bodies. The black of the cloth was too deep, too endless, as it molded itself over the corpses to form the hills and valleys of a haunted landscape. She thought perhaps she smelled iron in the air — it made her sick. She thought she could feel it, thick and cloying as it clung to her skin and filled her lungs like smoke.
She couldn’t breathe, lest the foul taste of blood flood her senses. She couldn’t move, or she’d shatter. She couldn’t look away. She —
She could still feel eyes on her skin.
Amaya forced herself to take a long, slow breath. The only scents in the air were the oils and incense of the temple — and Flynn. His hand was firm around hers. Her fingers twitched, like she’d meant to curl more tightly around him but couldn’t remember how. He shifted closer to her, nearly covering her with his warmth and shadow.
Another breath, heavy with scents that were as familiar as they were foreign. Hers and not hers.
The bodies were still and silent atop the table. Amaya tried to swallow.
She was suddenly at a loss. What was she meant to do? She’d requested they come to the temple to pay their respects, but – what could she
possibly offer the two empty corpses on the table that would be worth giving? Amaya felt just as shredded, just as hollow – but even that made her want to curl in on herself.
She wasn’t
just as shredded, was she? She was still alive.
Her hand tightened around Flynn’s briefly. Then Amaya loosened her grip to slip away. He didn’t let go at first, stubbornly holding on. But eventually, she felt him uncurling himself from around her, reluctance leaking through every shift of his muscles. Amaya stepped forward – slowly, carefully, not so far that he couldn’t cross the distance with one of his longer strides, couldn’t reach her with his faster hands.
At the edge of the table, Amaya stood over the covered corpses. She felt lightheaded, with how little air she could manage with each breath. But she wasn’t shaking. Her hand was
too cold now, but there was no ice on her fingertips, even if she felt painfully numb. The weight of those
eyes held her steady. They kept her mask in place, even as her magic lashed and hissed under her skin like a cornered animal in a too-small cage. Flynn’s burning presence pressed against her, as he became yet another observer.
Watching for a fracture in her control when he was the one who ruined her most successfully.
Looking down at the table, she could trace the outlines of their bodies – and where they were
wrong. One was shorter than the other, slimmer without the added bulk of Lunarian armor – the civilian. The arching curve of the head was too smooth. Too flat.
Unrecognizable, Flynn had said. Another wave of nausea surged through her. Amaya stared at their covered form, like she might
know them – who they’d been, before her foolishness had triggered yesterday’s bloodshed.
Someone had known them. Someone would know this loss like a blade to their heart. Guilt and grief made her blood too thick in her veins as she looked down at the body.
Amaya shifted her gaze. The cloth dipped too steeply beneath the head of the taller one. The neck was too long. The black of the cloth was too vivid around the lower half of the head, the borders of a stain barely visible.
Sir Abel.
His name was a lead weight landing heavy in her chest, against her heart. She… well she hadn’t known him either, had she? Not really. Not before he’d…
His image flashed in her mind. Not as she’d seen him all her life, a quiet specter haunting her as she’d moved through the palace. No, this was Abel as she’d last seen him – visceral and alive and
dying. Bloody and in pieces.
Her breath caught in her throat, a soft gasp barely audible.
He’d never said more than ten words to her, her entire life. They’d never been
people to each other, just balanced extensions of her father’s will – the Mistake, and one of the many bars along her cell. Amaya had looked at him and seen her father, a silent sentry whose defining trait had always been
obedience and –
And Amaya realized she
hated him for it.
How
dare he protect her now and leave her with this grief, when Amaya had always known him as a blade in her father’s hand?
How dare he
die for her?
Her magic grew frantic beneath her skin, the furious chaos of it fighting against her control until –
A tear slipped down her cheek. It was slow as it burned a path across her skin, a cruel, ruthless march.
The next breath she pulled in was hollow – she was trembling, suddenly so filled with anger she could barely stand it, as she looked down at the body of the fallen soldier that she’d never even realized she had a relationship with. Wary looks and stiff silences,
fear as she watched him raise the pointed end of his spear, glinting with blood –
He wasn’t a mindless weapon. He was a
man. And he’d allowed her suffering for years, until he’d followed her down that snowy path and protected her with his life.
