There was a sound approaching her, of boots on the rain-covered stone streets. The low murmur of voices grew louder, and Jesenia peaked around a corner, only to be thrust back harshly into a wall by a guard.
“Make way!” he shouted at her. A procession of guards filtered into the streets, and that’s when she saw him.
Val-Theris walked in the center of his guard. He wore no helm to shield him from the rain, and so his golden hair clung to his skull as he marched with them. His wings shook occasionally to rid the feathers of the excess water.
Though she had already seen him once before, his splendor drew the eye the way the moon pulled the tides.
Jesenia could not will herself to look away, and as if some invisible thread tightened between them, his head turned. Not toward her, not fully at least. It was simply a shift in his attention as if something caught the corner of his vision, like instinct rather than choice.
The distance and bodies between them should have made it impossible for him to see her, and still, he somehow did. Her pulse stumbled when their eyes met for a moment longer than what could be considered a passing gaze. As if he somehow recognized her face among the dozens of strangers in his city.
Some member of his group grabbed his attention for a moment, and when the conversation ceased, his eyes found hers again—this time, too easily to be considered an accident.
But she told herself that the Angel-King had far greater burdens to bear than noticing a refugee in a dripping hood that wandered too far from her people.
Jesenia returned to the refugee quarter soon after, her belly partially full with half an apple and a soggy piece of bread.
As though it had been waiting for her, the shouting started almost as soon as she returned to her tent. It was sharp, uneven, desperate, and turned the attention of everyone who could hear it.
“They’ve cut us off! Three weeks without grain! Punishment for drinking from their wells! Fines for sleeping in their streets!”
A ripple of response rose from the crowd, that same panic that she heard when Lunareth was attacked, the same sharp edge of fear that lingered after losing everything.
The commotion grew louder, the voices grew stronger under the rainfall. But before long, a long line of golden-armored guards filtered into their quarter, quickly dispersing the unrest and detaining those whose voices shouted loudest. They surrounded Jesenia’s people, shoulder-to-shoulder, halberds crossed to keep anyone from escaping.
Their superior barked, his voice cold and clipped: “Ingrates! You will not bring your unrest to these streets! You are not citizens, our stores owe you no grain.”
Voices began to rise again in protest, and the guards tightened their line. One of them even used the blunt end of his halberd to push one of the elders to the ground. Jesenia was quick to help him back to his feet. The guards’ hands tightened around their weapons as the air grew tense with hatred.
And then, everything went quiet. The guards dropped to one knee in unison, and even Jesenia’s people seemed to bow. The king moved into the center of the ring without a word, his wings folded close as if to make himself smaller against the world.
When he stopped, the guards rose to their feet, hands still tense on their halberds.
“Lower your weapons,” Val-Theris said softly. The order wasn’t barked, it was whispered, and still, the guards obeyed without hesitation.
But their unease was simply masked beneath obedience.
The higher-ranking guard cleared his throat. “Your Majesty, the quarter was out of control. We must secure the square–”
“By shoving down the elderly? By arresting the hungry?”
“With respect, my lord, these are not your people. If we allow them to–”
Val-Theris’s voice was quiet but unyielding, each word spoken with deliberate, unshakable certainty. “They are in my city, by my order. That makes them mine.”
Silence followed, and Jesenia was not sure who looked more shocked by the king’s words: the guards, whose loyalty barely masked their prejudice, or the refugees.
Val-Theris stepped with a purpose toward Jesenia and the elder whom she still helped stand steady. This was the closest she had ever been to him, close enough to pluck a feather from his wings if she dared to.
“Are you alright?” he asked the elder, who simply nodded in response. Val-Theris returned a subtle tilt of the head and then turned away, but not before his piercing gaze found Jesenia’s eyes once more.
FIVE
After three weeks,the rations grew thin again. The people of Solmiris grew once again impatient with the Lunarethians, and though her people tried their best to belong, to earn their keep, no one in the city gave them the chance.
Jesenia had finished singing the orphans to sleep, searching for an empty space on the streets to rest herself, when she heard whispers and hushed tones slipping from an alley.
The voices were impossible to discern at first, but as Jesenia crept closer, she overheard the voices of two men.
