The door would open only if the desire was true, and only if it hurt. Lira was a diver. Her lungs were forged in the pressure depths below Aethelgard, where she harvested fallen star-shards from the mud. Her hands were scarred, her hair bleached white from the chemical fog. She had no business seeking out the Jewel House. But she had a name on her tongue like a splinter she couldn’t swallow.
In the floating city of Aethelgard, where the rich sailed on silks and the poor dived for scrap metal in the cloud-fog below, there was a legend whispered only in the amber-lit backrooms of brothels and gambling dens: the Jewel House of Lust. jewel house of lust
Lira had spent three years diving deeper than anyone, selling shards to afford a single ticket to the upper city. Not to find him. Just to stand where he had stood. Pathetic. Pure. And utterly hungry. The door would open only if the desire
Kaelen.
Lira stood for a long time. She thought of Kaelen’s real smile—slightly crooked, slightly bored. The way he’d said tougher than most men without ever asking her name. He wasn’t a lover. He wasn’t even a friend. He was a hinge on which she’d hung three years of loneliness. Her hands were scarred, her hair bleached white
She placed it on the pedestal.
In the gem, she was dancing with Kaelen at a masquerade ball. Her scars were gone. Her hair was long and dark. He was whispering something in her ear, and she was laughing—a laugh she had never laughed, light and free. The scene shifted: they were kissing in a rain of rose petals. Then tangled in white sheets. Then arguing in a garden, her voice sharp with love. Then him leaving, her crying, him coming back.