Amaya was
glad he was dead. No –
She wished he’d never come to Dawnhaven at all – had never answered her veiled cry for help and followed her to his doom.
She wished…
Another traitorous tear cut down her cheek.
She wished she knew
why.
She wished he’d ever spoken to her, more than just terse orders or silent warnings. If she’d spoken to him, if she’d had the courage to
try, would he have –
Amaya squeezed her eyes shut, another wall summoned to seal herself away. And for just a moment, none of it existed – no eyes to see her, no bloodstained cloth, no bodies of men she’d never known. When she opened them again, the world was still too real as it came back into focus. Her eyes were still too wet.
Her hands barely shook as they rose in front of her — but even that felt like a failure. Amaya clenched her jaw, trying to steady her breathing – but it rattled in her chest. She could feel the tremors echoing through her body like cracking stone. Her right hand extended over the civilian’s body, the fingers of her left hand pressed lightly below her wrist, against the fabric of her sleeve. Her right fingers curled together, thumb held against the tips of her nails, and Amaya reached for her magic. It was still restless, still too vast and wild beneath her skin, but it didn’t fight her as she gathered the faintest traces — captured sea spray above a tumbling wave. Another tear slipped out.
Steadying herself as best she could, Amaya flicked the fingers of her right hand out three times, moving in a loose circle over the body. With each flick, water droplets sprayed from her fingers, beading and sinking into the cloth that covered the body. Her lips moved in a voiceless prayer in time with the motion. It wasn’t a common practice in Lunaris – it would’ve earned her too much scrutiny, too much of her father’s disdain if any had seen her perform this ritual in the capital.
Her mother had taught it to her. It was a practice from Shivanta, the storm-tossed island that she’d been plucked from. And it was one of the last things Amaya had of her, now.
The realization struck Amaya like a blade. Another breath, too loud, too audible, rattled through her.
Her
mother.Her mother who’d been dead for two months and Amaya
hadn’t even known.Fresh grief rocked through her, powerful and crushing, threatening to drown her. Her hands moved over Sir Abel’s body as her vision blurred.
Amaya didn’t know how her mother died. Or what state her body was in. Or if she’d had a funeral. Or if she’d been given to the sea already. And Amaya… she’d
never know, would she? He couldn’t even give her that.
Amaya would never see her mother again, would never help prepare her body, would never say goodbye as she floated back into the sea, back towards her home –
What rituals had they performed for her? Had there been
any trace of her in them, any honor given to
her practices instead of the King’s? Had –
“Even in the shadow of grief, may Seluna’s light bring you peace.”Amaya froze.
She was silent. It was improper. She was supposed to respond, to provide some practiced answer to what’d been offered like a customary greeting. But any words she might’ve found were buried beneath a layer of ice in her chest.
Flynn’s gaze had already found the Priestess. He’d heard her footsteps the moment she stepped away from the moonpool.
“You are not alone in this loss. Though I did not know them, I grieve with you. And I will see that they are returned to the stars above, myself.”He looked back toward Amaya, noting the rigidness of her shoulders as she stared straight at the bodies, unmoving. Flynn lowered his gaze to them too, listening to the Priestess.
One soldier. One unknown. Nameless, for now. His heart ached for the two—for the life that had been ripped from them and their families. If they had been Aurelian, he might have knelt. Lit incense. Whispered prayer into smoke and ash. But this wasn’t an Aurelian temple. And he realized, standing in its silence, that he knew too little of Seluna’s sacred rites to offer even a clumsy attempt without causing offense.
He felt awkward, out of place and useless as tears had slid down Amaya’s cheeks. He felt—
“While I would not ever ask his highness to leave, if your soldiers are not here to pay their respects, I would request that they step out so as to not disturb the others.”Agitated. He felt agitated.
Flynn’s gaze lifted back to the Priestess. His expression didn’t shift as he held her gaze. Calm. Steady. His green eyes searched her brown ones, quietly assessing the request.
Slowly, his attention slid to his soldiers after a moment—silent, still, standing respectfully on the far left side of the table, opposite Amaya. Their eyes were fixed on the Priestess, expressionless.
