Without a sound, he shut the window behind him.
The air inside was warmer, tinged with the scent of oil lamps and lavender. The glow of the lone lamp pooled across the furs, catching the curve of steel where the dagger lay beside the bed.
And there she was.
The queen, lying still, hair fanned dark against the pillow, her chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. Vulnerable. Oblivious.
The chamber held its breath.
Rakhal straightened in the shadows by the wall, every sense taut, every instinct honed to the knife's edge. The silence pressed around him, heavy and absolute, as if the night itself waited for what he would do next.
In the silence, he watched her.
She lay unguarded, one arm flung across the furs, her lips parting with soft, uneven breaths. Even in sleep she was restless, her body shifting, shoulders twitching, as though the battles she waged by day pursued her still in dreams. A faint murmur escaped her throat, words indistinct, broken by the cadence of her sleep.
Disquiet. Human.
Rakhal tilted his head, the shadows coiling around him in uneasy silence. This was not the figure he had seen from afar on the battlefield, her armor catching the light, her voice sharp as steel across the lines. This was not the image painted by orc tongues around the fire—the Witch Queen, the Fire-Heart, the bloodied tyrant who hurled her mages like wildfire at his people.
No. This was a woman.
Her features softened in repose, her brow furrowed faintly with the remnants of dreams. The lamplight brushed across her face, catching on the fine curve of cheekbones, the faint hollow of her throat. Her long mahogany hair spilled loose across the pillow, tousled and gleaming where the strands caught the glow. It framed her like dark silk, whispering against the furs as she shifted again with another low murmur.
Rakhal's eyes narrowed behind the mask. He had expected hardness, cruelty etched into every line of her face. But there was only weariness. Fragility.
The shadows shifted against his will, hungry, urging him closer. Yet, he remained still, observing. Measuring. The silence deepened, pressing heavy against his chest, until he felt the oddest echo within himself—a question he had not thought to ask.
How different she seemed now.
How human.
Her breath shifted as she turned in her sleep, hair sliding across her shoulder. The movement carried her scent through the still air—warm, living, threaded with lavender from her hair, steel from the chamber, and something more elusive beneath.
Rakhal inhaled without meaning to.
It struck him sharply, stirring through his senses, cutting past the numbness that had long dulled him. He had expected the stench he associated with humans—sweat, fear, blood, rot.Instead, this was different. Clean, sharp, alive in a way that unsettled him. It coiled deep in his chest, twisting in a place he thought long deadened.
The shadows at his back rippled, agitated, as though they too tasted her essence and pressed for the kill. Yet he did not move. He crouched in silence, breath steady but heavier than before, eyes fixed on the sleeping woman who was supposed to be his prey.
The shadows twisted with his uncertainty, their edges blurring, their hunger growing more insistent as his focus wavered. This was dangerous—the anakara responded to emotion as much as will. Loss of control meant loss of stealth, and discovery would mean death. He forced his breathing to slow, steadying himself.
Her scent clung to him. It was not foul. Not weak. It was... distracting.
Beneath the steel and lavender was the unmistakable warmth of life itself, a heartbeat he could sense even through the veil of sleep. Fragile. Precious. So easily ended with a single strike.
Rakhal's claws flexed against his palms. The shadows urged him closer, eager to feast, but another current stirred within him—something he could not name, something that did not belong.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, Rakhal felt a hesitation that was not tactical.
Rakhal's jaw tightened. He cursed himself silently, the word a bitter growl in his mind. Fool. She was human. An enemy. A queen whose orders had burned his kin to ash. There was no room for sentiment, no space for weakness.
And yet...
Her slumbering form drew his gaze and held it. Strange, how alluring it seemed, how oddly fascinating. He had seen humans on the battlefield by the thousands—screaming, bleeding, dyingbeneath his claws. But never like this. Never close. Never still. Never unguarded.
A female human.
His eyes tracked the curve of her face where lamplight touched it, soft and delicate in a way that jarred against everything he had been taught. So soft. So vulnerable. So different from the hardened monster his people named her.
