Page 39 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)

Alas, nothing can be truly perfect

Val

W hich is more terrifying amidst the starlight filtering through the crystal domed ceiling into my chambers: the sealed envelope stamped with a wax barn owl face, or the remnants of my painting pouring out my heart and soul—shredded to bits just the same—decorating my bed?

I don’t have an honest answer. Both are adrenaline inducing, for entirely different reasons.

Truthfully, I should have expected each respective gut punch. In keeping with my current state of being unable to rationally think about anything , it’s unsurprising that I have been entirely blind sided by both the letter and my destroyed gift to my wife.

It’s hard not to wonder what she did with the brooch. I’m sure I can expect to never see it again.

Before I read the letter from Parliament, I strip the bed, throwing the linens in the bottom of my wardrobe to be properly hidden from sight and forgotten.

I don’t think I could sleep in here tonight even if I tried.

Not that unusual. Might as well spend the rest of the evening soaring over the city, beating off some of this tension with the moonlight and night air burrowed into my feathers.

Much like I did after leaving Delaney with Austin in the cemetery.

It was obvious what was happening in the graveyard between me and my wife.

Even before I waltzed by half naked. Purposely.

Deos , it is freeing that Delaney knows I can shift. Though I will mourn our visits when she openly accepted what thrives between us. How she would stroke my feathers and allow me to preen her hair in turn. Being able to openly rub my face against her skin.

However, I won’t miss not having time to expel the pellets left from Delaney’s mice she offered me before having to shift again. I shiver at the thought of indigestion and sore throats from the gruesome act of purging them as a man.

Alas, nothing can be truly perfect.

There’s no doubt that Parliament is all around cruel, controlling the population’s magic, money, wares, and relationships, but the thievery of the people’s Nocturne given gifts to shift is unconscionable. Denying the masses an intrinsic part of who they are.

I hurt for my wife tonight, ruminating on how she aches to shift: a feeling I cannot even begin to fathom.

Ever since my first shift, when I was only a small boy, I can’t imagine not being able to call upon my owl at will.

To be denied the freedom of touching the clouds.

I bet when we resurrect the Heartstones, break the Ellden clocks, and raise the Nocturne Delaney will be able to do just that.

We will be able to fly together.

I can teach her. Unlike how I had to teach myself as a fledgling. Give her all the pointers that I learned myself through nothing more than trial and error.

That thought alone is enough for me to immediately flop back to my original turf of ‘raise Heartstones and overthrow government.’

By the time all is said and done, there won’t be any worry of Delaney being granted freedom from our marriage. Because she won’t want to be free of it at all. That much I am certain of. I’m only unsure of how long, precisely, it will take us to get there.

Love her willfulness though I do, her stubborn nature on this matter is to her detriment. I was afraid of laying the truth at her feet before, terrified of her rejection. That what we have doesn’t mean a fraction to her what it does to me.

But now…

Now my lack of spelling it out for her is more out of my own curiosity, wanting to know just how long it will take for her to be honest with herself. If she ever will.

And fear of her rejection.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so brazen in front of Austin. But Delaney herself said she wishes to sell to the masses a false fairytale of our marriage. One could argue I was only giving her what she desires.

A quick glance at my letter from Parliament across my marble topped table sends my heart skittering all over again.

Really, I should have seen it coming.

“Fuck.” I rake my hands through my hair and replace my shirt, still slung over my shoulder.

I traipse through The Citadel, barefoot, fastening my pants along the way, until I reach the Alter ’s quarters. No mind is paid on how I may be interrupting Mallin and Selise this late at night. The flat of my fist bangs on the door.

Shockingly, Mallin answers nearly immediately.

Just behind him, the emerald trimmings of the Alter ’s apartments are clear, a row of leaded arched windows overlooking one of many rolling lawns.

It will never stop being strange, Mallin and Selise occupying the apartments I spent most of the last decade in myself.

Wearing the same dark green and screech owl symbol my closest friend does now.

Even the panels between the domed webbing of the ceiling match the typical Alter green.

He scowls and I answer it with a smirk to mask the anticipation bubbling in my stomach. “I know being courteous isn’t exactly your strong suit, Val, but have you any clue what time it is?”

