Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hazal didn’t know what, exactly, she expected from her punishment.

She knew it would come. There was no excuse clever enough to weave herself a safety net. She’d looked her Lady in the eye and used her own daughter as a stepping stool to spit at her feet.

Lady Imelda had been furious. She’d kept it well-contained, but Hazal could see the anger in her eyes as they lingered at the ballroom door, and she carried that look in the back of her mind all the way back to their apartments.

She didn’t let it overcome her until Tala was taken care of. Hazal busied herself, busied her hands, plucking the pins from Tala’s hair and helping her out of her dress, but once she’d turned to leave, her fear struck her without mercy.

It hit her in the gut, in the soft stretch of skin right under her breastbone. It was a painful blow, an impact that bent her at the waist. She opened her mouth to gasp for air, but she’d been shaken with such force that all she could do was shape her lips into a wordless plea.

She reached out to grasp for the wall, and rested her palm flat against the cool stone. The corridor was empty, blessedly – even Tala’s door guards weren’t yet present, still watching the filtering procession of guests to make sure they were all escorted safely, either to their rooms or out to their carriages in the courtyard.

Good. She didn’t much care for public displays of vulnerability, and whenever she could help it, she preferred not to have panic attacks where strangers could judge her for it.

She judged herself enough for the masses.

Her panic clung to her with fervour. For a while she could only stand there, frozen and out of breath, with lungs too frozen to take in air and her hand braced on the wall her only security. If she’d slipped, Hazal knew she’d have crumbled.

There was little she could do except ride it out. Once her panic had loosened its grip on her enough for her to move, she forced herself upright and fixed her sights on her apartments’ door. Walking was difficult when her body wanted nothing more than to lock up and freeze in place, but she dragged her hand along the wall and used it as an anchor, balancing herself upright and shuffling each foot as much as she could bear until she’d made it to her apartments and could stumble inside to collapse in private.

She sagged to her knees in the middle of her floor and hugged her waist, cradling her aching stomach and willing herself to breathe.

Fade spent twenty minutes huddled on the floor. After that, she managed to get up and make her clumsy way into bed, but it took almost an hour for her panic to subside completely.

She expected to sleep fitfully. Her mind was awash with a thousand ways she might pay for what she’d done, and nausea lingered in her gut like a bad smell that stubbornly refused to be wiped away.

The day had been long, though, and the anticipation for it even longer. She was frightened, certainly, but more than that, she was exhausted.

As impossible as it seemed, she drifted to sleep, and she slept all the way through until morning.

The order came before she even had the time to break her fast.

She'd woken to an unsettled stomach, churning from the rich foods she wasn’t used to and a night’s worth of unsettled nerves. She'd gotten up and started getting ready for the day, each movement cautious as she waited for the inevitable, and it came right as she was fastening the last of her uniform’s buttons.

A guard awaited her outside – not even Ollie. Hazal eyed them, polite but wary, as she met them at her door.

“Miss Eyletmez,” the guard addressed her. “Lady Valdez wishes to see you in her chamber – yourself and Lady Tala. You are to dress her and head there at once.”

“Right,” Hazal heard herself saying, although at once, she’d shunted somewhere outside of her own mind. She was hovering, now, watching herself politely nod and send the guard on his way, and then heading across to Tala’s chamber to fetch her.

Tala was awake.

“I know,” she held up a hand before Hazal could break the news. “I already know. They told me right before you.”

“You know we’re on the chopping block, then?” Hazal thought her voice impressively even as she fetched Tala’s underskirts and helped her out of bed.

“Please,” Tala scowled, her eyes heavy with fatigue. She must have slept fitfully. “Don't word it so gruesomely.”

“Pardon, milady.”

“Hmph.”

Tala was in a foul mood. Hazal couldn't guess whether it was from her lack of sleep or anxiety, but it didn’t much matter. In a mood like this, she’d flash her teeth no matter the reason.

“Do your feet hurt?” Hazal tried not to smirk as she helped Tala into her dress. Tala anchored her hands on Hazal’s shoulders to keep herself from falling as she stepped into the pooling skirts, and Hazal then rose, pulling the fabric up and drawing it flush until it shaped nicely to Tala’s body.

