Page 4 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)

Instead of cowering at my imposing confrontation, her spine straightens, full lips pressing into an indignant line. “I thought you might be happy to find me more at the spirlinary. It was you who encouraged me to spend time here. You didn’t specify how.”

I barely manage to stifle the low growl rolling from my chest. She isn’t wrong.

Smugness tilts that pouty little mouth from its purse.

“You know that this is not what I meant.”

Again, her eyes flick guiltily into the open door.

I meant it as a means to ease her heartache.

Our union was sprung on her, and she had little time to adjust before our wedding, made much worse being hand-in-hand with grief.

She adored the sanctuary of her parent’s antiletum estate, finding solace in her quiet otherness within worship walls.

The only place she was allowed to be herself. Completely alone.

With the mind boggling exception of Tabitha.

Admittedly, I was relieved to learn that Delaney hasn’t been entirely opposed to practicing her magic at all. Given all she’s endured. Given what I know now.

“What did you do? Hmm?” My face leans closer to hers, my head doing a slow tilt to the side. A motion that she clocks before glancing away. “More than that, what did you give?” Inquisitive, I pull back to scan more of her body, searching for tells.

Delaney’s fists bunch tighter in her skirts, and clarity washes over me: The action is less about reining in her desire to punch me and more about hiding evidence.

My hands pop away from the wall, grabbing hers quickly. I move so fast she doesn’t have an opportunity to attempt resisting. Skirts float around her like wood smoke as her hands come loose, a streak of blood marring the formerly believed pristine fabric.

There—on the back of her left hand. An open patch of bloody, red tissue from where she sloughed off a swatch of her skin as an offering stares at me, so deep I can see a peek of white tendon. The price of her offering accelerates before my eyes, fleshy tissue beginning to ooze blood.

I sigh, barely running the pad of my thumb over the edge of the angry patch. Delaney hisses through her teeth, snatching her hand back and cradling it against her chest.

A shot of guilt eats through me. It was an accident, touching the open wound. It was hard not to, given that she gave the skin of almost half her fucking hand. I don’t let that remorse show through, instead baring my teeth back at her.

It’s worse than I expected. Good foresight on my end to send Mallin to Nelda, the resident physician and his grandmother, with a bundle of antiletum . Unfortunately, now I’ll have to refill my personal stash. Hard to come by these days with the recent razing of several prominent fields.

Pity.

Not to mention the way Parliament hoards the herb as another means of control. Can’t have their subjects skirting the confines of their binds and becoming too powerful. Getting ideas .

Turning on my heel, I head into the spirlinary , now completely empty, to find the full scope of what Delaney was practicing for her wretched bitch cousin. What kind of price will have to be paid to bridge the gap and restore balance between the warring Ellden clocks and a single living Heartstone?

They haven’t been fond of existing simultaneously. But I suppose that was the point, now, wasn’t it?

A paired person practicing their magic without their spouse has a price far steeper than that of the overuse of an unbonded individual, their magic wholly theirs and not dependent on another to use.

But also much weaker than when brought together with a spouse.

The call to death within me surges as the scent of Delaney’s magic cloys around me within the spirlinary , begging to be used. The octagonal room with its stone arena benches swim in sunlight, pleasant and airy, despite the scope of magic still staining the air, the off-kilter energy.

I stride to the altar, Delaney hot on my heels.

She tries to come in front of me, shielding my view from her practices, but it doesn’t matter.

Over the top of her lovely head I can see the mirror, the bowl of moonwater, now stained pink and useless with the patch of her skin perched at the bottom of the bowl.

Apparently she thought an offering with moonwater in a spirlinary would be enough to skirt the confines of our magical bond. To reach out to someone beyond life through the plane of a mirror.

Already, the offering is beginning to fizzle and fade, increasing as her price accelerates on her body, magical necrosis devouring away at her flesh.

“I wasn’t necromancing!” Delaney insists, voice steely.

The need to throttle something owns me, wondering how many times she’s had to give the same defense before .

“Save it,” I say as gently as I can. After all, I’m not angry with her. Not really. “You forget, I am as you are, and I am intimately aware of the grey areas of our power. It may not have been raising the dead, but how far off is conversing with the non-living?”

