Book one: Chapter five
902 Words
I didn’t know how long I had been there…days, maybe weeks. Time flowed differently under that golden sky.
Kaelthar had been patient, always near, teaching me their words, their customs. The city no longer felt alien; its heartbeat had become my own.
We stepped into the courtyard, the air shimmering above the crystalline towers. Dozens of his people bowed as we passed.
I felt my cheeks warm. “They don’t have to do that,” I whispered.
“They do,” Kaelthar replied simply. “You are Una.”
“Queen,” I said, trying the word on my tongue, almost laughing. “That’s… absurd.”
He looked down at me with something that wasn’t quite amusement. “Not absurd. True. You bring… balance.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
He gestured toward the crowd. “We are many, but half. You are other half.”
It took me a moment to understand. The lack of women. The quiet loneliness that lived in their eyes. The way they looked at me not with hunger, but with awe, as though I was a long-forgotten dream made real.
The realization made my throat tighten. “Kaelthar,” I said quietly, “why me?”
He was silent for a moment. Then, “Because you came,” he said. “And you stayed.”
There was something in his voice then… soft, almost human.
I looked away, toward the glowing horizon. Maybe it was the air, or the strange light, or the way his people smiled when they looked at me, I didn’t feel lost.
I felt… seen.
His eyes met mine, unblinking, almost human in their warmth. “Stay,” he whispered. “Be Una. With me.”
The words settled deep, like a promise already made.
And though I didn’t understand the stars above or the power that had brought me here, I understood one thing with startling clarity…
I didn’t want to leave.
But the still words froze me. I blinked up at him, searching his face to see if it was some strange mistranslation.
“Be your Una?”
His eyes glowed faintly in the twilight. “Yes. You are Una. My heart knows you. My people know you.”
I laughed softly, though it came out shaky. “Kaelthar, I barely even know where I am. I don’t even understand half the things you say.”
He stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off his body. “You understand this.” His thumb brushed against my pulse, slow, deliberate. “You feel it, same… I do.”
And damn him…he was right. Every time he looked at me, my body betrayed me. My heart raced, my breath shortened. I wanted him in ways I couldn’t explain, ways that didn’t make sense in this alien sky.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” I whispered.
He tilted his head slightly, studying me as though my confusion itself was beautiful. “Your world calls it love,” he said. “Mine calls it…bond.”
Something in his tone…the quiet certainty…unraveled the last bit of reason I was clinging to.
“Kaelthar…” I breathed, “if I say yes, what happens then?”
His fingers tightened gently around mine. “Then we become one. My people will see it, bless it. We will share breath, body, soul.”
The way he said body made heat flood through me. I tried to steady my voice. “They’ll… see it?”
He nodded once, eyes never leaving mine. “It is our way. The joining is not hidden. It is sacred.”
“You mean… they’d see us have…sex?”
He nodded his head.
A shiver ran through me…part fear, part fascination. The thought of being with him, truly with him, in front of his people should have horrified me. But instead, it sent a pulse of desire through my chest, deep and wild.
He saw it in my face. “You are not afraid,” he murmured.
“I am,” I whispered. “Just not of you.”
Kaelthar smiled then, slow and beautiful. He lifted my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss against my skin. “Then say yes.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “It is not to shame, but to honor. We share what becomes sacred.”
I swallowed hard, unsure if it was fear or something else fluttering in my chest. His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist…so warm, so steady it almost silenced my doubts.
“And if I can’t?” I asked softly.
He leaned close enough that I could feel his breath on my cheek, his words vibrating against my skin.
“Then we wait,” he said. “Until your heart says yes. But when it does… all of Aetherion will rise to witness.”
The thought should have terrified me.
Instead, it felt like standing at the edge of something vast, ancient, and unknowable.
And I couldn’t look away.
I looked up at him…at the alien king who had pulled me from the ocean, fed me, made me feel alive again and I heard myself say, “Yes.”
His breath caught, and his eyes burned brighter. “Then we prepare. Tomorrow, under the twin suns, our souls will meet before all. You will stand with me as Una.”
- Writer
