Private Tales Sighing Shadows by the Light of the Moons

[Galen]

A slow, stupid smile crept across the mage’s scruffy features and he tapped the side of his nose. When did he suddenly get so lucky? This visiting blue blood wanted him to give her a tour.

“A little night time adventure? Careful, I’ve heard there are burglars out there. Hang on, I’ve got you.”

He waved his hand and muttered an incantation. Narrowing his eyes, he willed his thoughts to take form, gave them life, and in a moment a slightly translucent version of Ciana stood next to the real one. There was something slightly off about the copy. He couldn’t be quite sure. Maybe the eyes a touch too big, or the hands too small. It wasn’t a one for one copy, but close enough. Galen gestured toward the bed and not-Ciana walked over and got into it, slipping under the covers.

Quite pleased with his work, Galen looked at the real Ciana.

“What? It’s in case someone comes in to check on you. It should last us a few hours. Not the first time I’ve had to leave a doppelgänger behind. Usually it’s of me though.”

Leaving the books behind, Galen went to the open shutters and waited for her to join him. He produced two white dove feathers from his coat, then mischievously tickled under her nose with one before he handed it over. Eyes twinkling, Galen nodded toward the window.

“Come on, witch. It’s time to infuriate your stepmother. That’s what they’re best for, I hear. Go ahead. Jump out when you’re ready. I bound an enchantment to the feather. You’ll land soft as one. Just don’t try it on anything higher or it won’t work.”

He made a face, imagining them leaping off the belltower.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana’s lips curved into a grin, though her eyes narrowed in mock reproach at his joke about burglars. Har, har. But as he began his incantation, her smile softened into wonder. It still felt illegal somehow, just to watch him wield magic so openly, and yet she couldn't hide her fascination..

Her eyes widened as the shimmering double took shape beside her. She stumbled back until her hip bumped the vanity with a soft thud, a little gasp escaping.

“Why, it’s… me?” Her head tilted in disbelief, and the doppelgänger mirrored the gesture perfectly.

She wrapped her arms around her ribs as she watched the strange version of her walk across the room and slip into her bed. A shiver rolled over her back. “Gracious, that’s unnerving…”

Casting off her robe, she crossed the room and pulled a fine dove-grey cloak around her shoulders, lifting the hood. With the soft swish of fabric she joined him at the window, every movement as tentative as it was eager.

“I don’t think I can—” she started, only to be interrupted by the feather brushing under her nose. She gave a startled laugh, huffing and rubbing at the itch with her sleeve. “Menace.” she muttered. Still, she accepted the feather, holding it between two fingers to study it.

When he called her witch her breath caught, then released as a small smile curved across her lips. “That’s a dangerous word to use where I’m from…” she murmured, though there was a spark of mischief in her eyes.

But then came his ridiculous suggestion, and her smile gave way to wide-eyed disbelief.

“Jump!?...” she blinked at him, clutching the feather tighter as her stomach flipped at the very idea. “I think I’d rather take the stairs…”

 

[Galen]

“No,” he insisted, shooing her forward, wielding his feather like a rapier. “Easier to get caught sneaking out the front door. Never use the front door. Or stairs.”

He frowned.

“Stairs have a way of creaking loud when you least want them to.”

Gods, her laugh reminded him of those little silver wind chimes at that tinker’s shop on the east market. And the way her eyes seemed to light up at the mention of scandal and mischief. As if she enjoyed it. What was he getting himself into?

A night on the city, apparently.

“You aren’t afraid of a little jump are you? Go on. Here, we can jump together.”

Wrapping an arm around her waist, he marched them forward onto the lip of the window and proceed to count.

“One, two - hold on - three.”

Before she could protest further, he stepped off.

Air. Wind. Weightlessness.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Her eyes went wide as his arm slid around her waist and suddenly she found herself teetering on the ledge with nothing but cobblestones below.

“Wait- Galen, I don’t think-!” she squeaked, clutching his sleeve.

