A blade between us
392 Words
The moon bled silver across the ruins of Virel’s Hollow, its light filtering through broken stone and ivy-choked battlements. Seraphine stood at the edge of the keep, her fingers brushing the hilt of her dagger. Below, the world slumbered. But her mind was restless, haunted by whispers in the dark.
And footsteps.
She turned just in time to see Kain step from the shadows, his silhouette all sinew and steel. He wore no crest—only black leather and muted armor dulled by ash. A knight once, disgraced now. A killer some called him. But his eyes… his eyes still knew truth.
“You followed me,” she said.
He leaned against the broken archway, arms folded, a half-smirk on his lips. “You make it easy.”
“Careful,” she replied coolly. “Stalking a queen might be considered treason.”
“You’re not crowned yet.”
“And you’re not my knight.”
He stepped closer. The air between them shifted, charged with something unspoken. “That’s not what your eyes said when I pulled you from the pyre in Solreth.”
“That was desperation.”
He leaned in, voice lower now. “No. That was you deciding you wanted to live.”
Her breath caught—just for a moment.
The silence wrapped tight around them. Wind pulled at her cloak. His gaze dropped, following the movement, lingering not on her face but her hands—scarred from battle, callused from resistance.
She looked down at her fingers. “You see blood. Most men do.”
“I see someone who survived everything they tried to destroy.” He paused. “That’s not blood. That’s a crown.”
The words slid beneath her skin, unexpected. Intimate. Dangerous.
She didn’t move when he reached out. His gloved fingers brushed a strand of windblown hair from her cheek, slow and unhurried. She could feel the heat of him—wild and tethered, like a storm just barely held at bay.
“You’re not afraid of me,” she said, searching his face.
“Should I be?” he replied.
A moment more, and she might have closed the distance herself. But the tension broke with the c***k of a branch behind them.
Seraphine stepped back, spine straightening as the spell shattered.
Kain’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not alone.”
- Writer
