Page 56 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)
For you, I could change the world
Delaney
Ten Years Ago
T he rest of their day flitted by in a whirlwind, racing away from them far too quickly. A light that refused to be captured.
Her hand tucked in his, Sebastian showed her the liveliest parts of the city to mirror how he perceived her. And he told her as such, making her blush furiously. Through markets with street performers, past artists painting on sidewalks while dried spring petals were tossed upon them from rooftops.
“An offering to the Nocturne , praying for rain,” Sebastian explained of the wilted flowers landing in their hair with a grin. “Omnitas is always driest in spring.”
They kept contact, their skin always touching, as if the action would draw out their time together—make it last.
Delaney’s hand stayed clasped in Sebastian’s through a quiet library where he shared more history of Omnitas and the Nocturne , familiar with the shelves and rows of books as if it was his own home .
Surprisingly knowledgeable, infinitely passionate, he knew much about the Noctua deo , the wise barn owl and the shifter gifts he imparted on his people. Not limited to only owl strains, but all manner of birds. He shed light on those facets of history deeper than what she had been taught.
Their interactions were easy. Smooth.
“I don’t want this day to end,” she told him while tiredness ate away at Delaney by the time the sun had set. But reluctance had never held her up so thoroughly—dreading appearing at The Citadel. Leaving Sebastian behind.
“Neither do I.”
Never speaking of it, they both knew the precarious unlikelihood of ever seeing each other again. That knowledge hung between them like an albatross, becoming more and more difficult to accept by the minute as they talked and laughed and shared. Actions foreign to both, but natural with each other.
A poor boy, an orphan raised by the streets. And an enigmatic noble girl who haunted an antiletum estate far away, secluded by her wealthy family.
A quiet neighborhood took them in, trading Delaney’s expensive hat to buy bread and fruit and sweet iced tea when she could ignore the growl of her stomach no more, unaccustomed to the hunger that Sebastian seemed wholly unphased by.
As they walked in the dark, sustaining themselves after the long day of ignoring trivial needs such as eating, they came up on a small spirlinary .
Delaney stalled, grinned. She tugged him towards it, and he obediently followed.
“You wish to pray?” he said with a laugh. A sound that had become more frequent over the hours. And it was obvious to Delaney that it only belonged to her.
“Not exactly. I want to show you something. ”
Anticipation surged through her. Ever since he killed that man, stirring her magic, she was itching to expend it.
So much death thrived throughout Omnitas.
It wrapped around her in tormenting temptation.
She shoved away thoughts of her parents.
Of how they might react, what they might say and the consequences she would face.
Throughout the day, Delaney decided one thing with absolute certainty: She trusted Sebastian. And she wanted to heed his request to know everything about her.
Inside the sanctuary, it was quiet and cool, the spring evening holding a bite of chill. Dusty with neglect, a meager spread of casting ingredients littered the altar.
Delaney walked the length of the spirlinary , looking for anything that she might raise back to life. When nothing presented itself, she instructed, “Wait right here,” and went out the door to pluck up a dead bird she saw on the minuscule lawn. It was small, cold, and motionless in her hand.
Sebastian stood patiently inside when she returned. “I was starting to think you were finally bored with me.” Meant as a jest, she could hear the truthfulness behind it.
Delaney didn’t have a chance to quip back that his suggestion was asinine and entirely impossible before his brows drew in and he nodded towards the wasted bird curiously. “What’s that for?”
Delaney didn’t answer. Only laid her subject upon the altar.
“Can you keep a secret?” she asked, eyes bright and slightly breathless.
“For you, I could change the world.”
If only he could.
Nose wrinkled at the rusty knife provided by the spirlinary , Delaney bit into her thumb.
Hard enough to draw a few droplets of blood.
Moonwater beckoning, she swirled her blood within it and flicked the droplets over the bird.
Though she had mostly mastered her necromancy, fear reigned that she may slip at this moment and ruin her demonstration.
Sebastian watched her intently, disbelieving, almost as if he was well aware of what she planned to do.
“Delaney.” Now he sounded short of air.
Before she could lose her nerve, hold this secret close and preserve herself from the possibility of Sebastian’s rejection, she laid her hand upon the bird, not yet rotting in the embrace of death.