But then there was no more thinking. He counted to three and stepped, and the ground rushed up to meet them. Her stomach swooped, her hood flew back, and for one impossible heartbeat she was certain they’d both smash into cold stone. But then- lightness. The wind roared in her ears and she found herself gliding rather than falling, drifting to earth like a feather caught in a summer breeze. Her slippers touched the street with barely a whisper.

Ciana staggered a step, gasped, and then let out a breathless laugh that broke into giddy giggles. “Oh! Oh my goodness!” she pressed a hand to her pounding heart, blue eyes bright as stars. “That was--...” she laughed again, shaking her head, “I cannot believe you just--...”

Words failed, but exhilaration shone through every flush of her cheeks.

Impulsively, she caught his hand, fingers curling around his without hesitation this time. “Come on,” she grinned, tugging him away from the manor’s looming shadow.

She pulled him into a run, her cloak billowing behind her as they slipped through the gates and out into the lamplit streets of Elbion, her laughter trailing in their wake.

 

[Galen]

Well. What a change of circumstances a few days brought about. Just three days ago, Galen stood on the verge of defaulting his loans and being beaten into a pulp by some Valkyr and Sons thugs, then his corpse resurrected under contract to go marauding for the Thronebreakers. Now here he found himself led through the streets of Elbion at dusk by a devastatingly beautiful Allirian noblewoman.

A thrill of exhilaration raced through him as they raced way from the manor, their fingers intertwined. He found he could not stop grinning. Probably looked a thrice-damned, absurd idiot. Being close to her like this, hearing her laughter. It felt electric. Like when he finally got the hang of a spell and saw his conjuration come racing forth. Gods. Why couldn't he feel this way all the time?

They quickly reached the end of the nearby bridge and passed through an alley, then started toward another. Galen pulled her up short.

"Alright, your ladyship, slow down. Can't go racing off into every darkened corner. You trying to scandalize me?" He squinted at her, mockingly.

Of course, if they ever did get caught and they realized who she was, then he might be done for... oh his student status with the college of mages might save him. Maybe. Only maybe. They couldn't afford to hang all their mage students. Even the ones who snuck about with a noblewoman. He would definitely be beaten, though, and Galen preferred to avoid the feel of a blackjack cracking his ribcage.

"Here, you ever seen a night market before? It should just be getting started," He led her in the direction of the merchant district, closer to port. Hardly anyone was out roaming the streets who didn't also have a collar turned up like Galen, or a hood like Ciana.

Galen didn't let go of her hand at first, even when they slowed walking. He uh. Well. He kind of liked it, truth be told. And if she did too, then what's all the fuss about. Supposed it would be more gentlemanly if he offered her his arm. So he did just that, elbow poking toward her.

"Madame," he said with an incline of the head, then led her in the direction of all the pretty lights, visible even from this distance. By the time they arrived, the sun had truly sunk beneath the horizon and the shadows grew long from the moons and the stars.

They could hear them before they rounded the corner, the hubbub of the night market, then as they came around all the lights shone on display. Regular lamps. Candles. And blobs of floating magical light that just sat there like glowing orbs. Beneath and around the light were two rows of tents, stretching on either side of the cobblestone thoroughfare. Merchants and peddlers and tinkerers and all sorts hawked their wares from beneath the tents. There was even a tavern or three still open, a bit further down, if she felt inclined for a drink.

Here in the night market, most of the wares had a more... unseemly tinge to them. Instead of common produce, they sold tinctures and concoctions. One old crone tried to grab him by the arm, talking about an ointment to make him rut like a wild bull. Galen tore his arm away, blushing furiously and stammering.

"Oh look, a fire breather," Galen pointed to a little stage with a man twirling a torch. A small crowd surrounded the stage, properly gasping when he held the torch to his lips and blew out a sudden gout of fire into the night air.

"Just like you. Should ask if he's got any tips," Galen chuckled.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana froze, her eyes wide, appalled.