I should know, I’ve practiced such myself. And I am aching to do so again. As soon as she will let me in.

Necromancers are rare and have not widely been accepted anywhere near living history, the gift bred from existence. Much like myself in the earlier years of my life, Delaney had to hide the scope of her gifts from others, something her failure parents devoutly saw to. But she can’t hide from me.

And with me, she will have to hide no more.

I soften further, as I always do when I’m allowed in her presence for more than a breath. But this interaction is deeper than any we have had so far—the quiet, tentative tension between us in her rejection officially coming to a head.

“Delaney…” I begin, but have no idea what I want to say.

My eyes flick towards the caelos , praying for patience and understanding, something I have done every single day since our ritual, pairing us for life.

Since I fell asleep with my bride in my arms, only to wake to an empty bed and an unexplained coldness from her that I haven’t yet convinced her to share with me. Or anyone else.

Other than probably fucking Tabitha.

“I was never supposed to be a paired wife. The role of Lady wasn’t meant to be mine,” Delaney says heatedly, tears pooling in her eyes, the sight punching through my heart.

At this, I interrupt. “Yes, Delaney, and it was never expected for me to be Lord, yet here we are. And besides, your magic was never truly your own before. Was it really that much better to practice in the dark? Where no one knew? Where your family hid and frowned upon you? Was that life of loneliness and lies truly better than the idea of practicing with me? Being with me?” My voice is gravelly at the last question, betraying myself.

A smudge of gold at an open window catches my attention.

I turn towards it, glimpsing Tabitha’s interested face, listening in on the conversation over the backdrop of songbirds.

At my glare, her glee is wiped away and replaced with fear.

Tabitha runs away. I glower at the back of her head, wondering how she can find so much pleasure in the suffering of her kin.

A pattering of fluid against stone turns me back to face my wife, exuding anger and sadness so thick it coats my throat. Her wound is getting worse, bleeding more profusely as her offering expires.

I grab the hem of my tunic, untucking it, and rip fiercely to pull a piece free.

Delaney senses my intention and tries to shy away. I grab her uninjured arm firmly, moving her back in front of me. Insisting she allow me to care for her until she gets what she needs.

Delaney gazes at a point beyond my shoulder, unseeing through the haze of tears clouding her eyes. Her jaw is locked tight, but she relents to my care all the same.

Blood coats my fingers as I take her hand, wrapping it tenderly to staunch her bleeding until she makes it to Nelda in the infirmary.

I glance back at the mirror laid out on the altar, at the moonwater and skin—rapidly decaying as the moonwater evaporates, the magic spent, the offering given and well past being received.

She was clearly somewhat successful in her endeavor, given her joy until she saw me.

“Who were you trying to reach?” I ask softly, not betraying the anxious leap of my heart. I more easily swallow my frustrations as Delaney shows me her hurt, beyond the offering she gave to reach someone beyond.

The question is pointless: I know precisely who she wanted to speak to. Still, I think we might be getting somewhere, and it seems a prudent question to ask.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does.” I tie off the ripped fabric covering her wound then lick a smear of her blood off my thumb, my eyes pinned on hers intently.

Her breath catches.

I smirk at her reaction, biting my bottom lip, teeth snagging on one of my two silver hoops pierced through it. “Come, it’s not as if I haven’t already tasted every part of you.”

Maybe I should have been this brazen before now. This is pure elation. Voicing my desire. Watching her cheeks stain pink.

Not giving Delaney an opportunity to respond, I pivot back to the core conversation, all the genuine care and concern I carry drenching my tone.

I will make her see. “If you’re willing to harm and weaken yourself in order to speak to the dead…

it matters. You can tell me these things and we can figure it out. Together.”

“Not long ago I didn’t need to do what I was born to with a helping hand. I could do it myself.”

“Not freely.”

A grinding creak catches my attention, and I glance to the Ellden clock of the spirlinary , hanging on the wall.

Those hideous clocks are everywhere. All connected to the three original Ellden clocks, tied to the Heartstones.

Their vinculum hands holding our powers like a lead to a mongrel.

An ever cruel reminder to stay in line, lest we lose it all .

