Page 55 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)

Sebastian chuckled. “Maybe not well known to tourists these days. But for the citizens of the city, it’s well known.” He paused. “Maybe you’ll find yourself here more—one day.”

“I hope I do.”

“As do I,” he shamelessly agreed. “The notoriety of this fountain is only still alive through local lore, its origins erased from history books, and only known around Omnitas by word of mouth.”

Sebastian came behind her, not quite touching her back.

He leaned forward, talking quietly in her ear.

“The Nocturne first settled in Omnitas after the wise barn owl hatched from his egg, nestled within the crust of the earth. The sly fox slunk from his den. And the fierce caracal prowled from between its mountain rock crevice.” Sebastian paused for drama.

“Though that part is often subject to change, depending on who’s telling the story.

“The Nocturne dwelled together, constructing this city and The Citadel. No factions existed at the time, when they settled their people, living harmoniously with their eclectic shifter gifts. Because of the fresh water spring, right here.” He pointed towards the fountain, the statues at the center stained with green-blue moss.

Sebastian looked down on Delaney who peered up at him, fully enraptured by his low, soothing voice, and grinned.

“It’s said they sought this spring because it converges the three water sources flowing in vicinity to their respective Heartstones. ”

“It doesn’t look like magical water.” On the contrary, to Delaney, the fountain appeared quite drab.

He laughed. “It isn’t. At least not anymore. Not for a long time. Probably why visitors don’t care to see it anymore. No one wants to bother with what they perceive to be mundane. Always looking for something splendid. Special. ”

Sebastian turned her around to face him. Easy and smooth.

“But the wisest, the cleverest, the fiercest of us… We know that often the most extraordinary things are hidden within the mundane.” He was nearly a different person, compared to the sullen glare he initially shot at Delaney when she first clutched his arm.

She turned her head over her shoulder, inspecting the fountain again. Sebastian had a point, upon closer look, the fountain wasn’t drab at all.

It was severe. Intricate. And absolutely ancient.

Lines and details worn by time. Arcane—same as the magic coursing through her veins.

A gift disappeared since the Nocturne laid to rest. And she longed to dip her fingers into the fountain, lay her hand upon its statues, and channel her magic into them.

See what might come of merging her magic with the past.

Delaney brought her attention back to Sebastian. He smirked. Like he knew precisely what was racing through her mind. “Exactly,” he whispered and produced a coin from his pocket and pressed it into her hand. “You see it.”

She had half a mind to protest the coin based on the abundant indicators that Sebastian didn’t have much. Worried she might offend him, Delaney kept her mouth shut. Wrapped her fingers around his.

“Now, close your eyes.” She did as instructed. “Think of a wish.”

“Okay,” she responded confidently. “Got it.”

“Ah, ah,” Sebastian scolded quietly, a smile living in his voice.

“Don’t be so hasty, Delaney.” She had the inkling that he very much liked saying her name.

“Make sure it’s the right one. After all, throwing your coin into the fountain will send your wish straight to the deos’ Heartstones.

The original sources of magic. They may hear you and grant your wish from where they rest. Or remember your offering if the day comes that they arise. ”

Delaney took Sebastian’s urging, concentrating a little harder. But the integrity of her wish remained the same.

“Got it,” she whispered resolutely.

“Very good. Now, throw it over your shoulder.”

Delaney tossed her hand behind her head and barely heard the merry splash made against the water.

When she opened her eyes, Sebastian was giving her the perfect, undiluted turn of his lips that she had so desperately wanted, directed entirely on her, and in that moment, she became whole. Taking his smile all for herself.

A low whistle broke their attention .

“I haven’t seen anything as pretty as you in a long time,” a dirty man slurred, leaning into the arched wall of the bridge. Highly inappropriate beyond the uncouth statement. He was easily middle aged while Delaney was clearly young enough to still be considered a girl.

Sebastian turned his head slowly, jaw clenched at the sight of the filthy, drunken man.

The man leered, his slimy gaze sliding across the pair. “Both of you, really.”

Sebastian tensed, fire billowing in his black eyes as his stare pinned on the interloper.

“Why don’t you come over here—”

The drunk man had no chance to finish his suggestion before Sebastian’s face had contorted with animalistic rage and he closed the distance, doing just as the man suggested, but not in the way he meant.

Sebastian swung him away from the bridge, and pinned him, face forward, against a wall of the courtyard.

“Hey, I just meant…” he slurred, fear spilling through his voice.

Sebastian didn’t care what he did or did not mean. He grabbed a fistful of the drunkard’s hair at the back of his scalp. A yelp was lost as Sebastian smashed his head into the wall, his shoulders working visibly from where Delaney stared at his back in shock.

An earshattering crack emitted from the vagrant’s skull, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, jaundiced and bloodshot whites flashing.

But Sebastian didn’t slow his attack, launching his arm forward again and again and again until there was a spray of blood with each connection of skull to stone.

