𝑽𝑬𝑰𝑳𝑬𝑫 — ⁿⁱᵍʰᵗ

sirat doesn’t look away, brown eyes staying completely focused on the other. she barely shifts, not even when the words land like stone in water, drowning slowly. hwa-rim’s voice doesn’t shake, but sirat hears what’s beneath it. the kind of grief only women like them carry, passed down like heirlooms no one wanted. the wind presses against her veil but it doesn’t move, silent as sirat stands still as bone. [ she has heard those words before, not from hwa-rim, but from her mother’s hands. in the way they trembled over prayer beads. in the silence after every unanswered plea. they say the gods choose carefully. sirat has never believed that. she thinks the gods choose what hurts best. ]

her thumb brushes the hilt of her blade, worn smooth from years of holding it too tightly. she speaks only once the silence grows thick as blood between them, the divine & the frozen. ❝ — you’re not wrong. ❞ her voice is low, but not gentle : more like something sacred that’s lost its warmth. a fire dying, its last emblem burning away smoke. ❝ you’re just not ready to say it out loud. but i’ve said it. i still wake up saying it. ❞ they both stand between two worlds: one built of ritual and guilt passed from generation to generation, the other of science and glass so fragile the sirat wonders how hwa-rim hasn't cut herself on the shards. neither worlds are kind. neither worlds are clean. neither of them wear bandages. sirat doesn’t reach out, but she steps closer.

she doesn’t like court, a deep distaste from youth that's grown stronger as the years pass. the keep reeks of rosewater and rotting silk, all cloaked smiles and hollow praise. the dragons sleep too easily here, the walls are too clean. sirat keeps to the edges when she can, half-hidden behind carved columns, her veil catching on candle smoke. she listens more than she speaks, and when she does speak, it is often mistaken for a prayer. [ she has been told many things. that her gift is divine. that her silence is wise. that the gods chose her for something beautiful, something ancient. that she must be grateful to carry a sword blessed by salt and starlight. she does not feel chosen. she feels haunted. ]

the words come from rhaenyra like a pulled thread ( . . . please don’t lie to make me feel better. . .) and they settle over sirat like dust on holy ground. she doesn’t flinch. doesn’t soften. only tilts her head slightly, gaze low and sharp as the curve of her blade. ❝ — then i won’t. ❞ her voice is calm, heavy, like the beginning of a rainstorm, soft pitter-patters before a crescendo of thunder & lightning. ❝ you were not made to be comforted, rhaenyra. you were made to be feared. to be followed. to be known. ❞ they tell her stories — of prophecy, of crowns, of women who ruled the world in whispers. they call it destiny. they say it's sacred. but sirat has learned: what they call sacred is only what they don’t understand. and power, in a woman’s hands, is only ever holy when it hurts someone else.

sirat tilts her head, just slightly.     like the sound of june’s voice is a note caught wrong in a prayer.    her hands are still dust-streaked,    glowing faintly at the fingertips,   and she looks like something pulled from a dream half-remembered.   ❝leave you out of it?❞     she repeats, quiet as incense smoke curling in temple air.    ❝ — the thing is  (. . .)  you were in it long before you asked not to be.❞    she says it without judgment :  only the softness of someone who’s been running in circles, too.    ❝it’s in your bones. in the way your shadow doesn’t always follow the light right.❞  

she steps closer, slow, careful,    as if the wrong word might make june shatter.  ❝i know what it’s like to carry something that isn’t fully yours, but answers to your name. to wake with your palms open like you were holding something holy, or dangerous, and find both missing.❞    her voice lowers, trembles just once.  ❝i tried to run from it, too. the fire. the symbols. the way mirrors flinch when i pass.” she swallows.  ❝but no matter how far i went, the sky remembered me.❞  they are two mirrors, one bloody & one golden all the same. two ghosts of what once was more.