Page 62 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)
Here it comes
Delaney
T he Citadel spirlinary peers down at the black carriage packed with my trunks in the drive.
Such a lovely setting to nurse my heartache.
Grand and exorbitant. Plenty of room to waste hours away in here completely alone, my only company the sound of my own footsteps calling back to me and the non-living animals decorating the room.
The yawning, cavernous silence only makes my thoughts that much louder.
Rooted to my designated spot that gives view to the flower lined drive below, instinctively, my hand comes up to rest on my chest, fingers touching my throat.
Attempting to ease its racing and ever present ache.
To my right, an arched stained window depicts a parliament of barn owls flying against a black sky, crowds of foxes and big cats on the ground witnessing their flight.
I’ve taken to old comforts in the days since Val revealed himself to me, seeking solace in the quiet sanctuary. Praying to the Nocturne . For what? I’m not entirely sure. For acceptance, I suppose. Reconciliation. Within myself and my marriage.
A marriage I would have chosen. With the person I have longed for .
Everything I’ve ever wanted since I was only a girl.
As always, when the thought barrels unwanted through my mind, my heart folds on itself a little more.
Visualizing big, strong, powerful Val, Lord of Noctua and leader of a resistance, in absolute submission—to me—on the floor of a different spirlinary than the one that anchors me now.
Followed by his smiles, his laughs. His commanding tones and dark stares.
Gazes equally as soft. Our ease together.
The different versions of him flit back and forth.
Such a multi-faceted man, my husband. The harbinger of my anguish. The love of my life.
It hurts, picturing the suicidal Lord’s son in the story told to me by the servant.
Him standing where I am, absorbing a similar view in the drive.
Heartsick to the point of not wanting to live.
The biggest difference being the windows open for him to the insubstantial, vast air just beyond these walls.
Stepping outside to smack across the roof of a tiny, wheeled box.
Carrying him away, but not in the carriage’s intended manner.
Refusing to be with anyone other than who his heart chose.
Like Val. Like myself, in a way. Though I had lovers, I never craved to find a long term partner.
Found no emotional connection with my trysts.
I didn’t want to. There was only one I would ever love.
I would picture him, Sebastian, while I was with others.
Willing him to be alive. To be with me. The only exception being Val, wholly in the moment during all of our intimacy. Focused only on him.
But I left him.
I left him pleading on the ground for me to love him, exactly as I already do, underneath it all.
And he’s been absent ever since. I can’t wash the image of him on his knees in front of me out of my mind.
Crying and begging into my stomach for me to not leave him only to do just that.
Unable to fathom my reality, I fled. Had to seek a space he didn’t occupy to digest hard truths and pick them all apart. Assemble them back together.
Heat dwindling, summer days twirl into the cooler tones of autumn.
The green leaves across the lawn appear more muted, color slipping away with the warmth of the season.
It’s pleasant in the spirlinary as dusk descends, gas lamps flickering to life, controlled by a servant from beyond this room .
Not so painfully hot as it was the night of our party, when my husband brought me in here and we had an evening reminiscent of our day in Omnitas, lost in young love.
Calm and easy. Letting myself enjoy him and lower my walls without being bogged down by my guilt because I was drunk.
Footsteps in the hall outside catch my attention, pulling me away from the sight of the carriage, sitting abandoned for yet another day.
A low, feminine laugh sounds. Blair enters the spirlinary in a fluttering of rich satiny robes, chatting merrily in that strange language with a gaggle of her smoke creatures, the whole crew complete with matching turbans.
“I thought you were leaving,” she says without even glancing my way, amused and just as ethereal as every other time I’ve encountered her.
“Not yet.”
She reaches a brow towards her jeweled turban, meeting my eye. “Not yet, or not anymore?”
Blair gives me a subtle smile, exhaling smoke from her nose. Purple plumes form into a group of dragonflies that hum into the sanctuary. “You’ve been standing in here thinking about it every day for a week. Steeping the whole Citadel in pining and indecision.”
