CHAPTER 10

Selene was gone.

The words carried through the camp like smoke…soft, curling, and suffocating if you breathed too much of it in.

Her bed was untouched, her weapons still there, her scent faded. And Kael, the one person who should have demanded answers, refused to speak.

Aria had asked. Once.

She’d found him sharpening a blade outside his tent, the morning sun catching fire in his hair. His expression was unreadable, carved from that same frozen silence he wore when hiding something.

“She’s gone,” Aria had said.

He didn’t look up.

“I know.”

Her breath hitched. “You knew she’d leave?”

A pause.

“No.”

But the way he said it… it wasn’t quite a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. And that quiet evasion lodged itself in Aria’s ribs like a splinter.

He never looked at her.

So she turned and left, jaw tight, chest burning.

Selene’s absence was its own presence now and everyone felt it, but no one dared name it. No one, except Aria, would dare ask what she might have seen or heard the night before.

And Kael… Kael just sharpened his blade like it was the only thing holding him together.

Later that afternoon, the river called.

It always did when Aria’s thoughts grew too loud to cage. The sound of water calmed her. And maybe part of her hoped that if she looked hard enough into the current, she might see her mother’s face again or maybe that silver-eyed wolf from her dreams.

She didn’t expect company.

Not when she bent over the rocks to fill her canteen.

Certainly not when a shadow moved behind her and a voice said, smooth and low.

“Tell me that’s not your battle stance. I’d have to weep for the future of rogues everywhere.”

Aria turned fast, muscles tensing. Her hand flew to the dagger at her thigh.

The rogue standing a few feet away raised his hands in mock surrender, dark eyes glittering with mischief. Sunlight shimmered off his tousled brown hair and his lips curved like they had better places to be but were flirting with the idea of staying.

Torren.

He wore a crooked grin and a shirt open at the throat, exposing just enough skin to suggest trouble. He leaned against a tree like he’d been waiting for her, but Aria had a feeling he hadn’t planned anything at all. He was the kind of man who stumbled into chaos and somehow made it look charming.

“You’ve been watching me?” she asked, arching a brow.

“I’d never admit it. But yes.”

She rolled her eyes and turned back to the river.

“I’m not in the mood,” she said flatly.

Torren’s voice grew softer. “You don’t have to be. I’m just here to fill my own canteen and maybe talk about how you kicked Selene’s ass and lived.”

“That was three days ago.”

“Yeah,” he said, stepping closer. “But the bruises live on in legend.”

Aria tried not to smile.

He knelt beside her, scooping water into his flask. “People say you’re Kael’s curse.”

She stiffened.

“But me?” he added, eyes glinting. “I think you might be his salvation. And that scares him more.”

Her pulse skidded.

She stood abruptly, brushing dust from her pants. “I should go.”

Torren didn’t stop her. But as she turned, his voice followed.

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re still alive.”

She looked back.

And he smiled. Not a smirk. Not a line. Just… something real.

It was that smile that followed her all the way back to camp.

By sundown, the camp began to change.

Lanterns were strung between trees. Someone lit the large central fire, and a drumbeat pulsed low through the air. Rogues emerged wearing scraps of color stitched to their usual leathers. Children painted moons on their cheeks. The elders brought out a barrel of blackberry mead that was instantly surrounded.

Aria stood at the edge of it all, unsure whether to approach or disappear. She felt caught between two lives, one where she had danced as a girl in Silverpine, dressed in silk and shadow, and another where she stood now, wearing boots stained in dirt and blood, a bracelet on her wrist from a little girl who still believed in her.

Nessa appeared at her elbow like a breeze. Her hair had been braided and her smile was wide.

“You’re not escaping me tonight,” she said, grabbing Aria’s hand.

Aria chuckled. “I don’t dance.”

“You do now,” Nessa said. “It’s the Moon Phase Festival! Every rogue has to dance or the spirits of the forest will curse your bowels.”

Aria blinked. “That’s… very specific.”

“I didn’t make the rules.”

The music began…sharp, rhythmic, pulsing.

And somehow, Aria found herself twirling with Nessa beneath torchlight.

She didn’t think.

She didn’t try.

She just… laughed. Real and full, like her ribs had forgotten how to be a cage.

Around them, other rogues joined in. Spinning, stomping, shouting along to songs that sounded older than war.

She caught glimpses of familiar faces: Corin clapping off-beat beside two older scouts. Maela was pouring drinks and laughing too loud. Even Lio, the quiet strategist who had only just begun showing himself, sat near the fire, watching the camp like a man trying to remember how to breathe.

And then….

She felt it.

The weight of a gaze.

Her breath hitched.

She looked up.

Across the fire, in the dark between lanterns and trees, stood Kael.

Unmoving. Unblinking.

His arms were folded, his face unreadable. But his eyes…

They burned.

She faltered mid-step.

The drumbeat didn’t.

But her heart did.

Nessa tugged her arm. “Don’t stop! Dance, Aria!”

So she did.

But every step now felt like defiance.

Because Kael hadn’t come to celebrate.

He had come to watch.

And it wasn’t fondness in his stare.

