Chapter 120: What the Ash Forgot to Burn
Selene
The room still hummed.
Not with noise — but with the aftermath of something unspeakable. Not thunder. Not flame. Something quieter. Older.
Ash that never touched fire.
Selene hadn't moved since Aria smiled.
She couldn't.
It wasn't paralysis — it was reverence. The kind that takes over after a storm passes but the air hasn't decided if the danger is truly over. The kind of stillness that only comes when something holy has arrived and hasn't yet left.
"Where did you go?" Selene asked. Her voice wasn't a whisper. It was the silence after one.
Aria turned her head slowly. Her gaze touched Selene like wind off a blade's edge. "Nowhere. Here."
"That's a lie."
"Then it's the kind you needed."
The space between them was barely the length of the room, but it felt wider than memory. Selene's feet were bare, grounded in the cold wood, but her balance faltered. Not outwardly — but in the marrow. Her bones were buzzing. Not from fear, but from recognition. From the way air itself had bent.
From the weight that wasn't hers anymore.
It was Aria's.
"You spoke something I didn't recognize," she murmured.
"I didn't recognize it either," Aria said, soft. "But my body knew. It wasn't language. It was… instinct. A thread under my tongue."
Selene's breath caught.
A thread.
The air between them didn't shift — it sharpened. As if listening.
"I should be afraid of you," Selene said.
Aria stepped forward, slow as snowmelt. "You're afraid for me. That's worse."
A muscle ticked in Selene's jaw. "When you woke, it felt like something pulled at me. From the inside."
Aria didn't deny it. She only tilted her head slightly, as if she could hear something still echoing from her own pulse.
Light was beginning to drip in through the windows, that pale hour where nothing feels settled yet. Gold laced with blue, like dawn hadn't made up its mind. Selene watched it touch Aria's skin — but the warmth didn't seem to take. It touched her, but didn't hold.
She didn't seem cold. Just… touched by something else.
Not morning. Not night. Not even time.
Selene's gaze fell to Aria's hands. They were folded in front of her — not guarded. Not aggressive. But ceremonial. Almost reverent. Like a girl pretending not to be holding a blade.
"You kissed the air above that rose," Selene said.
"I did."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"You do," Selene said. "Somewhere, you do."
Aria's eyes didn't flinch. "I think I was sealing something. Or setting it free."
Selene felt her chest tighten. "It wasn't just a rose."
"I know."
"It turned to ash."
"It wasn't meant to stay."
Selene crossed the final space between them and lifted a hand. Slowly. Gently. Her fingers brushed Aria's wrist. Cold. Not lifeless — never that. But like the hush just before the first frost. A moment waiting to descend.
"I think something else woke up with you," she whispered.
"Maybe," Aria said. Her eyes were unreadable. "But it doesn't want to hurt you."
"That's not what I asked."
Aria hesitated.
Then —
"I'm not sure it knows the difference."
Aria
Selene's touch was a tether. Soft and shaking, even if she didn't show it. But Aria could feel it. That shiver just beneath the surface. The vibration of a heartbeat trying not to flinch.
Selene had always been good at control. She carried her rage like a weapon and her tenderness like a secret. But now, neither could hide.
Aria saw all of it.
And something inside her — the thing that had stirred, bloomed, unraveled — ached with something like hunger. But not to feed. To know. To become.
"I'm not the same," Aria whispered.
"I know," Selene said.
"You're still here."
"I know that too."
Aria tilted her head. Her eyes flicked with something unreadable. Feral. Divine. Gentle, but edged. A kind of sharp that wasn't cruel — just true.
"You're trembling," she murmured.
"I'm furious," Selene hissed. "Because you're not telling me everything."
Aria's hands unfolded from one another. Slowly. She stepped closer. The distance felt sacred now.
"And what will you do if I do?" Aria asked.
Selene's eyes didn't waver. "I'll protect you."
Aria's lips curved. A ghost of a smile. "You don't even know what I am anymore."
"I don't care," Selene said.
And she meant it.
That was the terrifying part.
Aria leaned in. Her voice was a shadow beneath breath. "You will."
Then something moved.
Not within Aria.
Not within Selene.
Beneath.
A tremor in the bones of the floor. A hush pulling taut. The air shimmered — not with heat, but with memory. As if something long-buried had exhaled.
Selene stumbled back.
Her eyes locked on the table behind Aria.
The ash had returned.
But it wasn't a pile.
It was rising.
Spiraling, slow and deliberate, like smoke caught in reverse. It swirled upward and took shape. Not solid — but there. A glyph formed in the air above the table, shifting gently in the golden morning light.
Neither of them had seen it before.
But both of them knew it.
The way you know a scar you didn't earn but carry anyway.
Selene moved to block Aria out of instinct.
But Aria didn't move.
She stepped forward.
"No," Selene said sharply, hand darting out.
"Yes," Aria said, and gently pulled away.
She stepped to the glyph and reached out.
Her fingers hovered — then pressed.
The ash dispersed.
No heat. No sound. Just… breath. Gone.
And in its place —
Nothing.
But the air didn't feel empty.
It felt watched.
Aria turned. Her eyes were no longer entirely hers. Or maybe they always had been. But now, they were seen.
No longer soft.
No longer unsure.
Just awake.
"Something's coming," she said.
Selene's voice didn't rise. "How do we stop it?"
"We don't," Aria said.
She smiled.
Not cruelly. Not kindly.
Just… truthfully.
"We meet it."
Selene
She wanted to say no.
To shout it.
To deny what she felt in the marrow of her bones.
But she couldn't.
Because Aria was right.
Whatever had stirred — within her, within the ash, within the earth — it wasn't waiting to be stopped. It was coming to be witnessed.
The air around them no longer felt like dawn.
It felt like warning.
Selene didn't step back.
She didn't reach for a weapon.
She only reached for Aria's hand.
And Aria took it.
No hesitation.
No fear.
Just the quiet understanding of two people who had already died once, and weren't entirely sure what they'd come back as.
The sun was rising.
And neither of them felt any warmer.