Chapter Text
A knight—a paragon of virtue and of loyalty; a protector of her kingdom. The steel of the swordblade on Nocturne's shoulder ties her to the gloved hand around its hilt like the band of a ring. Down on her knee, a knight vows her life to her liege like marriage eternal, ‘til death do us part.
With her head bowed, she dares to peer up toward the woman at the other end of the sword. Even with the curtains drawn over the cloudy evening light, her liege is dazzling. Twin locks of silver hair fall like water down the slope of her chest, the rest tied up in braids fixed to the crown of her head. Her skin is clear, unblemished by the sun, unscarred by imperfections, with a pair of large pouty lips frowning above her chin. She does not catch Nocturne peeking, her gaze focused elsewhere in the room, a scowl furrowing her brow.
“There,” she says, lifting the sword from Nocturne's shoulder, its absence like air stolen from her lungs. “Are we done?”
“Oh, Shadowheart,” a sharp voice huffs from behind Nocturne. Nasally, belonging to Shadowheart's mother Viconia, who paces into Nocturne's peripheral. Her dark gown blends her in with the shadows. “Impatience is unbecoming of a princess.”
The woman, her liege, the princess Shadowheart, rolls her eyes, exposing her youth to those gathered in the room—her own bedchambers, as it were. Despite her status, the ceremony is humble at best—even the pillow upon which Nocturne kneels was plucked from the bed, dressed in the same floral fabric as the sheets—and witnessed only by the Queen herself and another knight, one always seen at the Queen's side. Nocturne can feel Lamona's harsh glare slicing into the nape of her neck without even looking at the elf.
“Whatever,” Shadowheart mutters under her breath. Her eyes scrape over the faces around the room before she rolls them once again with a flutter of her lashes. Without another word, she swivels on her heels and flounces out the door onto her balcony.
Left by herself at the altar, Nocturne rises to her feet as her elation droops below the floor. She looks to the Queen, who sighs exasperatedly after the princess. Viconia turns her visage toward Nocturne, her cheekbones and jawline defined with harsh edges as though whittled from wood, and flicks her wrist as she urges her to follow her wayward daughter. Nocturne trails after the princess, mindful to close the door behind herself to grant them some semblance of privacy.
The breeze outside is gentle on her face, carrying little with it at this height. No pollen nor the aromas of the dinner she knows is being cooked down below in the kitchens reach them way up in the castle's highest tower. As her attention is drawn over the edge, she is astounded by the view, having a glorious vantage of the rest of the grounds, of the nearby villages peppered among the forest, of the mountains rising in the distance and the entire world beyond. Everything is like a painting from here, bathed in the orange glow of sunset, an untouchable beauty that never dulls no matter how many times she sees it. All of it belongs to Shar's kingdom, from the rolling westward hills to the looming eastward mountainscape, the latter of which serving as a barrier between itself and its sister kingdom made in Selûne's name. Like sisters, the kingdoms of Shar and Selûne are quarrelsome both at best and at worst, with whatever peace there is between them always teetering on the edge of a conflict that is yet to come.
Nocturne finds Shadowheart leaning on the railing, slumped over it on her elbows. The fit and fabric of the gown draping her figure suggest a maturity that isn't reflected in her posture, like a doll dressed in clothes made for a living person. Beside her, the sword she had wielded rests standing upright, its pointed end anchored between the stone tiles of the flooring. Nocturne collects the weapon, brushes the dirt from the blade with the flat of her gauntlet, and sheathes it in her scabbard. She joins Shadowheart's side, measuring out a suitable distance between the princess and where she comes to rest her feet.
In an instant, Shadowheart whirls on her, leveling her with a cold stare and an upturned chin. “Must you follow me around like a child? I do not need another of Mother's pests to buzz about my ears.”
The lash of her tongue stings Nocturne's cheek like the ache of an old wound. She sways, her grip tight around the balustrade. “I am not in service of Her Majesty the Queen,” she says, finding her voice. “I am to follow your word above all else. Such is my oath as your knight.”
Shadowheart pauses, an arch to her brow. “Truly? You would do as I ask regardless of what Mother says?” There is a glimmer behind her green eyes like light through summer leaves.
Nocturne holds Shadowheart's gaze—how easy it is to get lost in her eyes. “Of course. However Your Royal Highness commands me…”
A smile splits across her face. The words she speaks are not nearly as sweet. “Then leave me alone. That is an order. I do not want to see you unless I have you summoned. Understand?”
“But–”
“But?”
Nocturne tilts her head into a bow. “My apologies for speaking against you, Ma'am. It is just… My duty is to protect you. I cannot protect you from afar.”
“Protect me?” Shadowheart laughs, the sound like a clap cutting the air. “Pray tell, from what, Ser Dame? Are you afraid I might fall? That my pillows might try to suffocate me while I sleep? You won't fool me. You mean to protect me from myself—make sure I don't run off.”
“I have no intention of doing such,” Nocturne insists with a bite. “I know that you are perfectly capable of leaving from this height without harm. But if I am standing outside your door, perhaps that will put Her Majesty at ease as to your whereabouts, wherever those may be.”
“How did you–” Shadowheart cuts herself off. She scrutinizes Nocturne's face, her own reddening and her eyes flickering to and fro as she searches for something. Her mouth curves into a poorly contained smirk. “You're a bit devious for a knight, aren't you?”
“A most suitable knight for Her Royal Highness the princess, I would say.” Nocturne smiles in return, her fangs poking through where they cling to her lower lip.
“Remind me, what is your name?”
“Nocturne… Ma'am.”
“Alright, Nocturne,” Shadowheart enunciates her name, testing how the syllables feel on her tongue, rolling it over like tying a cherry stem into a knot. “You may stand guard at my door tonight, if you wish. But enough of this ‘Your Royal Highness’ nonsense. It makes me feel all puffed up.”
“Shall I call you Lady Shadowheart, then?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, you shall.” Shadowheart blinks at her, the suggestion stolen from her lips.
A pleasant silence settles around them as they idle on the balcony, the light seeping from the sky until Shadowheart finally decides to head back inside, Nocturne following behind. The Queen and Lamona are nowhere to be seen, having left the room some time ago. Shadowheart leads her to the door into the stairwell, holding it open for her as she passes through.
Green eyes look at her before lowering to the floor. “Goodnight, Ser Nocturne.”
The wood door creaks and clatters to a close. Nocturne whispers her own goodnight to the air before finding her position along the wall, digging her feet into their usual spot. It's her first time standing here as a knight. Shadowheart's knight… Her insides twist in on themselves, a sensation like squeezing bits of broken glass in her palm. It's everything she's ever wanted, and yet…
The rustling from within the room settles. Nocturne waits for the waning of the hour, for the light coming in from the outside to darken and gray. When it finally does, she steals away into the princess’ chambers, finding the room empty, the balcony door ajar, its curtains left dancing in the breeze. A cage without its bird.
She touches the sheets, rumpled from the minutes their resident nestled upon them, trailing her fingers across the fabric. Still warm. Her body grows heavy, and she falls to her knees for the second time this day, burying her face into the linen, smelling a scent she knows well, breathing it in feverishly as though it were her first breath of fresh air in her lifetime.
Her hands curl into fists, bunching up the sheets. “I'm sorry,” she murmurs, blinking wetness from her eyes. “Shadowheart… Oh, I'm sorry…”
- ○ -
Dawn breaks like a clean cut. Nocturne, who had drifted in and out of sleep atop the princess’ bed, remerges from the room as the first rays of daylight stream into the castle, her neck stiff and the lingering drowsiness weighing heavy on her eyes. Her only relief is that she had not been caught in her rather compromising position—not by the princess and not by the servant bringing up breakfast, the latter of whom she passes on the stairs as she heads down.
A young wood elf rises into view carrying a tray stacked high with food, one she balances precariously against her hip as she pauses on the stairs. “Good morning, Nocturne,” the girl greets cheerily. Her face is long and angular, much like a triangle with how hollow her cheeks are. When she smiles, her prominent upper teeth show through even with her mouth closed. “Ser Nocturne now, I s'pose.”
Nocturne nods in her direction. “Morning, Mirie.”
“Is Her Royal Highness in this morning?”
“She hasn't returned yet.”
“Aww.” She eyes the food she lugged up the stairs. “She might be back while it's still warm,” she reasons to herself.
Nocturne snags a loaf of jam-heavy bread from the platter as Mirie continues up, munching on it as she makes her own way down to the castle yard. At this time of year, she prefers to train in the morning when the air is cool, the summer heat yet to show its ugly face. She's still in yesterday's gambeson, and she feels no need to change out of it; she'd only dirty the fresh one anyway.
She starts with her stretches, always careful with her body, always particular with her form and technique. That's what she's best at; laying out her process, analyzing the theoretical. She knows where to pierce a blade through armor; she knows the arc an arrow will need to fly over a wall to hit a target on the other side. She has it all mapped out in her mind, the mathematics down to the nearest decimal. But her body lags behind, her arms too slow, her legs too clumsy. She's never been the strongest fighter, the keenest archer, the fastest rider.
The bailey is sparse of other knights and squires, but not empty. Across the padded earth from her is Imwise, a human with an intimidating stature despite his heritage, now practicing sword techniques against a wooden dummy. She had dueled against him once during a Coming of the Lady celebration—a celebration of the new moon. He doesn't look her way a single time as she joins him in the yard, and she turns her eyes to her own routine.
Blue eyes, cold and triumphant before the battle has even begun. Eyes all around her, crawling up her spine like a shiver. Their chill pricks her skin more harshly than the dry winter air.
Nocturne takes her position in front of her dummy, sliding her boots across the dirt to ready her stance. She takes out her sword, the blade glinting silver-blue in the morning light. She flourishes it, smooth in the air, steady in her hand.
She can feel her knuckle-white grip on the hilt of her weapon. The steel trembles in her grasp, shaking despite how she wills it to still. Even the breath she releases quivers all the way out.
Shadows shift, and light touches the yard. She looks to the sky, the white gleam of the sun stretching past the peak of the princess’ tower overhead. Ever watching.
A flash of white in a dull crowd—a girl dressed in it from head to toe, like a young bride. Every inch of her skin is covered. Gloved hands, long sleeves, floor-length skirt, and a veil atop her head shrouding her face.
Where others would thrust, Nocturne slices. While most would aim for the torso, the chest, the gut, she cuts across the throat, a flurry of straw flying out from the dummy. A victory is a victory, no matter how it is achieved.
Metal clangs against metal. She parries each blow, kept on the defensive, unable to strike with one of her own until—a deafening twang resounds throughout the arena. Her opponent's blade, snapped in twain, flies across the yard to lodge itself into the ground meters away.
She continues her routine. Even made of straw and yarn, she knows where the organs would be were it a person, piercing between ribs, slicing open its stomach, curving a dagger around behind to sever its spine.
The point of her sword comes to a stop against his chest, unimpeded. Her triumph is met with near silence; the girl in white is the only one who claps. She looks at her, at the girl who should be unseen and unheard, and sees her. She looks at her, and she hears her.
She's never been able to look away. As the sun continues its climb, beating down on her, she sheathes her blade and wipes the sweat from her brow. At that time, she hadn't been meant to win. As far as most were concerned, she hadn't won. The rust lining the edge where the blade had snapped was clearly eaten away by a corrosive, like footprints left at the site of a murder.
It doesn't matter that no evidence against her could be found—and it doesn't matter what people think. Years she has trained to be where she is. Years of being doubted, of low expectations pushed onto her by others. Years of clawing through anything and anyone she could until she made it to the top, the undersides of her nails forever stained red. And now that she's here, she will fight until her last breath to stay where she is.
At Shadowheart's side.
Notes:
I was considering updating twice a week? I've never had a multichapter fic completed before posting until this one, but I thought that seemed reasonable. Let me know what you think! Chapter length is typically between 2k-4k.
Chapter 2
Notes:
Good morning! 🥱 I'm deciding to update this 3 days a week (mon, wed, fri) so it can all be posted before the end of the year!
I really wanted to write a longfic for my girls. (Longfic for me is still relatively short compared to what's out there, but it's a longfic nonetheless!)
I also was inspired to write this because I was thinking about how Nocturne stays with Shar and finds a new cloister if the one in Baldur's Gate is destroyed, despite having ample opportunity to leave with Shadowheart (I do know that leaving cults is more complicated than 'just leave' but I hope ykwim). I wouldn't say this Nocturne is 1-to-1 with canon Nocturne (for reasons that will become apparent lol) but this detail was still on my mind as I was writing her.
Chapter Text
The princess crawls back into her tower as the heat reaches its peak. Nocturne can hear her through the door, the rattling of furniture accompanied by Shadowheart's yelp as she collides with something in her room. She stifles a laugh, recalling an image of the princess tangled with her curtains, so twisted that she needed to be spun out of them by hand. After composing herself, Nocturne peeks inside.
Shadowheart is on the floor clutching her ankle, her pale skin flushed and reddening further upon her knight's entrance. She winces as she tries to stand, and Nocturne swoops in, kneeling before her, stilling her movements with a press of her palm. But the touch startles Shadowheart, and so Nocturne pulls away. Wordlessly, she offers her arm for the princess to hold onto instead. After a lengthy moment of hesitance and a bashful aversion of her eyes, Shadowheart accepts, allowing herself to be guided up from the floor and onto the nearby couch.
The princess’ injury looks worse than it is, the fresh bruise a dark blossom on her light complexion. “Shall I call for a nurse?” Nocturne asks.