“Scandalise you?” she repeated, scandalised herself, ready to apologise profusely for her behaviour, until she caught the crooked grin tugging at his mouth. Her heart stumbled, then steadied. Gods, she really was a fool. She exhaled, shaking her head, the smile slipping back, softer this time. “Sorry. I’m just… alive, I suppose.”

The words surprised her. But it was true. For the first time in years she wasn’t bone-weary, wasn’t waiting for the next collapse and premature death. For once her body didn’t feel like a cage. She felt free, perhaps a little dangerously so. This was a new life.

She steadied her pace, let herself breathe. And when he mentioned the night market, something childlike flickered across her face. “No… I haven’t been to a market since I was a child.” Her voice laced with wonder, as if markets themselves were a memory out of reach.

When his hand finally slipped from hers, she felt the absence immediately, like being dropped into cold water. Then he offered his arm instead, gentlemanly. Ciana flushed hot, her stomach twisting. Oh, Saints—what had she been thinking, clutching him like some tavern wench? Some back-alley Sally! She swallowed, murmuring, “I’m sorry…” before giving him a shy, crooked smile and slipping her hand into the crook of his arm. Proper. Decorous.

Then, there was light.

"Wondrous..." she whispered.

The market spilled open before her like a story come to life, every flickering lamp and orb of conjured glow reflected in her wide eyes. The colours, the voices, the scents, clove smoke, fried foods, sharp herbs, all of it wrapped around her. She slowed as though to drink it in, gaze darting from one strange stall to another, unable to decide what to marvel at first.

Ciana blinked in shock as a hunched old woman caught Galen’s sleeve and said something about rutting bulls. Her cheeks went crimson, her throat cleared with an awkward little cough as she looked away very quickly, feigning sudden fascination with a rack of glass bottles that glimmered like stars.

Mercifully, Galen steered her on. Ciana stopped to watch the fire breather, her lips parting as the man exhaled a plume of flame into the night. The crowd gasped. So did she, her brows arching. “Gracious, no… I couldn’t do that.” Her voice was hushed, awed.

 

[Galen]

“You sure?” Galen raised an eyebrow, rubbing at his cheek right where she’d kissed him, “I’d disagree.”

Another roar of flame into the night cast the two of them in an orange glow and he watched her, smiling at the way her amazement and awe of the moment shone in her eyes and her expression. What did they call that? That shade her skin was? So white, like snow. Porcelain. Yes, that was it. Like porcelain.

He stood there with her for a moment, soaking in the fire breather’s pageantry. Easy to forget the adventure of life, what when you were being pursued by bankers and mercenaries and such.

They wandered on down the street and found a hedgewizard shooting orbs into the street that cascaded with a scintillating array of colors, impossible shades of greens and blues and yellows and reds and more that Galen didn’t even know the names of in all their shades. He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Still feeling alive?”

Galen paused at a simple table behind which sat an elderly orc woman, hair braided and festooned with bone fetishes. He looked at the table and saw it strewn with bones and wooden cards. A chill crept through him.

“Fortunes, dearies?” Cried the orc, lifting up her head to reveal clouded, sightless eyes.

The young man took a step back, his sense of adventure stumbling somewhat.

“I… I don’t know.”

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana gasped, clapping softly as the fire breather bent flame to his will, her laughter spilling just as brightly into the night. When the wizard sent colourful orbs floating through the air, she tipped her head back, eyes wide, lips parted in wonder, the glow refracting in her irises.

"Beautiful.." she whispered.

At Galen’s whisper her head turned toward him, the smile that curved her lips nearly uncontainable. “Oh yes… very much so. And... also a little rebellious, but my father and stepmother shall never hear of this…” she chuckled, though her voice carried a conspiratorial hush, as though the very shadows might betray her secret. Then she blinked, elaborating, “That is, the magic, of course. Every one of these people would be locked in a sanitorium or worse for such tricks.”

