Chapter 118: The Thread Beneath Her Tongue
Dawn
Aria woke before the sun.
The room was veiled in that delicate, pre - dawn blue — the kind of color that doesn't belong to day or night. A hush settled into the corners, so heavy it felt deliberate. As if time itself had bowed its head and paused in reverence.
Something had touched her in the dark.
Not a hand.
Not a shadow.
Not even a voice.
Just… a pull.
It wasn't urgent. It wasn't loud. But it coiled through her like a filament buried deep, brushing bone, humming beneath her ribs like a name not yet spoken. It stirred the marrow inside her spine, a feeling ancient and unmistakable. Not like waking from a dream — but like waking into one.
She sat up slowly, spine tall, legs folded beneath her. Palms upturned as if expecting something to be placed in them.
The room was still, quiet. But not empty.
It felt like it was listening.
And she didn't feel human. Not entirely.
She felt called.
Across the room, Selene lay collapsed on the worn leather couch, limbs slack with exhaustion but posture tight — one arm slung over her face like a shield. Her body never fully surrendered to sleep. Even now, she looked like she could spring into violence with the right sound, the right movement. A creature made for war who'd only just allowed herself to rest.
Her breath came slow but uneven, like she was dreaming of drowning and refused to come up for air.
Aria watched her for a long time.
Longer than she should have.
There was something sacred about Selene in that moment — something cracked and unfinished, like a cathedral mid - collapse, too ruined to worship in but too beautiful to look away from. Aria's chest ached with something she couldn't name.
She didn't reach for her.
Instead, her gaze turned inward.
And her lips parted.
The words that spilled from her mouth didn't belong to any language she knew. They came soft and slow, uncoiling like vines across her tongue. They weren't incantations. Not spells. More like… remembering.
The syllables emerged as if drawn from the marrow of the earth, soft and resonant, old as starlight and twice as patient. Her voice was low — throaty, dark — like something living beneath a riverbed.
Each word vibrated beneath her teeth.
Each phrase rang with the weight of blood and bloom.
They didn't sound like her.
And yet her throat knew how to cradle them. Her mouth knew how to shape them. Her soul, somehow, knew how to kneel beneath them.
She wasn't summoning.
She was answering.
And something in the room heard her.
The air shifted. Not with light or sound. But with memory. A hush gathered — thicker than silence. Heavy. Dense. Like the air before a promise is made… or broken.
Aria rose.
Her movements were slow, careful. She was afraid to break whatever thread wound through her, pulled taut through her chest. Each step across the cold floor sang a quiet truth. And behind her, frost ghosted the floor. Not enough to freeze. Just enough to mark her passage.
She passed Selene — still sleeping, though her body stirred faintly, her mouth twitching with unspoken words. A name she hadn't spoken in this life, maybe. Or one she'd buried deep beneath the skin of another.
Aria didn't pause.
She moved to the small table near the window.
It was cluttered the way only survivors understood — where every object was both talisman and necessity. A knife dulled with salt, a cracked compass pointing nowhere, half - melted wax bent in surrender.
And there, at the center of it all:
A rose.
Soft pink. Blush - colored. Perfect.
And wrong.
It bloomed upside-down.
No stem. No roots. Just the bloom — fully open, its petals pressed against the table as if gravity had reversed itself for this one impossible moment.
Aria stilled.
She hadn't seen it before. She was sure of that. It hadn't been there when they arrived. And yet…
It felt like it had always belonged.
A message.
A test.
A mirror.
She dropped to her knees without realizing it. Her fingers hovered an inch above the petals. She didn't touch it. Didn't dare.
Instead, she did something stranger.
She brought her fingers to her lips and kissed them — soft and slow — then extended them over the rose. Not touching. Just brushing the air above it.
A gesture of reverence.
Or surrender.
And as her breath passed through the space between fingers and bloom —
The rose collapsed.
Not like petals falling.
No.
It crumbled.
Into ash.
Soft, gray, and absolute.
It didn't scatter — it evaporated. The powder curling into the seams of the wood, disappearing like a secret swallowed too quickly. Within seconds, the table was bare. As if the rose had never existed.
But Aria knew better.
Something had passed between them.
She stood again, unsteady now, the thread inside her trembling. The pull hadn't weakened. It had deepened. Wrapped tighter around her spine.
She turned back toward the couch.
Selene stirred.
A low sound escaped her — half breath, half moan. Like her body remembered something her mind hadn't yet caught.
Aria moved toward her.
She didn't mean to.
Her feet just… went.
She stopped at the edge of the couch and stared down at her. At the way Selene's lashes fluttered against her cheek. At the thin line of her jaw, the way her hand had curled into a fist even in sleep. She looked so breakable. And yet —
She wasn't.
Not in any way that mattered.
Aria knelt beside her, heart thudding louder now, not from fear — but recognition. Something inside her wanted to reach out. Brush hair from Selene's brow. Press a kiss to the hollow of her throat. Speak those words again — this time into her skin.
But she didn't.
Instead, she whispered something else.
Not in the old tongue. In her own.
"I don't know what's happening to me," she said, voice barely audible. "But I think it's been happening for a long time. Since before Southside. Since before I woke in that field. Since you said my name."
Selene didn't wake. But her breathing slowed.
"I think I remember things I've never lived," Aria continued. "I think I'm becoming someone I've already been."
And still, Selene lay still.
But the air between them pulsed.
Aria leaned closer. Close enough to feel the warmth of her breath. Her words barely a breath now.
"I think I belong to something older. And it's not letting go."
A pause. A breath. A tremble beneath her skin.
"…And I think I'm afraid it wants you too."
Outside, the first gold of morning began to crack across the sky. It didn't blaze. It bled.
Soft, honeyed light spilled through the cracked window, washing the room in a glow that made everything look a little more real than it should have. Or less.
Aria stood again, gently, her hand briefly brushing Selene's shoulder. Just once.
It was enough.
Selene shifted and murmured something — too quiet to catch. Aria hesitated, but didn't stay.
She returned to the window. To the place where the rose had once been.
She knelt.
Closed her eyes.
And this time, she didn't speak.
She listened.
And beneath her ribs, the thread tugged once more.
Not in demand.
In invitation.