“No,” Shadowheart says quickly. “I can—I can handle it myself.” She brings her hand back to her ankle, cupping it around the bruise. A pearly glow of light weaves out from her fingertips, and before their eyes, the purple coloring her skin shrinks away until it disappears entirely as though sucked into the light. Her hand strays, now fiddling with a strand of hair that had loosened from her braid. “Keep this just between us. I'm not supposed to do magic in front of others.”
“Of course.” There's a needling at the back of Nocturne's mind, and she adds, “As your knight, I am an extension of you. I would not share your secrets even if you had not commanded it.”
Shadowheart looks at her with narrowed eyes and a tight lip. “Good to know.”
Her gifts are hardly a secret, the royal family being descended from Shar, carrying the blessing of Her magic on through their bloodline. It would be more of a scandal if she didn't possess any magical capabilities at all. Nevertheless, Viconia forbids Shadowheart from practicing her gifts where others might see.
With the drama of her injury passed, the princess picks up a hand fan to cool herself where she lounges on the couch. Nocturne lingers in the room, looking anywhere but at Shadowheart yet always keeping her in the corner of her eye. She should return to her post outside the door, but her legs are like stone, planted where they are.
“You're not going to ask where I was today?” Shadowheart asks, snipping apart Nocturne's thread of thought. Her own gaze rests on the curtains stagnating in the windless afternoon.
“It would be uncouth of me to pry.”
“Uncouth.” Shadowheart laughs venomously. “You sound like Mother. If you are to be a part of me…” She pauses, flitting her eyes toward Nocturne. “That is what you said, yes? That you are an ‘extension’ of myself? Well, if that is to be so, then please, be as couthless as you wish.”
“As you command, my lady.” Nocturne bites back a smile. “The reason I had not asked where you were is because I knew you would tell me regardless.”
Shadowheart's face turns pink from her neck to her cheeks and the tips of her ears. “And what if I say that you have misjudged me?” Her voice is cold and collected, her expression uncracked, unaware that her flush has already given her away.
Nocturne gestures toward Shadowheart with an open palm. “Then you are free to prove me wrong.”
They reach an impasse, Shadowheart maintaining her façade of nonchalance while Nocturne waits. And waits. Until the princess finally gives in with a groan.
“Fine. I did want to tell you. You're a tricky one, you know that?”
“I do.”
That earns her a laugh. “I have this… spot that I go to. On the castle grounds.” She looks out to her balcony. “Somewhere I can be closer to the world. Alone but… on my own terms. That's where I was today—where I go, most days that I can.”
“Does no one else ever go there?” Nocturne asks.
“Not that I…” Her gaze grows distant, focusing on something unseen. “No, not that I… that I recall.”
The first breeze of the day blows in from the balcony, tugging at the princess’ already loosened hair. Nocturne's hand twitches, imagining tucking it behind her ear. “It sounds like a lovely place. I might like to see it some time.”
Shadowheart's eyes sparkle at the suggestion, giving her a crooked smile. “I might like to show you,” she says. “Some time.”
- ○ -
“A miscreant like you will never be a knight.” Lamona's captious stare holds the same silver sheen as the armor she wears. Each half of Imwise's broken sword rests in her hands. “You embarrass Her Majesty with your dishonorable behavior.”
Even with the spectators gone, all eyes are on Nocturne where she stands in the arena, her peers—squires, pages, and all—gathered to see her admonishment. “You don’t know who did it. No one does,” Nocturne insists, a shrill invading her voice against her will. “And I said it wasn't me.”
“Do not take me for a fool. Who else would vandalize your opponent's weapon before your duel?” Lamona thrusts the blade toward her, the jagged, corroded edge veering close to her face. “I know it was you. It is always you.”
The crowd snickers. It is not shame that licks at her heels but something that burns hotter, reeks fouler. She drags her gaze over her peers, finding no sign of camaraderie in their eyes. So be it. She needs nothing from them—from anyone. She leaves then, abandoning her lesson, much to Lamona's vocal disapproval.
She has a place she goes to be alone. Somewhere she can focus. She cuts through a courtyard crusted with frost until she comes upon the particular spot in the wall of shrubbery where it is thin near the bottom. She crouches and pushes her way through the leaves and twigs to reach a small, grassy pocket encased by the shrub wall. Here is separate from the rest of the garden—and therefore, the rest of the castle. Surrounded as she is by everyone and everything she's come to know, still she can be alone in this slender slice of privacy she has carved out for herself.
Or so it should be. But another person, a girl around her age, sits at the center of the grass, her legs crossed and her mouth agape at Nocturne's entrance. Her white dress and gloves are muddied and torn. Nocturne recognizes her instantly, her image seared onto the back of her eyelids. The girl she saw in the stands. The girl who clapped when all else fell silent.
Her veil is gone, exposing rosy cheeks and eyes like the flora around them. She blinks up at Nocturne with the skittishness of an unsocialized animal, her white-gold lashes like flickering stars. “You're not going to bring me back, are you?”
Her words swirl about Nocturne's head before she comprehends them. Another misfit, then. “Not as long as you don't tell anyone you saw me here.”
The girl smiles. “Wouldn't dream of it.” She uncrosses her legs, stretching them out in front of herself. “You're the one from the duel, aren't you? I saw you fight. I was actually rooting for you, you know.”
She joins the girl on the grass, sitting on her shins. It's cold beneath her but not harshly so. “Thank you. I saw you in the crowd.”
The girl is ripping up strands of grass from the ground. She looks half-elven, but Nocturne cannot tell what kind. Her skin is so pale that she seems almost blue in the moonless dusk. That's when it dawns on her; the Queen's daughter is only part drow, isn't she?
“Forgive my asking, but are you… the princess?”
She giggles in a way that Nocturne finds rather princessly at the very least, her fingers curled around her mouth as though to hold onto the noise. “You mean you didn't know?”
Nocturne shakes her head.
“Oh, darnit. Did I miss my chance to say no?” She leans back with a sigh, tilting her head skyward. “But wouldn't that be something? To not be the princess for once. To be able to be anyone.”
Nocturne watches her, transfixed. She doesn't know what that's like—to be at the top of the world and want nothing more than to fall down. “You don't have to be the princess with me,” she suggests. Hastily, she adds, “If that's what you'd prefer.”
When she looks back to Nocturne, her eyes shine brighter than moonlight. “I would love that,” she says. “More than anything.”
Chapter 3
Notes:
And in come the Selûnites... This chapter is longer than the last few, but not too much still, sitting around 4k words.
Chapter Text
Half a tenday after Nocturne's knighting, emissaries arrive at the castle bearing the sigil of Selûne on bone-white cloaks. They come in peace, so they claim, yet Nocturne feels a knot forming just under the skin of her abdomen as she watches them. They are ushered inside one of the private cabinets in the castle proper, far away from her prying eyes. Barred from following them, she keeps an eye on who she can, nosing her way instead into Shadowheart's chambers.
The young princess is still inside, seated in front of a mirror as she busies herself with braiding her long hair like silver turned to silk. When loose, it reaches down to the small of her back. She greets Nocturne with a mumble, the remnants of her slumber not yet lifted from her body, her tired hands fumbling with her braids.
Nocturne can tell this is not her first attempt at doing her hair this morning. “Would you like some assistance?”
“No,” Shadowheart yawns, dragging out the syllable. “It's such a hassle fetching someone just for this.”
“And if I could assist?” she asks again. “Would that be permissible?"
Shadowheart catches her gaze in the mirror, blinking languidly at her knight. Then, trailing higher, she scrutinizes the simple bun Nocturne has tied her own hair up with. “Can you? Well… alright. Couldn't be any worse than what I've done.”
She unbraids her progress, smoothing her hair back with a brush as Nocturne takes her place behind the seated princess. The tiefling hesitates for only a moment before gathering together her lady's hair, enjoying the sensation of it slipping between her fingers. Shadowheart doesn't make the task easier for her by sitting up straight, instead slouching in her chair with her cheek pressed into her hand, pushing the plush of her face comically upward. Nocturne can feel her lady's eyes on her in the mirror, and she keeps her own face stoic, her hands steady as she splits the hair into thirds, folding each part over one another in a pattern she has performed many times.
“They haven't healed yet?” Shadowheart asks.
When Nocturne glances her way, she sees the princess circling her index finger at her in the reflection. “What hasn't healed?”
“Those marks on your face, like little crescent moons. I noticed them when I knighted you. They look…” She squints, scrutinizing. Her mouth curls up into a toothy smirk. “Are they from a woman's fingernails? Just how devious a knight are you?”
Nocturne sees them in the mirror, dark, pink lines on her skin once red and scabbing, now mostly cleared up. Still present enough for the princess to take note of them. “Nothing of the sort. I'm sure I got them during a rough bout of training.”
“You needn't hide the truth from me. I don't mind one way or another what you get up to.”
“I can assure you,” Nocturne insists, her knuckles going rigid, “they're from my training. Perhaps even my own nails—you know how tiefling's claws are.”
Shadowheart hums inquisitively before making a disappointed noise in the back of her throat. “Is that all? How boring.”
Nocturne swallows a breath, curling and uncurling her fist until the tension leaves her hand. She resumes her braiding. “Has anyone ever told you that you are quite the gossip?”
“No one's ever had the gall,” Shadowheart laughs. “It wouldn't be true anyways. I'm always the last one to know what goes on around here—and in the rest of the world, even. I only know what others tell me, which, as I'm sure you know, is very little.” Her face contorts in the mirror. “Like earlier, I tried asking the girl who brings me breakfast what the commotion was at the gates this morning, and she refused to say. Just that it was nothing I needed to worry about. Like I'm some child.”
Quiet settles around them like the dust floating in the light from the window. In many ways, the princess is a child. Not in the literal sense, being her age, freshly an adult as she is, though for a half-elf, she is still rather young—even more so from the elven Queen's perspective. But then there is her ignorance, equally as outside of her control as her age, that is shared by the world around her—the world that knows her half as well as she knows it. How safe she can be kept is a privilege few will ever know yet something she will never view as such. Perhaps the most childlike traits she possesses are those she has chosen for herself—her rebellious nature, her naivety, and, damningly, her curiosity.
“I'll tell you,” Nocturne offers. “Selûnites arrived today. A group of them.”
“An invasion?”
“They're here in peace. Supposedly.”
Shadowheart tilts her head, incidentally tugging Nocturne's progress with her. “What do they want?”
“I could not say,” she answers, regathering the hair. “I only know that they seek an audience with Her Majesty.”
“Could you find out for me?” Shadowheart turns around, grabbing onto Nocturne's wrist. Her earnest eyes are pointed up at her knight. “You could even tell me their names or the color of their hair, anything at all, and I would be pleased. Just find out something for me.”
Her skin burns where the princess touches her. “As you wish.”
“Wonderful.” Shadowheart laughs to herself, sitting sideways in her chair, hands returning to her own lap. “I've never had someone spying for me before. I could get used to this.”
Even with Shadowheart's flurry of movements, her silver hair stays in Nocturne's grasp, her own hands squeezing around the braids. That has done them no good; their knots have bunched, resting uneven on the princess’ back. “You know, I wasn't done yet,” Nocturne teases.
“Oh, I messed it up again, didn't I?” Another laugh. “You were doing so good, too. Surprisingly good.”
“Thank you. A… friend of mine taught me how.”
Shadowheart shoots her an amused look. “Is that what you knights do off the battlefield? Braid each other's hair?”
“Maybe it is. Now sit still for me please.”
- ○ -
The Castle of Sombre Embrace is a vast fortress defined by its steep outer walls and prominent spires that stretch high into the sky as though to catch the stars. As large as it is, the inside is ominously empty, its residents sparse, hidden away like one of the Queen's secrets. She keeps her dearest secret in plain sight, the darling princess confined to the highest tower in the center of the grounds.
The staircase leading away from the peak of Shadowheart's tower is a winding trek down to the earth like the spiral of a bird's descent. Nocturne has walked miles on this stairwell alone. It always feels longer going down than heading up. She enters the castle proper through a hidden passage that serves as the tower's only entrance, walking the labyrinthine hallways with ease, quickly finding the private meeting room holding the Selûnites and her Queen.
A knight stands guard outside the doors, one whose name she does not recall, barely regarding their face even now. They straighten their posture at the sight of her. Being in personal service to the princess, she holds some manner of authority over the other knights, even freshly knighted as she is. She takes advantage of this, relieving this one of their duty with a tilt of her head and a hand gesture. They obediently step away, disappearing around a bend of the hallway and leaving Nocturne utterly alone to do as she pleases.
She breathes in deep, out slow, grounding herself. She can hear the murmur of conversation through the door, but it's incoherent, like listening to gusts of wind through the walls. At one point, she catches what sounds like the cadence of Shadowheart's name, and she's on her knees in an instant, pressing her ear to the keyhole
“–hide your daughter from me.” The voice sounds seasoned—an older woman? She doesn't recognize it or the accent.
“Come now, Jaheira.” This one is the Queen, her tone moving through the air how a snake slithers. “It's nothing personal. You know us drow—sensitive to the sun. Shadowheart has always been more sensitive to it than I.”
“No doubt because you keep her away from it so!” There's an unexpected familiarity in the Selûnite’s voice, along with a sympathy that bristles its way up the back of Nocturne's neck. “Our kingdom lost a daughter, too. We understand. But Shadowheart is alive—she's not a fragile girl.”
Nocturne can sense Viconia's anger before she hears it. “Do not speak of her like you understand anything. Do not speak of me…”
The Queen lets out a sharp breath. For a moment, Nocturne hears nothing else come from the room.
