Page 9 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)
With a quick change of subject, Val asks, “How’s your hand?” Glancing down at it laid across the table, his gaze bounces over every inch, as if looking for an offending culprit to punish.
Raising it, the skin is fully healed; my feeling and movement are back to normal after a restful night of sleep. “Right as rain,” I comment proudly, then pause, genuinely wanting to voice my appreciation. “Thank you, Valledyn.”
His fork stops its trajectory to his open mouth, a line of syrup humoring a slow drip to the table. The sound of his full name from my lips has knocked him completely off kilter, giving more emotion than he did yesterday when I used the typical shortened version.
Not ignoring me at all now.
He composes himself quickly, pushing his fork into his mouth and wiping his lips with a starched white napkin.
“No need for thanks. I will always take care of you. No matter the circumstances. As I told you after we wed, you’re not alone anymore, Delaney.
You don’t have to hide. Certainly not from me. ”
Inspecting my plate that Val prepared, I pick up my orange cranberry muffin, slathered with an obscene amount of butter, biting into it to avoid answering. Hoping as I swallow it will push down the poking ache of my grief. Increasing in Val’s presence.
Not that it ever really goes away.
“Will we not get in trouble,” I ponder aloud, “if someone hears that you’ve got a store of antiletum ? And that I used it?”
I try shamefully hard not to imagine the state of my sleep tousled hair. My hand betrays me and lifts to fluff it near my temple .
“And who, Delaney, would deliver the sentence?” Val grins wide, arrogant.
I chuckle. “Sounds like abuse of our new power to me,” I quip, my tone lightening in this surprising ease of conversation.
“A perk of the position. Besides, you needed it.”
Not wanting to come to terms with the fact that he’s right, I gulp. If it hadn’t been for the antiletum balm yesterday, my hand would still be dead right now. There’s no guarantee the damage ever would have reversed, not with that scope of magic being used without my bound husband.
“Parliament might disagree.”
Val snorts a bitter laugh with a haughty expression. Ah, his grumpiness ensues.
“What? Doesn’t Parliament regulate it in order to discourage people from misusing their magic just as I did? Eating away at themselves?”
Val drops his fork, inspecting me closely.
“Parliament doesn’t care about our well-being, Delaney.
Not really. They care about control.” He says it so calmly, so sure, as if the statement isn’t toeing the line of treason and certainly dangerous.
No matter who we are. “Who would want to use too much magic, or use it outside of their bond, without the means to properly heal?”
Inspecting my husband, Rainah’s warning blows over me again. “You shouldn’t say such things, Val.”
Certainly not as the new Lord of Noctua . The singular direct line who personally speaks to the cabinet and ensures laws are adhered to. The face and voice of our faction. Parliament’s figurehead, so to speak. Even I won’t be expected to go in front of them to answer or report. Only Val .
At the same time, it occurs to me that I have been tucked away at my parents estate for almost all of my life. I rarely ever left. How do I know if all I’ve been taught is true?
Not to mention, my parents fortune came from farming antiletum , every bit of it purchased by Parliament and generally sold to the Vulpes government, their faction being in short supply.
Would that not sway the opinions spoken in our household?
Something uncomfortable slithers through me.
Just another instance of not knowing what to believe.
We stare at each other, the air thick between us. This is the first true conversation I’ve had with my husband—thanks to the fact that I have been literally trying to hide from him.
“What changed, Delaney?” Val practically pleads.
Oh, what a lovely, unexpected change in topic to add to my overall morning discombobulation.
Val’s pained question gives me pause. Energy between us ripples with Val’s new demeanor, the expression crossing over his face becoming sad and infinitely longing.
The beginnings of conspiracy crumble away like ash as our conversation shifts.
“I know the circumstances of our wedding were unexpected and… peculiar. But you seemed happy that night. We were both happy during our wedding and after. Our ride back to the manor. How you let me hold you. And when we fell asleep. Together. With each other. In our bed.” Val stumbles, becoming less poised in his speaking, a slight mania shining in his eyes.
Stopping, he takes a deep breath and asks, again, more calmly, “What changed?”
Beads of sweat pop up over my brow. He hasn’t yet been this brazen about the subject and I wasn’t expecting it now.
