Page 48 of The Shattered Rite
She wasn't a threat.
She was a temptation.
And that was far deadlier.
Chapter 9: A Name Worth Remembering
"To name something is to honor it. To remember it is to resist forgetting who we are."—The Book of Binding, Vol. II
She woke slowly.
Water held her like a pair of steady hands. It hadn’t cooled; if anything, it was warmer now—thick and attentive, clinging to her skin as if it were listening for her breath. When she shifted, the surface gathered itself and rose with her, as though the bath had learned the shape of her body while she slept and refused to forget.
Light pooled green-gold along the carved stone rim, moving like sunlight at the bottom of a deep lake. Steam feathered the air and carried a faint scent that shouldn’t have existed down here—crushed red rose and rain on hot stone. The room’s magic,remembering what she had loved and what she had lost, making a ritual of it.
She pushed damp hair from her face and sat up with a low sound. Her muscles answered late. Not pain, exactly—more the slow, dragging heaviness of a body that had been taken apart and put back together by hands that didn’t ask permission. Fair. She wasn’t convinced it belonged to her, either.
Runes lay muted beneath the water, silvered and soft, then brightened when the air kissed them. Droplets beaded along her forearms and slid in deliberate paths, sketching thin, temporary sigils before falling away. The pendant at her throat warmed, a quiet, steady thrum against her sternum.
Sound was strange—the world muffled and close, her heartbeat too loud in her ears, the small lap of water against stone measuring out the room’s patience. When she flexed her fingers, the markings moved with her: not ink, not scars. Living script that stretched and settled as if it had joints of its own.
She tested her breath. In. Out. The tub answered with a soft ripple that steadied, like it was syncing to her pulse.
“Okay,” she murmured to no one and the room at once. “We’re still here.”
From somewhere warm and vast inside her:I am, too.
“Good,” she said, closing her eyes for one last heartbeat. “Because I’m going to need a minute.”
Her skin pulsed faintly in the lavender light, the tattoos alive beneath the surface. She didn’t like calling them tattoos. Tattoos were choices. These… weren’t.
Her fingers brushed the marks at her collarbone. They were still warm. Still breathing.
At least the scent of tea still lingered in the air—sweet, spiced, grounding.
“Small mercies,” she muttered, standing carefully.
The floor softened under her bare feet. Of course it did. This whole room responded to her now; she wasn’t sure if that made her cared for or smothered.
She found the robe waiting by the hearth. Rich indigo, lined with silk.
Too soft.
Too fine.
She hesitated. Then pulled it on anyway, the fabric sliding over her skin like a promise she hadn’t made.
Vaeronth stirred at the edge of her mind.
You dislike comfort.
“I distrust it.”
You shouldn't.
She ignored him.
The light in the room had shifted to soft lavender, like even the walls understood she couldn’t handle daylight yet. She appreciated that, though she’d never admit it aloud.