A second Selûnite speaks up, “Please forgive our rudeness, Your Majesty. We did not come here to question your judgment.” The last words carry an edge that Nocturne suspects is pointed toward Jaheira. “All we ask is that you consider our offer, that we may finally put an end to these last few generations of tension.”
Nocturne vividly imagines the face Viconia is wearing. Her upturned chin, stern eyes, thin brows bowing toward her nose. “I will consider it. But I can promise no further than that.”
“Of course.” Jaheira again. “I'm sure Shadowheart's opinion needs to be heard before any decision is made.”
“Perhaps my cousin cares little for such etiquette,” Viconia says icily, “but when discussing me and my daughter, you will address us properly.”
“Oh, yes. I meant no disrespect.”
Fabric shifts. Wood creaks. The Queen has risen from her seat. “I am sure you are tired from your journey. Rest now. We can discuss this in the coming days.”
Nocturne stands to her feet with those in the room, moving aside to take her post just as the doors swing. Lamona steps into view, holding open the door from within as the Queen sweeps out from the cabinet.
“Ser Lamona, would you–” Viconia cuts herself off as her eyes land on Nocturne. She raises a hand, beckoning Nocturne closer with a curl of her fingers. “Or rather, you, girl—would you accompany my guests to their quarters? They will be staying in the bedchambers south of my own.”
Nocturne says nothing. She lowers her head in a bow. Viconia turns away, her dress and Lamona trailing behind her departing figure like a pair of shadows.
She gets her first good look at the Selûnites, who pay her little mind in return. Both half-elven. One of them, who she can easily identify as Jaheira, being the older of the two, regards the castle interior with hawk-like eyes. Her hair is styled in a fashion Nocturne would expect on a huntress as opposed to an ambassador, although the fine sword on her hip, scabbard boasting the emblem of Selûne, could belong to either. The other half-elf, while significantly younger, carries with her the kind of dignity reserved for nobles. Her face is powdered, her lips and cheeks dyed cherry red, likely with the juices of that very fruit. She moves through the halls unreserved and unimpressed, like she would expect no less than to reside within a castle.
To be staying in the bedchambers near the Queen's own… Nocturne wonders just how noble these guests are. The path to their quarters is long, made longer by Jaheira's persistent dawdling as she comments on the decor. She takes particular interest in the various paintings of the royal family lining the hall.
“Now why would she dress her up like this?” she asks, gesturing toward one depicting Shadowheart and the Queen.
Shadowheart is garbed in her typical attire. Monochromatic, the same dark fabric as her mother beside her. Fully covered, except her veil is drawn back for once, likely for the portrait. Nocturne doubts the artist was allowed to see the princess at all given the inaccuracies in her face. Her round nose has been painted sharp like Viconia's, and her eyes are entirely the wrong color—red when they should be green.
“She's made her daughter into a widow.” Jaheira clicks her tongue. “And do you know who I haven't seen?” she asks as they pass more portraits.
“Who?” her companion asks.
“Her husband. The late king consort. There used to be some with the two of them.”
A small room blanketed in cobwebs and dust. Frames leaning against each other, standing upright in the corner. The smell of musty stone and rotting wood.
The other Selûnite scrutinizes the portraits, as though trying to conjure the image of the late king consort from the faces in the oil. “Did you meet him when you accompanied Father here?”
“I…” Jaheira pauses, squinting. “I must have… but I don't remember him at all. Strange; I never forget a face.”
Her companion gives her a cheeky smile. “I suppose you are getting old.”
Jaheira laughs huffily. Then she sighs. “But it really is a shame. It's almost like Viconia doesn't want to remember him.”
Nocturne feels a weight like hands on her shoulders. “I would ask you not to speak ill of Her Majesty while she has so generously welcomed you into her home.”
They startle, eyes wide as they look at her. Then the younger Selûnite turns to Jaheira with a smile. “Even the squires are scolding you.”
“I am a knight.”
“I am just saying,” Jaheira insists to her companion, “the halls feel so empty without him. I would know. Imagine I did the same after Khalid passed.”
Nocturne falls into the background once again as the Selûnites chatter between themselves, their conversation grating against her ears. She guides them up into the living quarters that house the Queen and her closest servants. Even certain knights, such as Lamona, reside in these halls. Common sitting rooms interpose various bedchambers based on status, though with few Sharran royals and only one of them staying within these particular halls, the most refined chambers are eerily vacant.
“Is this the princess’ room?” the younger Selûnite asks, her step lingering by an open doorway to one of the unoccupied rooms. She pokes her head inside, freely examining the quarters.
“No,” Nocturne answers stiffly. “This room has no resident—and it is private.”
“Yet it is so well tended to! Might we stay here instead? I like to watch the sunrise in the morning,” she says, gesturing toward the east-facing windows.
“Her Majesty prefers that this room remains as it is. Untouched. Please, your quarters are this way.”
She opens her mouth to respond, but something in the room gives her pause. She shares a look with Jaheira. “Very well.”
Nocturne finishes guiding them to their room, currently being tidied up by servants. The Queen's bedchambers are nearby, just across the common room. A sign of trust perhaps, however unearned, that they will sleep this close to where Viconia lays her own head.
Thankfully, the Selûnites express no qualms with their lodgings, and Nocturne can be on her way, although without much information to sate Shadowheart's curiosity. While her liege asked for little—and little has she found, having only a fragment of their names and a reasonable description of their appearances, hair color included—it feels inadequate still, for herself as well. These Selûnites want something—something Shadowheart can give them. Something they undoubtedly cannot have.
And yet here they stay. Close to the Queen. It eats away at Nocturne like mold does a ripened fruit. Like flies, a fresh corpse. The older one has been here before—that Jaheira. Nocturne decides to keep her eyes on her a while longer.
- ○ -
It doesn't take long for Jaheira to split off from the other Selûnite, the latter of whom is busy acquainting herself with her current bedchambers. Nocturne watches her disappear down the hall they had come from. Then, she lets a minute pass, counting the seconds under her breath before beginning her pursuit.
From the outset, she makes a miscalculation; she had expected Jaheira to move through the halls with that unhurried, meandering gait from before, but even as Nocturne beelines after her, she does not find her until she makes it the the ground floor. For a while afterward, it seems that Jaheira moves through the buildings without any rhyme or reason at all. They pass through the mess hall, kitchens, sitting rooms, the great hall, and back through them all again, walking circles around the castle like page girls with petty tasks unloaded onto them.
When Jaheira goes into the yard, Nocturne stays where she is, watching her through a window in one of the kitchens as the staff buzzes around her, preparing an especially lavish meal for the Queen and her guests. Jaheira cranes her head up, facing away. Nocturne does not have to look to guess what she sees, knowing as always she knows the position of the princess’ tower.
Regardless, her eyes, as ever they are, are drawn to the stone of her lady's chambers, standing tall as the centerpiece, sharing a wall with the main body of the castle, particularly that which houses the great hall. They passed through that very spot numerous times during Jaheira's exploration of the castle—of course, without seeing the entrance. It cannot be found there, no matter how often it is sought.
Although it seems that hasn't stopped their guest from trying. Her face grows hot. How dare an outsider to Shar's kingdom poke and prod her nose where it doesn't belong? When she looks back to Jaheira, skin ever pinker, she finds the half-elf gone. Her eyes dart around the yard to no avail, as though the woman she tailed after had been a ghost. With a muttered curse, she goes outside herself, stopping where the overhang ends as she surveys the expanse of the yard.
“Looking for something?”
The voice coming from behind her does not startle her. She merely sighs, freeing herself of the weight of her held breath, and turns to face the very person she had been following. “I could ask you the same.”
Jaheira leans against the stone of the wall by the window Nocturne had been watching her through. With dagger in hand, she severs off slivers of an apple, clearly plucked from the wicker basket holding the same in the kitchen window. The edge of her blade is sharp, its cut as smooth as slicing through butter. Popping a sliver into her mouth, she says, “Curious structure there. Is it for defense?”
Nocturne does not turn to look. “All parts of a castle are for defense.”
“That's not an answer.”
“I do not owe you one.”
The other woman narrows her eyes, new creases forming around the sockets. Her pupils are like needles against Nocturne's own. “Did Viconia send you after me?”
Nocturne holds her ground. “Do you have history with Her Majesty the Queen?”
“What, all take and no give?” Jaheira scoffs. “You're too young to talk me into a corner. If it's gossip you want, you will have to give me as good as you want it.” She tosses Nocturne part of the apple, a hefty half moon slice that the tiefling catches with her hands cupped.
She considers the apple, rolling it over between her palms. She doesn't take a bite. “What do you want to know?”
“Why are the princess’ quarters separate from the rest?” Jaheira crunches into her own portion. She sheathes her dagger, no longer having the need to display it.
“Who's to say they are?”
A laugh, muffled through the food. Jaheira swallows and says, “The empty rooms, for one. But what really gave it away was the lack of security; no knights guarding any of the doors, few restrictions placed on us… And I know Viconia. She would rather have me stay in the dungeons than anywhere near her child.”
“Observant,” Nocturne says. “Or nosy.”
Jaheira bares her teeth in a smile. “I like to think I am both.”
How unfortunate to have brought such traits here. “Then I'm sure you already know the answer to your query. Her Majesty is… protective of Lady Shadowheart. She stays somewhere separate from more than just you.”
Jaheira's brow perks upward. “What a peculiar title. Lady Shadowheart.”
“It's how she prefers to be called.” Nocturne stills her tongue, feeling as though she is being lured into revealing more than her share. “Fair's fair. I think you've asked me enough.” She considers her own question of the many circling around her head like vultures. One to ease her own nerves; one to satiate her lady's curiosity…
Jaheira decides for her, that conniving woman, answering one from before. “I first met Viconia a long time ago. I suppose it wasn't that long ago from her perspective. A handful of decades. I often accompany the lords and ladies of my house when they have business here, much like I have today, although the last I was here was before…” Her sentence peters out, herself appearing by all means abashed and leaving Nocturne to fill in the blanks.
And how much there is to fill them with—filling, like the castle halls themselves, to the brim with an absence, black and ichorous and all-consuming. At a certain point in Viconia's life, everything became defined by loss. There was, of course, the loss of her husband, the king consort. He passed away in the days leading up to Shadowheart's birth. But prior to his death was that of her first child, whose life was snuffed out in the womb—a tragedy that is fair to say the Queen has never fully recovered from.
Letting such details go unspoken, Nocturne says instead, “Were you once close with Her Majesty?”
Jaheira chuckles, amused enough by the notion that she regains her composure. “Hah. Can anyone be close with Viconia?”
Nocturne gives a smile of her own, one that does not resonate with a single part of her body. “If that is so, then you should use Her Majesty's title when you address her.”
The other woman's expression falls with a sigh. “I know, I know… She didn't used to mind.”
“I'm sure Her Majesty didn't used to many things,” Nocturne says. “I think it's suffice to say she's changed since you were last here.”
For the first time since their conversation began, Jaheira looks away. Her eyes are drawn not to the towering structure that had once tugged her interest but to the great expanse of the cloud-damp sky. “How very right you are.” She boosts herself off the wall with a sigh. “Alright. This old woman will return to her quarters now. You needn't follow me to make sure, as much as saying so may be a waste of my breath.”
Before she can get far, Nocturne calls after her, “Let me ask you one last question.”
Jaheira stills and turns around, the soles of her boots churning the dirt underfoot. She arches a brow at Nocturne. “Fine. One question.”
With Shadowheart's image held dearly in her mind's eye, Nocturne says, “Your companion—what is her name?”
Jaheira tilts her head, leveling a stare that makes Nocturne's mouth dry, her tongue firmly pressed to the back of her teeth. “I suppose she wouldn't be as recognizable here,” she says, speaking to herself. Her hand comes to rest on her hip, jostling her sword. “She is Princess Isobel Thorm, newly wed to Dame Aylin.”
Nocturne recognizes the surname. The Thorm house has been around for longer than the rift between Shar's and Selûne's kingdoms. It lies between them, nestled within the mountains, and has good relations with both regions. While she knows the monikers of certain members of that household, notably its patriarch Ketheric and his wife Melodia, Isobel and those of their other children are not known to her.
And then there's Aylin, daughter of the reigning queen of Selûne's kingdom. There will never be a day in Nocturne's life where she does not recognize that name.
“I serve her father,” Jaheira continues, “and now her as their protector—similar, I assume, to how you serve Lady Shadowheart.”
The air grows stagnant. Cold, despite the temperature. Whatever expression she wears curls Jaheira's mouth into a self-satisfied smirk.
“The other knights I met here called her by that stuffy title royals have,” she explains. “Her Royal Highness. For you to call her by something else, well, either you're someone special to her or you're in her service. And I highly doubt Viconia would ever allow the former.” As she turns away once more, she quips, “Sorry—Queen Viconia.”
The half-elf leaves back through the kitchen. Nocturne stays where she is, locked in place, staring into the space Jaheira used to fill. Her hand loses its grip on the apple, and it falls to the earth. The worst thing one could do in this castle is walk through it with their eyes open.
Something wet touches her face. She raises her hand to the spot, and another dot of moisture hits her arm. Rain. It's started to drizzle. She looks up into the sky, lashes fluttering as droplets fall toward her eyes.
With an ache in her chest, she murmurs, “I like to think I am both.”
