Chapter 24: Fevered Bloom
The world outside screamed.
But inside, it was worse.
The sky had fractured into bruised glass, bleeding ash instead of light. Sunlight barely pierced the cloud cover, reduced to a flickering ghost of itself. Sirens echoed down empty streets, rising and falling like mechanical wails of mourning. Somewhere, a car burned. Somewhere else, someone begged for a god no longer listening. Buildings sagged under their own weight, and the bones of the city creaked like they, too, wanted to die.
Inside the apartment, silence had become sacred.
It wasn't peace. Peace was what people pretended existed when they didn't want to acknowledge despair. This was different. The quiet here was a breath held too long, the seconds between a scream and the echo.
Selene stood in that silence, barely moving. Her eyes never strayed far from the bed across the room — the mattress dragged to the center, stripped of sheets except for one damp blanket. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest, jaw clenched, muscles locked in a tension she didn't let show. The windows were blacked out, the curtains scorched. The floor smelled like dust and sweat and something deeper — something scorched from within.
Aria writhed under the blanket, caught in the teeth of fever.
Her body trembled, heat radiating off her in pulses that made the air warp. Her breath came too fast. Her skin gleamed with sweat, flushed red beneath, like something alive had burrowed under her flesh and was trying to claw its way free. Her hair was soaked, curling against her neck and shoulders in fever - wet spirals.
Selene had seen sickness before. She'd seen bodies unravel, minds fracture. But this wasn't just sickness. This was transformation, brutal and raw.
Aria cried out suddenly — sharp, pained, helpless.
Selene inhaled sharply through her nose. She didn't move at first. Couldn't. She told herself it was caution, but it wasn't. It was fear. Not of Aria, but of what she was becoming. Of what Selene might feel if she got too close.
Then a whisper came, hoarse and barely there.
"Don't leave…"
Selene's eyes widened. The words weren't loud, but they pierced through the silence like a thread pulled tight. Something inside her chest cracked open just a little — something she thought had been buried under frost long ago.
She stepped forward, slow and silent.
The heat coming off Aria was unnatural. It shimmered in the air, a visible haze of gold and red, bending the light like a mirage. Selene hesitated, her hand hovering above Aria's chest. She could feel it now — the magic. Not stored or summoned, but pouring out, uncontained. Not a gift. Not anymore. A storm.
Still, she reached out.
The moment her fingers touched Aria's skin, the world tilted.
Fire met frost.
The backlash surged up Selene's arm, searing through muscle and bone like molten glass. Her breath caught in her throat, but she didn't pull away. Instead, she lowered herself to her knees beside the mattress, her other arm sliding beneath Aria's shoulders.
Aria gasped, her body arching into the contact.
"Easy," Selene murmured. Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears — gentle, shaken. She hadn't used that tone in years.
Aria collapsed into her, arms trembling as they wrapped around Selene's waist. Her face pressed into the crook of Selene's neck, breath hot and uneven. It felt like being held by fire and grief and memory all at once.
"You're okay," Selene whispered, not sure if she believed it. "I've got you."
Her own skin screamed from the contact, but she didn't move. Instead, she held tighter.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, Aria's body began to still. Her breathing evened out by degrees, the frantic tension in her limbs softening into exhaustion.
Selene didn't realize she was rocking until she noticed her own arms swaying gently, as if trying to lull a sleeping storm.
"You smell like winter," Aria breathed, her voice so soft Selene barely caught it. "Like snow…before it falls."
The words hit her like a blade slipped between ribs. Selene blinked, stunned. No one had ever said something like that to her — something delicate, something…true.
She didn't know how to respond, so she didn't. She just pulled the blanket up around Aria's shoulders and shifted until the girl's head rested more fully against her collarbone.
"Stay," Aria whispered, her fingers curling into Selene's shirt like roots into soil.
Selene's heart beat once — too loud, too real.
She hadn't meant to stay this long. Hadn't meant to care.
She should've walked away hours ago, before the fever got worse, before the magic started whispering secrets to the air. But somehow, her body refused to let go.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said, the lie crumbling even as she spoke it.
Because the truth was scarier.
The truth was, she didn't want to go.
The fire in Aria had begun to ebb, retreating beneath her skin in slow pulses. Not gone. Not dead. Just…contained. For now. It clung to her like smoke, and Selene could feel it breathing in rhythm with her own frost.
"You've changed," she murmured, brushing a damp strand of hair off Aria's forehead. "You're not the girl from the library anymore."
"I don't want to be," Aria whispered. "That girl was scared all the time."
"She still is," Selene said gently. "She's just braver now."
They didn't speak for a while after that.
Selene shifted her weight, propping herself against the wall, letting Aria rest fully against her chest. Her arms stayed wrapped around her, steady and sure, like she was afraid the girl would dissolve if she let go.
Outside, another explosion cracked the air. Somewhere, a building collapsed, the tremor rattling the broken windowpanes.
Aria didn't stir.
For the first time in days, she was sleeping deeply, breathing steady. Her body had stopped glowing, but Selene could still feel the hum of power beneath her skin. It was quieter now, but not gone. Just…resting.
Selene's thoughts drifted as she held her. She remembered the first time she saw Aria — so small and angry, eyes too wide, voice trembling with defiance. She'd looked breakable then. Now, even as she slept, she radiated something else. Power. Fire. Will.
The fever had tried to burn her out. But she was still here.
And Selene, for reasons she didn't fully understand, was still here too.
"She's going to change everything," she whispered to no one. "Isn't she?"
The room gave no answer. Just the sound of Aria's breath and the distant heartbeat of a dying city.
Selene rested her chin lightly against Aria's head. She didn't sleep, but she allowed herself to soften.
For this moment — this fragile, fevered bloom — she allowed herself to believe in something else.
Not survival. Not war. Not endings.
But a maybe.
A flicker.
Something not quite hope, but close enough to hurt.
She didn't know what tomorrow would bring. She didn't know if the world outside would survive the week.
But she knew this:
If Aria burned again, Selene would be there.
Not to extinguish her.
But to stand in the fire with her.
Because some things — some people — weren't meant to be saved.
They were meant to be chosen.
And Selene, despite everything, was choosing her.