The only disturbance was, apparently, their presence.
“Everyone here is paying their respects,” he said plainly, keeping his voice low in the quiet of the temple.
“Each of us mourn those who lost their lives yesterday.” There was no anger in his tone, but it held weight. Unmistakably firm in his conviction.
“My Prince, Princess this is our Temple, it is a safe, calm and holy place. Please respect that. There is little peace left as it is to harm this small shelter against the storms.”Behind him, Amaya slowly brought her hands back to her chest, eyes never straying from the table. She kept her back to the women, unmoving.
Our temple.The phrase stuck in Flynn’s mind. Small, but deliberately divisive.
A line drawn where there should be none. Amaya saw the line as clearly as he did – and was stunned to find herself next to him, placed on the outside by her own people.
Amaya felt like a foreigner in a place that she’d expected to be
hers. Or worse – like they’d ripped away something personal that she hadn’t even realized was a part of her. The cold, the quiet, the dark, the familiar scents and colors that had defined her life – with a few short sentences, the two women
denied them. They cast Amaya out, severed her from anything she might’ve had claim to, simply by failing to consider it.
There was something aching and
hollow inside her, a sudden vacuum of stolen breath and cold isolation. She was small. She was
alone.She wasn’t the Crown Princess of Lunaris –
their Princess, practicing their faith, honoring their countrymen. Their small party hadn’t visited the temple at Amaya’s request, honored
her right to be there with her husband and her guards. She was simply the wife of an Aurelian Prince. Even to her own people, Flynn’s title meant more than hers did.
Flynn’s gaze drifted past the Priestess, settling on the Lunarian royal guard he’d clocked earlier. Her cloak had slipped from her shoulders and now pooled along the bench, exposing a blade that rested at her hip. There was a glare in her eyes, a tightness in her jaw, aggression in the way she postured herself.
A flicker of anger sparked within him. Quiet and controlled. But kindling, slowly warming behind his ribs.
“Would you like to wait by the Doors… if you must be here. We just want our peace, same as everyone else.”The guards she spoke to said nothing. Their eyes slid to the Prince.
Flynn’s expression remained in place. Neutral. Carefully measured. But he stared at Persephone, unflinching from the fire in her eyes. He let her words sit open in the air between them, letting the silence stretch.
One breath…
Two…
Three…
Then, calmly,
“Do we have a problem?”The water coating the tips of Amaya’s fingers, the tear tracks painting thin lines down her face, began to freeze.
Flynn’s voice remained composed. A blade sheathed, but no less deadly. His gaze stayed fixed on the older woman.
“A soldier died. Our guards mourn that loss, too.” His gaze flicked back to the Priestess—assessing her once again, noting how she had to tilt her chin to meet his eyes from nearly a foot below, yet stared back firmly.
“Are Aurelians not welcome here? Is this not meant to be a shared space for all Dawnhaven’s citizens?” The cold stung as it pierced Amaya’s skin. She heard Flynn planting himself, stubborn and firm – and always,
always thinking he could fight his way through any obstacle. She heard the kindling scatter around his feet. Those words buried in her hollow chest grew agitated like snowflakes in a building storm, frantic with the need to escape. But the wall of ice that covered them was thick and frigid in response. It sealed away her lungs, and crawled up her throat.
Flynn’s rhetorical question lingered in his eyes. Every building in Dawnhaven, he had funded. Every citizen, he had welcomed—regardless of heritage. Just as Lunarians had been invited into the Temple of Aelios, so too were Aurelians to be welcomed here. By his decree.
So he stared at the Priestess, pondering what sort of temple was she attempting to run in a town ruled by Amaya and himself—a town built on unity, on the merging of two nations.
It seemed the Commanders weren’t the only ones resisting change.
Flynn knew well that the history between the Aurelians and Lunarians was long and bloodied. That merging would be a difficult, if not impossible, path. But he found himself wondering what these two women were really doing here. What intentions lay hidden beneath their exteriors. If they did not wish to unify, why had they come at all? He had certainly not requested their presence, and he doubted Amaya had ever had a say in any of it.
It was clear, in the way they carried themselves, that they had no interest in letting Aurelians exist within spaces they still perceived as “theirs.” Their posture betrayed them.
