The Need Of Silence
965 Words
Ishra’s POV
I couldn’t sleep.
The chamber was too still. Too quiet. And yet somehow, it screamed.
The bed, silk-draped and untouched, might as well have been a coffin. Every time I closed my eyes, my father’s voice echoed. His betrayal. His absence. The weight of his hands on my shoulders the day he told me I was chosen—blessed—and now all I could hear was “she’s the vessel—she’s mine.”
I sat up, breath shaking.
The room was dark, save for the low hum of runes etched into the stone. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t breathe in this silence. In this body. In this truth.
My bare feet touched the cold floor. A whisper of silk around my legs, and I was walking—slow, like I’d forgotten how. Through the black corridors that pulsed like veins. Toward the one constant in this hell.
He was exactly where I knew he’d be.
Sitting against the far wall of the outer hall, one knee bent, one arm slung casually over it. Guarding. Watching. Waiting.
Rael.
He looked up as I approached, red eyes glowing like coals beneath shadow.
“You’re awake,” he said, voice low.
“I can’t sleep.”
He didn’t answer. Just held my gaze. And something in me cracked further.
“I can’t stop hearing him.”
His jaw ticked, and I knew. He hated the Prophet’s voice in my head as much as I did.
Rael stood slowly, letting the silence stretch. “Come here.”
I didn’t hesitate.
He didn’t touch me at first. Just let me walk into his shadow, into the heat of his body, but still out of his reach. Or maybe that's what I asummed.
“I thought I was holy,” I said.
“You are.”
“I thought I was loved.”
His eyes darkened. “You will be.”
I broke then. Not into sobs. But into surrender.
" I want silence." My breathless voice screamed of my uneasiness.
But before I could even blink. I was pushed against the wall, not soft, but hard enough to make me gasp. Rael moved faster than the sunlight as he now stood before me, grasping my neck, making me look up at him.
" What are you-
"Shushhhhh!!!" He cut me off as his breaths tickled my face. Warm and intimate.
His face moved, closer, grazing my jawline and making me tremble.
" I didn't come for that." I could barely whisper, shaking as his proximity knocked almost all my senses off.
"But you need it,” he said as his fingers drew circles on my neck. "You don’t want silence. You want escape.”
I tried to back up instinctively, until my spine kissed the cold wall behind me. His presence wrapped around me like heat, like smoke, like a curse.
He lifted a hand, brushed my hair from my cheek with aching softness.
"I didn’t say yes.” I whispered.
"You will.”
"I won’t.”
His thumb grazed my lip. "Then say no.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came. My throat was tight. My body? Traitorous.
He stepped in fully. His chest brushed mine. His mouth hovered by my ear. "Let me drown out everything else.”
Then his lips met mine.
Soft at first. Testing. Then harder.
I wanted to push him away. I did. But my hands, they gripped his shirt. My knees buckled as his scent flooded me, earth and blood and something ancient, something ruinous.
"Rael!” I whispered.’
“Tell me to stop.”
I couldn’t. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn't know anymore. I was slipping, spiraling, aching for something that felt like control but tasted like surrender.
His hand slid down my hip, tugging my robe aside. I turned my face away. My breath hitched.
"You're shaking,” he said. "Is it fear?”
"I don't know.” And it was the truth.
He didn't force. He waited. But his eyes were heavy on mine, watching, consuming.
"I won't take what you won’t allow. But your eyes are begging.”
My gasp escaped before I could swallow it, because suddenly, he was on his knees.
"No, Rael, I…” My voice broke, thin and unsure.
"Let me quiet them,” he murmured. "All the voices. All the lies.”
Then his mouth found me.
I choked on a moan, my hands scrambling for something to hold, finding the rough stone behind me. My head hit the wall as heat bloomed low in my stomach.
He didn't rush. He didn't ask.
He took.
One stroke of his tongue had me trembling. Another and I was unraveling. My fingers dug into his hair, and my legs threatened to give out.
"Please!” I whimpered, unsure whether I meant stop or more.
"I'm here,” he said against me, voice vibrating through my bones. "I'm not the gods. I won't ask for worship. Just this.”
The pleasure crashed over me like a wave, hot and shattering. My thighs clenched around his shoulders as I came undone on his mouth.
I moaned his name, shattered, breathless, raw.
Even then, he didn't move.
He stayed there, mouth buried in my heat, drinking down every tremble like a vow. Like he needed this to breathe. Like he was memorizing the taste of surrender.
My legs buckled.
Rael caught me.
He scooped me up in silence, carried me back inside, and laid me on the bed like I was something precious, not something ruined.
He didn't speak.
He didn't touch me again.
He just wrapped the blanket around me and stayed.
And for the first time since everything broke,
Silence didn't scare me.
It comforted.
- Writer
