Chapter 33: Still, Day Five
The room was cold, despite the heavy air pressing against the windows and walls.
It wasn't the sharp bite of winter, nor the stale chill of abandonment; it was something else—something thicker. A breath held too long. A pulse slowed to a crawl.
Aria hadn't moved. Not since the last golden flicker faded from her fingertips. She sat perched at the very edge of the couch, hands clenched tightly in her lap, afraid to disturb the fragile stillness hanging between them.
Her gaze couldn't leave Selene.
Couldn't leave the pale skin that no longer bled, the bandage now slack and unnecessary.
Couldn't leave the woman who, even wounded, wore strength like a second skin.
Selene sat back against the cushions, her posture deceptively casual. But Aria saw the truth.
She saw the slight tightness at the corner of Selene's mouth.
The stiffness in her shoulders.
The way her fingers brushed—almost absently—over the now-healed wound as if testing whether the pain had truly gone.
The silence between them wasn't empty.
It was crowded with all the things they hadn't said.
And with something new.
Something dangerous.
Aria swallowed hard, her throat dry. Her heart thudded painfully against her ribs, loud in the otherwise quiet room.
It felt wrong to speak.
And yet the words pressed against her tongue, desperate, trembling.
"It should've been me," she whispered.
The confession slipped out like a secret she hadn't meant to voice.
Selene's head turned sharply. Her eyes caught Aria's—and the chill that lived in them could have frozen the world over.
"Don't," Selene said, her voice low and cutting.
"But—"
"No."
Sharper now. Like the crack of a whip across a still field.
Aria flinched, shrinking back a little, but Selene's gaze softened almost immediately. Not enough to undo the sting—but enough to let something raw show through the cracks.
Selene sighed. Slowly, heavily. She shifted her weight, one hand bracing herself against the couch.
For the first time, Aria realized how much effort even small movements cost her.
How much Selene was hiding behind that perfect, impassive mask.
Their eyes locked again—
and this time, Selene didn't hide.
"I would bleed a thousand times," Selene said, voice dropping into something dangerously intimate, "before I let anything touch you."
The words sank into Aria's chest like stones into water, heavy and irreversible.
Her cheeks flamed. She ducked her head, fingers tangling tighter in her lap, as if she could will the blush away.
Selene saw it, of course.
Saw everything.
A low, knowing smile tugged at the corner of Selene's mouth—the rare, wicked kind that made Aria's heart lurch painfully against her ribs.
"You're blushing," Selene teased, voice smooth as velvet.
Aria's head snapped up, mortified. "I—I'm not!"
Selene chuckled under her breath, and the sound was so rare, so genuine, that Aria nearly forgot how to breathe.
"If you say so, little dove," Selene murmured, amusement dancing in her eyes.
Aria turned crimson, burying her face in her hands. The teasing was light, playful—but underneath it, the weight of everything that had just happened still lingered, like an unshed storm.
When Aria finally dared to peek at Selene through her fingers, she found her watching—
not with mockery, but something quieter.
Something that made Aria's heart ache.
An invitation.
Hesitating only a moment, Aria shifted closer. Close enough that their knees almost brushed.
Close enough to feel the warmth radiating off Selene's skin.
"Let me help this time," Aria said, her voice small but sure. "Please."
Selene's eyes darkened, a silent war flickering behind them.
But in the end, she didn't move away.
She didn't protest.
Slowly, deliberately, Selene leaned back and gave a shallow nod.
Aria's hands trembled as she reached for the loosened bandage. She unwrapped it with care, every movement slow, reverent—as if tending not just to flesh, but to something far more precious.
The golden light was gone now.
No magic.
Just trembling fingers and human warmth.
Selene's skin was smooth beneath her fingertips, the wound completely gone.
Only faint, new-pink scars remained—fragile against the hardness of her body.
Aria brushed her knuckles lightly against Selene's side, almost shy.
"Does it… still hurt?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Selene's gaze pinned her in place.
"No," she said.
A beat.
"And if it did, I wouldn't tell you."
Aria's mouth twisted in a pout before she could stop it, her lower lip pushing out in unconscious protest.
Selene's gaze dropped to it immediately.
Her expression shifted—subtle but unmistakable.
The teasing melted into something darker, hotter.
Aria froze.
A flush rose up her neck, blooming across her cheeks like wildfire.
Selene noticed, of course. She always did.
Her lips curled in the faintest smirk.
"Careful, dove," she murmured, voice dropping to a dangerous purr. "Keep looking at me like that, and I might forget you're supposed to be the innocent one."
Aria squeaked—actually squeaked—and pulled her hands back like she'd been burned.
Selene only laughed, low and rich, the sound vibrating in the thin air between them.
For a moment, it was almost easy to forget the ruins beyond the window.
Almost.
But the lightness couldn't last.
Aria's gaze fell again to her own hands—the same hands that had summoned the light, the impossible healing.
"What… what happened to me?" she asked quietly. "Selene, I didn't even know I could—"
Selene's mirth faded.
She straightened, the shadows returning to her face.
"You weren't supposed to awaken that," Selene said carefully, each word heavy with something unspoken. "Not yet. Not in this lifetime."
Aria stared at her, a chill skating down her spine.
"In this lifetime?"
Selene's jaw tightened.
She stood, turning away, the leather of her pants creaking softly as she moved toward the window.
"I told you before," Selene said, voice low. "This isn't the first time we've crossed paths, Aria."
Aria rose shakily to her feet, the floor cold beneath her bare toes.
She crossed the space between them, hesitant but determined.
Selene kept her back turned, her arms crossed, her body taut with tension.
"What happened… last time?" Aria asked.
Her voice was small, but there was steel hidden in it now.
Selene was silent.
The silence stretched so long Aria wondered if she would answer at all.
Finally, in a voice so low she almost missed it, Selene spoke:
"You didn't survive it."
The words shattered something in the air.
Aria sucked in a sharp breath.
Her hands fisted at her sides.
Selene turned slowly to face her, her expression no longer teasing, no longer guarded.
Only raw and tired and aching.
"This time," Selene said, stepping closer, "I won't let that happen."
Aria opened her mouth to respond—but the words wouldn't come.
Instead, she reached out.
Her fingers brushed Selene's wrist.
And for a moment, everything else fell away.
The ruined world.
The darkness beyond the walls.
The memories they didn't share yet.
It was just the two of them—
caught between a future they couldn't yet name,
and a past that refused to stay buried.
And somewhere in the center of it—
was the fragile, golden thread
that neither of them could sever.
No matter how much they should.
No matter how much it cost.
Not this time.