They had no desire to share this place.
How ironic that it was they who asked for quiet. They who asked for peace.
Flynn, Amaya, and their guards had entered in silence. Had disturbed no one. Had come to mourn and then to leave. And yet here sat a Lunarian guard, hand near her sword, glaring at them as if they had stormed in with demands and drawn blades.
Command, Flynn. Even those you do not trust.Orion’s advice echoed at the back of his mind. He didn’t trust these two—especially not the Lunarian royal guard. But if Dawnhaven was going to survive, unity had to come first. He couldn’t afford to fall into emotional traps laid out by Lunarians eager to deepen the divide. Amaya had insinuated as much, too.
He had to be calculated. Controlled.
Reasonable.
“The guards mean no disrespect,” he said calmly, unwavering from the Priestess’ eyes.
“They are here for protection. And will remain with us, as they are sworn to protect their Princess.” He did not raise his voice. He didn’t need to.
“I’m sure you can understand.”Considering Amaya had nearly died yesterday.
Considering two cold bodies lay inches away.
Considering at least one of those had given their life
for her.
Considering the Priestess had a duty to Amaya, too.
Amaya suppressed a flinch as he
yet again made her into too much of a person, gave her form too much weight – made her into a hinderance to be dealt with in the face of their ire, as if she could weather it as well as he did. As if
he could, indefinitely.
She was still looking down at the table – at the two people who’d died because someone with
actual power found her choices – her
words – unacceptable. Warring fears and insecurities twisted inside of her like a blizzard. She was frozen in place, unable to move and make herself real – even as her frantic worries demanded action.
She needed to stop Flynn, to cut him off before he laid any more blame at her feet – but more than that, she needed to stop him from
making enemies. Amaya could hear the flint striking, sparks glinting like stars as his unyielding tone – calm, but too solid, too
direct – turned him into an obstacle to be removed.
But of course, they already saw him as one – just as they saw Amaya as an inconsequential doll.
An old resentment flickered to life, lashed at the edges of Amaya’s skin. Indignant anger mixed with her fear. It thickened the storm inside her, made the snowflakes harsh and dangerous like hail. The words she couldn’t reach still, buried as they were, turned sharp.
It was as if she hadn’t
chosen to come here,
led them to the bodies, hadn’t stood before the temple and
opened the door with her own hands for them –
She wasn’t Flynn’s partner, she was his
ward.
Even here in the Temple of Seluna, the two Lunarian women took it for granted that Flynn’s authority was the only one that mattered – that
he had intruded and forced
his guards through the door. They barely acknowledged Amaya’s presence, only offering trite, empty words about
shared grief while taking offense that she was being closely guarded after she’d been targeted by an attack not twenty-four hours ago – as if the evidence wasn’t here before them, draped in cloth barely dark enough to hide the bloodstains.
If it had been Amaya’s mother in her place, entering a Moon Temple with a foreign husband and guards in incorrect armor, would anyone question her right to do so? Would they reprimand her like a child, and place the weight of the decision with one they considered an
outsider?Lunaris had embraced Queen Anjali, despite her heritage – who would have dared question her presence in her place of worship, or who she chose to bring with her? Who would say they were
unwelcome, when she had welcomed them inside herself? Who would have looked at her guards and think that they did not move with her authority, no matter what emblem they wore?
But of course… Amaya wasn’t her mother, was she?
“We came with no ill intent. No weapons drawn. No acts of aggression.” Flynn’s gaze slid to Persephone, pausing—not on her face—but on the sword. He returned to Katherine.
“We came in peace. And we will leave the same way—when the Princess is ready.”Ice crept steadily over Amaya’s fingers, freezing the delicate joints of her knuckles in a painful grip. Her breath escaped her in a small, flowing wisp.
Amaya finally lifted her gaze away from the two Lunarian bodies on the table. The guards stood opposite her, stern-faced and silent. One of them looked past her, clearly watching the two women over her shoulder. But the other – he was looking directly at her.