It was fire.

The music faded into embers. One by one, dancers slowed, laughter softening into murmurs as the moon climbed higher in the ink-black sky. Rogues scattered to their tents, some lingering near the fire with half-finished drinks and glazed-over smiles. A few couples wandered off together, shadows melting into shadows.

Aria lingered longer than she meant to. Nessa had fallen asleep curled beside Maela on a worn wool blanket, cheeks streaked with dried paint and fingers still tangled in Aria’s cloak.

The fire cracked and whispered secrets.

But the real heat was behind her.

She felt it before she heard him, like pressure shifting in the earth.

A presence.

Kael.

She turned, and he was there, stepping out of the trees like the night had spit him out.

His cloak hung open, the breeze teasing through the loose fabric, but his stance was rigid, jaw locked, eyes burning like twin storms about to break.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked, voice low and flat.

Aria blinked. “Is there a problem?”

“You tell me.”

She straightened, brushing dirt from her dress. “It was a festival. I danced.”

“You danced,” he repeated, stepping closer. “With Nessa. With rogues who still question your loyalty. Laughing like you belong.”

She flinched, but her chin lifted. “I’m trying.”

His eyes narrowed. “Trying to what? Win them over?”

“What does it matter?” she shot back. “Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to prove myself? For them to stop whispering that I’m cursed or weak or a spy?”

“I didn’t ask you to parade yourself around like…”

“Like what?” she demanded. “Like someone who’s allowed to live?”

Kael's mouth snapped shut. His fists clenched at his sides, leather gloves creaking.

The fire behind her popped, as if punctuating the silence between them.

“You think this is a game,” he said at last, voice rough. “Winning their favor. Smiling like it doesn’t cost us anything.”

“And you think silence and isolation will save us?” Aria took a step closer. “You think standing at the edge of the fire makes you noble? Detached? You’re drowning, Kael, and you want everyone else to drown quietly with you.”

His breath came harder now. The lines of his body strained with held-in rage, or maybe something else.

“You don’t understand,” he said, quieter now. “What it means to have blood on your hands and still be their leader. Every move I make costs lives. Every mistake...”

“Then let someone else carry it with you,” she said, voice trembling. “Let me.”

That seemed to break something.

He stepped into her space in a flash, closer than he had any right to be. His breath warm against her cheek, his eyes searching hers with a kind of desperation that didn’t fit the Kael the world knew.

“Don’t,” he murmured. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

Aria’s heart pounded. “And if I do mean them?”

He looked at her then, truly looked and for a breathless second, something flickered in his gaze.

Longing.

Fear.

Regret.

But then it was gone, slammed behind walls she couldn’t scale.

Kael turned from her, sharp and sudden, as if being near her burned.

“You’ve done enough,” he said. “Go back to your tent.”

“No.”

He stiffened.

She stepped around him, blocking his exit. “Don’t walk away again.”

His jaw clenched so tightly the muscle twitched.

“This isn’t about a dance,” she said, softer now. “This is about Selene. About what she saw. About what she meant to you. And about why she’s gone.”

“You think I owe you an explanation?”

“No,” she said quietly. “I think you owe yourself one.”

Kael didn’t move.

Aria’s throat ached.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

Silence.

The wind rustled the trees.

Then, finally—“I want to.”

It broke her heart more than if he’d said no.

She swallowed hard. “Then tell me.”

Kael’s hands shook. Just barely, but she saw it.

“I told you,” he said. “If I speak the truth, you’ll hate me more than you already do.”

“I don’t hate you,” she whispered.

He turned slowly, eyes shadowed with something raw and aching.

And then he stepped close again.

Too close.

But this time, Aria didn’t flinch.

“You scare me,” he said, barely audible. “You remind me of her. Not just your face. Your fire. The way you walk into a room like the walls should make space for you.”

“My mother,” Aria said.

He nodded. “She was a wildfire. She burned everything she touched, but gods help me, I wanted to be consumed.”

Aria’s breath caught. “Were you in love with her?”

Kael didn’t answer immediately.

Then: “I was a boy. She was a force of nature. It wasn’t love, it was worship. And it destroyed us both.”

Aria stared at him, chest hollowing.

“She left me,” he said. “Left us. And I hated her for it. But I never stopped waiting.”

His voice cracked on that last word.

“I’m not her,” Aria said. “I don’t know who I am yet, but I’m not her.”

“I know,” Kael said. “But sometimes, when you look at me… it’s like she’s still alive. And I don’t know if I want to run or kneel.”

Aria reached out, fingers brushing his wrist.

He didn’t pull away.

“I’m not your past,” she said. “And I’m not your punishment.”

Kael looked at her eyes, stormy and soft at once.

And then, as if the tension would snap his bones if he didn’t release it, he stepped back.

“The camp sees you as hope,” he said. “They see me as a shadow.”

Aria’s voice was steady. “Then walk in the light.”

He shook his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “It’ll burn me.”

And with that, he turned and walked away.

This time, she let him.

But her heart stayed behind, echoing with the sound of his voice, the weight of his wounds, and the heat of a storm that hadn’t even begun to break