The laugh that followed was mirthless and brittle as thin glass and the truth was just as sharp in her chest, that had the Professor not brought her here, she might well have shared such a fate.

Her gaze dropped then to the orc woman, her bones and tokens scattered across the table. Fortune telling. The words alone made her stomach flutter with equal parts fear and fascination. A woman who claimed to glimpse what lay ahead. Saints, what she wouldn’t give to know what her life could look like now.

Ciana hesitated. Then, with a breath that steeled and trembled all at once, she slipped a hand into her cloak, fingers brushing cool metal. She drew out a small silver coin and dropped it into the woman’s waiting palm.

“Oh… why not.” Her words were light, but her pulse thundered as she watched the sightless eyes of the seer.

 

[Galen]

The orc woman cackled and stuffed the coin into a purse on the table, then she swept up some of the bones in her hands and shook them vigorously.

A sense of unease stole through Galen and he felt the noise of the crowd grow oppressive for a moment, but his eyes were transfixed.

Mumbling some incantation, the orc tossed the bones on the table and Galen’s eyes widened. He saw now how they lay, each yellow bit of ossified relic carved with some obscure lettering in orcish tongue. He looked from them to his hand. They were knuckle bones.

“Hmmm. Oh yes, oh yes,” muttered the orc, who then began sorting the wooden cards based upon what her sightless eyes saw in the bone. With sudden violence she flipped over a card and slammed it onto the table.

“Hah! The Paramours. How sweet, how sweet. Hmm but what’s this.” Another card. “The Priest reversed. Mmm. Defiance of tradition. Dangerous, child.”

She flipped over a third.

“The Rook! Ahhh. Suffering and pain. But… what’s this?”

A fourth, the sun in radiance carved deep and painted onto the wooden card.

“The Sun… My, my. Is it reversed? Hmm. Strange. I cannot tell.”

Galen didn’t like this at all. He’d always hated divination and oracles. Knowing your future seemed like a terrible thing to him.

“What’s it mean?” He asked, unable to help himself.

“She travels a road in defiance of tradition, with a partner perhaps, but there will be upheaval ahead, terrible upheaval. It could end in joy, or it could end in loss. Fate balanced on a razor’s edge of choices.”

Galen scowled, sounded like a load of nonsense to him. “Uh. Thanks.” He eyed Ciana.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana’s nose wrinkled at the sight of the bones, her lips parting in faint distaste. Garish little things, carved and yellowed with age. And yet she leaned forward despite herself, pulled in by the strangeness of it, until the orc’s hand came slamming down. She jumped, startled, clutching instinctively at Galen’s sleeve, her fingers curling tight as her breath caught with a quiet "Goodness.."

Paramours. Her blue eyes slid toward him, unamused, as though he had planted that word there himself. But the rest… the rest she drank in, her expression shifting like clouds across a moon. Curiosity. Fascination. Unease. Then something darker, quiet as dread.

Defiance of tradition. Dangerous. Her throat tightened. Surely the woman could only mean this - her magic, her presence in a city where it was celebrated instead of condemned. What else could it mean?

Pain and suffering… Ciana swallowed hard. That part she knew already, deep down in her marrow, though she prayed Galen’s solution meant it was finally behind her. And the Sun, of all things, the Sun. She wanted to laugh bitterly. Her most hated enemy, her cruellest gaoler, her curse.

But then he spoke of upheaval and choices and joy and loss and she frowned, offering a half smile in thanks to the orc woman, her hand lingered on Galen’s sleeve a heartbeat longer than necessary. Tugging gently, she turned him away from the stall, from those clouded eyes that still clung to her with eerie attention.

“Well… now I have more questions than I do answers.” She forced a laugh under her breath, casual as she could make it..

“My father says it’s all nonsense, fortune telling. One stopped by a festival when I was a child and told him he’d grow gills and live in a pond if he didn’t stop drinking so much brandy.” She smiled faintly at the memory, though her gaze slid back toward the seer, still watching, still waiting. A shiver traced her spine.