The unbridled violence of it, so easily provoked—Delaney should have been afraid.

Should have run right then, while Sebastian was lost to his rage.

But she was entirely too transfixed, enchanted by the extreme level of defending her he was willing to take.

And she wondered what all he may have endured during his life in the streets to be so easily, completely transformed by one simple (albeit, disgusting) comment.

Committing blatant murder in the blazing light of day.

It awoke something within Delaney. All of it. The pain he wore beneath the rage. The steady warm trickle of devotion she’d never had before. And besides, Delaney knew death. She walked with it, hand-in-hand. And it appeared that Sebastian knew death too. Easily killing a man with his bare hands.

No part of her wanted to flee. On the contrary, she stood, hands clasped in front of her stomach, and patiently waited for Sebastian to finish meting out punishment. Unburdening a piece of himself in the process.

His heaving breath was apparent from behind when the dead man’s body slumped to the ground, his head nothing but mush and bone fragments with his brain spilling out.

The scent of death, it called to Delaney. Made her mouth water and she ached to walk forward, place her hand on his chest, and bring him back to life. Show Sebastian what she could do. Maybe they could repeat the whole macabre process after. Forge another thread in this unexpected bond.

Sebastian dropped his face in his bloody hands. “Fuck!” he said, panicked, mostly to himself. But then he froze, head cocking slightly, as if listening while he tried to catch his unsteady breath.

“You’re still here,” he observed, disbelieving, facing the blood and brain spattered wall.

“I’m still here,” Delaney responded calmly despite the galloping of her heart.

Sebastian turned, face dark and serious. “Why? I have just shown you that I am dangerous.” The blood marring his face was absolute evidence of that. She didn’t care. And she wanted to prove it, to wash him clean with her own hands.

Delaney shook her head. “You won’t hurt me.” She had never been more certain of anything in her life.

Slowly, as if worried quick movement might spook her straight into her senses, Sebastian came closer to her again. Swallowed hard. “No. I won’t.”

She lifted a hand, reaching to wipe a shining smear of blood from his black hair—desperately stretching for an excuse to touch it.

When he realized what she was doing, Sebastian jerked away.

Delaney dropped her hand. “I’m sorry—”

“No,” he interrupted. “I don’t mind if you touch me. It’s just…”

“Just what?”

“I haven’t washed it. My hair. Not in a while.” His cheeks tinged pink. Openly embarrassed. Insecurity flittered across his features. She wanted nothing more to wipe it away, the same as the blood streaked across his face, drawn for her.

Delaney removed her hat, revealing the tight, intricate plaits against her skull, thick and shining with oil. “Neither have I.”

Thanks to the drought, bathing rations were limited at the inn they stayed at the night before. And all of it went to Rainah, the future Lady of Noctua, in order to be presentable when meeting her future husband.

Sebastian stared at her as if he’d never encountered anyone like her before. Accepting her insinuation that beneath clothing and status and everything the world projected onto them, everything that would try to tear them apart, they were the same.

Inspiration overtook Delaney. She removed one of the gold clasps decorating her braids. She hadn’t seen the point of the adornments hidden beneath her hat, but her mother had insisted. And for this particular instance, Delaney was grateful for it.

“Can I give this to you?” she asked awkwardly, well aware that a hair trinket wasn’t exactly a fitting gift for a boy, but she had nothing else to offer.

Instead of laughing at her; or sneering at it; or taking it from her hand, he leaned forward, indicating he wanted her to place it in his hair—dirty like hers—that he only was just afraid for her to touch.

Accepting her the way she accepted him.

“You want to wear it?” she asked, pleasantly surprised.

“Don’t you want me to?”

“Yes,” Delaney admitted. “Very much.”

“I think I’d do anything in this world that you asked of me,” he said seriously and her heart skipped a beat. She hoped it would survive this encounter, for all the irregularities Sebastian was inspiring within it.

His admission had warmth flowing through her, sufficiently putting to bed any of her worries that he might not be as completely smitten by her as she was him. As if his defending her honor through murder wasn’t enough.

With Sebastian’s height, Delaney leaned up to the tips of her toes to clasp the cuff near his bun.

The dahlia etched on it was clear, it glinted in the sunlight, stark against his dark hair.

The adornment transformed as it shifted owners—adding to his beautiful masculinity, where before it complemented her feminine features.

She bent down, tearing off a piece of delicate fabric from her skirt.

Sebastian frowned, watching Delaney dip the scrap into the fountain. “What are you doing?”

“You probably shouldn’t traipse around with blood on your face. Might harm my inconspicuousness.”

“You can still leave,” he said softly .

“I think I’ve made it clear that I don’t want to leave. Giving you a gift wasn’t me saying goodbye.”

No. It said the opposite. It said so much more.

Delaney gently cleaned the blood from his face and Sebastian scrubbed his hands in the sacred fountain before they quit the courtyard—bloody fabric, the corpse of the vagrant, and Delaney’s wish the only things they left behind.