Private Tales Virtue and Valor in Shades of Scarlet

Evadne froze as his fingers closed around hers... warm, steady, alive. The heat of him felt almost scalding against her cold skin, the pulse thrumming beneath his skin a rhythmic, merciless sound that filled her ears. How long had it been since she’d felt warmth like this?

Her throat tightened as he bent and pressed his lips to the back of her hand. The contact was light, chaste, but it might as well have been a brand searing through her veins. Every inch of her ached with the hunger she fought to forget, the hunger that whispered, just one taste, one heartbeat, one drop of warmth to remember what it means to live.

She wanted to pull away. Gods, she should. But instead she stood there, trembling, the world narrowing to the sound of his heart.

And yet when he lifted his gaze to hers, those soft eyes so full of sincerity, she felt something twist in her chest that was not hunger, but sorrow. He looked at her as though she were human. As though she were still something worthy of gentleness.

Her lips parted to speak, but no sound came. The silence stretched, heavy and fragile. Finally, she forced a smile, small and trembling.

“Oh… there is nothing to forgive, Sir Alaric,” she managed, her voice breaking into something breathless and too soft. “Please, think nothing of it.”

Her free hand clutched the cloak tighter around her shoulders, as if she could keep his warmth trapped there, as if it could stave off the void gnawing at her insides. She gave his hand the faintest squeeze, a human gesture, though she scarcely remembered how to be one.

“Perhaps,” she said quietly, eyes lowering, “you wouldn’t mind escorting me to my chambers. I… I feel a little unsteady on my feet.” A sigh escaped her, feather light, as though the effort of restraint alone wearied her more than centuries of solitude.

In her mind, a whisper followed, unwanted and treacherous. What harm could it do, to walk beside him a little longer?

Evadne’s fingers curled lightly around the crook of his arm, the contrast between his heat and her cold so striking she almost flinched. His heartbeat thrummed beneath her touch and it took every ounce of control not to lean closer, not to tiptoe let her lips brush against the pulse at his throat.

Instead, she exhaled softly, her gaze lifting to his face as a faint, wistful smile tugged at her lips. “You are kind,” she murmured, her voice warm despite the chill that clung to her. “But you barely ate a thing.”

The words were a gentle chide though her eyes lingered on the plate he had pushed away, the untouched meat, the red of the wine glinting like blood beneath the candlelight. Her throat tightened. Gods, what a fool she was to let him stay this long.

“Please,” she added, the sigh that followed catching faintly in her chest, “there is plenty more. You must be hungry.” And so am I, she did not say, though her stomach knotted with an ache that had nothing to do with mortal hunger.

Her gaze drifted toward the shadowed archway at the far end of the hall. “And yes,” she went on after a beat, a faint ghost of amusement softening her tone, “I was once something of a collector.”

The corner of her mouth curved, faint but knowing. “I can show you, if you’d like.”

Inside, her thoughts twisted uneasily, a fragile dance between yearning and dread. Take him to the cellar.. keep him there, what a fine addition to her collection he'd make...

Evadne leaned closer into his warmth, letting it seep through the thin barrier of her gown and the old cloak he’d draped around her. The ache of it almost made her dizzy. His pulse, steady against her arm, called to her like a drumbeat in the fog, and for a moment she imagined laying her head against his chest just to hear it up close. Just to remember what it sounded like.

But then his question cut through the haze. The lord of this place… your husband?

Her smile faltered. “No, not exactly,” she said softly, eyes lowering to the shadows that pooled along the steps. Her voice trembled faintly, like something fragile cracking beneath the weight of years. “He was my intended, though he left many years ago and has not returned…”

She hesitated, then forced a faint, wistful smile. “I have waited,” she murmured, “though I fear he may have found a more adequate wife.”

Her fingers slipped from his arm to the brass handle of the chamber door. The hinges creaked as she pushed it open, revealing a room that was still touched by grace.

The curtains were drawn tight, allowing only a faint spill of moonlight through the slits. A faint scent of dried lavender and lilies lingered in the air. The bed, neatly turned down, was dressed in silks the colour of dusk, soft blues and silver, and the hearth crackled quietly, a gentle glow fighting back the gloom. The furniture here was polished free of dust, and unlike the rest of the manor’s decay, this chamber had been kept alive, or at least, a memory preserved.

Evadne stepped inside but did not immediately move toward the bed. She lingered by the threshold, looking up at him. The firelight touched her pale cheek, and for a heartbeat she looked almost human again, like a woman trapped between centuries, between longing and loss.

“It does get terribly lonely,” she admitted quietly, her fingers tightening around the cloak. Her eyes flicked up to meet his.. “Even now, after so long… the silence can be unbearable. It's been nice to have some company.."

Evadne’s lips parted in a small, breathy laugh, soft and sad at once, the sound of someone who’d almost forgotten how to laugh. The ache in her chest deepened at his words. Loneliness on the road… If only he knew the kind of loneliness she spoke of...

“Your horse is fortunate,” she murmured, voice low and wistful, “to keep such company.”

She studied him a moment longer, the awkward way he smiled, the way his gaze darted anywhere but at her, and the tension beneath his composure. He was trying so very hard to be decent, to be honourable. The thought made something inside her twist painfully, admiration, sorrow, need, hunger.. she could no longer tell them apart.

She shouldn’t invite him in. Every part of her that still remembered decency whispered no. He had no idea the danger he was in. But the silence in this manor had been deafening for so long, and he was so warm, so alive, his heartbeat like music in her skull. His scent, ensnaring..

"Will you stay a while?.." Her lips curved faintly, though her eyes betrayed the war within her, hunger tangled with yearning, fear with desire.

“If.. It is not too improper of me to ask." she dropped her gaze, feigning shyness as she dropped the cloak from around her shoulders and tucked her silver hair behind her ear..