Her attempt at levity faltered as she looked back at Galen. “Are you sure you don’t want her to read yours? It can’t be worse than, 'pain and suffering and terrible upheaval and loss', can it?” she said, mimicking the orc's old and cracked voice.

The impression earned a quiet huff of laughter from her own lips, but it dissolved quickly. Her frown returned, her brows knitting together. “Goodness, that does sound miserable, doesn’t it?” She blinked, lips pressing thin, as though admitting aloud what had already wormed its way under her skin.

 

[Galen]

“Look, these seers…” he lowered his voice, conscious of the sightless eyes somehow boring into his back, “They’re all hacks, ok? Your father’s right about that at least. I mean, what did she even tell you really, if you think about it? That you might find someone, that your life might be difficult and it could end happy or it could end sad - I mean come on, anyone could have said that.”

He snorted, shaking his head, “And don’t get me started on the defying traditions part. Everyone at the night market is defying tradition, being rebellious, just by being here. I just… I wouldn’t read too much into it. You know? They can’t dictate your fate.”

Glowing lights reflected in his ocean-dark eyes as he stared into her eyes. The haggard lines of his face from too little sleep and too much worry softened just a bit.

He took both of her hands in his and held them up in between them. Overhead, another bubble of wobbling colors burst into a hundred smaller orbs. Galen’s eyes followed them for a moment, smiling, then came back down to her haughty yet slightly nervous and doubly curious face. And those wide eyes that started to draw him in again.

Uh oh.

“I… I just think you should remember you control your destiny. No matter what a blind orc lady or your stepmother or any of them say.”

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana nodded as he spoke, lips parted faintly, drinking him in like water in a drought. At first his words reached her, firm, grounding, meant to reassure. He was always doing that, wasn’t he? Always trying to knit her back together. Giving back her little box back when he could’ve stolen it. Talking her down from spiralling and potentially catastrophic panic attack when she’d been sure she’d burn the world down around her. Pouring over books, chasing solutions for her sickness..

Her head tilted. He was still talking, still stringing those rough, earnest words together, but she found herself half-lost. Mesmerised by her own realisations.

How sweet, the orc had said. A strange thing, to think of herself entangled in sweetness. And yet, Galen was sweet, wasn’t he? Infuriating, irreverent, reckless. But sweet. And handsome too, in that haphazard, roguish way that no doubt scandalised her stepmother just by existing.

Then came the words that broke the world open. Words no one had ever said to her before. Words no priest, no father, no governess would ever dream of. You control your destiny.

Her breath caught, her pulse stuttered. Untraditional was far too mild a word. It was heresy. It was freedom.

Her gaze lingered on his eyes for a long moment, betraying her. Dark blue, like a flame that burned cold instead of hot, searing all the same.

“Can’t possibly think of what choices she means…” she murmured, voice almost too soft to hear, her eyes flicking from his to the shape of his mouth as if it were some puzzle to be solved. Wonder sat heavy in her chest, bright and dangerous.

 

[Galen]

Those eyes of hers wandered and he watched them wander with a sudden tightness in his chest. Oh. Oh no. Her fingers, intertwined with his, felt warm and soft. Not the feverishness they'd possessed in the library at all. And... why did he have the sudden urge to press his lips to each of those fingertips? No. No, no. That would be a mistake. This simply could not be. She'd said as much. She was a noble and he was just, well, a mage. And not even a very good one. Not even a graduated one, technically.

"Ciana," the syllables rolled off his tongue, a warning whisper.

Had they always been standing this close? His breath quickened, but he felt frozen, unable to pull his gaze away from that heart-shaped face.

Her family would never approve of this, from what she'd told him. Besides, he'd brought her out here all by herself without one of those chapos. It wouldn't be right...

Their faces hovered so close, he studied every part of those pale curves.

He swallowed.

"I..."

Shouldn't.

