Lyssena
Lyssena did not wake all at once, but rather surfaced slowly from sleep, her consciousness rising through warmth and soreness and the weight of strong hands on her hips, until she became aware of the dip of the mattress beneath Erevos’s weight.
She kept her eyes closed.
Not because she was still asleep, though exhaustion did cling to her bones, but rather because curiosity had rooted itself in her mind, and she refused to let it go.
Erevos believed she needed rest. He had stroked her hair until her breathing evened, and had remained beside her long after her limbs had grown slack against his. He would not leave until she slept.
Or so he thought.
Through lowered lashes, she sensed the moment he finally moved. She fought the urge to peek, to watch how a godprepared to step between realms, to see whether he dissolved into smoke or tore open the air itself, but she knew that if she so much as twitched, he would notice, and she was determined to discover his secrets on her own terms.
Only when the chamber settled into a deeper silence, when the warmth beside her faded enough that the cool air brushed along her exposed shoulder, did she allow her eyes to open.
She stretched, arching her back as her arms reached above her head, and a soft sound escaped her throat at the pull between her legs, at the ache that bloomed along her hips. She was tired, undeniably so, her body spent in a way that begged for another hour beneath the covers, but beneath that fatigue she felt the thrill of planning something he did not expect.
If he went to the market alone, then she would follow.
If he would guard his mysteries, then she would uncover them, cleverly, with a smile.
With a determined exhale, Lyssena pushed aside the shadow-woven blankets and rose from the bed, unconcerned with her nakedness as the air slid over her skin and tightened her nipples, as warmth still clung to the insides of her thighs. There was something intoxicating about moving freely through this home without cloth to bind or restrict her, about feeling entirely unhidden in a place where no eyes judged and no voices whispered that a woman must cover herself for decency’s sake.
The floor welcomed her bare feet, and she crossed the chamber toward the wardrobe Erevos had shaped for her, its doors rippling ever so slightly beneath her touch before parting to reveal rows upon rows of gowns spun from shadow and shimmer.
She paused there, admiring them as one might admire a gallery of treasures.
Fabrics in deep midnight blacks and wine-dark blacks cascaded beside softer blacks that glowed like moonlit smoke.
Lyssena always thought she loved the day, but she turned out to love the night more. At that, she smiled.
She trailed her fingertips along the garments, delighting in the way they responded, the material cool at first and then warming beneath her skin, sliding over her knuckles like living silk.
If she intended to step beyond this home—to venture into The Void’s market—she would need her suit and her mask, the structured layers that concealed her shape and rendered her something less recognizably human, something that could walk unnoticed beside a god. The thought made her lips curve again; there was a thrill in disguise, in stepping into a role that allowed her to observe without being observed.
Still, beneath that suit . . .
Her gaze lowered slowly over her own body, and amusement flickered in her eyes.
It was undeniably delightful not to wear undergarments.
She selected a gown at last, one darker than spilled ink yet threaded with faint iridescence that shimmered when it caught the drifting light, and lifted it over her head, letting it spill down along her shoulders and breasts, over her waist and hips, the fabric settling against her skin with nothing beneath it to dull the sensation.
“How wonderfully improper,” she whispered to herself, smoothing the material over her thighs, relishing the freedom of it, the absence of tight bands and laces and stiff linen that once pressed into her skin from dawn until dusk.
She adjusted the gown, and while she did, she noticed . . . White.
Not shimmering, not alive with shadow, but plain and soft and very human. Her village dress.
The ivory fabric looked simple against the richness of the surrounding gowns; its modest neckline and sleeves remindedher of another life, another version of herself who had once believed that such a dress was the height of beauty.
“This dress was probably bought with the money Father got for my life,” she said, and the bitterness in her voice was so thick she could almost taste it.
The gown slipped from her grasp and swayed where it hung, innocent and pale against the living dark, and Lyssena stepped back as though it had accused her of something unspeakable.
With those dreadful thoughts clawing through her mind, she turned away from the wardrobe and made her way down the corridor toward the very first room she had occupied upon arriving in this realm, the room she had reshaped in defiance, molding it into something protective.
It no longer looked like the original space Erevos had offered her, nor did it truly resemble the one from her village; instead, it had become a fortress of memory and defense, constructed from equal parts longing and fury.
