For tonight, Auryn ignored it.
The water steamed around her, fragrant with crushed rosemary and the bite of cleansing salts. A series of Lustrals glowed in the Runewell at the bottom of the pool. Auryn sat on the ledge in the water, skin flushed and hands shaking. Gritting her teeth, she gripped a washcloth in her hands and scrubbed.
Hard. Desperate. Again and again. Red splotches bloomed across her arms, her neck, her shoulders.
Lu’ma knelt at her side, pouring warm water down her spine, brushing tangles from her hair with painstaking care. When Auryn’s scrubbing stuttered, Lu’ma took the cloth from her and continued with much gentler strokes. A silence stretched between them—not empty, but full of all the things Auryn couldn’tvoice. All the feelings she didn’t know how to name.
She opened her mouth once. Closed it.
Then her voice escaped in a whisper, small and hoarse.
“He…smiled at me today.”
Lu’ma paused.
Auryn stared down at the water. “Not as the god that keeps vigil over Krystopolis. Not even as a threat.” She dragged a hand down her face. “Like I washis. Like I’d done something worthy of pride.”
A beat of silence.
Then Lu’ma signed, hands sharp with grief and purpose.
'This cannot continue, Your Radiance. Tonight. You must tell the Resh’Agar everything.'
Auryn didn’t nod. She breathed in, slow and unsteady, then whispered, “Yes. You’re right. You’ve been telling me this for months, and I…was simply afraid.”
Lu’ma set aside the washcloth to free her hands for speech, 'Your Radiance, you have nothing to fear. His Quintessence will understand.'
“You are certain?”
Lu’ma hesitated.
“You don’t know how deeply he hates his brother. It blinds him. He is not the sort of man that will judge without knowing the full story, but when it comes to the Sovereign, he does not think rationally.”
She ran a hand through her hair in frustration, suddenly distracted by an odd sensation. Looking down at her palm, she flexed her fingers.
“Lu’ma, bring a brighter light, please.”
The girl obliged, picking up a Polis lantern from a nearby table and padding over to the pool. In the brighter golden light, Auryn held up herhand and paled. There, on her palm curled around one of her fingers was a silver strand of hair.
Lu’ma nearly dropped the lantern. She started to sign, but Auryn held up her other hand. She unwrapped the strand and gave it to the girl.
“Burn it, please. If you cannot or if it is too dangerous, tell me. I will find a way.”
'Your Radiance, this is the third hair in the last Cycle. Something is terribly wrong with Your Radiance’s health. There should be no shedding, just as His Quintessence.'
Auryn nodded. Just as Kailorien never shed hair, Auryn did not either. Though, she suspected the reason for her lack of shedding wasn’t the same as his. Just more proof that she was different. Unnatural.
Until now.
Auryn stood and dried off with a nearby towel, donning a fresh chemise, bodice, and robe. She could not afford to think of hair shedding right now. Not when she needed to prepare for her conversation with Kailorien tonight. Leaving the bathing chamber, she entered the adjoining chamber and threw herself into work.
She began with Shu’Khan’s gifts. Her hands moved without command, muscle memory guiding her through the chaos. She laid each scroll flat. Aligned the notes. Gathered her styluses, her marked-up parchments, the volumes Shu’Khan had gifted her with delicate intent. His letters. The translations. Everything.
She placed them in a satchel and left it waiting by the fluxhearth.
Then she sat on the edge of the cushions. Waiting. Wondering if now even the condition of her hair was growing into another secret she would need to keep from the man she loved.
He came in just after dusk, unarmored but still carrying the day with him—dust and smoke clinging to his skin, the faint metallic tang of mana residue caught in his hair.