In those crystalline eyes he saw a glint.

Every choice he made ended up wrong. Disappointing Telemachus. Getting himself abducted. Taking that loan. Signing that damned mercenary contract. Betraying those mercenaries. He just went from bad to worse. A sense of danger thrummed through his nerves like lightning, but he just couldn't help himself could he.

Not with that damned enchanted book of Wyrms.

Not with helping this woman and her magical ailment.

And not with slipping his hands free of hers and wrapping them around her, pulling her into him. Galen stooped and pressed his lips to hers, felt the heat. Not searing, but soft and sensual and filling him with a glow that suffused every part of him and stole all the breath out of his lungs.

Not at all like pasta.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Her pulse beat a frantic drum in her chest long before his mouth found hers. She felt it in the way his hands slipped from hers, the sudden absence leaving her palms tingling, aching for something she did not have words for. She saw it in his eyes, storm-dark, uncertain, yet pulled to her like the tide answering the moon. The world seemed to shrink around them, the market falling away into smoke and flame and music muffled to nothing but a distant hum..

Ciana knew she should stop this. Knew she ought to draw herself up, summon her practiced hauteur, remind him, and herself, who she was, what she was. But rebellion had its claws in her now. Every minute she’d spent in Elbion, every step into this night had been a step away from the path her father had carved, away from the careful, suffocating life she was meant to endure. And Galen…. Galen.

When his arms closed around her, a soft gasp caught in her throat, trembling on the edge of surprise and desire, just as his lips found hers. For a moment she froze.. Her first kiss, her first taste of something forbidden and wholly hers. And then inevitability swept through her, and she yielded, melting into him as though she had always been meant to.

Her lips, tentative at first, grew braver against his. She felt the warmth of him, the faint scrape of his stubble, the press of his breath mingling with hers. Each second stretched, spun golden, until she thought she might drown in the sensation of it - the heat blooming in her chest, the delicious weightlessness of surrender.

Her fingers curled into the fabric of his coat, anchoring herself as though the earth itself had tilted beneath her feet. When she broke for air, her breath shivered out of her, her chest rising and falling too fast, eyes wide with wonder and fear and exhilaration all at once.

“Galen…” she whispered, his name a confession and a challenge both, her forehead resting lightly against his, her tingling lips curling into a smile..
“Heavens…”

 

[Galen]

“I…” he started again, thoughts evaporating every time they tried form like mist in at dawn.

The way she melted into him. The way her lips felt so soft against his. Not fair at all, this thing that could not be. Her forehead pressed to his, he could smell the scent of her skin, her hair, an intoxicant that he felt sure would drive him mad.

“We shouldn’t,” he whispered, starting to pull away, “I mean you just told me about all the scandal you’re worried about. And here we are in the middle of the street. Oh gods. They’re going to hang me if they find out.”

He licked his lips, unable to tear his thoughts away from the taste of her mouth and the hunger for more, more, more.

They stood between two tents, the lower stone half of a house just behind Galen’s back. He retreated, bumping against it.

A narrow, dimly-lit and empty alley opened just to his right.

“I can take you back,” he started rambling, words collapsing into one another as his mind’s eye played the kiss over and over again. “We will sneak back in, nobody will be wiser, not even that sightless orc. Who is she going to tell anyway? Can’t tell a proper fortune to save her life. And then you can pretend like you never met me, ok? Just a nobody burglar mage.”

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Her smile faltered, slipped, and was gone.. It was starting to make her cheeks ache anyway. The warmth that flushed her now was no longer the rush of daring, of rebellion, but the sting of retreat. Her fingers unfurled from his coat as though she’d burned him, falling uselessly to her sides before she folded her arms across herself, a pale shield.

Her gaze lifted to him once more, searching, a soft frown knitting at her brow. But he was already drawing back, pressed into the stone, words tumbling out like apologies he hadn’t spoken yet. And she felt the heat in her chest twist into something else entirely.