He was young, perhaps in his thirties, with chestnut hair and deep brown eyes. A thin scar, long healed, cut across his cheek, a pale line marring his tan skin – shockingly warm, against the blue and silver hues of the temple. His eyebrows pulled together as he took in the sight of her, tracing the painful lines of ice on her face. His lips pressed together in worry. He met her eyes –
looked at her, and the building storm she represented. Amaya remembered how he’d looked outside as she’d begun to unravel, tense and on guard like she was a problem he might have to contain. But now…
Amaya realized it wasn’t just caution that held him still. His eyes flicked to the back of Flynn’s head before returning to her, a silent question in his gaze. It pierced her, lodging somewhere hidden in her heart.
He shouldn’t have known to ask. He shouldn’t have seen her, shouldn’t have given her any more thought than a bar on a cell gave to the one it contained.
But… why not?
He wasn’t a mindless weapon. He was a
man. And he was worried
for her.
Another tear slipped out of her as she held his gaze, clinging to the trail of ice as Amaya trembled from the cold. She tried to memorize the way his expression shifted as his eyes followed the tear down her cheek.
This man had a right to be in Amaya’s place of worship because
she deemed it so. He was not just an Aurelian – he was a guard to the Princess of Lunaris.
The truth of it sank into Amaya like a stone dropped in a pond, rippling through her. She looked back down to the table – the shrouded Lunarian bodies that she’d come to honor. Taking a slow, shaking breath, Amaya lifted her frozen hands again and with a subtle motion, turned her frozen tears to water again and pulled them from her skin. Only the guard saw the way her expression tensed at the pain of it.
Her tears beaded lightly atop the cloth that covered Sir Abel as she finished her Shivanti ritual. Then she lowered her hands, hiding her frosted fingers in the folds of her dress. Those words she kept hidden in her chest, dangerous and terrifying, fought for release.
One last look shared with the guard – and Amaya turned away, towards Flynn and the two women who’d come to chase away those who Amaya had brought with her. Stepping closer to Flynn again, her hand raised slightly to touch against his sleeve at his wrist – careful and light, that she might hide any traces of ice from them all.
“My apologies, Priestess,” she said as she moved. Her voice was terribly soft, barely stretching across the distance to reach the women who stood so close in the vastness of the temple – every word still felt too cold, too raw as it came out of her. Too revealing.
Even as she moved, Amaya couldn’t help but feel their
eyes on her as she willingly made herself tangible to them. Her movement was smooth and controlled, but ice fought to find the edge of her barriers. She knew Flynn was wrong – the resentment of others
did matter. A title only had power if others deigned to grant it. Amaya could still feel Volkov’s cold, assessing glare, the unspoken threat of his shadow covering the wall.
But… there’d been more than that, hadn’t there? There’d been amusement in his eyes when she spoke. Annoyance.
Consideration. It had been so disorienting for Amaya in the moment, but now she realized – Volkov had looked at her as if he thought she might have something to
say. And a Lunarian to his stubborn, frigid core, he’d given her more consideration than he’d given to Flynn.
Flynn, who’d assert himself and stand his ground and
fight, until all those burdens on his back finally crushed him.
The cold, the quiet, the dark, the familiar scents and colors that had defined her life – Amaya tried to wrap herself in them, to ground herself in what was
hers as she fought to find the courage to risk the displeasure of the two women. But Flynn was beside her – warm, and stalwart, and hers, as well.
She finally brought her gaze up – and stilled.
Amaya recognized both women, she realized. She’d never exchanged a single word with either of them. The older one, lightly armored, sword in reach, was a noblewoman that Amaya had sometimes seen at court, the few times she’d been permitted to attend. A
soldier. Amaya’s walls thickened immediately, the urge to step back, to slip behind Flynn, suddenly powerful. But the soldier wasn’t the one who nearly stole the air from Amaya’s lungs.
Blonde hair. Brown eyes. Delicate features held in a careful mask, her body controlled and still. And all of it, wrapped in the black and silver robes of a High Priestess of Seluna.
Her image flickered in Amaya’s mind – younger, a teenager, in finery that marked her as the daughter of a powerful man. But that careful expression was the same. That stillness.
