Mon 22nd Jun 2026 11:11
Storms and Shadows
She summoned the storm to them that night.
Rain battered against the stern windows of Aria's private chambers while the sea rolled beneath the hull in long, restless swells. Lanternlight flickered across polished wood and silver fixtures, casting long shadows through the cabin. Ordinarily, the room was a sanctuary. A place where she could set aside the mantle of Winter's Speaker and simply exist beside the man she loved.
Tonight, it felt like a tomb.
For hours, she had tried to occupy herself. Reports sat untouched upon her desk. A book lay open where she had abandoned it after reading the same page repeatedly without absorbing a single word. Every effort to distract herself ended the same way.
Her thoughts returned to Daereth. To the impossible moment when he had vanished.
One heartbeat he had been there.
The next, he had not.
The memory replayed endlessly behind her eyes. She could still see him amidst the chaos of battle. Still see her stormlight dancing across his armor. Still hear Torrent's cry overhead as the raven circled through shadow and lightning.
Then nothing...
No warning. No scream. No sign. Nothing but absence.
The uncertainty was the cruelest part. Aria's breath caught sharply. The thought finally slipped past the walls she had spent hours desperately holding together.
What if he's gone? Not missing. Not lost.
Gone.
The word struck her with such force that something inside her shattered.
A crystal goblet flew from her hand before she consciously realized she had thrown it. It struck the far wall and exploded into glittering fragments. Another followed moments later, hurled from the desk in a surge of fury she could no longer contain. Glass rained across the floor.
The sound echoed through the cabin. Years of discipline collapsed beneath a tidal wave of grief.
"Damn it!" she cried, her voice breaking.
The words dissolved into something raw and wounded. For a moment, she simply stood there trembling, surrounded by broken crystal and scattered papers, her chest heaving with ragged breaths. The storm outside answered with a distant rumble of thunder.
Then the anger failed her. All at once, the strength left her legs. She collapsed to her knees amidst the wreckage. Tears fell immediately.
Not the quiet, dignified tears of a ruler mourning in private. These were the tears of a woman whose heart had been torn open without warning. Her hands pressed against the floor as sobs wracked her body, each breath feeling as though it carried shards of ice through her lungs.
She could not remember the last time she had cried like this. Perhaps never.
Because never before had she loved someone as deeply as she loved Daereth. The realization only made the pain worse.
She buried her face in her hands as grief consumed her.
"Please..." she whispered into the silence." The word escaped before she realized she had spoken it.
"Please be alive. Please come back. Please."
No answer came. Only the sound of rain against glass.
Eventually, the storm within her began to exhaust itself. The sobs became quieter. The tears slower. Yet the ache remained, lodged deep within her chest where no amount of composure could reach it.
When she finally lifted her head, her eyes drifted instinctively toward the windows overlooking the sea.
The darkness beyond seemed endless. Yet there was still one small thread she refused to surrender.
Torrent.
The raven would return. He always returned. No matter how far he wandered or how long he disappeared into the wilderness, he always found his way back to her by morning. It was such a simple certainty that she had never truly appreciated it until now.
Tomorrow, he would land upon the rail outside her chambers. Tomorrow she would hear the familiar beat of black wings. Tomorrow she would know something.
And if Torrent returned...
Perhaps Daereth would as well. The thought was fragile. Painfully fragile.
Yet Aria clung to it with everything she had left.
Slowly, she rose from the floor and crossed to the windows. Her reflection stared back at her in the glass, stormy eyes red from tears, silver hair slightly disheveled, the carefully maintained composure of Winter's Speaker nowhere to be found.
She rested her forehead against the cool glass and watched lightning flicker along the horizon. The anger had not vanished. It lingered beneath the grief now, colder and sharper than before.
If the dawn arrived without answers, if the days stretched into weeks and Daereth remained beyond her reach, then that anger would grow.
Whoever had taken him would learn what it meant to steal the heart of Winter.
But that reckoning belonged to another day.
Tonight, she was simply a woman standing alone aboard a ship, listening to the storm and praying for the return of two souls she loved.
And somewhere deep within her heart, she still believed that when morning came, she would hear the familiar cry of a raven outside her window.
She needed to believe it.
Because without that hope, the darkness waiting beyond it was far more frightening than the storm.
Continue reading...
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My Shield and Shadow
Winter Solstice Ball
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Storms and Shadows
Winter Solstice Ball
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by 3 Armored Kittens · Prodromos v.1.1 - World Anvil 0.9.15.050 © 2017-2025 [en] | Anvil Time: 12:53, Jul 25 2026