The Heretic of Sælonis ||A Sci-Fi Romance Novella||

do your worst

"Are you alright?" Nierhæ asked, her voice quiet as she rolled to face me. We were on the bed, where I laid on my back to stare at the dark ceiling as I spiralled into my thoughts and she faced the wall to distance herself from me. Her movement was enough to make my skin tingle at her closeness and her warmth.

"I'm sharing a bed with a prisoner who's saved my life three times and made me question everything about Sethes. What do you think?" I asked, and she nodded.

She nodded.

She only knew how to do that because Cædir had taught her.

She only knew because I had taught her.

It was the first time that she'd touched my face when we were young. She'd been learning my features, so I would be familiar to her for the rest of our lives. That was when she'd asked me if I was Chosen, like her. And I'd nodded. She'd asked me what the movement meant, so I'd explained it to her and promised to only do it when she touched my face so she knew...

"It doesn't matter what I think, does it?" She asked, which was untrue.

"It does, because you..." I trailed off as her warm fingers brushed my face.

"You're freezing," she whispered before she pulled the blankets up to my chin. Why did she care so much? The affection was... strange. No one had cared before. Not since my family. "If you need to hold me, you can." The warmth from her body crept towards me under the covers, but it was something I had to ignore. Giving into it, it wouldn't... it wouldn't end well for me. Not when she smelled like the black flowers from Mertonis that I'd long forgotten the name of.

How could I forget something like that? The name of a flower from my home planet?

"No, I don't need to hold you." I didn't. But I wanted to. By the Aura, I wanted to.

"Okay." Her whisper was too quiet for her to believe me, but that didn't matter. Not right now. "Why do my thoughts matter?"

"Because..." It was hard to put into words without betraying the last twenty years of my life. But I didn't need to. Not when she lifted her fingers to touch my face again, and she felt the crease between my eyebrows.

"I'm sorry for everything that happened to you," she whispered as her fingers moved to my cheek. "None of it was your fault. It's on the Council. They saw an opportunity to use someone for their benefit, and they did it. They took you, made you forget, and trained you to be what they wanted. If I could swap places with you, I would." This was why her thoughts mattered to me. This was exactly why.

"Why?" I whispered as her fingers ran along my jaw. The touch brought attention to how much I'd clenched my teeth together to prevent any emotions from reaching the surface.

"Because you didn't deserve this." Her words echoed through to my very soul, and forced me to turn towards her. "You deserved better, and they took it all from you."

"They would have killed you if they took you instead." I replied, and she took a deep breath.

"I think death might be favourable compared to being indoctrinated into the cult that slaughtered your people. To kill for them, and do everything they ever wanted. To forget who you are, and trust no one because that's what you've been trained to do."

Was she right? Would death have been a kinder fate than this? The thought made my stomach twist painfully, because deep down a part of me agreed. Deep down, a part of me wished I'd died with my family. It might have been better for everyone if I had.

How many people had I killed in the Council's name? How many of them had been innocent? How many had simply fought for their lives and their homes? I'd fallen right into the hands of the Council... and I'd believed every word they ever told me.