I hold up the letter, letting the ink stamp of Parliament’s sigil inside stare him in the face.

“Ah, fuck,” he hisses, opening the door wide. He turns away from me, calling to Selise. “We have midnight company, love.”

“Tell them to go away!”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to tell your most esteemed Lord to go away ,” Mallin jests, turning back to me with a grin and a wink.

Selise rounds a corner, still dressed impeccably from the evening. “Oh,” she says, clipped, when she sees me. “You’re here.”

“Yes, I know. Everyone is livid with me,” I say lazily.

It’s a front. The way I act so indifferent about the people I hold dear being upset with me.

All for the same reason. An incredibly valid one, unfortunately.

Beneath my bored exterior, I’m deeply bothered by the fire Selise glares at me with.

The way Blair refuses to speak to me outside of anything Citadel or Suredeis related. And Delaney.

Just Delaney.

Mallin, though not thrilled with my antics, and Alaric at least understand on a deeper level than everyone else. Just how betrayed I felt by my father that day, as well as Rainah, having only just learned how complicit she was in my wife’s seclusion and keeping Delaney compliant with it.

I should have ignored everyone’s insistence to wait. I should have gone for her earlier .

Mercifully, Mallin doesn’t share Selise’s ire at my mere existence and asks, “What does the letter say? What do they want from you?”

He motions for me to sit in a wingback chair, facing the view of the lawns.

Cocking a brow at Mallin, my eyes cut to Selise while I slide into my seat. Mallin has mostly liked to keep Selise separate from the inner workings of Suredeis .

It was never that she was untrustworthy.

Only that she was not raised within the resistance, not like Mallin, Alaric, Blair, and myself.

Selise, same as Delaney, had a sense of innocence still maintained in the event that everything fell apart before it’s meant to.

But we’re now nearing the finish line, and there’s only so much hiding left to do.

Mallin nods for me to continue.

“I am to go meet with Vulpes emissaries. To discuss the Thornridge antiletum crops that they already paid for and inform them they won’t be received. Nor refunded.”

Selise lets out a soft gasp, hands covering her mouth. Her demeanor shifts, like a mask being ripped away. Her care and worry bleed beyond her ire. Maybe our friendship can still survive.

“Why can’t you just return the funds?” Selise asks. “Surely Parliament can afford it.”

“It’s deeper than mere coin, my love,” Mallin tells her gently. “ Vulpes isn’t worried about money. Not any more than Parliament. They have plenty. What they don’t have is antiletum fields. Beyond that, this is personal. Between Val and Parliament, given that he’s the one who destroyed the fields.”

Selise looks back and forth between me and her husband. “Because of Delaney’s parents.”

I give a short nod. “Parliament is teaching me a lesson.”

“More like serving you an execution,” Mallin scoffs .

“Are you certain they know it was you?” Selise inquires.

“I can assume so. At my last meeting with Parliament, a woman in the cabinet made too many hints that she’s been aware of what’s been happening in the background between me and Delaney.”

Not to mention the taunting lemming for my owl to hunt. I’m certain that woman is behind the lemming and the letter currently clutched in my hand. It seems Parliament is finally heeding her suspicions and doesn’t mind martyring me after all.

Mallin’s jaw clenches. “They’re giving you a death sentence.”

“We always knew this was coming. There was no way I was going to keep going unnoticed, not be questioned. Not after the first Heartstone.”

“I had thought you would have a year, maybe two, after becoming Lord.”

No one living expected the Noctua Heartstone to be raised at my wedding, seeing as how no one other than myself knew about Delaney’s magic leading up to.

Not even the zealot priestesses who bled themselves dry at the ceremony.

But I knew going in that we were running out of time and something had to be done.

I only informed Mallin, Alaric, and Blair after the fact that raising the first Heartstone that night had been my intention all along, that I had known Delaney was a necromancer for ten years. As did my father and brother.

Another source of frustration added to my transgression in murdering Rainah. Everyone is keeping too many secrets.

“What about Delaney? Did Parliament mention her?” Selise asks.

I nod once, neck tight. “She is to remain here. Only one of us has to die to stop the might of our necromancy. And I’m the great betrayer.”