[Judged] I think my fate is losing its patience;

[Bexley]

BEXLEY BRIAR

but if i gave up on being pretty,
I wouldn’t know how to be alive

Using her magic makes Bexley feel more powerful than anything else. As a child she had been barren—surrounded by people stronger than her, older than her, more blessed than her. It stung. A golden child who couldn’t spin real gold was useless as the rest of the plebeians. For all her parent’s doting affection, she could never quite escape the nagging thought that she would never be what they wanted her to be; everyone around her had been born special, and she had spent years of her life scrambling to catch up. Only after her arrival in Novus had she gotten a taste of what the rest of them had been entrusted with as children. But the thing—when it did finally come—hadn’t come without its own cost. (Her mouth tastes awfully bitter when she thinks about that day on the mountain, how the god who blessed her had taken it away without a blink, without a modicum of effort. That was the only time the gift had made her feel powerless rather than powerful. Like mortality—you’re only reminded of your weakness when it’s coming for your throat.)

Which is what Seraphina seems to be doing right now.

Dirt ruptures like a wave from underneath the girl-queen’s feet, though they still haven’t quite touched the ground. And then the wave is moving toward her, faster and faster, and the space between them is closing: too smoothly, like Seraphina is a doll, or a joke, or a dream. It’s the way her legs don’t churn and her feet don’t hit the ground, the way she moves without actually moving. It’s unnerving. Bexley’s heartbeat spikes; electricity threads into her chest; stricken with nerves, stumbling for grace, she pitches backwards with so many quick steps, and though it’s not at all impressive, it does pull her away from Seraphina’s grasp. By the time those teeth snap closed, the only thing they’re able to seize are the very last, finest strands of Bexley’s hair, which she disconnects from her neck with a sharp tug of her head and no more than the littlest pinpricks of pain.

Her body is cold and sore now that the adrenaline is wearing off, and her steps are awkwardly stiff as she pulls away. Whoosh—a residually painful exhale is forced from her lungs in one fell push, and then she can breathe again. The strain of lacking oxygen falls away. It’s like being reborn. Her pulse finally slows and her stride relaxes as she lopes toward the edge of the steppe. The air is bright-warm against her nostrils and lips. And oh, it feels good to be exhausted: it makes her think she might sleep well tonight, for the first time in eons. Pleasure rushes through her. Or perhaps it’s simple satisfaction. Neither are particularly recognizable to her anymore.

She cuts to a stop. They’re yards apart now, not particularly far from each other, but the adrenaline and the blood have both stopped flowing, and Bexley is no longer on alert. Seraphina must know it’s over. Now they are just women again—friends, maybe, and ready  to return to peace. Overhead the sun still shines its perfect white, and Solterra’s golden girl briefly closes her eyes and lets the rays sink into her skin like so many kisses.

Eventually she cracks one bright-blue eye open and smiles at Seraphina, sated, at least for the moment.

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