Val eyes me curiously, waiting for me to reply.
This back and forth with myself, this confusion, is becoming too much.
I fear if I don’t stop some portion of it now— somehow —that I will go insane.
My actions at the spirlinary and being willing to lose my own hand to magical necrosis prove that abundantly.
“I had a dream that night,” I whisper, forcing the strained truth from my lips. “Of Rainah. She told me not to trust you.”
Val’s head tilts slightly; he goes still.
Preternaturally motionless. For too long.
My nervousness increases with each silent, unmoving second that he just stares at me completely expressionless.
About to spew out more explanations just to end this unbearable anticipation of a reaction, he saves me from doing so with a loud huff.
Val sits back hard in his seat, rolling his shoulders, thick arms crossing over his chest. “A dream?” His blankness washes away. Irritation crawls all over that deep voice.
Fantastic start on my end to make him see where I’m coming from. Very eloquent.
“No. Not really a dream. It was more than that. It was like my necromancy and her clairvoyance reached out to each other for her to warn me from beyond not to trust you.”
The irritation Val wore is half-heartedly hidden away, but I can tell he’s struggling to rein it in fully.
In truth, a part of me can’t really blame him.
If Val came to me and said, “Sorry, I can’t possibly spend time with you or let you in because my dead sibling told me not to,” I dare say I would be furious.
Val swallows hard. “So.”
Deos .
That single, clipped word in that particular tone is downright terrifying.
Now I swallow. But probably for different reasons .
“You deny our union immediately after it’s solidified because your sister told you—from the grave—not to trust me?”
Well, when he says it like that…
Spine straightening, I refuse to be disregarded.
Especially given the subtle connotations of our short talk about Parliament.
It’s entirely plausible the premonition had merit.
Maybe I shouldn’t trust him. Val is the voice of Parliament, what does it mean that he clearly harbors such resentment for the Noctua governing body?
“Yes. That’s right. I’ve never had cause to not trust my magic, or my sister, and as I said, it was not simply a dream.”
“This is why you attempted necromancing in secret? To try to speak to Rainah and learn why she thinks I’m not trustworthy?”
“Yes.”
“Because you have fully heeded to that warning, and sincerely do not trust me.”
“I want to.”
Val drums his fingers over the table once, tapping against white linen.
What a shockingly intimidating gesture.
“I need more than that, Delaney,” Val says so quietly it makes the hairs across my arms stand. “It never occurred to you to come to me? Rather than use your gift alone, harming yourself to try to speak to the dead instead?”
The intensity my husband levels me with is almost too much.
A part of me wants to stand from this table and leave the room just so I can breathe.
Words escape me. Because he’s right. That would have been the obvious choice for most. But I’m so accustomed to being left to my own devices, to not bother anyone with the existence of my necromancy, my instinct was to figure it out on my own .
“Did you know that owls mate for life?” Val asks suddenly. “They choose their partner and then pair until they die.”
Perfect. Another abrupt change to draw my already creased brows tighter together. Images of a beautiful, dark barn owl flash through my mind. I answer with a scowl, slightly offended. “Of course I know that.”
There were plenty of written records of my own ancestors’ chosen pairings, still able to shift into their owl forms. Long before Parliament existed and oversaw the sanctioning of marriages.
“Did you know that’s where the tradition of using vinculum as wedding bands came from?”
With a frown, I think back to all of my lessons on history and culture . “I’ve never heard that. I’ve only ever known that they are used to bind us to each other.”
“That they do.”
I glance down at my own ring just as my husband does the same with his, reverence and a hint of disgust glossing over those intense features. An uncalled for shot of insecurity eats at me, wondering if the mated for life bit is causing the awe or the distaste. Perhaps some of both.
Maybe he’s wishing that, in my rejection, seeking an affair wouldn’t have his vinculum band shrinking against his finger, pinching off the flow of a vital artery to his heart in a slow, excruciating death every time one is unfaithful.
I may not be wholly accepting of my husband quite yet, but I’m not exactly disgusted by our union either. There’s no one living I would ever be tempted to take as a lover myself.
A large raven comes to land on my window sill just as I open my mouth to speak. Val raises a hand, halting me with his stare pinned on the bird like he might just speed to the window and snap its neck .