Evadne froze when he said my lady. The way the words hesitated, the faint tremor of doubt in them struck her like a needle through the ribs.

Gods, how desperate she must seem. How utterly pathetic.

Her gaze fell, shame prickling beneath her skin. She had forgotten how to do this, how to speak, how to ask without frightening, without revealing the hunger beneath her civility. She could so easily take it away, that hesitation. One flicker of power, a glance and she could pluck the thread of his will and make it hers, make him want to follow her.

But she wouldn’t. She’d known too well what it was to live like that, a creature of someone else’s desire, a hollow thing without choice.

Her lips parted, an apology forming when he spoke again.

As you wish.

The words caught her breath. She swallowed hard and offered him a quiet, uncertain smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “As you wish…” she echoed softly, as though tasting them, as though testing if they were real.

She stepped back, guiding him gently into the room and easing the door shut behind them with a soft click.

For a moment, she only looked at him, his golden hair dishevelled, the lamplight playing across the hard lines of his jaw and the faint flush of his skin.

She moved to the bed and sat at its edge, studying him as he took in the chamber. He had his choice of chairs, fine and comfortable, yet her head tilted slightly, like a cat regarding a bird that had come too close.

“You are of the Radiant Church, aren’t you?” she asked at last, voice soft and curious, breaking the quiet. When his eyes again met hers, she smiled faintly, a touch of mischief there, but it didn’t reach far enough to disguise the sadness beneath.

“Tell me…” she began, her tone lilting, but there was something genuine threaded through it, a kind of brittle hope. “What does the Church teach its knights about… intimate relations?”

Her head tilted the other way now. “Is it a sin? Or merely… discouraged?”

Evadne felt his gaze like a warm hand trailing over her skin, heavy and lingering, sinful in its own right. His heartbeat quickened, and the sound of it struck her like a chord plucked too hard, reverberating through her bones. Hunger unfurled, slow and molten, blooming not just in the hollow of her stomach but curling achingly lower.

Fuck… she’d forgotten what this felt like. To be wanted. Or at least… to be looked at like she wasn’t a ghost or a monster or a curse. To be looked at at all, really.

Her lips curved, faintly, as he explained the codes of his order, and the way he swallowed, the way he tried to sound stern and unaffected, only sharpened her desire.

When he asked if she feared sinning, she let out a breath that was almost a laugh, soft and disbelieving.
“Terrified,” she answered, her voice a hush confession and a tease combined.

She kept her gaze locked on those warm, painfully beautiful eyes, as she shifted where she sat. Her legs crossed in one slow, deliberate motion, and the nightgown slipped open along one thigh, revealing pale, perfect skin like cut alabaster kissed by moonlight.

“A man of action, you say…” she echoed, her brow arching just slightly. Her gaze flicked down his form, then up again, lingering. Inviting.

“You are quite welcome,” she murmured, voice velvety soft and edged in hunger she could barely restrain, “to prove it.”

Evadne felt the shift in him, the war between want and restraint, the torment written in the tightening of his jaw, in the way he couldn’t quite breathe. Gods, it poured off him like heat from a forge, thickening the air around them, a warmth she hadn’t felt in a century.

And still… Still he made her excuses and said he ought to leave.

Something inside her twisted. Sharp. Ugly. Shameful.
What had possessed her to invite him in like that? To sit there like some desperate little thing starved of touch and hope he might take pity?

She saw it then, the flicker of hesitation in his eye, and shame struck her clean through the ribs.

She looked away quickly, jaw clenching, breath stuttering.

“Fuck…” she whispered under her breath, a small, broken sound, and rose from the bed in a sweep of pale legs and silk. She pulled the cloak around herself again like armour, as though it might hide her mortification. A huff of a laugh escaped her, thin, bitter, self-mocking.. "Stupid..."

“I’m sorry,” she said gently, though it tasted like ash tearing up her throat. “Yes… I shouldn’t keep you.”

Her movements were graceful, but the defeat in her shoulders was unmistakable as she moved past him. She did not touch him this time.

“You’ll find your steed in the stable,” she continued softly, opening the door for him without lifting her gaze. “Thank you for your company, Sir. I… wish you a safe journey.”

And that was it.

A century of solitude, and the first warm presence she’d felt near her, driven off by her own hunger, her own foolishness.

She crossed the room without looking back, settling heavily before the carved vanity. With trembling fingers she lifted a comb of carved bone and ran it through her hair, the repetitive motion giving her something, anything to focus on besides the hollow ache in her chest.

Her reflection stared back at her, too pale, too perfect, amber eyes too bright, too wrong. A monster playing at being a woman. Of course he would leave.

Her voice, barely more than a whisper, trembled as she added, “Goodnight Alaric…”

She let him lower her hand, let him take the comb from her fingers, her breath catching when his touch found her cheek.

Sunfire warmth against her frozen skin.

Gods… her eyes fluttered half closed for a moment, traitorous, hungry for the heat she hadn’t tasted in so long. Hunger coiled low in her belly, but so too did a terrible, tender ache, something human she had not felt in an age.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” she murmured at last.

Fingers swept into her hair in a gesture so gentle she nearly leaned into it. She swallowed hard, gaze lifting to his, and the earnestness there, the conflict, the want she didn’t know was real or not.

“...I don’t want your pity…” she added in a whisper, barely more than breath.

But her voice trembled. She hated that it trembled.

She tried to pull back slightly, chin lowering in a small, wounded angle, not to escape him but to hide the rawness in her eyes.

“You don’t need to make amends by staying,” she said, though her fingers curled lightly, unconsciously, around his wrist. She felt his pulse race beneath her fingertips, and her jaw ached..

“You don’t have to pretend to want me…Please… don’t be kind just to ease your conscience.”