“Oh…” the syllable slipped out like a wound. “Yes, I mean—no. You’re right. Of course we shouldn’t. I…” Her head shook once, twice, stray tresses falling forward to veil her face. “Gods, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

What had she been thinking? What madness had possessed her to imagine—

Her breath came too fast, panic rising like floodwaters. She couldn’t seem to stop it. Couldn’t seem to gather herself.

“N-no, it’s alright,” she rushed, her voice a shade too high, too brittle. “I should— I can get back on my own. You don’t have to—”

Her throat closed up on the rest. She forced the words through anyway, even as her eyes stung.

“Goodnight, Galen.”

Before he could say another word, before she could betray herself further, she turned sharply, skirts brushing against the stone as she hurried toward the crowd, toward anonymity, anywhere but there.

 

[Galen]

He watched her go and felt a deep and cold ache clutching at his heart, like a fist squeezing tighter and tighter, spreading a numb chill through his body.

Galen rubbed his forehead and let his head fall back against the wall behind.

What had he done?

* * *

The next day, she heard nothing from him.

Nor the day after that.

The books sat on her desk, immense tomes filled with diagrams and intense scientific breakdowns of magical transference, as well as the nature of light-conducted magic. Dense material, if she peeled through the pages.

The third day, past twilight, there came a rapping at her window shutters.

A rush of cold wind stirred the trees of early autumn, pulling their leaves along and sending them floating away.

The rapping came again. Persistent. Insistent.

Outside crouched Galen. He looked odd without his long, dark coat. His white tunic was torn in several places at the elbows and arms. A fresh scratch welled blood on an elbow.

His eyes were sunken and hollow blue things, like two wells, and he’d dark bags under his eyes. His hair, never tidy, stuck in every direction but the right one.

Those eyes turned and found her.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana had rushed home that night in floods of tears, hot and foolish, her skirts clutched in her fists as though she could outrun the ache in her chest. She hadn’t truly left her chambers since. Her maids had knocked, but she’d only made excuses of headaches and kept herself buried in books. Books were safe. Books didn’t kiss you and then tell you to forget.

Yet even books betrayed her. Every time her eyes snagged on a line of ink, she thought of him: his voice, his hands, his lips. And then his words, sharp as broken glass: pretend like you never met me.

She told herself after two days he had already done just that. Forgotten her. Cast her off like the burden she was. The ache settled deep, a constant weight beneath her ribs. She rubbed absently at it now as she leaned over her desk, the lamp burning low, three rubies laid out like blood drops beside the sprawl of open tomes.

The first rap at her shutters made her jump so violently her quill spilled a blot of ink across the page. Her heart leapt, traitorous, filling with ridiculous hope before her mind caught up, before she reminded herself that she was a fool.

Another rap. Louder. Relentless.

She clenched her teeth, ignored it, tried to bury her face back into the dense text. But the knocking grew sharper, insistent, and panic flickered.. what if one of the staff heard?

Furious with herself, with him, with the whole cursed mess, Ciana shoved back from the desk and stormed to the windows, throwing the shutters open so hard they rattled on their hinges.

“First you talk to me about scandal and tell me to forget you then you’re at m—” Her voice caught. Her gaze dragged over him. The disheveled hair, the hollowed eyes, the torn tunic, the blood at his elbow.

The sharp retort dissolved into something softer.

“…You’re hurt.”

She stepped back, her hand rising instinctively to gesture him inside, anger lost in the tide of worry that filled her chest.

“What happened? And why… why are you here?..”

 

[Galen]

"It doesn't matter," he rasped, dropping into her bedroom, then turning, he closed the shutters behind to shut out the cruel chill of the wind.

Gooseflesh rose across his bare arms and he felt as though warmth might never return to his skin, the night air had leeched away his very life.

Pausing, hand pressed against the shutter, he leaned there for a moment, bone achingly tired. Every part of him hurt so that he could barely feel the sting of the cut on his elbow, or the bruising on his ribs from where they'd clubbed him. He just wanted to lie down and pass out, but he knew if he tried he wouldn't get one wink.

