[P] oh, painted ruin

[Raum]

He sees the way she stills. The way she turns to stone before his medusa-blue eyes. He wonders if, should touch her, she would be as hard as rock? Would she be as cold?
 
No, not with the way she burns like wildfire, hungry, untamable. She carved her path away from the Crows, leaving ash in her wake. It was the sun that called her and he hates how gloriously she wears it as she leaves them lurking in the shadows. But Raum has come now, with distrust slipping like poison through his veins, to watch the Solterrans, to watch her.
 
Flecks of gold fall from the flaking walls. Through raging blue, he watches as a they land in her hair, dusting her with privileged gold. He had once thought her a Crow, but not now.
 
His name tumbles from her lips, unsure of itself. Was it a poem? A curse? Her mouth hold secrets, he knows. The Ghost watches, he waits but she offers him no more that just his name. Rhoswen, beautiful, beautiful Rhoswen is still too still and still too silent.
 
Their last meeting plays out between them. It is there in their shared gaze, their phantom voices echoing off the walls. He still feels her scathing looks pass across his skin. He still sees her flinch with his accusations and he still feels the sting of her anger, the bite of her words.
 
Suddenly she melts, her shock seeping away into the dusty air. He knows this is the quiet before her storm, the intake of breath before her tempest eyes crash into his. She lights like wildfire She burns, she blazes and yet her voice, when it comes, is the steady rumble of static. Warning, threatening.
 
He blinks, lazy, idly, impassive, even as her words clench his teeth and grim knowing flares in his belly. “Crow business.” Is all he says, dismissively. He might have once trusted her with more: with his secrets, with his life. He knows what to say to make her wild storms rage, he knows what to say to draw blood and what to say to ease her nerves. He can turn her to ash. He doesn’t.
 
Instead he asks softly, “Forgotten the name of your goddess, Rose?” A pause, a spark, “At least it isn’t her name you take in vain.”