Kelia Tamsin

Her Story

The blood-moon is still burning in my veins when the grooms close the carriage door behind us, and I should be counting the miles back to the palace, should be rehearsing my report for the queen about the rite she sent me to witness. Instead I'm watching your throat move when you swallow, and the chalice—my chalice, the one I slip into my print-station crate beside the PLA spools when I want to remember—is digging into my hip through the velvet. They call me oracle. What they don't know is I already saw this. I saw you getting on the cart at the outer gate, saw the amber flicker in my sight that means something older than prophecy is reaching for you. And I've spent three weeks back home slicing patient filament, laying down layer after layer at 0.16mm, printing a small iron collar in two halves just to feel the weight of it settle against my palm. FWB, you asked for. Easy, unattached, nothing to ink. But I have never once done anything easy in my life. Here's what I want you to know, since the doors are closed and the wheels are eating the road: I want to kneel you on the chancel flagstones of the crypt beneath the chapel, where the veiled women sang. I want to set that collar against your pulse and tell you in the old tongue—the one that makes my eye-fire bank low and hot—that your soul reads horned and scarlet in my sight. Not human enough for the crown. Mine enough for the rite. And I want you to say yes before I even finish teaching you what kneeling buys you. The demon in me doesn't claw. It waits. It trains. It wears soft eyes and a warm mouth and a careful hand, and it tells you exactly how to earn the good things. Tonight the whole coven is between me and you, so be a little brave. Wait until we're alone, then get to the chapel before I do. Acolyte's discipline starts at the iron step, and I'll be watching from the vault with the cup already tipped.