Chains of Moonlight Chapter Twelve

Veremund’s plan was beginning to pay off. Although it was still slow going. Aesira at least hadn’t let him starve himself to death. saw him as someone who needed her help. Despite the tough, selfish act she was putting up, she was easy to see right through. She was a guard through and through; she lived to protect.

Veremund could tell he was inching closer day by day when he woke up to see her sleeping beneath his cloak, tear tracks still on her cheeks, but no longer shivering. She hadn’t taken him up on his offer to talk, but he hadn’t really expected her to.

He should have given her his cloak a long time ago, not that she would have accepted any earlier. She didn’t seem to have any awareness whatsoever at how exposed she was in her clothes. Other than being cold, she never showed any discomfort with the immodesty of having so much of her arms, shoulders, and back exposed and her knees sticking out from the disgusting fabric.

Veremund had thought getting to wear his cloak and covering her up would make it easier to look at her with a little more proper covering. He hadn’t anticipated that being a worse problem.

Now that she was covered up in his cloak, and he didn’t have to worry about it being considered inappropriate leering, he couldn’t look away.

She looked so small beneath it.

She had lost a fair amount of weight in the months since her capture, but this was more than that. He didn’t have to work so hard not to stare at her calves or shoulders, but all he could see was the way she was swallowed by the fabric, her wings the only part of her too big to fit beneath it.

His heart clenched.

Looking at her had his fingers twitching. A restlessness taking over his blood. She was just out of reach, bars the only thing between them, hiding beneath her feathers and his fabric. She held it like it was more than just fabric.

She buried herself beneath it like it could protect her. Veremund had never before felt the urge to get past the bars so that she could bury her head into his chest instead of his cloak like he could protect her.

He didn’t want it to be just the cloak that had the honor of protecting her.

He didn’t like that. It had been a long time since Veremund had cared about protecting anyone.

He wasn’t supposed to care about protecting anyone but himself ever again.

It was just the story getting to his head. He was a better actor than he’d been giving himself credit for. It was Ulkos wanted to protect her. Veremund wanted to break her.

She shifted in her sleep, burying her head deeper and relaxing when her the fabric almost swallowed her face.

Veremund moved to the front of his cell and stared into the darkness, trying to force his racing heart to stop dead even if it took him with it.

He left her alone until their rations came, and he once again split his in half and gave her half. The reduced portion was starting to wear on him, and the hunger gnawing at him was annoyingly distracting. She took it wordlessly, and Veremund took a good long look at her. She no longer looked like she would faint if she stood up. That made the hunger worth it.

The next time Emmerich came, he’d have to have him increase their portions, but it’d have to be subtle. He couldn’t afford for her to question it.

He leaned against the bars, watching her in the moonlight as she shifted, examining her wings for the first time in days. She looked over at him and finally, she spoke first.

“They’re going to be back soon.”

For a moment, all he did was stare at her, certain he’d hallucinated it. But she was still looking at him.

“How do you know?”

Aesira shrugged. “The days and nights blur together, just a feeling. They didn’t get what they want. I don’t know who it’ll be, but I would expect it will be soon.”

She just couldn’t help herself, could she?

“They’re probably not tired of yet of their new toy,” Veremund muttered.

Aesira started to stretch her wings, his cloak only half covering her, so he was resolutely staring at her wings instead of her. “Next time when they’re shouting at you in your language and cutting into you, I recommend singing in your head. Did your mother ever sing you any lullabies?”

He forced himself to pull his gaze away from the wing she was stretching up and through the air, taking up almost all the space in the cell, and still not unfurling entirely.

His mouth was dry. He hadn’t had any water. That was why. He nodded. “Yes, it wasn’t very many though.”

And to his surprise, the answer was completely true. It had been decades since he’d last heard one of them.

He wasn’t around children or mothers very much. And even if he was, he doubted any that would know the ones his mother sang had the guts to sing them even in his presence. Most of his people didn’t know whether they should regard him as one of them or as a full-blooded Moon Elf, given his status.

Was that how she’d been surviving it? Singing lullabies to herself?

Even though he knew the answer, it was an easy question to ask. “Your mother, did she have a favorite that you sing to yourself now? Do you think she’s thinking about them now as well?”

Aesira laughed, but it was dark and bitter as she shifted, pulling her wing back in and starting to slowly go through the feathers, preening them with her fingers like a normal bird did with their beak. “I expect not, considering she’s been dead for twenty years.”

He widened his eyes and sucked in a sharp breath. “And yet you still remember them?”

She nodded, not even suspecting it was all fake. “I remember more how my brother sang them to me afterwards.”

She refused to look up from her wing, but he could see her fingers trembling as she tried to smooth out the crooked feathers and remove the dirt and dust on them.

“I’m sorry.”

The words should have been hollow on his tongue even if convincing to her. But the taste of ash they left in his mouth proved otherwise.

“I’ll accept your apology, but only partially.” Aesira’s voice wavered and she swallowed thickly. “You’re just one Sun Elf. You didn’t start the war.”

Veremund hadn’t been the one directly responsible, but he’d been involved in this war effort for a long time.

There were plenty of deaths that he was responsible for.

