KING OF STARS AND SMOKE
Aislinn started forward, her grace unmatched, each trained muscle rolling and sliding over her bones with ease. She was exquisite to watch, and filled him with an unnameable pride — to serve her as King, to work alongside her.. to be her friend, her brother. Maybe, once, they could have been something... and yet when he stared down that road now, he could see that it would have ended in turmoil. She was his match, with a temper to compete against his own — they would have turned the world to rubble.
He followed her quickly, pressing to her side as his belly flickered with nerves. Though he'd never been any good at hiding his emotions, he tamped down on the butterflies striking his ribs, trying to dull their effect as Aislinn vanished into the throng of bodies. Rahilah were stopping and turning their cool gazes upon him... a man, in their midst. Not just a man, but a King. Who knew what they held within them when they looked at him — interest, contempt, curiousity? They stared at Aislinn with equal intensity, though their eyes sparkled like stars when they looked at her. Reichenbach cast his eyes forward, holding onto the flash of silver hair like a lifeline.
He heard the whispers, but did not recognise them for what they were — until his Regent paused, her ice-blue eyes falling upon his softly singing coins. Reichenbach slowed and stopped, watching her with a furrowed brow as the light slipped off his inky curls.
"Reich.. your coins."
The way they were watching him — like they knew something he didn't. Almost like they knew him.
"I think you're Rahilah."
He half smiled, a breath huffing out of his black lips before he frowned again, trying to match pieces of an unknown story. He shook his head, feeling the sway of his midnight hair and the eyes of the tribe all over him —
"That can't be... I was born far from Novus."
Yet he could not help the faint blooming of hope within his vast heart. This... knowing that he had a history, a bloodline, a whole tribe.. it could change the very essence of who he was and who he had become. It could remake him, if he so chose. Reichenbach stared unblinkingly into the eyes of their Maiden, his Regent, and murmured, almost to himself:
"It cannot be... can it?"
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