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

why do you care?

The Council were exactly where I expected them to be—running for their lives to an escape ship. All I had to do was stop them from reaching it, and we would win.

All I had to do was...

As I sprinted to catch them and they came into view, I lifted my gun and shot one of them straight through the skull. At least they fell as easily as everyone else. The others halted as their ally fell to the ground, and without hesitation, I raised my shooter again.

They turned to face me in unison, a terrifying display of their closeness.

"Do you think you could shoot all of us before we get a hit in?" My old mentor asked, and I tilted my head to the side as I thought about the answer. If I didn't feel the Aura, then they couldn't either. And if they didn't feel it, then they couldn't use it.

"I could get close." I took my helmet off, just so I could look each of them in the eyes. "There's nothing left for you to pull on. Nierhæ has every scrap of Aura on her side, and you have nothing." All I had to do was hold them here for long enough that getting off planet before it blew to pieces would be impossible.

Judging from how badly the earth shook beneath my feet, I would say it was getting close.

"Nothing?" One other asked, their hair pulled back from their face in a pristine bun. Well, pristine except for the few hairs that had fallen free during their escape.

I looked at their robes, the white that was now stained with dirt, and smirked. "You don't have any weapons. You never did, so you could convey peace to the universe. What you had were the powers you killed others for possessing. It's just too bad that you no longer have the option to use them. I would love to see you go head to head with Nierhæ without a handicap."

That was when a crack echoed through the air, louder than a lightning strike that might have landed next to me. But it hadn't been lightning that caused the deafening noise—no, that would have been too easy. It was the earth that made the sound as a fracture line broke through the crust of the earth, separating me and the Council...

And a soft gold glow illuminated the space next to me.

It was Nierhæ.

Or what had to be Nierhæ, but looked more like a holographic projection of her body. Vyrekne had told me she was more light than flesh, and while I'd heard the words and the meaning behind them, I'd never imagined that she would actually look like she wasn't... wasn't human.

She took a few steps forward, allowing the Council a moment to realise what was about to happen to them. She gave them a moment to look at their options and realise they had none. She was generous enough to let them feel the same fear they instilled within every victim of their one-sided war before killing them.

I focused on my mentor, the one who had raised me to block my emotions—to kill without mercy and without question. His eyes widened.

And the earth shattered beneath them.

The Council scrambled to latch onto a piece of rock that would prevent them from falling, but golden light filled the crevices. The ones who found a sturdy piece of earth to stand on were pulled in by tendrils of Aura wrapping around their ankles.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over, and Nierhæ just stood there, her hand raised and fingers splayed. In the transparent version of her body, the blindfold still rested over her eyes, but it was impossible to see the colours anymore.

She wasn't flesh.

She was Aura.

Pure Aura.

Her arm lowered, and I realised exactly why Vyrekne wanted me to make sure I got out alive. It was hard to tell if Nierhæ was even part of herself anymore. Without the Aura flowing through me, I couldn't reach out to find her thoughts.

But I couldn't leave her behind.

"Nierhæ," I whispered, and her head cocked towards me. "We need to get off Sethes, you need to let go."

She didn't move to acknowledge what I'd said. This was bad.

"You need to let go." I repeated the words, and a pulse of light ran through her. Was that a sign of acknowledgement? "Please, Nierhæ, you need to let it go."

A wordless moment passed between us as the planet continued to groan and crack beneath us.

"You should run." She whispered, but it wasn't entirely her voice. "The Aura still plans for you, a future."

I didn't care what the Aura had planned. Being controlled by others' wishes was the story of my past, and I didn't plan on continuing to appease anyone else in the future. No one other than Nierhæ. "I don't want it if I don't have you with me." Another pulse of light ran through her, but this time, it wasn't just a rush of luminescence. It was a flash of her body, of white hair and the black blindfold through the gold. "I'm not going anywhere unless you come with me."

Another pulse.

"I can't let go." Her voice was just above a whisper, but her words were unacceptable. I couldn't leave her here to die. I just couldn't.

"You have to. We have too much left to do-"

"If I let go now, then it will kill me." A flash of fear passed through her voice, and I understood. "Just let me finish what I was meant to do."

"Nierhæ, if you keep holding on, you'll disintegrate into nothing." I swear it had already begun. Her fingers were more transparent than the rest of her, and as another pulse of her true body came through... her gentle fingers didn't come back.

"Why..." Another pulse of her body flashed through the gold. "Why do you care?"

Why did I care? How could I say it succinctly for her to let go of the Aura before it consumed her? I cared because she was important to me. I cared because she cared about me. She was the first person to tell me the truth since I'd been forced to join Sethes. She was a part of me—one so vital she might as well be my blood or bones.

I cared because I was meant to. Because she was promised to me by the very thing that sustained life in the universe—by the very thing that wanted her to die.

"Because you're my damned betrothed, Rhæ."

Another pulse.

And another.

The next time colour flooded her body, it stayed, filling her pale skin with creamy white and her soft lips with a muted pink.

The last remnants of gold left her eyes and reconstituted fingertips.

And the blindfold fell from her face before she collapsed faster than I could reach out to catch her.