Chapter Text
When Nocturne makes her way back to Shadowheart's room, it crosses her mind that Jaheira might be the following type herself. She is a good talker, and good talkers are rarely honest people. So Nocturne is cautious, checking behind her back, walking a roundabout path, retracing her own steps in case she spots a pair of sharp, wandering eyes at the end of them.
What she had not been expecting to find in the princess’ chambers, but what she is nonetheless unsurprised to see, is Shadowheart soaked through, stripped down to her chemise, which clumps together as it clings, sticky and wet, to her body. Nocturne averts her gaze from the princess immediately, acting as though she had never looked in the first place. Instead, she pins her attention on the balcony door left clattering in the wind, the light drizzle outside having since turned into a proper rainstorm. In a few quick strides, she crosses the room and closes the door.
Without making eye contact with Shadowheart, she says, “I’ll fetch you a change of clothes.”
Shadowheart murmurs a response she doesn't catch, shoulders quivering.
Fetching a fresh chemise from one of the chests, Nocturne returns and drapes it over the back of the couch beside her lady. “I… will step into the hall,” she says.
“Wait.” Shadowheart stands and lifts her arms toward her knight, the floppy sleeves bunching at the crook of her elbows. “Help me out of this?”
The faint hint of pigment from her skin blossoms through the bosom of the white garment. Nocturne swallows and obeys as she goes around to her back. Her hands shake ever so slightly as she unties the strings by Shadowheart's nape, sliding the chemise down her shoulders, unsteady and uneven. Flesh peeks out as the garment falls away, glowing like the silver moon bearing its face. Unfreckled but dotted by the occasional mole. Her eyes flit about as she maps them, as familiar to her as the constellations in the night sky. The three forming a line along the curve of her left shoulder blade. The lumpy one halfway down the curve of her spine. The lopsided one on the curve of her hip. Before descending any further, she looks away as though blinded and refuses to let her touch linger, making contact only with the fabric, as though Shadowheart might burn Nocturne's fingers.
Yet it hurts all the same—to have once touched Shadowheart in a way she no longer can, that casual intimacy lost to them on both fronts. She collects the garment and sets it aside before finding a linen cloth. Clenching it tight, she lets out her own quiet, shuddering breath before turning back toward her lady. “Would you like me to dry you?” she asks, her eyes stuck like tar to her own hands.
“I-I can,” Shadowheart says quickly. “Myself.” She takes the cloth and clutches it to her body, hiding what she can of her figure behind it.
Nocturne is relieved to turn away and doubly so to hear her own nerves reflected in the princess’ voice. It's validating to share at least that with her—the awkwardness of immodesty. Shadowheart can have such a skewed view of it with how she's made to dress, only able to reveal so much of herself before it overwhelms her. After all, what difference is one part of herself from another when each is treated just as scandalously as the last? Her face and her stomach; her hands and her breasts; the crook of her elbow and the space between her legs.
The seconds pass by in complete silence, only disturbed by the vibrations of cloth over skin. The fragile quiet of the room is just as uncomfortable as everything else. Nocturne imagines it shattering, imagines pieces of it falling, shimmering like broken shards of a mirror.
“Ser Nocturne?”
She is pulled from her thoughts. “Yes, my lady?”
No response. She idles for a moment longer before turning around, finding Shadowheart's back facing her with her green eyes blinking at her over her shoulder. Without uttering a word, Shadowheart tugs the stitch where the sleeves meet the body of her chemise.
Nocturne gets the hint. She comes up behind Shadowheart, moving her silver hair—now loose from its bindings, having been dried as well as it could be with the rest of her—aside, her hand lightly brushing over skin as she does. The princess prickles at her touch, her exposed nape flushing pink as Nocturne ties the strings of the fresh chemise together.
Blushing skin, smooth beneath her hand, twitches in response to her touch but doesn't shy away, instead pushing further against her, around her, as though her entirety could be contained in Nocturne's grasp. And Nocturne leans into her all the same, her lips grazing against the curve of her spine, salty with sweat. When her fangs drag over flesh, she is met with a gasp and breathless babbling, scarcely muffled into the sheets beneath them.
“I didn't think it would rain so heavily,” Shadowheart comments, moving to sit on the couch. Up here in this tower, it's as though the storm is serenading them from all sides—above, below, beside.
Nocturne blinks hard, closing the shutters on her meandering mind. She makes to sit upon the couch with her, but she stops herself and stays standing where she is, maintaining the distance between them. She doesn't know how far it's meant to be.
“I thought maybe I'd be able to catch sight of one of the Selûnites,” Shadowheart continues, her fingers brushing through her hair, “but no luck. I suppose you had better?”
“My lady… You know how Her Majesty would fret if she knew you were out.”
Shadowheart groans. “Do you mean to scold me? Mother would fret even if I were in.”
“Perhaps it is myself who is fretting,” she admits. “The Selûnites… I don't yet know their intentions, but I know they have to do with you.”
“Me?” A grin breaks across Shadowheart's face.
The sight of it opens a pit in Nocturne's gut. “Yes. So… try to stay here. Where you're safe. At least while they are visiting.” After a beat, she adds, “If you do the snooping yourself, what use am I as your knight?” She tries to match Shadowheart's smile, but she knows it's faltering at its ends.
Her lady considers her words for a moment, swaying giddily in her seat. “I trust you, Ser Nocturne,” she says. “And… we've promised to be honest with each other. Not to lie, so… If I wish to leave, believe me—I will. Nothing could stop me from doing that. You don't know what this place is for me. It's not just my bedroom; it's…” She sighs, falling back against the couch. “Anyways… The Selûnites. Tell me about them.”
- ○ -
The horizons of their hideaway stretch only as far as the hedgeline holding them in, taller than themselves but tiny compared to the sky hanging above them like a ripe fruit, plump and ready to fall. But here, at least, Nocturne feels like she could catch it, like she could hold the entirety of the world in the palms of her hands.
“What's your name?” the girl in white asks her.
“Nocturne.” She surprises herself with the name she chooses to speak, and readily so at that, as though sharing it with this girl was the most natural thing in the world. Her face grows warm, revolting against the winter air.
“Oh, I like that. Nocturne. It's pretty.”
The warmth migrates from her face to her chest. How pretty it is, indeed, coming from another person's lips. “Thank you.” Fog puffs from her lips as she speaks. It's cold and only getting colder as the night makes its presence known. She rubs her hands together atop her lap, squeezing in on herself as she tries to subdue her shivering.
“Are you cold?”
She gives a sheepish smile. “Kind of.”
“Here.” The girl pulls off her gloves and offers them to her. “They're warm.”
“But… you need them.”
“I'm fine. I'm used to the cold.” She places them on top of Nocturne's clenched hands with finality.
And they are warm. Nocturne can feel the remnants of the girl's heat radiating from the fabric, seeping into her own skin. She acquiesces and slips them over her hands and wrists, the gloves stretching out to reach for her elbows as she tugs them over the infernal ridges of her arm.
It's an odd thing, these gloves. They squeeze around Nocturne's arms like a pair of snakes try to swallow her whole.
“See that tower, way up at the top of it?” The girl points at the sky. “That's where I live. It's much colder up there!”
Her gaze follows the girl's motions but stops at something much closer than the silhouette splitting the sky like a ravine. There's a black spot about the size of a copper piece on the back of the girl's right hand. Even with her darkvision, she cannot make out what it is. A birthmark? An injury? A stain?
They make small talk that feels much larger than it should. The girl tells Nocturne her name. Nocturne already knew it, but she lets her share it all the same. She's not the princess here, after all; just a girl like any other. She learns that she loves to read, but she only has one book. Claims to have read it more than a thousand times. She learns her favorite flower—an orchid that blooms at night and loves the winter cold. If they stay up late enough, she says, Nocturne can see them, too.
And Nocturne tells her all she's ever known. She's from a hamlet nestled among the hills to the west. Never met her dad. He was the adventuring type, off somewhere foreign. Her mother wanted something better for her, something more disciplined, so she came here to be a page at a young age. They talk about family. The girl never knew her father either, and her mother doesn't say much about him, but she proudly tells her that she has his eyes.
He was a half-elf himself, just like her.
He loved to read, just like her. And he loved to write—that's the book she has. The journal he wrote in when her mother was pregnant with her.
Her mother never told her how he died. No one ever does. Sometimes she thinks he's still alive. And other times, when the moon is a sliver in the sky, she thinks it's him smiling down at her from the heavens.
It grows quiet. The comfortable kind, like a dreamless sleep. They've migrated closer to each other for warmth and for something neither of them have ever had before.
And yet, Nocturne can't stop shivering. “I… should return to my quarters, but… it was nice meeting you.”
The girl pouts. “I don't want you to go.” Her hands are like ice where they rest on Nocturne.
“You should probably head back, too. Get under some blankets.”
“I like it here.” Her voice, dispirited, twinges with a whine. “I don't want to go back to my tower.” She laughs suddenly. “My tower. My prison, more like.”
Neither of them move away from each other. Nocturne thumbs over the girl's fingers. “What if I went with you?”
“Well, Mother says…” She pauses. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Always.”
The girl peels herself away and stands with a dramatic flourish, swiveling on her heels to face Nocturne. She spreads her arms wide, opening like the petals of a flower, and in an instant, Nocturne is blinded by light as pure and as dazzling as silver and gold.
- ○ -
In the early hours of the morning when the sky is dusted pink around the edges like a weeping eye, a cacophony of voices rises from the edge of the castle grounds. Nocturne abandons her training and pursues the commotion, finding along with the rest of the spectators a sheep in the moat, not thrashing or moving at all as it floats atop the water. Thinking it already dead, herself and a handful of others descend the sharp incline and pull the animal from the water, bringing it up to the bank.
It blinks up at her as she lays it on the grass. Quiet, as sheep often are, but much stiller than it should be. In the moments that follow, she discovers its broken neck. With one hand caressing its silver head, she brings the other to its neck and slits its throat.
Her hands are red with its blood. She washes it off in the water, watching it blacken the surface. As she climbs back out of the trench, she finds a woman waiting for her atop the crest.
“Poor thing,” Isobel says. She clutches her hands tight to her chest, looking past Nocturne at the others gathered around the corpse. Despite the early hour, she is fully made up, her face powdered and cheeks dyed red as they were the first day, and wearing an elegant daytime gown.
“I’m sorry you witnessed that,” Nocturne says, coming up beside her.
“What was wrong with it?”
“Fell into the moat.” She dries her dagger and sheathes it, mindful to obscure it from Isobel's view. “Must've broken its neck during the fall. There was no helping it. Its shepherd should've kept a better eye on it.”
There's a splash. One of the others trudging out from the moat. Isobel turns her eyes to Nocturne, and in the dim light of the early hour, her pale irises blend in with the whites of her sclerae.
“Could it really not have been healed?”
Nocturne shakes her head. “We could not move it without worsening the injury. And it could no longer move any part of its body. There was no saving it.”
A pause. Isobel chews her lip, her face contorting. “With magic, I mean?”
“Are you suggesting that Her Majesty herself come down here in the mud and the muck to heal a sheep?”
“No, no, you're right.” Isobel looks again to the small crowd around the animal. “Still, it was a living creature. A shame to die in such a way.”
“That is true.” She idly watches the crowd fuss about the body before gesturing toward Isobel. “Come—you needn't stay here. Let me accompany you back to the castle.”
Isobel's gaze lingers for a moment longer. “Alright.”
They walk through grass that rises well past their ankles, the proper footpath well beyond them. “What were you out here for anyways?” Nocturne asks.
“Oh, I was just taking a stroll. Acquainting myself with the place,” Isobel says. Her tone is calm, but her voice still shakes ever so. “It feels a lot like Selûne's kingdom here, just with the mountains on the other side!” She laughs but quiets with Nocturne's lack of reaction.
The grass rustling becomes the only sound between them. Not even the birds have yet roused to postlude their conversation with song. Isobel fiddles with her hands, rubbing her arms. She seems the type, in Nocturne's estimations, whose skin itches in the silence.
“Jaheira tells me you're the princess’ knight,” Isobel tries again.
“I am.” Nocturne stands tall as she says so, ignoring the feeling curdling in her gut.
Isobel releases a breath. “Like Jaheira is for me then. And Aylin—my Aylin is my knight, too.”
“Princess Aylin is a knight? Is your knight?”
She smiles wide. “Dame Aylin. She hates being called princess. And—yes, well, she's… She's my…” The Selûnite flusters, her unpowdered ears turning beet red. “I-is that strange?”
“A princess wondering if she's strange is what's strange.” The teasing comes out naturally. Nocturne cannot help it around the skittish nature certain princesses seem to possess.
“I suppose that's true!” Isobel giggles into her hand. “I'm still not used to being a princess. Always worried I'm doing it wrong.”
Despite her every instinct reminding her she is a Selûnite, she is a Selûnite, she is a Selûnite, Nocturne feels herself becoming endeared to this girl. “I think you're doing splendidly,” she says.
“Really?”
“Of course. Just the sight of you—very regal. Lady Shadowheart would adore you, I'm sure.”
“Oh, you can't imagine how glad I am to hear that!” Her hands have fallen to rest folded across her stomach. “What is she like? She and I are basically family now, but I still don't know a thing about her.”
Family. The word crashes into Nocturne like a wayward insect. Her lady's family is here. “She… is kind. Smart. Adventurous. Loves animals.”
“Animals—what sorts of animals?”
“All sorts. Once a mouse moved into her room, and she kept it as a pet. It was a cute little thing. Always chewing through everything—her clothes, her furniture, just anything it could get its little mouth on.” Her heart glows at the memory, grown dusty in the corner of her mind. “We called it Nibbles. She kept it hidden from Her Majesty and all the servants.”