“You watched me?” I hadn’t noticed Blair lurking about in the days since Val has been gone, but as a Madame of Whispers, I suppose she’d be well versed in discretion .
“I don’t have to watch you.” She gestures to her wispy critters proudly.
Val had said it’s impossible to keep anything from Blair because of her smoke creatures. I try to bat away a dragonfly. It only disperses around my hand—its supple body surprisingly cool for being made of smoke—then re-solidifies on my head.
Blair walks further into the sanctuary, inspecting the ornate ceiling, the pristine statues lining the walls. She strokes a hand over the head of a caracal, the tips of its long, black-tipped ears.
“How did you come to leave Panthera ?” I ask curiously, having quietly wondered since the day she came to measure me for new clothes.
Too much has been happening to seek her out.
To want to learn about the people around me in any meaningful capacity.
An easy excuse to grasp at to stay within the confines of my comfort zone instilled by my parents, unhealthy as it may be.
I’ve been avoiding anyone and everyone for far too long.
Blair smiles wider. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”
She glides onto a pew, gesturing for me to do the same. I settle onto the hard stone. She takes me by surprise, gently clasping her hand around mine.
“I think it’s important to preface my story by reminding that Panthera are a secretive people.
When the deos were betrayed by the children of Vulpes and Noctua , the daughter of Panthera disagreed with overthrowing their parents.
While Vulpes and Noctua made their new governments and put their magnifying glass on their people, Panethera settled quietly on their own.
They kept to smaller communities, mostly.
All in the hope that they might keep their Heartstone location secret.
Different tales spread about where it rests in an effort to save it from being sullied by an Ellden clock.
In the new queen’s mind, she’d rather see her mother’s and uncles’ magic die than be controlled by the children who were meant to protect it.
“But Panthera was betrayed by one of their own, and a clock was constructed. The deceiver hunted down everyone who knew of the Heartstone’s location and killed them.
As well as the first queen. All that survived were too many incorrect rumors about its home.
The same measures weren’t able to be taken for the other two Heartstones.
Too much of civilization knew about their whereabouts.
But throughout time, even the Vulpes den became more of an enigma. ”
Blair sighs heavily, gazing at paintings on the ceiling.
“I was born in a village in a rolling savanna,” she continues lovingly.
“I had my showing when I was a very young girl. Younger than most. I was around the fire and breathed in the sacred herbs grown in Panthera that brought about healing and luck and safety. Fire razed my lungs as I coughed and choked. With each breath, a new creature formed from the smoke leaving my lungs. It didn’t take long to learn that smoke of any kind would bring about my magical friends, speaking to me in our own secret language. ”
Blair takes a drag from her long wooden cigarette holder, exhaling a new cloud of made friends.
She smiles fondly at them while they whisper words meant only for her.
The strangest image comes to me, seeing Blair as a child in Panthera , puffing on her wooden cigarette holder.
Cracking it against the other children when they annoyed her. I barely stifle a smile.
“A neighboring clan heard of my gifts. They came to see the young murmurare girl who could form smoke into sentience and read energy. My father and mother were worried about the interest shown in me, I could see that. But I was too young to really ponder on it too far. You see, not everyone in Panthera adhered to the general beliefs of equality within the faction. They longed for similar hierarchies of Vulpes and Noctua , despite how hateful they could be and how they stifled the masses. Many throughout Panthera quietly spoke of the want for power and riches. And they sought the manifestation of their greed wherever they could.”
She stares over at the caracal statue again, an unseeing fog over her gaze as she’s lost to memories, her stern voice morphed into a quieter, softer thing.
“They left us alone for some time. Until one night, I was woken by commotion. Screams. Despite our territorial nature, the enemy was thorough in their strategy to slaughter. Everyone was dead or dying when I came outside. My father, missing his head. My mother, bleeding out as she crawled to me. Telling me to run. But before I could, I was grabbed around the middle, a bag thrown over my face, and I was hauled away.”
I gulp hard, horror eating through me. “This doesn’t sound like you deferred from your faction at all.”