One of the three hands has shifted again, ever so slightly, away from the thirteenth hour, top and center. Delaney glances behind her and sees it too, guilt etched across her face.

It’s a struggle to not groan as the possibilities roll through my mind about what I’ll have to do to fix it. How much blood it will take.

Had one of the hands moved clockwise, as they did when balance was upset before the Heartstone beat again, the price would have been much easier to pay, moving forward to restore balance. The other way around, however…

Those gaps will surely be much more difficult to bridge.

Delaney moves to round me, to leave, ignoring my question, but I sidestep in front of her.

“Did you speak to all of them?”

Mother. Father. Sister.

Delaney watches me, reserved, but some of her steeliness is melting away, bringing back some of that light that she had during our ceremony.

For me. Hope, warm and heady, snakes through my ribs.

I douse it instantly with ice, demanding that it calm the fuck down before we’re met with more disappointment.

But green sprigs shoot past that ice when she answers me, and I can feel her honesty. Letting me in, even if only slightly. Even if only for a moment. “No, just Rainah.”

Her older sister who was supposed to have a bonded match with the new Lord of Noctua —a Lord who was certainly not me.

After all the untimely deaths leading us here, Parliament hastily sanctioned mine and Delaney’s union, the unexpected new Lord needing to be paired to a Lady before fully ascending to his position.

The highest within the Noctua faction. The voices between Parliament and the people .

Yes, Parliament needs their figureheads well and truly shackled. Can’t have “leaders” with too much unchecked power. How cataclysmic that prospect could be.

And now the two of us are paired together. Against all odds.

Delaney’s grief for her dead sister, still so fresh, eclipses the warmth and light in the sanctuary. My own heartache rears thinking of my father and brother. Llewellyn and Heath ven’Sol respectively. Also cold and dead in the ground, their carbon feeding the earth.

As well as another arguably small handful of people. Delaney’s parents and sister included.

The desire to ask her what Rainah said dies on my tongue with another uncomfortable skip of my heart.

Wetting my lips, my tongue stops between my teeth while I think. “Tabitha!” I call, knowing that she hasn’t gone far and that the run she made was only for show.

As expected, her head pops into view through a window on the other side of the spirlinary . Clearly nervous, she responds, “Yes, my Lord?” Too afraid to not acknowledge a direct calling.

Training my eyes back on Delaney, I wrestle down the urge to stroke my tongue up her tear tracked cheek.

Take her sadness within myself. Or over the three diamonds studded in her ear that I placed myself.

Instead, I reach for my own lobe, touching the black stones matching Delaney’s, remembering the feel of her soft hands when she gifted me with them.

What an honor.

“Please, ensure that your cousin, your Lady , goes straight to the infirmary. See that Nelda uses a salve of bella herbs, antiletum, and bees wax to halt the progression and help in regaining her skin elasticity.”

“My Lord,” Tabitha begins, blanching at my command as Delaney speaks at the same time, “That’s not necessary. It’s not safe—”

Their arguments trail off to silence with a simple raise of my hand.

It’s not safe for you to insist on harming yourself rather than take what is right in front of you. I snatch the words I wish to say to the back of my throat, staring deep into my wife’s unique hazel eyes.

Technically, it’s illegal to keep personal stores of antiletum —capable of reversing the physical damage of one overusing magic, or using it without their bonded spouse.

Anyone caught farming the precious herb unregulated faces a death sentence.

Most crops are sent to Parliament when harvested, only small batches making it to hospitals within Noctua borders.

Seeing as how it’s my responsibility to uphold the law and report infractions now…

Well, I’m not so worried about being punished for keeping a secret stash.

Turning my attention on Tabitha, I now refuse to look at Delaney as she so often does to me. “Just do it,” I spit disdainfully, allowing my hatred for her to distort my features.

“Val.”

Ignoring Delaney when my name rolls from her mouth like that is like trying to deny the sun its trek across the sky; the moon its glow against black midnight. But my resolve holds steady. I will not look at her.

The heat of her pulsing indignation wafts towards me.

Fuck , is that satisfying. I suppose it’s time that I try playing her game. See what happens. See how she likes it.

Turning on my heel, purposefully silent, I’m already making plans for my evening while I leave Tabitha gaping through the window at my wife.