Lyssena waited for Erevos to cross the hallway.
Was she finally going to see what this strange, new world looked like?
She wondered whether everything beyond those doors was made of shadows, just like the home Erevos had carved. She wanted to know what kind of flowers grew here, whether their petals would feel cool or warm beneath her fingertips, whether they carried scent at all, or if even fragrance dissolved into something thinner in this place. She wanted to know what stories the view would tell her, whether the horizon would stretch endlessly and black or shimmer with colors her human eyes had never been meant to witness.
She wanted to know where the gods lived.
Lyssena felt slightly uneasy at the way Erevos did not blink as he walked toward her with a full grin, the head of a songbirdcradled in his hands. He stopped half a step before her and stretched his hand forward.
“For you,” he said, offering the mask that would allow her to breathe.
How, she did not know.
Lyssena took it carefully, her fingers brushing against feathers that were not truly feathers at all but beautiful ridges shaped from shadow. She noticed every stitch along the edges, each thread woven from darkness. The mask barely weighed anything in her palms, light as a whisper, and yet it was entirely sealed, without a single visible opening through which air might pass.
“What would happen if I tried to breathe without it?” she asked, shifting her gift slowly from side to side between her hands, watching the gray light catch along the curve of the beak.
“You will die.”
At that, Lyssena stilled, the beak caught between her fingers as though it might snap if she held it too tightly. “I understand. Thank you,” she said, and Erevos did not move.
She had noticed that since she had stroked his cock, Erevos lingered when he looked at her, his gaze heavier, as though something had changed between them that neither of them had yet named. It had not happened long ago, she was certain of that, for she had never bathed for too long in her home, otherwise her brothers would scold her and remind her she was no princess to soak in lavish waters while others worked.
Well.
Now she was a shadow princess, with a crown resting on the drawer beside her velvety bed.
Her brothers could not—and would absolutely not—scold her now. She could do whatever she pleased, linger as long as she wished, breathe strange air through a bird-shaped mask,because her god was kind, merciful, and frighteningly capable of reshaping the world itself for her.
With those thoughts settling in her head, she turned toward the doors and wrapped her fingers around the handle.
It took her several seconds to realize that Erevos’s face was right in front of hers.
So close that she could see the glow of purple in his eyes shift and deepen. So close that the faint scent of cinnamon and shadow surrounded her again. So close that if she leaned forward even the smallest fraction, her lips would brush against sharp teeth that were not made for gentle things.
“You need to put the mask on first.”
Right.
Lyssena had been so eager to see the world beyond those heavy doors that she had nearly stepped forward and into her own death if her god had not stopped her in time.
She noticed then the way Erevos was standing, hunched so that his glowing eyes met hers at the same level, and yet most of his body was not entirely inside the house at all.
It was inside the door.
Not pressed against it.
Not blocked by it.
Inside it.
Shadow seemed to ripple where his torso disappeared into the dark wood, as though the material welcomed him, as though the boundary between object and body did not exist for him the way it did for her.
Could he simply walk through shadowed walls and closed doors as though they were mist?
Lyssena found herself wondering whether this house was not merely something Erevos had created, but something that was, in some incomprehensible way, part of him. An extension of his will. A body larger than the one that stood before her.
The thought sent a small shiver down her spine.
