Chapter 117: Selene, Unraveled
Midnight
Selene couldn't sleep.
She hadn't even tried. The bed behind her remained untouched, sheets still tight from when she'd made them hours ago — too tight, too perfect, like a hospital corner in a world that no longer deserved discipline. Her body rejected the illusion of peace.
The apartment was dim, lit only by the city's waning pulse and the wash of moonlight slanting across the balcony. Selene stood barefoot against the cold, the sliding door cracked behind her. Her shirt hung loose, half - unbuttoned, collarbones rising and falling with each slow, unsettled breath. A faint sheen of sweat shimmered at her throat, though the air was sharp, almost slicing. Maybe it wasn't sweat at all. Maybe it was the memory of something burning through her veins.
Below her, the city heaved in silence. Traffic lights blinked like tired eyes. Neon signs sputtered on windows, reflecting not life, but the ghost of it. The familiar buzz of music, distant arguments, engines growling down soaked streets — gone. Replaced by something too quiet. Too watchful.
It felt like the world was holding its breath.
Like it had seen the light that split the sky hours ago and didn't believe it had vanished. Not really. Like the tear still hovered, stitched but not healed.
Behind her, the sliding glass door gave a soft sound. Less a noise, more a murmur. A breath.
Selene didn't turn. But she felt her.
Aria.
She moved like fog — slow, careful, blanketed in Selene's blanket, dragging it behind her like the weight of everything they weren't saying. The fabric brushed the threshold, picking up a strand of dust, a shimmer of frost that hadn't melted yet.
Selene knew that weight. She felt it in her bones. The way silence swelled around Aria now — not because she didn't know what to say, but because something in her had changed again. Rearranged. The aftermath still knitting itself into her bones.
The railing beneath Selene's hands grew colder.
Not dramatic. Not a threat. Just enough to numb her palms. To remind her that she was still here. Still tethered to a power that didn't quite belong to this world.
"You ever feel like the world's holding its breath?" she murmured, voice hoarse from silence. "Like it's waiting for something awful. Or beautiful. Or both."
Aria stepped closer. Barefoot. Unafraid.
She didn't shiver. Never did.
"Maybe it's waiting to see if we kiss," she said.
Not a joke.
A prophecy.
Selene's breath caught. Not because she hadn't thought it. But because Aria had said it.
And meant it.
She turned her head slowly, moonlight slicing across her face, and studied the girl beside her. Aria's eyes weren't glowing now, but they held something — some echo of starlight, or the aftermath of something divine. Whatever had touched her hadn't left.
"Don't say things like that when I haven't slept," Selene said. "I'm dangerous when I'm tired."
"I know." Aria's voice softened. "That's why I came."
Silence again. But not empty.
This one was full of things too large for speech — images that still danced behind their eyelids, a memory of golden skin and fractured ceilings and voices without mouths. Blood on the threshold. Flowers that didn't bloom outward, but folded inward, like secrets trying to devour themselves.
Selene didn't look away.
"I thought I lost you," she said.
Aria's hands tightened around the edge of the blanket. "You didn't."
"You weren't breathing."
"I think… I was breathing something else."
Selene nodded, barely. "You scared me."
"I scared myself."
She sounded small. Like the admission hurt her mouth. Like she wasn't sure she was allowed to say it aloud.
"I didn't mean to open anything. I didn't know I could."
Selene turned fully now, the city forgotten behind her. The hum of neon, the low drone of silence — it all fell away in the presence of the girl wrapped in her blanket, eyes wide with something close to sorrow. Or awe.
"You don't have to explain," Selene whispered. "I'm just glad you're still here."
"I don't know what I am."
"You're mine," Selene said, before she could stop herself.
The words hung there, not demanding, not possessive — just true. Aria blinked, and didn't look away.
Her face tilted up, moonlight catching the faint shimmer in her skin. It still wasn't entirely normal. Still held a flicker of something that didn't belong to the living or the dead. Her eyes searched Selene's face, and what she found made her step closer.
"I'm not okay," she said.
Selene reached out. Her hand cupped Aria's cheek, thumb brushing along chilled skin. A flicker of frost bloomed beneath her touch — just for a moment — before melting like a tear. Aria didn't recoil. She leaned into it, barely perceptible, like a flower turning toward warmth even when it couldn't feel it.
"I don't care what's coming," Selene said. "If it tries to take you —"
"It won't," Aria said, but her voice cracked. She wasn't certain.
"I'd freeze the whole fucking sky."
That quieted them both.
Even the air seemed to pause.
Aria's lips parted. But no words came. Just a breath.
Their foreheads met — soft, slow. A press that wasn't a kiss, wasn't quite comfort, but something more intimate than either. A communion of breath, of grief, of starlight lodged beneath skin.
Selene closed her eyes.
Inside her, something shifted.
Whatever Aria had touched earlier — whatever had spoken through her, or moved her bones like a marionette in sacred light — it hadn't just altered Aria.
It had changed Selene too.
Not broken her. Not burned her.
But… unraveled her.
And she hadn't even noticed until now.
Her breath came colder. Her limbs heavier. But it wasn't exhaustion. It was the weight of change. The weight of truth.
The weight of knowing that everything she'd locked away — grief, hunger, guilt, devotion — was waking up all at once. Melting. Refreezing.
Not softer. Sharper. Clearer.
She didn't recognize herself. And yet, she'd never felt more… right.
Aria was holding the thread.
And Selene wasn't afraid of what came next.
"You shouldn't fall for me," Aria whispered. "Whatever I am… whatever I'm becoming… it's not safe."
Selene's eyes opened slowly. And she smiled. Not with her mouth.
With her whole face. With something that had slept for years in the frozen hollows of her soul.
"Too late."
The wind picked up.
It wasn't strong. Just enough to lift Aria's hair, to curl around their shoulders, to whisper secrets neither of them could translate yet. Selene didn't move. Neither did Aria.
They just breathed.
Existed. Tethered.
The apartment behind them no longer felt like shelter. The city below no longer felt distant. Everything was close now — too close. As if the world had reoriented itself around this moment. As if the gods — or whatever remained of them — were watching.
Selene reached for Aria's hand, their fingers lacing together without instruction.
The cold didn't retreat. But it didn't bite.
It lingered, curling around their skin like a vow.
Aria looked at her. "Do you think we broke something?"
Selene didn't answer for a long time. Then —
"No," she said. "I think something tried to break us. And failed."
Above them, the sky hadn't quite closed.
There was still a thin seam of starlight, barely visible, like a scar running across the heavens.
Not gaping. But not healed. Like it was waiting.
For morning. For a name. For what came next.
But Selene didn't care anymore.
She had Aria's hand in hers.
And her power, once chained to grief, now stirred awake — icy, lucid, unrepentant.
She wasn't just protecting Aria now.
She was becoming something because of her.
Not broken.
Remade.
And the next time something tried to reach through the dark —
It would find Selene waiting.
Cold - blooded.
Unraveled.
And ready.