Galen turned back to her and felt as hollow as his stare.

"I know you probably want me gone. That I'm nobody to you. But I had to see you again, Ciana."

He took a step forward, swaying slightly on his feet. Then bloodshot, haunted eyes flashed with lightning and he steadied himself.

"I can't stop thinking about you."

Galen swallowed through the tightness in his throat.

"Ever since that night. And it's killing me. I can't sleep. I can't eat."

He ran both hands through his hair, fingers tightening around his skull as though he might extract the memory of her and that cursed kiss from his very brain. He'd thought about it, more than once. But no. He couldn't. Wouldn't. Wanted every detail of her face seared into his memory for all time.

His hands dropped back to his sides and he glanced at his scraped elbow, snorting and shaking his head. Nothing. It was nothing.

The mage took another step toward her, his breathing shallow.

"What sort of spell did you put on me?" he whispered, drunk just on the sight of her.

Ciana

 

[Ciana]

Ciana’s brows knit, her voice cutting through the air with a tremor that surprised even herself.

“No…” she frowned, chin tilting just slightly in defiance. “No, you said that. That I was to forget I met you, and that you were a nobody. Don’t put words in my mouth.” The words came in a rush, sharp but fragile, her breath trembling in their wake. She wasn’t accustomed to speaking out like this. It was unladylike, unbecoming. But she couldn’t stop herself. Not now.

“It does matter…” she pressed, but her voice softened when her gaze lingered on him on the way he swayed, pale and shaking, as though one more gust of that autumn wind might knock him flat. “And you’re shaking…”

Her throat tightened, and she swallowed down the surge of worry that threatened to drown out everything else he’d said. Later. She’d think about his words later. Right now, he looked like he might crumble into dust.

She moved quickly to his side, fingers brushing his arm as she urged him toward the plush sofa beneath the windows. “Come. Sit down.”

She gave him no chance to protest. “I don’t know any spells,” she murmured, almost shyly, as if admitting it were some fault. “You’re the one with all the tricks.”

When he finally sank into the cushions, she swept away to her bathing chamber, fetching a pitcher and bowl, the motions brisk and practiced though her hands shook faintly. Returning, she set the water and a folded muslin cloth on the low table before him, then perched beside him..

“Let me see,” she said gently, reaching for his arm to carefully peel back the torn sleeve, and she gasped. “Goodness, Galen, you’re freezing.”

Her fingertips grazed the skin of his forearm, and at once her palms warmed as though her very body sought to soothe what ailed him. She glanced down at their hands, his cold and worn, hers glowing faintly with heat. Slowly, she turned her palms up, hovering them near his.

“May I?” she asked softly, her gaze flicking up to meet his, her voice hushed but steady. “I.. just want to warm you.” She added hesitantly. Nothing scandalous…

 

[Galen]

Wordlessly, he nodded, not trusting his own lips.

She hadn’t said she felt the same way, hadn’t told him that that kiss in the night market kept her awake past the chimes. A dagger of despair stabbed through him, the pang more frigid still than the midnight air outside.

Pulling up his sleeve, she revealed an intricate web of knotted, spiraling tattoos of strange letters that started just above the elbow and continued up the arm and further. Each letter held the thinnest of spaces between one side of black ink and the other, like a groove down the middle of a sword, so that the letters were in reality drawn twice - one inside the other.

He watched her with a haunted gaze, but the chill from over-usage of magic went so deep he could feel it in his spine, as if every part of him were freezing from the inside out.

“It’s nothing,” he murmured again, blinking slowly from where he sat.

Of course she was kind and good, despite the arrogance of her station. Not even thinking twice but to help him.

“They couldn’t bind me,” he said, delirious, “Too quick.”

The light in the room cast his shadow on the floor. And the shadow bore a crown of horns and needled spines and furled wings.

Ciana