Veremund needed her to keep talking, but the heavy weight in his chest had him perfectly still. “You don’t have to talk about it. I’m not trying to pry.”

Aesira took extra care with the fresh feathers growing in where Emmerich had cut them before. “It happened when she and my father were delivering supplies to your people’s troops. They got caught in a skirmish, and they didn’t make it. Sometimes I wonder if more of us would if we kept fighting, even when we think it’s futile.”

There was a heavy weight to her words that he couldn’t quite decipher. He looked back at her wings as she stretched the other one up into the air, still unable to unfurl it completely. He nodded toward the one he’d watched her break three weeks ago, not quite unfurling. “What are you doing?”

“I might be stuck in this filthy cell, but I haven’t lost so much of my pride as to be unable to care for my wings.” Aesira locked eyes with them, and they burned brighter than he’d seen in weeks. “If they’re going to take them from me, I’m going to at least have them be in pristine condition.”

He kept his eyes on the bone. “Is that one alright?”

“It will be. My new feathers are coming in. I had to re-break the bone because it wasn’t setting properly.” She shrugged. “The price of flight comes high.”

When he tilted his head at her, she said, “Hollow bones, you know?”

Right. That explained a lot more. He had to fight back the smirk threatening to escape on his face. Once again, he was impressed with his clever little valkyrie.

She said, “It’s healing nicely.”

He hadn’t thought the valkyries could be so clever. Taking a necessary action and utilizing his ignorance to turn into a display, in order to convince him he ought to give up on interrogating her. If only his people weren’t so shortsighted and obsessed with their own kind, they could have allied with the valkyries decades ago.

She was turned onto her front, letting both her wings arc from her back and take up as much space as they could. He hadn’t appreciated the sight of them the first time he’d seen them in battle, nor in the weeks of travel afterwards. Now he had nothing but time to stare and be mesmerized.

Before he could stop himself, he whispered, “What’s it like?”

She rolled her eyes. “Haven’t you heard enough?”

He shook his head, curling his other hand around the bar and pressing his forehead against it to be as close as he could. “Not the torture. Flying. Tell me what it’s like to fly.”

She closed her eyes. Then she whispered, “I don’t think anyone has ever asked me.”

“Never?”

“My life has been spent amongst the valkyries. It’d be like if I asked you what it was like to walk. None of them would ever need to ask such a question. As the princess’ guard, when foreigners are in the castle or we visit another country, I’m never a person in the room. I am decoration at best, not someone to be spoken with, only someone to be spoken to. If they wanted to ask a valkyrie, it wouldn’t be me.”

“Well…” Why was his mouth so dry? “I’m asking you now.”

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, turning to look at the barred window above, showing only the faintest glimmer of the world outside.

“If you insist, flying is the very thing all valkyries are born to do. Not that we don’t teach our young or have our own skills and techniques, but it’s this innate thing. We’re born with the need to fly the way we’re born with a need to breathe, or like you’re born with a need for sunlight. If a valkyrie can’t fly, they wouldn’t live very long.”

His breath caught in his throat. Was that why she’d fought him so hard on eating? Did she even want to survive?

“As for flying itself, I suppose the closest you could get to the sensation would be to jump off a cliff with water below, knowing with certainty there is something to catch you so you can enjoy the wind rushing in your ears as gravity pulls on you. But even that would pale in comparison. I suppose maybe for you, it would also be like running, but much more fun. It’s like running and falling at the same time.”

A breathy, wistful quality entered her voice, but all Veremund could feel was his stomach plummeting and his heart leaping into his throat.

“You’re in complete control. But you can feel the weight of gravity pulling at you, so you work your muscles to keep yourself aloft. The wind cuts across your skin and rips through your hair. There’s this wild rush that fills me every time I start running and unfurling my wings behind me. I tilt them just so, and with one great jump, my wings catch the air and propel me forward, taking off. If it weren’t for the fact I’d die if I didn’t, I’d never come back down.”

Veremund couldn’t take his eyes off her heartbroken smile.

She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever laid eyes on.

He couldn’t even imagine how breathtaking she was if he ever saw her in the air properly. But then the smile faded as she turned and looked at the bars around them, she sank back down. “If I had known my last flight would be my last… I don’t know what I would have done exactly, but I know I would have savored every second of it.”

He wasn’t even thinking about what he should be asking, or what Ulkos would most likely ask. He just wanted to know. “How do you know it was your last?”

She laughed and gestured to the bars around them. “Of course it was. You and I both know we’re never seeing the outside of these cells. I’m never going to fly again.”

His grip tightened on the bars and the words came out before he could stop them. “Aesira, I promise you this: you will fly again.”

She just shook her head, pulling her wings back in and moving to lay on her front. “Ulkos, you don’t have to lie to me to make me feel better.”

Was that the first time she’d used his fake name?

He sat back from the bars, falling into silence. His heart stuttered in his chest. The horrible part was how he meant every single word. Even though his mind knew that it was impossible, his heart was still desperate for the chance to get to see her fly so he could know if she was as beautiful then as she was right now.

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Thanks for reading Chapter Twelve of Chains of Moonlight! Read Chapter Thirteen here!

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