Magic crackled through her fingertips. Invisible and silent, it reached towards the veil separating life from death. Delaney released a death rattle, cold and stale from her lungs, expiration absorbed within herself just as she offered life.
Sebsatian drew in a breath, like he felt it himself when she sent a pulse of vitality back into the dead bird’s heart, commanding it to breathe.
Its chest rose. And then it hopped to its feet. The bird fluffed its feathers, twittering like nothing had ever happened to it at all. It took flight, right out the paneless window to the inviting night, racing for the stars.
It would fall dead again before long, too far away from Delaney’s life inducing magic.
But it didn’t matter. Delaney’s mission was complete as she shared her deepest secret with this boy who gave her a magical day. A gift he might never comprehend the magnitude of for her.
Sebastian gaped at the spot where the bird only just lay.
Unblinking. Absorbing the impossibility of what she had just done.
Of how special she truly was. Understanding precisely why her parents hid her away in an effort to conceal their daughter’s arcane magic, shunned and feared in its strangeness.
Its extinction finding home again within her, for whatever reason.
There were no other necromancers. Only her.
Anxiety coursed through Delaney, waiting for Sebastian to respond. His face lifted towards hers slowly, eyes incredibly wide, his irises an eclipsed moon. She expected fear within them. Horror. Disgust. The same as her parents showed when she first presented her gift of necromancy.
But Sebastian’s stare was large with awe. “Delaney,” he breathed her name again. Different from before. Claiming and proud.
He closed the minor distance between them in just a few steps.
Breath caught in her lungs, feeling the press of his body against hers.
Sebastian’s large hands raised to cup her face like she was the only priceless thing in the whole wide world.
He leaned forward. Brushed his nose against hers.
Once. Twice. Just the way the owls they so revered would with their beaks to show affection.
Their lips hovered a hair’s breadth apart.
So close. And she thought she might collapse on the spot if they did not touch.
“Tell me to stop,” Sebastian pleaded, quiet and caring. Asking permission.
But that was the very last thing Delaney wanted him to do.
Restraint dwindling, she begged him, “Don’t stop.”
And he smiled, accepted her urging, giving her a soft kiss. Sweet. Slow. Innocent and new. Their mouths remained closed while his lips tentatively explored hers, her hands covering his rested upon her face.
A silent explosion occurred—earth shattering—pulling between them and solidifying what they both already knew.
That he was hers, and she was his, and there would never be anything to change that.
No distance, time, status, or otherwise.
Not as they chose each other in that quiet moment.
The same way their ancestors chose their lifelong mates when they could still call upon their owl forms.
A choice no longer given, now that Parliament sanctioned marriages. Especially within the nobility. If they allowed them at all.
It was powerful and ancient, a bond once completed with vinculum in a marriage ceremony.
Tying chosen pairs together through life and beyond, the only way they would have it.
A bond no longer spoken of—because they no longer existed.
Except within them. An impossibility that they made real, against all odds.
The force of it had Delaney thinking that maybe what they shared could change the world.
But a creaking groan at the front of the spirlinary severed their kiss and her naive ideations.
Delaney turned to the door just as Sebastian did to find Tenna, witnessing the end of their affection. Their pure, pristine moment tainted in a second.
A tight, ugly fist crushed her stomach, and Delaney felt sick.
It overtook her so quickly she had to clutch Sebastian’s shirt, just to steady herself and not fall to the floor.
It wasn’t the kiss that worried Delaney so much as the way the loyal woman in her father’s employ sucked in deep through her nose, scenting the use of Delaney’s forbidden necromancy.
“Stupid girl,” Tenna scolded, lip curled and shaking her head in derision. “What have you done?”
Sebastian’s demeanor shifted just as rapidly as before. He lunged for Tenna—who turned back to the door—with murderous intent. Delaney grabbed him before he got too far.
Tenna walked out the spirlinary , and exigency took hold .
“I need you to go,” she tried to say as calmly as possible, not wanting to alert him of the severe direness in the situation; he was already walking a razor’s edge. But her voice was shaky and quiet.
Sebastian forgot Tenna, looked down on Delaney. Terrified. Knowing their separation was about to come, no matter how neither one of them wanted things to end.