Amaya hadn’t seen her in… a decade, she realized. She’d never even known her
name. But Amaya remembered her – a few years older than her, standing across the room, her stern-faced father looming over her like a haunting specter. Amaya was allowed at court so infrequently, and even then, she’d only seen this other palace daughter a few times over the years. But she’d stood out amongst the practiced, performance crowd of the court. How her expression never shifted. How her eyes seemed to drift over her surroundings, never bothering to focus on anything in particular. How, whenever her father touched her, she didn’t move at all – as if he simply didn’t exist, and could draw no reaction from her.
But somehow, whenever Amaya’s mask, still young and imperfect, slipped in court – a tensing of her shoulders, a flash of her eyes, a flinch in her expression, a tight clasping of her hands – she’d feel eyes on her. Amaya would look across the room to find this older girl, nearly hidden in a sea of bodies, staring at her. Relaxed. Unmoving. Unconcerned. But her eyes, usually so flat and disinterested, would be piercing.
And bit by bit, Amaya would slip her mask more carefully into place. She’d force her shoulders to relax. Her face would grow calm and unbothered. Her chin would remain high and regal.
Only then, would the girl look away.
Amaya didn’t know when she’d stopped attending court, but one day she realized that the older girl simply… wasn’t there, anymore. Her father still attended, a man kept so distant from Amaya that she didn’t even know his
title. He’d never said a word in court, but he’d attended all the same. Kept close but held with careful distance from the Crown in public. That alone made Amaya wary.
And now… here was his daughter, wrapped in the robes of Seluna, sword at her hip as she asked Amaya’s guards to leave.
So, this was the new blade in her father’s hand. This was who they’d found to kill her.
Amaya was surprised at how much it
hurt. She’d never spoken to this girl – this
woman, now. She’d never had a relationship with her, not really. So why did it feel like she’d already slid blade between Amaya’s ribs?
But under that piercing brown gaze again, careful training took over – a calm face. A relaxed, regal posture. Her tense, cold fingers hidden from sight in the space between her body and Flynn’s.
“I didn’t anticipate how sunlight might distract from the Moon’s radiance, even in Her own temple – to Her own people.” Amaya’s voice was soft and gentle, only loud enough to cross the space between them – but her heart pounded at the pointed edges she’d dared to hide in her words, meanings layered over each other. Her fingers, stiff with ice, gripped tighter at the corner of Flynn’s sleeve, like he might anchor her.
“I should’ve better considered the armor that my guards wear.” A concession, even as she claimed the guards as her own. Amaya
should’ve put more thought into how they would be received. She’d spent her life considering optics and implications, and she’d been careless to not anticipate how their party might look, shining golden emblems and a foreign Prince entering a space that hadn’t been meant for them – even if they were with
her. It was painful, but Amaya was too smart to not know the truth of her situation: she
wasn’t real to Lunarians. Which meant Flynn was the only presence they recognized, in all his Aurelian glory, for better or ill – and they would be all too happy to make an old enemy of him.
He’d stubbornly let them, too rigid in his ideals to learn how to bend.
“But as my husband says,” another claim, another disagreeable reality that made Amaya too solid and put her at risk, ice crawling up her hand like fear,
“we are simply here to mourn.” She paused, glancing over her shoulder. Her water droplets glistened in the moonlight atop the black cloth.
“They deserve what respect we can give,” she murmured. Her gaze flicked up, back to her guard. She watched the thoughts flicker behind his eyes, even as he held himself still.
An idea came to her then. Amaya second-guessed herself, fear making her hesitate — the evidence of her failures lay still on the table before her. But she needed to give them all a reason to not see each other as adversaries – so they wouldn’t take a torch to Flynn at the first opportunity. She turned back to the Priestess and her sharp eyes.
“It’s true though, that I have brought newcomers into Seluna’s temple. I’m afraid they are as of yet, still ignorant of our practices.” Our. Amaya was as Lunarian as they were, no matter who her husband was.
“But… if you have a moment, I wonder if you might aid them – help them learn the ways we respect our dead.”Amaya, face calm as her heart pounded and her hands chilled, watched the Priestess. For a moment she saw a younger face – waiting for Amaya to pull herself together.
“Who better to teach them?”
Interactions: Kat @SpicyMeatball, Persephone @PrinceAlexus
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