“Not from you though,” Isobel points out.
The statement sends tingles through her, and she smiles. “Not from me.”
Isobel sighs wistfully. “She sounds wonderful. I really would like to meet her.” They reach the footpath, now nearing the castle proper. “Oh! I hope you don't mind me asking, but has she told you what she thinks of the proposal?”
“The pro–?”
“I know it's a lot to take in,” Isobel rattles on, “but I was wondering if you think she might say yes? Or even if she might say no, I'd like to know. I was so nervous all last night just thinking about it. Still am nervous now, actually.”
Nocturne holds her tongue, trying to piece together what she's alluding to. A proposal for Shadowheart. The Selûnite's intent with her. Information Shadowheart wants to know but decidedly does not. “Even if she says no, is it really something to work yourself up over to such an extent?”
Isobel takes in a long breath, letting it out just as slow. “Maybe not,” she admits. “But you know, my marriage strengthened the unity between my household and Selûne's, and… well, wouldn't it be nice if we could put all this tension behind us? Let the sisters be sisters again.”
Her back stiffens, holding an uncomfortable posture as she walks. She doesn't understand this girl's naivety. Shar and Selûne are no less sisters when their nations are quarreling than if they were at peace with each other. And this talk of marriage comes straight out of a fairytale with the final line: and they all lived happily ever after. In what world is that ever true?
“I'm not sure Lady Shadowheart is too comfortable with the idea of m… marrying someone she's related to—even distantly,” Nocturne says.
“Oh, no, no, no, he's not family—not yet, at least.” A laugh, out of place to Nocturne's ears. “He's a duke's son. Ravengard, if you know the name.”
“I see.”
“Be sure to tell that to Lady Shadowheart! Wouldn't want her to have the wrong idea.”
The conversation dies. At least, as far as Nocturne is concerned, it has. Isobel keeps chattering away, eager to have an ear to talk to that's not attached to her own knight's head. Soon after reaching the great hall, they part with a polite farewell and a bow. Nocturne stalks off, winding her way up to the top of Shadowheart's tower. She hesitates at the door to the bedroom, wondering for just a moment if Shadowheart truly needs to know.
Notes:
If you're worried about the mention of (Wyll) Ravengard, I assure you he doesn't even show up in the story. There's no love triangle lol.
Chapter Text
“Marriage? Me? They actually want my hand in marriage?” Shadowheart squeezes her father's journal where she sits atop her bed, staring at Nocturne with wide eyes.
Nocturne can’t tell if she's more aghast or elated at the news. “It would… It would seem so.”
Shadowheart's gaze turns away, flitting about the room, trying to make sense of it all among the floral-patterned upholstery. “I… don't know what to say.”
“You needn't say anything, my lady,” Nocturne says quickly. “You owe them no answers.”
“Yes, but… if I don't, Mother will. And why hasn't Mother told me about this?” Her tone turns hot, lashing out. “What, did she think she could just keep this hidden away from me, that I wouldn't find out? Ugh.” She throws the journal onto the bed and stands, starting to pace across the room.
Nocturne watches her, tracing the same path, back and forth and back and forth. She swallows, dry throat protesting the act. “I don't think Her Majesty has any intentions of marrying you off.”
“That's not the problem,” Shadowheart says. “It's not her choice—it shouldn't be her choice to make. It should be mine. What if—what if I like the suitor? What if I want to marry him? I don't even get the chance to find out, as far as she's concerned. Forever doomed to the whims of my mother.” She sits down on the couch with a huff.
Nocturne idles by the arm of the couch, looming over Shadowheart like the shadow of a cloud passing overhead. Always hesitating, always keeping this distance she doesn't want between them—and she thinks, when did being around Shadowheart become such a terrifying thing? When did she herself become such a coward? Where went the girl who bested an opponent thrice her skill for all the castle to see? Where went the girl who saw Shadowheart for what she was—not a princess, not a royal, but just any other person like herself? Where went the girl who worked so hard to embody the woman Shadowheart always saw her as?
Maybe she withered away with the reflection in Shadowheart's eyes.
“I want to talk to her,” Shadowheart says. Her voice is level, a forced kind of calm. “Fetch her for me.”
“Fetch… the Queen?”
“She's no queen of mine. But yes. Please.”
Without lingering, Nocturne descends the tower, choking on herself on the way down.
- ○ -
These last few weeks especially, I have been beside myself with nerves. It's getting so close now. When I hold my hands to Viconia's belly, I can feel it kicking. One day soon, I'll be holding our child in these hands instead.
Viconia has been craving fruit from the gardens, and the midwife says that means it will be a girl. A girl! I pray–
The page ends, and between this one and the next lie remnants of a sheet torn loose from the bindings of the book. Nocturne runs her fingers along the soft edges of the ripped paper, leaning into Shadowheart as she peers over her shoulder at the journal. They're sitting on the floor of Shadowheart's bedroom, the book pressed flat atop the rug.
“A page is missing,” Nocturne says, certain its keeper already knows.
“It was like this when I first got it,” Shadowheart explains, flipping idly through the book. “There's a few others missing, too. Private things, I think. Mother tore out the… night of my conception.” She grins, her nose crinkling with mischief. “And, you know, just here and there. I've always wondered if I could find them one day. Finally be able to read them all.”
“You think she still has them somewhere?”
“Of course,” Shadowheart scoffs. “Mother keeps everything. Have you taken a peek inside these chests? They're filled with every piece of clothing I have ever worn. She won't even get rid of the tattered ones. She is obsessed. She never lets anything go.” She turns page after page, reaching the last ones—blank and white, one after another and another. “Understandably, I suppose.”
- ○ -
The air drops in temperature at Viconia's entrance into Shadowheart's room. Piercing crimson eyes takes in those gathered, cold like blood long dried, her hair a snowscape as it falls to rest loose around her shoulders and down her back. A woman forever stuck in winter. And yet more so than the Queen's presence, Nocturne tenses at that of her knight, Lamona, positioned ever at her side—and wearing that scowl she always wears when seeing Nocturne. A face like catching a whiff of rotten food.
Outside, the sounds of birds and the whistle of the wind rise from below, coming in through the clattering balcony door. When the Queen speaks, it all falls silent. “My dear daughter, what is it that troubles you so?”
“Don't act as though you don't know,” Shadowheart bites. She is standing by a window opposite the entrance, her arms crossed, facing her mother in profile. “Why haven't you told me about this offer of marriage? The Selûnites—they're here to see me, aren't they?”
Viconia's eyes settle on Nocturne for a brief, agonizing moment before returning to her daughter. She approaches her, appearing to glide across the room in her gown as she does. “Shadowheart,” she says, already chiding. “There is no point in entertaining the delusions of these Selûnites. They believe we can merely kiss and make up, and all our problems will”—she floats an amethyst-tinted mote in the air, whisking it away a moment later—“disappear. But the affairs of gods are not so simple. Were even the affairs of mortals so simple!”
Shadowheart recoils, moving away from Viconia as she comes near as though in coordinated dance. “This isn't about Selûnites, or gods, or anyone else. This is about me. It's my life, Mother; I deserve a say. Haven't I earned that? Or will you insist on keeping me out of everything like I'm still a child?”
“You are a child,” Viconia says, matter-of-fact. “This outburst only makes that all the more apparent.” She sighs and paces down the length of the room once more, following Shadowheart around the curve of the couch. “Nothing in your entire life will ever be just about you. It is the same for me. We are descendants of the Goddess—the only ones there are. You need to be protected–”
“Protected,” Shadowheart repeats with a roll of her eyes.
“–from the corruption of the world.”
“Is that not what I have my knight for?” For a single instant, all eyes in the room are on Nocturne, who anchors her own to Shadowheart's visage. “I don't need you to protect me.”
“Don't be foolish! You need–”
“I'm not Nightmist!” Her voice claps, and then—ear-ringing silence. The room shakes like a bell struck. “I'm here,” she says, quieter than before. “Alive. Wasting away in this godsforsaken tower.”
Viconia shudders visibly, her hand to her own throat. “Do not… Do not use her name against me. If you think…” She gasps and reaches for her daughter. Her voice quivers until it breaks, laden with emotion. “I won't have them take you away from me, too. My girl…”
Abashed, Shadowheart turns her head away but allows the gloved hands grasping for her to settle around her face, cupping her in her palms. Then those hands wrap around and pull her closer, having her rest her cheek upon the Queen's shoulder. Perhaps it could be a sweet embrace if Shadowheart weren't so rigid, her own arms forming straight, vertical lines at her sides. Antithetical to their volume up until this point, they speak in hushed tones that Nocturne does not try to listen in on, though she catches a murmur of apology from Shadowheart's lips.
Finally, the Queen releases her, the only lingering touch being her hand on Shadowheart's arm. “You know I love you very much,” she says. “Everything I do—everything—is for your sake.”
“Yes, Mother. I know…” Shadowheart's gaze is on the floor. “I love you, too.”
Viconia gives a small smile, thin lips curved sharp. Her eyelids are puffy, the steel skin of them tinted purple, and she dabs at them with her free hand. She leaves a kiss on Shadowheart's brow and excuses herself from the room, Lamona following after with a pointed glare directed Nocturne's way.
She ignores the other knight, turning her own attention to her lady, who has not raised her head from the floor. Shadowheart drags her gaze across the ground, pulling it with her to the balcony where the wind and birdsong begin anew. Words escape Nocturne, joining her liege outside with nothing more to offer than her presence—something that cannot rightly be deemed much of a comfort anymore.
Shadowheart does not acknowledge her, and Nocturne does not press for her to speak. She merely stands nearby, looking out at the world beyond and beneath them. It is a beautiful sight—and hard to imagine that Selûne's kingdom could look anything like this. She supposes if they stole Shadowheart away, the luster of this place would dim, pitch black, thrusting her into a sightless, endless night. Perhaps that is how the world appears to the Queen ever since…
A scream shatters the thought; Shadowheart howls over the edge of the balcony, the height of her fury stretching higher than her tower ever could dream of reaching. Before the shock of it can settle, Shadowheart collapses to her knees, arms limp and head leaning against the stone of the railing. Were it not for how her pupils regard Nocturne, she would be concerned her lady had fainted.
“You don't have to be here for this,” Shadowheart says. Her eyes fall away again, blankly sticking to the balustrade by her face.
“My lady…” The silence she receives in response is suffocating. She wants to scream, too. Let all that has welled within her pour down like rain onto the world. Instead, she gets down on her knee, the metal bits of her armor scraping against the stone underneath her, and tries again. “Shadowheart.”
Shadowheart's attention snaps to her. Nocturne doubts she can remember ever being referred to so casually.
“You don't have to be alone.”
A muffled sob breaks free of Shadowheart's throat, only to be swallowed back down. Her lips quiver. “I don't want you to see me like this.”
Her chest aches, hollowed as though her insides have been scraped out beneath another's nails. It's a hot, stinging pain. She offers a hand to Shadowheart, who takes it, hesitance cast aside, and squeezes her knight as tight as she can.
“It's not fair,” Shadowheart says. “I know it's not fair, but I always…” She takes a shaky breath. “I always end up… not being able to say anything back to her.”
Her hand is like ice in her grasp. On habit, Nocturne rubs her thumb over Shadowheart's knuckles, sharing her own warmth.
“I wasn't using Nightmist against her,” Shadowheart insists, the sharpness in her tone expecting not to be believed. “It's just true. Mother treats me like this because… because she… isn't here. I don't think it's wrong for me to say that.” Then, in a murmur, she asks, “Am I wrong?”
“You're not wrong.”
She chews her lip. “Is she wrong?”
“I don't know… Misguided, certainly.”
“Can we both not be wrong?”
“I'm no wiser than you.”
At that, Shadowheart laughs—just a hint of one—and the sound is a balm to the feeling in Nocturne's chest. “I'm not sure that's true. You seem so much more worldly than me.”
A smile tugs at Nocturne's lips. “Worldly? I've lived here all my life. You see the crest of that hill there?” She stands, pulling Shadowheart up beside her. “That one—with the line of trees atop it. My village's right on the other side of it. This is my entire world.”
Shadowheart presses her free hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the sun. “I see the hill,” she says. “You're from way out there?”
“It's only a day's walk.”
She stares out at it, rising on tiptoes as though she might catch a peek of the hamlet. When she looks back to Nocturne, the verdant hills are in her eyes. “Even the ground beneath us seems so far away from me. Does your family live there?”
She shrugs. “My ma. And some of her family. I haven't been there since I was a kid though. I don't know how any of them are nowadays.”
“They don't come to visit?”
The question gives her pause. “Why would they?”
Shadowheart raises her hand in a shrug of her own. “Seemed like something people would do, is all.”
“Some people might,” she concedes. “Not them. I don't think any of them would recognize me now.”
There's a tut as Shadowheart clicks her tongue. She takes a step back from Nocturne, releasing her hand—Nocturne fights the urge to follow after, to reach her fingers after her retreating digits, her fleeting touch—and scrutinizing her, up and down. “Is that so bad?”
“What?”
“I mean, you're obviously not a young girl anymore. You've grown into a fine woman. A noble knight to a princess—to their princess.” She puts her hands on her hips and bounces on her toes. “Is that not something to be proud of?”
She's dazzling in the sunlight, her hair like threads of gold. For a moment, Nocturne cannot think, can only feel how fully her heart bursts with adoration for the woman before her, as though falling in love with Shadowheart for the first time all over again. She smiles soft enough to lay one's head upon. “I suppose it is.”
