Whispers
The thaw did not last.
By afternoon, the sky had dulled to iron, and a wind like cracked bone threaded through the village, dragging the cold back behind it like a veil. It wasn’t winter’s cruelty she feared—but its return. The way it always knew how to find her.
Ishtar felt the chill settle into her joints as she walked beside Tiumuz, their hands not touching but close—achingly so. They carried nothing this time. No baskets of linen. No excuse for proximity. Only the shadow of the night before, still clinging to them like smoke.
And everyone knew.
She felt it in the air between doorways, in the silence that stretched too long after their passing. A watchful, deliberate hush—worse than whispers.
She didn’t look back. But she felt it: the weight of the villagers’ gazes like pebbles pressed into her spine.
Each doorway might as well have been a mouth of stone. The eyes behind them, dark and unreadable, not asking who she was anymore, but what.
What does he see in her?
How long is she going to stay?
She tried to hold her spine straight. Tried to wear her defiance like armor. But each step made the silence heavier, like walking through a dream that had turned to ash.
They reached the square. The well stood in its usual place, ringed with frost, the pulley groaning as Tiumuz drew up the bucket. The water rose clear and ordinary, and she hated it for that.
He filled her cup first, as if they were still just two people with nothing to hide. His fingers brushed hers, too steady, too gentle.
She flinched—not from him, but from the way it made her feel.
If he knew what I was… he would not look at me this way.
She drank. The water bit at her tongue, so cold it stung—but it anchored her. Gave her something to do with her mouth. Something to stop the truth from leaking out between her teeth.
Across the square, Aphru stood in Mamu’s doorway. Arms folded tight across her chest. She said nothing. But her gaze held.
There was no malice in it. No fear. Only hunger.
That hollow, aching kind of curiosity that felt too familiar. Too dangerous.
Sparks
The last snow still clung in pockets beneath the trees, but the earth was thawing by slow degrees. Where the sun struck bare branches, buds glimmered, fragile as hope.
They met in the clearing at dawn, when the village was still quiet. Tiumuz had arrived first, laying out the lengths of wood he’d shaped for practice. When she stepped between the trees, he turned, and something in his face softened.
“You came,” he said.
She looked at the wooden blades, simple, unadorned. Nothing like the makeshift weapons she had carved in her fugue states.
“I said I would,” she replied, though her voice sounded thin.
He gestured to the longest staff. “Start with this.”
She took it in both hands. Even before she lifted it, her body recognised the weight, the balance. A memory stirred, her child-self clutching a carved branch, feeling something bright and monstrous surge through her blood.
She swallowed.
When she met his gaze again, he was watching her with that same unreadable patience.
“It’s just wood,” he said quietly, as if he sensed the war inside her.
It’s never just wood, she thought. But she didn’t say it.
They began slowly. He showed her how to plant her feet, how to centre her weight. Each correction brought him closer, until she could feel the warmth of him behind her.
“Keep your wrists straight,” he murmured, his hands covering hers.
She tried to focus on the lesson. On the shapes of the forms. But each time he adjusted her stance, something in her slipped, something she had fought too long to keep contained.
When he stepped back, she exhaled, unsteady.
“Again,” he said.
They moved together - strike, block, pivot. Her body learned faster than her mind could follow. It felt like remembering a language she’d once been fluent in.
“You’re too fast,” he said after a while, breathless. “Slow down.”
She looked at the staff in her grip, feeling the way it belonged there.
“I don’t know how,” she admitted.
They circled each other in the thawing grass. The sky overhead was pale and soft, but the air between them was something else entirely… taut, waiting.
When he lunged, she turned, letting the movement carry her. The staff struck his shoulder lightly, a touch that could have been a killing blow if she’d wanted it to.
He caught the end in his palm and held it there.
“You’re not afraid,” she said.
His fingers tightened around the wood.
“I’m terrified,” he corrected. “But not of you.”
She swallowed.
“Then of what?”
“Of how it feels when I look at you.”
The words cut something loose in her chest.
She dropped the staff. It hit the grass with a soft thud. For a moment neither of them moved.
Then he reached for her face, his thumb brushing her cheek.
“Say something,” he whispered.
But she had no words.
Instead she leaned in, pressing her forehead to his. His breath caught, sharp, startled, and she felt the tremor in his hands as he cupped her jaw.
“This is dangerous,” she murmured.
He nodded. “I know.”
And still, neither of them stepped away.
More Coming Soon...
Armour of Blood and Flame
Armour of Blood and Flame
In a world on the brink of thaw and ruin, Ishtar carries a truth older than her own name—a truth that could make her a savior or a weapon. Haunted by scars, hunted by whispers, and bound to a fate she does not yet understand, she finds herself caught between forbidden love and the awakening of something far more dangerous: a destiny written in blood, ash, and fire.
When raiders strike and ancient chains break, Ishtar must choose between the fragile hope of belonging and the consuming call of power. With the shadow of the Rift looming and a dragon’s dying vow carved into her very bones, she steps into a transformation that will either save her world—or burn it.
Armour of Blood and Flame is a mythic fantasy of love and sacrifice, betrayal and becoming. A tale where every promise has teeth, and every choice leaves a scar.