Page 27 of The Castle & the Cloister

In that moment, Ariana found what was at her very core. At the deepest heart of her, there was a star. It had flooded her with remote silver light all her life, but now, she came to the end of herself and saw it for what it truly was. Not an insignificant, yielding thing, but a pulsing, wheeling globe of flame that burned hot enough to destroy any lesser fire.

“No,” Ariana managed to get out, even as the world faded into darkness around her. “I will… never… beg… for you.”

When he cast her aside, the impact jolted Ariana back into wakefulness and life. She gasped and coughed, sucking in breath after breath of agonizing air, and where everything had faded before, the world was now supersaturated, her senses painfully overtuned. The light was too bright on the shapes of men struggling above her, the sound of their muffled grunts and snarls too loud, the soil and fallen seeds beneath her like sandpaper. Ariana watched, cowering, as a newcomer to the hospital tent managed to pin Afon’s arms and draw the foreign king’s own knife. Pitilessly, he scored the blade across Afon’s face, so that blood flowed down. It was not a killing blow—Ariana knew better after spending weeks on the fringes of a battlefield. It was more akin to a goddess mark, something that must be worn on the flesh always from that point on, as a reminder and an admonition.

“Stop!” Ariana managed to choke out as the newcomer fitted theblade to the hollow of Afon’s throat. The Caervallin king’s eyes were wild with panic, as Ariana’s own must have been only moments ago.

Scrambling to her feet, Ariana threw herself forward and tugged at the newcomer’s arm, heedless of the way the men still struggled.

“Let him go,” she pleaded, in a voice as dry and damaged as Afon’s own. “We’ve had enough killing here. Don’t dishonor Corrin with another death.”

“He would have throttled you needlessly,” the stranger said. “You offered him no insult. Did him good rather than harm. And you do not stand between him and any sort of benefit. He had no grounds on which to hurt you, but would have done it for cruelty’s sake alone. For that, he ought to die.”

Ariana felt dizzy with the darkness suffusing the tent. Oh, the sun still shone dazzlingly bright, and she was no longer on the verge of losing her senses. But she felt a darkness of the spirit, thick and menacing as a thunderous night without moon or stars.

Like her goddess, Ariana was made to be light in the dark, no matter how deep it grew.

“I beg you,” she said, sinking to her knees without a thought this time. “I want no claim over his life. Let him be. He will take his men and go.”

For an instant, something unfamiliar and momentous passed between her and the stranger. Afon’s eyes were pits of seething darkness, but the stranger’s gray gaze pierced Ariana’s, and she found longing and admiration there.

“You don’t know what you’re asking me,” the newcomer said, his words low, for Ariana only.

“Please,” she whispered. “Not here. Not now.”

With a growl and a shove, the stranger cast Afon aside. Drops of the Caervallin king’s blood spattered the ground, mingling with fallen meadowstar seeds. Warily, the man with the knife watched Afon gesture furiously to his convalescent troops. He reached for Ariana with his free hand, helping her to her feet, but his focus never left Afon. When the stranger pushed Ariana behind him, gently, not at all the way he had handled their mutual enemy, she felt something sudden and sharp and new. She’d known peace before. Serenity. Holy exhilaration. But the stingingjoy that rushed through her as she stood behind the man with the knife was different. It was triumph of a sort, and self-satisfaction, and security. As long as he stood so, between Ariana and the world, no harm could befall her.

Afon stormed away with his men following closely. Only once the sound of their booted feet had retreated did the man with the knife turn to Ariana. He was taller than Afon had been, and younger. The stranger cast the Caervallin blade he held aside, his gray eyes flashing. When he reached for Ariana and took her chin in one hand to look her over with a searching glance, she nearly swooned. It was the fever. The pain in her throat. The panic still singing in her veins.

She was overwrought.

“I’m sorry, little star,” the stranger said courteously. He wore cloth of gold rather than warrior’s garb, and his sleeve was stained with Afon’s blood. “He should not have treated you so. Are you well?”

No, Ariana thought. I am not well. I will never be well again.

“Thanks to your protection, yes,” she murmured instead, and could not help that a little of the heady triumph she’d felt when standing behind him shone out. The man’s gaze kindled into flame, not of anger or violence as she’d seen in Afon, or the relentless determination she’d found at her own core. It was something else entirely. Some potent yearning that seemed to focus on Ariana. It compelled her, and she heard the man catch his breath as, once again, Ariana sank to her knees.

“I owe you my life, Lord Inver,” Ariana said softly, for while he was as unfamiliar to her as Afon had been, she could not fail to recognize Honoria’s king. “What service do you claim from me and my goddess in exchange?”

“Is this how you kneel before Lyria?” Orden Inver blurted out, as if he could not help the question. “Is this what your goddess sees?”

A blush burned across Ariana’s face. She felt suddenly self-conscious and awkward, as she never had before. But sorias were trained in reserve and restraint, and she only nodded.

“Yes, my lord. I honor you now as I honor her.”

A pause. “You honor me as you honor Lyria? An Inver?”

“You chose peace a moment ago.” She was not precisely afraid in hispresence, yet there were nervous wings in the pit of her stomach. “In that moment, you were Lyria’s vessel, and so to honor you is to honor her.”

He scowled, briefly and stormily. “So you do not honor me, then. I’ve no part of it.”

“I—no. That is, I meant—I didn’t mean—” Ariana couldn’t help stammering. She wasn’t sure how to express that in Corrin, Lyria was everywhere, in every right action, and that it was a great compliment to see the goddess reflected in another’s choice.

But the king’s frown had already become a smile, changing like quicksilver. “Don’t be anxious. I don’t need to understand your ways to know that someone like you could never slight another person. Not truly. Not even if you tried. You are too innocent. Too unlike the rest of us, with your goddess and your perfect peace.”

“Oh no.” Ariana shook her head in dismay. “That is not so. I am deeply flawed, my lord.”

“Impossible,” Orden scoffed. “If you’re able to see Lyria in one ofmyactions, then you, little star, are the goddess walking among us, and I will tell you this—I never understood how one could be devoted to her until this moment. But you, I believe, could teach me in full.”