Shadowheart smiles back—and then she blushes, reddening as bright as the juice Isobel applies to her own skin. It takes all of Nocturne's will to hold in a laugh, a tease, instead turning away to lean against the railing to allow Shadowheart a chance to compose herself. When she does, she settles in beside Nocturne, closer than before. Still not close enough, never close enough.
She swirls her finger across the railing, tracing the grooves in the stonework. “What was your mother like?”
The question hits Nocturne in the throat, her heart thrumming quicker. A spade, a flail, a stick. Struck until she cried. Struck again for crying. Struck until she bled, herself forever staining the wood. She takes a long breath through her teeth.
“Was she like mine?”
Nocturne finds her voice. “Not particularly.” The first time she is held in a loving embrace, she has already forgotten the face of her own mother. “Your ma—erm, Her Majesty…”
Shadowheart chortles at the correction.
“…has her reasons. She cares a lot for you. I think my ma just didn't like me. She had a particular way she wanted me to be, and I… am not that.”
“Oh.” Shadowheart winces. “I'm sorry.”
“No need. Those days are long behind me.” In some small way, she's glad her hometown is out of sight. Just a memory buried in the hills. “Shall I do your hair again?”
“Oh, yes, please.” Shadowheart perks up. “And teach me your technique. I couldn't stop admiring myself in the mirror last time.”
“I'm sure you could do that plenty without my help.”
Shadowheart's retort is lost in a fit of stammering.
Notes:
Nightmist in BG3 canon is another one of the Sharran's in Shadowheart's cloister.
Chapter 6
Notes:
some more Isobel and a lot of Shadowheart this chapter!
Chapter Text
Metal creaks and smacks against the wall, disturbing the dust and the mildew. Nocturne steps through an opening and starts her way up the spiraling staircase to Shadowheart's room. It's a long climb, but it has felt shorter recently, her own body feeling lighter, ascending as naturally as warm air. It's easier knowing who's waiting for her when she reaches the top.
Or who's usually waiting for her. Today an empty room is all there is to greet her on the other side of the door. A pair of white gloves lie forgotten on the seat of the couch, half-swallowed between the cushions. She retrieves them and heads back down to the very bottom of the edifice.
In the gardens; in the mess hall; in the gallery. She finally finds Shadowheart passing through the shadow of the chapel's eaves. She's not wearing her veil today either. It is the day for it; the warm sun and cool breeze harmonize nicely on the skin.
“Felt like going to service today?” she asks, joining the other woman beside the chapel.
Shadowheart startles like a lamb, blinking rapidly as she registers the presence of her knight. Her hair is down, feebly held together by a clasp at shoulder height. “Wanted some air.” Her lower lip juts outward. “You're not going to bring me back, are you?”
She cannot help the laugh that leaves her.
Shadowheart scowls. “What?”
“My apologies,” she says, clearing her throat. “I'm not making you do anything. I only came to give you your gloves.” She produces a pair of white gloves embroidered with a pattern the same color.
“My…? Oh.” Her tone falls flat, deadpan. She crosses her arms. “I don't need them. They're just something Mother always wants me to wear. She says a princess without gloves is not a princess at all.”
Nocturne considers her for a moment. Her eyes trail their way to her hands, her birthmark a dark and near-perfect circle like a new moon on the back of her right. “You know, only someone special should see a princess’ hands.” She reaches for her then, thumb brushing over the mark as she lifts Shadowheart's hand, guiding it toward herself. She brings a glove to her fingertips and pauses. “Shall I? Or would you rather keep them off?”
A response doesn't come. Shadowheart's lips are parted, herself fixated on the casual touch. Fingers interlocked. Tongues intertwined. Arms around torsos and heads between legs. Herself inside, herself around, herself consumed. Nocturne wonders if her touch is familiar—if she can remember how she felt, even if not with her mind then with her body.
“I… I-I'll wear them,” Shadowheart says at last. “Thank you. I was feeling rather… exposed without them. I can put them on by myself though.” She snatches them up in her fluster, slipping them on up to her elbows, snugly tucked into her sleeves.
“You really should let me know when you're going out,” Nocturne says. “I won't stop you, but I cannot keep you safe if I don't know where you are.”
Shadowheart hums flippantly. “I don't know; you found me easily enough. I think you're fretting again.”
“I have reason to fret. I trust you, but I do not trust these Selûnite strangers.”
Shadowheart isn't listening; she wears the same face as when her mother speaks to her.
Nocturne takes a deep breath, not letting up. “It's like you said to Her Majesty—you have me to protect you. So let me protect you.”
That reaches her through the shroud. “Alright. I'll tell you next time, as a courtesy. But you can't come down with me.”
The words I know stick in Nocturne's throat.
They wander into the chapel, finding it empty of parishioners, vacant pews of varnished wood leading them through the nave. At the front past the chancel sits an altar to Shar. The first Queen. Their Goddess. Shadowheart's grandmother. Her likeness, born from black marble, hangs on the wall overlooking the altar, adorned with amethyst jewels.
Neither of them speak. A place like this encourages silence. Like a bedroom at night; like a graveyard. Dim candlelight smolders in some of the sconces from last night's service. Stained glass paints patches of the walls blue and red and purple with light from the windows. A place both stuck in time and eternal.
Shadowheart moves around the altar, crossing a line Nocturne will not. “How do people worship us?” she asks in a whisper, gazing up at the Goddess.
“What do you mean?”
“I've never seen it before.” She turns around, meeting Nocturne's eyes. “What people do in a place like this.”
“They…” She hesitates. “Would you like me to show you?”
At Shadowheart's assent, she takes her position before the altar and goes through motions she has performed countless times in her life. Her hands are dipped in a basin—a stale puddle of water being all that remains of the previous service—and are cleansed of transgression. Then they are clasped together, her head bowed in an act of prayer. In truth, her prayer holds no substance today, Shadowheart's presence thick in her mind. Then she reaches into her coin purse and offers a few gold pieces into a bowl held up by armless hands carved into the altar. The coins disappear a moment later.
She raises her head toward Shadowheart, the object of her heart's worship, expectant.
Shadowheart wears a ponderous look, her fingertips fluttering against her chest. After a moment, she says, “I'm trying to figure out… if I felt anything. I can't tell.” Giving up that trail of thought, she asks, “Where did the gold go?”
“It's not for me to know. Perhaps to Shar. Perhaps it is merely… no more.”
“What purpose does it serve, then, supposing it is just gone?”
“Plenty. I do this to remind myself of what truly matters. Money, material possessions are not as important as things like duty, or family…”
“Family,” Shadowheart repeats, the word sounding novel on her tongue. “Your family?”
She feels herself becoming as still as cold wax. “Not… my blood family. Family I've found here.”
She is saved from elaboration by the creaking of the old doors at the mouth of the chapel, the sound loud enough to echo through the room. A handful of people dribble inside for the morning service, a few pairs of eyes drawn to the woman behind the altar. Murmuring rises among them as they realize who she is, and Nocturne decides it is time for the two of them to leave.
In her hurry guiding Shadowheart out the door, she misses who is on the other side of it. There is a small gasp, Nocturne assuming another Sharran has been awestruck by the sight of their princess—a rare treat indeed—but then she notices their garb. A fine silken gown dyed a rare shade of blue. Her eyes trail up the figure until she reaches their powdered face and bright red cheeks. Isobel, of all people, gawking at Shadowheart. Her only relief is that the old knight is nowhere to be seen, even if she is likely sticking her nose where it doesn't belong elsewhere. How trusting they are to leave a princess alone in such a place, a blunder Nocturne would never commit were the situation reversed.
“Blessed be Her name,” Isobel says. “You must be the princess! Oh, where are my manners? I'm Princess Isobel Thorm of Selûne's Kingdom, daughter of Ketheric and Melodia Thorm. It is such an honor to meet you.” She curtsies, her hand squeezing onto her dress.
Shadowheart grins from ear to ear. She curtsies back. “And you as well! What a pleasant surprise. Are you here for service?”
“I am. I think it's essential for us to understand each other's culture, if our kingdoms are to get along. Are you?”
“Just leaving actually.”
Isobel waves a hand in front of her face. “I can always go another day. I've been dying to speak with you!”
They step away from the doors, allowing the curious parishioners to pass by unimpeded. A slender path, wide enough for two, meanders before them through a section of the garden, and they head down it, Nocturne centered behind the two royals. While Isobel seems a lesser threat than Jaheira, the tiefling still refuses to relax around her.
“Now, don't take this the wrong way,” Isobel starts up again, “but at first glance, I thought you were my Aylin. You are stunning—and your hair is just like hers! I can really see how you're related.”
Nocturne bristles.
Shadowheart laughs, flushing up her neck. “Aren't you the flatterer? If only my life could be so exciting. I've been told she's a knight herself.”
“She is. My knight in shining armor.” The Selûnite princess glows, breathless when she says, “How I count the days until I am with my beloved again.”
“Miss her that much?” Shadowheart teases.
“But of course. Have you been in love before?”
“I don't…” There's a lengthy pause, Shadowheart glancing off to the side. “I can't remember.”
Baffled, Isobel says, “It's not the kind of thing you can forget.” She loses herself in her own thoughts, rambling on. “Maybe you can in a literal sense, but not deep down, emotionally. If I forgot my Aylin, some part of me would still remember her. Hearing her voice would stir me the same. Seeing her would be like seeing someone you swear you know but you just can't place from where. You know?” She looks at Shadowheart meaningfully. “And her eyes—I think seeing her eyes would be like… coming home. And all the while, something inside me would just feel like it wasn't there, so much a part of me is she.” She sighs, lashes fluttering. “Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.”
Each word she utters stings Nocturne, a twisting knife in that Shadowheart-shaped hole in her heart.
“What you have must be very beautiful,” Shadowheart comments.
Her tone is neutral. Unreadable. The lack of reaction hurts Nocturne more than she thought it could. But then, surprising her, Shadowheart looks back, her gaze scraping across the ground until she brings it up to meet Nocturne's. Her brow is furrowed, her lower lip pinched between her teeth. She snaps her eyes away, facing straight ahead once more.
“It is,” Isobel says. “Love is a beautiful thing. Have you given any thought to the proposal?” She quickly adds, “Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to press you. It's a big decision to make and all.”
Shadowheart shakes her head. “I don't mind. Mother… doesn't tell me much about these things. What's the suitor like? Ravengard, right?”
“Yes. Wyll Ravengard. He's a nice fellow. A big-hearted, adventurous sort. He's often traveled around the kingdom helping people. From what I've heard about you, I think you'd take well to each other.”
“And what have you heard about me?” They both laugh. “Joking. Is he attractive?”
“Now that's the big question, isn't it? Unfortunately, you're asking the wrong person. Men all look the same to me.”
Throb, throb, throb in Nocturne's ears. A pain that claws at her face. She cannot bear to listen any longer, letting the conversation fall away from her.
Might some part of Shadowheart remember her—some ghost of a shadow of a memory? What does she see when she looks in Nocturne's eyes? Is it home? Safety?
Does she deserve to want that? Does she deserve to long for the girl she met between the hedges?
“She's always treating me like I'm so fragile that I might break at any moment.” Shadowheart's tone has adopted an edge to it, pulling Nocturne's attention back to her. “Because of, you know… my sister.”
The conversation has shifted far from its origin. Isobel nods along wearing a sympathetic grimace. “Aylin… has struggled with the same, even as the older child. It's hard, losing a baby.”
“It's like I grew up with the grief of her instead,” Shadowheart says. “And I miss her, even without ever meeting her… if that makes sense.”
“It does. It absolutely does.”
They fall quiet for a moment that stretches longer than the vines falling down the garden wall. Nocturne tastes iron in her mouth. She's bitten her cheek hard enough to bleed.
- ○ -
By the time Nocturne makes it back to the top of the tower, Shadowheart is already in her nightclothes, reclining atop the blankets dressing her bed. She sits up straight at Nocturne's entrance, curling her legs under herself as she pats the spot beside her on the bed. Nocturne obliges, seating herself near the foot of the canopy bed.
“I can't believe I got to meet another princess,” Shadowheart gushes. She bounces her leg. “And she was so charming! Did you see her gloves? They were pristine.” With a groan, she says, “Oh, my Goddess, I should not have asked her how attractive the suitor was. What was I thinking?”
“You did fine.” With a conspiratorial smile, Nocturne adds, “I promise you, she's just as nervous about how you feel about her.”
“I don't believe that at all.”
“It's true.”
“Oh, my Goddess.” Shadowheart falls back flat onto the bed. “Ugh, I absolutely adore her.”
Nocturne holds onto a laugh, letting it well up in her chest into a light, airy feeling. “I told her you would.”
Shadowheart sits back up. “Why did you tell her a thing like that? And how did you know?”
She shrugs—an answer to both questions. “I could just tell.”
“Huh.” Shadowheart purses her lips and lies back down. “You think I'd get along with Aylin, were we to meet?”
She blinks. Licks her lips. “I've never met her myself. I cannot say.” At Shadowheart's blatant disappointment, she amends, “But… as Isobel's spouse, she must have good taste, so… probably.”
That, at least, earns her a smile. “What does that mean?” Her face turns bright red. “Wait, what does that mean?”
“Exactly what I said.”
With playfully narrowed eyes, Shadowheart lies back down on the bed. Not long after, her leg stops bouncing. She laughs dryly to herself. “The daughters that survived,” she says. “Not that I'm living as much as she is.”
Her tone is as bitter as it is envious. Nocturne grimaces.
“Maybe I can with this… What was it again—Wyll Ravengard? Shadowheart Ravengard is a bit of a mouthful.”
Quietly, Nocturne says, “As princess, he would take your name.”
“Oh… That's right.” She rolls onto her side, staring at the wall. “And I suppose he would move here, wouldn't he? For some reason, I thought I would go live with him. Be a duchess instead of… whatever I am now.” She sighs, heavy and long, muttering to herself, “Mother would never let me do even what Isobel is doing…”
The lightness is gone; the airiness is gone. Only a knotted lump lies where those feelings had once nestled in Nocturne's chest. “You should be careful with adventuring types like him. Their true love will always be the open world, and one day, they just… don't come back.”
She sighs again, scooting closer to Nocturne, her head curling up to stare at her. “But what if I could go with him?”
“That would be dangerous.”
“Not if I had you with me.” Her fingertips brush the leather armor on Nocturne's thighs. “Would you come with me?” She blinks up at her, bright-eyed and innocent.
Nocturne sees the sheep in her eyes, its blood on her neck. She squeezes her hands together tightly in her lap. “Would you need me then?”
“I would…” Her eyes start to close. She yawns. “No matter what I end up doing, I want you to be there with me. I really…”
The seconds pass by, slow. The way water drips after the rain is done. “Shadowheart?”
No response. She's fallen asleep. Careful not to disturb her, Nocturne rises from the bed and pulls a sheet around Shadowheart. She intends to leave, to stand guard by the door, but she's anchored to the floor, watching the other woman in her slumber. Her heart aches; how she longs to share this bed with her as she once had.
In a moment of weakness, she allows herself to kneel before the bed, resting her head atop the blankets by Shadowheart's face. She doesn't watch her—cannot bring herself to. That right is no longer hers. She closes her eyes and pretends for this one fleeting night that this were her bed, her room, and her Shadowheart at her side.
Alas, that is not her life anymore.
Shadowheart mumbles something too quiet for her to hear. Her eyes fly open to find Shadowheart's fluttering, her green irises gray in the darkness.
“Noc… turne…?”
Nocturne pulls her head back. “I'm sorry–”
A hand grabs her wrist. Shadowheart's grip on her is loose, tired. Nocturne doesn't fight against her, staying put in her grasp.
Shadowheart closes her eyes again, long enough that Nocturne wonders if she's even awake. Then the half-elf yawns, and her touch wanders down the length of Nocturne's arm, settling in to hold her at the elbow. “I had a dream about you,” she says, her voice languid. “I've been having a lot of those lately. It was… a nightmare.”
Her heart pounds in her throat. “What did I do?”
Shadowheart laughs, her breath hitting Nocturne's face. “No, silly,” she drawls. “You were… in danger. We were cornered, and you… were protecting me."
She cannot breathe, like the air has left her lungs. “I'm safe,” she murmurs, “and you're safe.”
“That's good.” Shadowheart closes her eyes and falls back asleep.
Chapter 7
Notes:
cw for transphobia/misgendering (one explicit instance)
this chapter is just nocturne's no good very bad day unfortunately
Chapter Text
Hanging low above the horizon in a sea of dusty blue rests the pale moon, waning fast. The next Coming of the Lady celebration is only days away. As devout as she is, Nocturne did not used to like such a time—those nights when she and the other squires would duel each other for the castle's entertainment. She's grown fond of them now, considering them a commemoration of her and Shadowheart's first meeting.
And it helps, of course, that she no longer is a squire.
She still has her training, going through her routines to keep her body in shape and her mind sharp. But she can do this as a knight; she can do this without the sneering, the snickering, the spectacle that used to follow her every act, her every shortcoming. She can handle the nascent jealousy of her peers; she welcomes it, even. Let them wonder how they failed and where she succeeded. Let them judge themselves in comparison and live in their denial. She has more important matters to concern herself with—and one most important woman occupying the breadth of her mind, of her heart, of her soul.
So when she gets a needling, prickling feeling like having a splinter under each finger and toe, she ignores it. When she sees a shadow grow and grow in her peripheral, she ignores it, satisfied to leave it to its seething. And when that shadow takes the form of Lamona, the Queen's knight, close enough now to shield her from the rays of the early morning sun, she ignores her still. She ignores her—up until she opens her mouth.
“I don't know what she sees in you.”
At which point, Nocturne cannot help but laugh. She looks at Lamona, the other knight's face marred by her ever-present scowl. “It does not matter what you think. When will you understand that?” She sheathes her weapon. “You are not Lady Shadowheart—nor are you Her Majesty.”
The gaze that meets her is as thin as the edge of a knife. “You should know better by now how to properly address Her Royal Highness.”
“Proper to who? To you?” She quirks a brow. “Call her whatever you wish. I will call her what she wishes.”
“Hm.” Lamona takes to pacing around her like a carrion eater. “I suppose it is fitting. The farce that you are cannot even abide by the pretense of etiquette.”
“I am a knight just like you–”
“You are no knight,” Lamona snaps, her voice raised. “You are a tool—a means to an end.”
Heat flares up the back of her neck. “Quiet, lest you wish to see how unknightly I can be.”
“Trust me, boy; I've already seen.”
That word runs her through like a spear piercing the cavity of her chest. The heat moves to her belly with a roll of nausea.
In her silence, Lamona continues, “Tonight, after the sun has set and before the rising of the moon, come to the yard beneath the tower, and I will show you how little of a knight you are.”
- ○ -
Strips of light cut through the still air of the bedroom, coming in through the window and its diaphanous curtains. It's midafternoon—or is it evening yet? Nocturne moans, stretching her back, and, hearing her rouse, the person beside her in bed rolls over to snuggle closer to her.
“Done sleeping?” Shadowheart whispers.
“Mm.”
She squeezes her tighter. “I missed you.”
“I was here the whole time.” She props herself up on her pillow, Shadowheart's arms stopping her from moving further. It's later than she thought. Already night, the moonlight being what streams into their room. “Did you not sleep? I thought we were napping together.”
“I woke up a while ago.” Shadowheart creeps closer, burying her face in Nocturne's chest. “I missed you,” she says again.
“Is something the matter?” Despite having been in bed for so long, her nose is cold against Nocturne's skin.
Shadowheart turns her head, her cheek squished against the ridges of the tiefling's chest, her eyes half-shielded by her silver bangs. “Not really,” she says unconvincingly. “I was just thinking… about a lot of things. I realized that without you, I would be so alone. So utterly alone… You're the only thing I have that Mother cannot touch…” She runs her fingers through Nocturne's hair, fiddling with the ends of those lavender strands. “My one thing that's all my own… Is that selfish of me to say?”
“To call me your thing?” she teases.
“I didn't mean it like that…”
“It's okay. You're my thing, too.”
The girl on top of her quivers with a laugh she refuses to let loose. “I'm being serious.”
“I know,” Nocturne says, dropping her bantersome tone. “I'm not going anywhere.”
Dark Mother, forgive her; she swears Shadowheart appears to glow in the moonlight. She lets her gaze wander, brought to awe at how she looks. Her curling tresses that tumble down, spilling all around her shoulders and arms and into her silken robes like liquid silver. Her lips, plush and perfect, that part as she listens to Nocturne speak, open just enough that she imagines cupping her chin, pulling her in, and kissing her.
In the end, it's Shadowheart who does that very act to her, tugging her mouth toward her own, capturing her lips with a hunger they both can taste. She crawls on top of Nocturne, her knees on either side of her waist and her arms on either side of her head, enveloping her with her entirety. Hands reach for clothes then for skin then for more, finding all there is to take. Over the sounds of their needy breaths, their shuddering moans, neither of them hear the footsteps ascending the tower until it is too late.
With a thunderous bang, the door to the bedroom is flung open, and everything that follows is a blur. Shadowheart screams with reprimand then with terror. Sheets are tossed and torn. Someone grabs her arms hard enough that Nocturne feels they might burst as she is dragged from the room, scarcely clad in anything at all. She catches sight of white hair, tightly braided above the nape of their neck; elven ears; a broad back; an unrelenting grasp, paired with an equally as unrelenting anger. The core of her being stiffens, sweat warming her back.
Lamona.
The knight strikes her across the face, throwing her down on the stone steps before grabbing her again. What batters her worse is the flurry of insults that assault her. Hellspawn. Parasite. Predator.
She is hauled down the steps into the bowels of the castle where Nocturne fears she might remain, cast there forevermore. But Lamona is not done with her, taking her further, heaving her up again to end up thrown onto the ground before the Queen herself, seated on her throne. Besides Nocturne, Lamona, and the Queen, no one else is in the room. No one to bear witness to Nocturne's shame nor to how swiftly she surely will be dealt with.
- ○ -
After her wretched morning, all Nocturne wants to do is see Shadowheart. What she truly wants—what she cannot have—is to curl up in what was once her bed and in what were once her lover's arms and feel, even if for only an instant, like everything was okay. She will settle for just seeing Shadowheart's face, hearing her voice, and, if she's lucky, feeling her touch.
She is unlucky. Horribly so. Before she has crossed the great hall, she's intercepted by a wild-eyed Mirie.
“Ser Nocturne,” the servant girl says urgently, her voice tempered at a low volume. The smile she wears contorts uncomfortably on her face. “One of them Selûnites's been followin’ me.”
“The older one?” Nocturne glances around without turning her head, not catching sight of either.
“I think so. I haven't been able to bring Lady Shadowheart her breakfast. Just been walkin’ around in circles all morning.”
She eyes the tray, the food on it undoubtedly grown cold by now. “I'll stop her from tailing you. Get fresh food from the kitchen and head to Lady Shadowheart's room as usual.”
“Alright.” Mirie tips her head. “Thank you. Be careful yourself, okay?”
As she skitters away, Nocturne seeks out her pursuer. Knowing she's been caught one way or another, Jaheira reveals herself around the curve of a pillar, coming to lean against it in plain view. The older half-elf raises a hand in greeting, an act that invigorates the agitation already lurking in Nocturne's body.
She storms toward Jaheira, hissing, “Stop following her. Stop following me. This is your only warning.”
Jaheira eyes her calmly, giving nothing away but a thin layer of amusement. “I'm only keeping watch. Nothing nefarious. You can't tell me you wouldn't do the same if you were me—if it was just you and Shadowheart alone in Selûne's kingdom.”
She voices a prospect Nocturne does not want to entertain the possibility of, as much as Shadowheart fantasizes it to be true. “I think you would view my actions just as suspicious were that the case.”
The other woman purses her lips, her index finger rising to prod at her chin. After a moment, she points that finger at Nocturne and responds, “Only if it were you. Anyone else, and I wouldn't bat an eye. But there's something about you…”
Hellspawn. Parasite. Predator.
“I didn't say it was a bad something,” Jaheira adds as Nocturne's expression turns foul. She nods her head toward a hallway separate from the one Mirie disappeared down. “Walk with me?”
Nocturne obliges, if only to keep her eyes on this slippery woman. She is guided on an aimless path, Jaheira returning to that leisurely, meandering pace she had the first time Nocturne met her, idling before decor, examining architecture. And today, she talks to the few people they come across as well, engaging in friendly chatter that sounds like charming interrogation to Nocturne's ears.
“Things really are so much different here than they used to be,” Jaheira says at one point, gazing out at the courtyard.
Nocturne watches her analytically. “How so?”
“It used to be livelier. So many people moving about—like how it should be in a castle.”
The picture Jaheira paints does not resonate with Nocturne's own understanding of this place, even if it was from before her time. “Do you really remember how it used to be here?”
“Not as well as I'd like,” she admits. “And that's another thing I find odd. It's like… Well, nevermind.”
She doesn't press the point. “I've noticed that you don't accompany Princess Isobel on her walks,” she comments.
“Ah.” Jaheira takes a sharp breath through her teeth, wearing a disgruntled look. “She doesn't want me to. Thinks I'm being paranoid. But rest assured—I am there. Even if you cannot see me.” She nudges her with an elbow playfully, or threateningly.
Nocturne interprets it as the latter. “So where is your liege today?” she pries.
“Always questions with you. Perhaps she's spending time with yours.”
She takes the hint and drops the topic, an uneasy silence settling around them. Even as their walk becomes all the more tedious, even as there becomes little reason for her to linger beside her, she stays with Jaheira. She should be training, doing something to prepare for her duel, but the idea alone makes her sick. Perhaps she should feel enticed by this chance to best Lamona, but she doesn't. Her thoughts are plagued with the image of being at the end of the other knight's blade—an image that makes her brain bleed out her ears. It's only when the words Lady Shadowheart are uttered that her attention returns to the present moment, looking now at Jaheira in conversation with another servant of the castle.
“Oh, when she was really little.” The servant nods enthusiastically, smiling ear to ear. “I was actually the midwife when Her Majesty was in labor.” She presses her palm to a flushed cheek, radiating with pride.
Jaheira's brow raises. “What an honor that must have been.”
“Indeed it was. And I knew, I just knew she was going to be a baby girl. And what a precious girl she is!”
“No one's really told me what Lady Shadowheart was like when she was that age,” Jaheira says, glancing at Nocturne in her peripheral.
“Oh, she was just…” The midwife stops abruptly, her eyes growing cold and far away, her mouth hanging open. Even the red from her face fades, as though the life has been drained out of her. “I mean, she was a dear. She…” She's back and gone again in an instant.
“You've told me quite a few times,” Nocturne starts, a teasing smile gracing her lips, “how Lady Shadowheart was the perfect baby. I think you've said that she never cried, or…?”
The midwife blinks rapidly and nods, color returning to her cheeks. “Oh, yes, yes. That's right. She was such a happy little thing. Happiest infant I ever had the pleasure of holding in my arms.”
Jaheira is quiet, a look of bewilderment stuck to her face. She snags onto the subject like a hook. “Do you have any stories from when she was young?”
The midwife lowers her head in thought, that overcast appearance creeping back in.
“It was quite some time ago,” Nocturne supplies. “And she's cared for so many babies since then.”
“Very true,” the midwife murmurs.
“I would think the royal baby's upbringing would be unique, wouldn't it?” Jaheira insists. “And to not recall such a thing…”
“M-my apologies! You're right, you're very right indeed. How shameful for me to have forgotten.” The midwife bows, a fresh fluster reddening her entire face and her neck. “I-I really must be going now. Thank you for talking with me.” She bows again and slips away.
The expression Jaheira wears does not leave for the rest of the afternoon, even as her and Nocturne part ways.
- ○ -
It is dark. No sun, no moon to witness their duel. No one at all—a foreboding prospect.
When Nocturne comes to the yard below Shadowheart's tower, Lamona is already waiting for her arrival. How long has she stood there, she wonders, plotting her death? She tries not to consider that possibility, made harder by how she herself has plotted Lamona's—plotted for years. Imagined it so vividly, sometimes she dreamed it had come true.
There are rules to a duel—rules neither of them care to follow. This isn't a noble pursuit after all, nor is it honorable. Lamona must view it no differently from putting down a rabid dog.
That suits Nocturne just fine; she has no need for honor. Honor doesn't keep Shadowheart safe. Honor won't keep her alive to see tomorrow.
They see each other, locking eyes, but neither of them speak. Lamona is the first to lunge, her aggressive attack forcing Nocturne backward with each parry. She can feel Lamona's strength with each blocked blow and clenches her teeth, holding in the fear that screams within her.
With a quick strike, she aims a kick at her opponent's wrist with the end of her boot, the blade she fixed to the toe digging into flesh. Blood spurts, and Lamona curses, jumping away. Dominant hand rendered useless, she takes up her sword with the other.
“You think these tricks prove your worth to me?” Lamona says, her words latching their teeth into the air around them. She raises her sword toward Nocturne once more and her injured arm to her chest.
“I have nothing to prove to you.”
Nocturne goes on the offensive, levying blow after blow against the other knight, pushing her to the end of the yard. Each strike hits metal, the night air clanging with their combat, their shared bloodlust. She's already had a taste, vying for another. She's never been the strongest fighter, but she's made up for it with a wit as sharp as she keeps her sword. As it is now, Lamona's hand seems to struggle to hold onto the hilt, unable to strike back. Victory is practically in her grasp, burning on her tongue. It tastes savory; it tastes rich.
It tastes like iron.
White dots permeate her vision before she registers them as the stars above. When did she look up? There's a pressure on her shoulder and a cold like the deepest night of winter in her chest. Lamona's boot on her collarbone pushes her back, sliding her body off the tip of the blade piercing her breast.
The last few moments come back to her. That flurry of Lamona's wrist, that precise thrust through the gap in her armor—so perfect, as though she had practiced it a thousand times. Nocturne has never seen Lamona so much as pick up a blade with her left hand, and yet…
Nocturne's back hits the ground. She waits for that final, lethal blow. In her haze, she can barely make out the face of the woman looking down at her.
There's a hiss as Lamona sheathes her sword, appearing as tall as the tower behind her as she looms overhead. “Her Majesty asked me not to kill you,” Lamona says, her voice cutting through the fog in Nocturne's mind. “But I don't think you'll survive this one. A shame, really.”
Nocturne laughs—what else is she to do? “Guess I'm not the only one,” she says through the blood in her mouth, “who can’t do what they're told.”
The kick she earns is worth the pain. Lamona leaves her there beneath the moonless sky to bleed out onto the grass, wondering if the last words she ever got to tell Shadowheart are going to be a lie. Each breath is torture, one of her lungs punctured from the blow. The realization that Shadowheart might forget her again, forever, hurts her harsher than any wound ever could. Her eyes flutter closed, too heavy to stay open. But then, behind them, a marvelous, glowing light descends on her from the heavens above, and she sees it—sees her.
Shadowheart, in all her resplendent glory.
Chapter 8
Notes:
This one's a short but I think pretty important chapter.
Chapter Text
Lamona's hand grips Nocturne's hair like she has half a mind to tear it all from her head. Her eyes water, the pain and the shame welling within her full to bursting. She hunches over herself on her knees before the Queen, crossing her arms across her chest, palms covering her bare breasts.
“Shall I have her reflect on her transgressions?” Lamona asks.
The Queen's eyes dig into Nocturne, hot red and coldly analytical. She cannot meet them for more than a second before looking to the floor. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Ser Lamona,” the Queen says. “Leave us now. I will handle this alone.”
The knight lingers, likely wanting to have punished Nocturne further herself. Nevertheless, the hand in her hair loosens before untangling itself entirely. “As you wish.” Lamona's departing steps echo in the throneroom.
And then it is just her and the Queen. Viconia rises from her throne, coming down the steps until the end of her dress enters Nocturne's vision. She looms over her, a shadow blotting out the moonlight cast in from the windows. Something soft is draped over her shoulders; Nocturne looks up to find the Queen settling her own cloak over her. She grabs the edges and pulls them in front of herself, hiding her body.
The Queen descends to her knees before her, dirtying her dress on the floor. Arms wrap around Nocturne, and her face is pulled into Viconia's shoulder, one horn ghosting its touch against the drow's cheek. Her own body goes rigid, unaccustomed to such a gentle touch from anyone other than Shadowheart, though even Shadowheart's touch she had to learn to accept. With a shuddering breath, she allows herself to relax—and then she breaks, her body racked with wet sobs, her hands grasping at Viconia's back.
How warm Viconia's embrace is. She relishes in it—this new sensation. When Nocturne thinks of her own ma, she realizes she cannot remember her face, the image in her head an ovate blur.
“I see you, girl,” Viconia whispers into her hair, petting back the strands in a soothing motion.
Nocturne quivers, sobbing anew into the Queen's gown.
“Ser Lamona may not understand you, but I do. I remember your duel on the night of the new moon,” she says. “I could tell then, and can tell now, that you are someone who will do whatever it takes to get what you want. I respect that.”
Her tears stop falling, her body growing still. She looks up into Viconia's eyes and sees herself reflected in them.
Viconia leans toward her and presses a kiss atop her forehead. “That is what I need—what Shadowheart needs in a knight.”
Nocturne buzzes at the word, swelling with a warmth so bright and hot, it's as though she's being remade in its image. A knight. Shadowheart's knight. The Queen's–
She opens her eyes and thinks she's staring into the sun. The warmth that had bubbled within her now scorches her from the inside out, her heart thundering in her ears. She squirms, but a palm upon her sternum stills her.
“I'm almost done. Just… Just wait… one moment.”
She settles down, obeying the voice—one she immediately recognizes as Shadowheart's. She understands, now, that the heat and light both are coming from magic as her body and her blood are mended back together. The foreign sensation is no longer painful now that she knows what it is. Once it fades, her strength restored, she sits herself up, nearly toppling back over as Shadowheart throws her arms around her.
“Thank the Goddess!” Shadowheart breathes against her. “Thank the Goddess… I thought you were…” With her face pressed into Nocturne's neck, her mouth touches where it once used to, always, but in a different way.
Perhaps to ease the pace of her heart, Nocturne is quick to tease her. “You told me you'd tell me before you left… as a courtesy.”
“Oh, hush about that.” She sits back with a distressed pout. “I heard… a commotion, like fighting, or… or something. And you… What happened? Did the Selûnites…?”
“No,” Nocturne cuts that idea off. “It was… nothing. Just an accident.”
Shadowheart shakes her head. “What sort of accident does that to a person? Do you even understand what state you were in?”
“I do.”
“I'm not so sure that you do. There was so much b-blood–”
“I do,” she says again, holding Shadowheart's gaze. “You saved my life. I understand. I was the one who was hurt; I know how bad it was.” She doesn't realize at first that she has reached out toward Shadowheart until her hand is already cupping her cheek. Old habits.
“Well… good, then,” Shadowheart says. Her eyes, unsure of where to look, finally settle on the ground beside Nocturne. “That you understand. But don't worry me like that ever again.”
Nocturne smiles as gently as she strokes her thumb across Shadowheart's cheek, the digit tracing under her eye. “As you wish.” She pulls her hand back and starts to rise, but a sharp pain where her wound once was stops her with a gasp.
Shadowheart's hand flits back to her chest, pressed against her armor. “Maybe… you shouldn't move for a bit? My magic can only do so much.”
“Your magic did plenty.” Still, she doesn't try again. She wonders if this is familiar to Shadowheart—the two of them, spending the night beneath her tower.
“You… didn't see me, did you?” Shadowheart asks, brushing her fingers through her hair.
Golden rays like the sun. Silver spanning out like light from the moon. Falling toward her like a shooting star.
“See you?”
“Ah…” Poorly concealed relief washes over her face. “Never mind. Just a meaningless question.”
The yard beneath the tower is relatively unused nowadays, becoming overgrown to the point that it is practically a part of the garden. Shadowheart starts picking at the grass around them, pulling the strands up at their roots. Something she's always done as long as Nocturne has known her. In their silence, the moon rises its smiling face over the mountains, peering down at them from above. As it watches them, Nocturne watches Shadowheart, who takes note of the crescent moon, the tension that has twisted her face all evening lessening at the sight of it.
“I was lonely today,” Shadowheart admits. “I think I have become so used to seeing you every day, that… not seeing you as much today… well…” She trails off, her eyes on the moon.
“My apologies. I wanted to slip away from my duties and come see you, but…” The excuse fades away on her tongue.
Shadowheart laughs. “You wanted to see me? What's so exciting about me?” The angelic sound of her laughter is tainted by the scorn with which she speaks of herself.
A frown weighs heavy on Nocturne's face. “Have I not made it clear how dear you are to me?”
Her laughter quiets. She stares at her with wide eyes, so wide that Nocturne worries she said too much. But then Shadowheart trails her fingers toward Nocturne's arm, the gloved pads walking over her wrist, and she whispers, “How dear am I?”
Her heart soars as much as it sinks at the question, pulled in two irreconcilable directions. How could she possibly describe this feeling splitting her chest just as surely as any blade? How far is too far; how little is too little? Sitting so close together, the proper distance has become entirely blurred in Nocturne's mind, back then and right now overlapping into one image.
She takes hold of the hand dancing across her wrist and raises it to her lips, planting a kiss on the back of it, mouth to fabric. Summer crickets sing in her ears as loud as the beating of her own heart. “You are everything to me,” she murmurs against Shadowheart, idly rubbing her hand with her thumb. “Being near you, hearing your voice, seeing you makes me feel like I am whole again. And, if I'm being honest, I rather enjoy your company,” she finishes with a lighter tone.
Shadowheart curls her knees up to her chin, hiding her face, but her smile pokes through at the edges. She squeezes Nocturne's hand holding hers, tight. “I don't think I've ever had a friend quite like you before,” she confesses.
Friend. A safe, comfortable word. Out of all potential conclusions, that one eases her nerves the most. “Me, either.”
“That can't be true.” Shadowheart raises her head. “What about you and your knight friends? You told me you braid each other's hair. I've never had someone like that—besides you, I mean.”
Nocturne coughs, her chest aching dully with it, as she covers a laugh that tries to escape. She had not realized Shadowheart had spoken in earnest when she suggested such a thing before. “I'm not exactly on friendly terms with the other knights.”
A pause, Shadowheart considering. “Then whose hair did you braid?”
“Is this your way of getting me to braid your hair again?”
“Not at all,” Shadowheart says, adamant. Then, “But, I mean… if you want to, I'll never say no.”
Nocturne releases her hand, as much as she misses the touch, and motions for her to turn around. Shadowheart does so, scooting into place in front of her. Her hair is soft, unknotted, Shadowheart's habit of running her fingers through her hair keeping it tidy. Gathering up the strands, taut, she pulls all but the bangs into her grip, then splits the hair into two bundles. One half is set out of her way over Shadowheart's shoulder—which Shadowheart eagerly snatches up and starts braiding while she waits—and Nocturne braids the other half behind her back. As she reaches the ends of the first braid, looping it easily into a bun, she hears a sharp intake of breath.
“I taught you this.”
Her hands still, herself frozen. Even her heart feels as though it's no longer beating. “Pardon?”
“I taught you this.” Shadowheart turns around, staring at her with eyes just as aghast as her own. “A long time ago. Have… we met before?”
A thousand voices, all her own, scream in Nocturne's head. A thousand lies she could tell and a thousand truths. A thousand memories, not gone but buried—a suffocating, hopeful, dreadful thing.
She cannot utter any of them, nor anything at all. Instead, like a moth is drawn to candlelight, she leans into Shadowheart's space—is it space she's allowed to hold now? Her hand flutters from Shadowheart's wrist to her cheek then down to her waist where it comes to rest, to cling, to squeeze ever so gently. So close now that in her vision, there is only Shadowheart, only the flame. She can feel Shadowheart's eyes on her mouth, wanting to feel something more than that.
She gets what she wants, Shadowheart closing the distance between their lips, falling into old, long-forgotten habits, all the while Nocturne hoping she might remember more at the tip of her tongue, even as such a thought carves out a chasm within her.