“Not as much as they could,” Tala conceded, and then her mouth twisted with something between irritating and humour – a face Hazal had grown very used to seeing. “Although, I'll take care to point out that your clumsy boots hardly helped. You're lucky you didn’t break something.”

If it were anyone else teasing her for stepping on their feet in a ballroom, Hazal might have snarled. As it was, even in the face of her anxiety, she found herself nudging instead towards humour.

There was comfort in comforting her. That was dangerous, but Hazal was already in enough danger. She could bear a little more.

“Oh, Lady,” Hazal grinned, stepping back and barring an arm across her chest as she swooped into a low bow. She ducked her head until her hair spilt almost to the floor, and rose to meet Tala’s eye with a cinder of mischief in her chest. “However might I make it up to you?”

Tala cocked her brow. She so clearly wanted to look entirely unimpressed and unshaken by Hazal’s display, but Hazal recognised a particular twitch in the corner of her mouth that usually meant she was trying not to laugh.

Good enough, she thought, and straightened. She reached out without thinking to fix a loose strand of hair that was hanging around Tala’s chin, and she tucked it gently behind her ear.

Tala’s cheekbones coloured, and she looked away, suddenly too bashful to look her in the face.

“Come,” she sighed, curling her lip as if her own voice tasted foul between her teeth. “We shouldn’t keep my mother waiting for too long. It'll only anger her further.”

Hazal’s stomach churned freshly. The brief reprieve had been nice, at least.

She followed Tala, a step behind her, as her Lady headed into the hall and strode with purpose towards Imelda and Nathaniel’s apartments. Without the distraction of a task, of a way to busy her hands, Hazal couldn't keep her anxiety at bay.

It wasn't good. When Hazal’s fear got the better of her, her magic crept out, and she preferred to keep that under wraps unless she absolutely needed it.

She especially couldn't afford to unleash it around Tala a second time, not if she wanted to keep both her head and her Lady’s friendship.

Her fingertips pricked and itched as her magic swarmed under her skin, pleading to be set free, but she clenched her hands into tight fists and clamped them behind her back. Holding it back ached, and the pain radiated upward from her fingertips until it pulsed up her wrists and even up to her elbows, but she refused to pay it any heed.

She could do this. She’d held back in uglier situations than this.

Tala had been sick with nerves when Hazal had first seen her that morning. Hazal had felt it, practically tasted it, like crystallised honey on her tongue that had long since gone bad.

Now, though, an odd calmness seemed to have washed over her. She’d lost the tension in her shoulders that she’d previously carried, and when Hazal reached out with her power, Tala’s emotions were calm and still. She was an unbroken pool sitting untouched by rain, lapping lazily at her banks.

Hazal knew enough of fear to understand. Sometimes it was easier to simply resign to the inevitable. It wasn’t like there was much Imelda could do to Tala that would be worse than signing her away to a stranger, anyway.

To you, on the other hand…

Hazal shrugged off the thought. She couldn’t change the past and she didn’t regret helping Tala. After months spent proving her worth, her value that lay primarily in keeping her head attached to her shoulders, she could only hope Imelda would show mercy.

Part of her wondered if Tala would fight for her if Imelda chose to kill her. Part of her wondered if that would only make it worse, and Imelda seeing any further connection between them would only spur her to send Hazal’s head rolling faster.

Shit.

Hazal’s heart thumped painfully behind her ribs – a fitting punishment for thinking the worst. Her anxieties were so good at punishing her for thinking too much, but she was better at coping with stomach pain than she was at shutting down her spiralling imagination.

A painful spot had grown persistent, worsened with each heartbeat, and it nestled between two of her ribs, right under her breast. She took a deep breath to try and settle it, but it only sent a twinge of further pain rattling around her ribcage, and she bit back a wince.

Tala didn’t notice. She was calm, but her focus was entirely on the door at the far end of the hall – the door they were approaching far too quickly for Hazal’s liking.

She was floating outside of her own body, watching as they walked up to those doors, and then through them as the guards pushed them open to let them pass. Dissociation was all well and good, but she couldn’t dissociate nearly far enough to escape what was coming.

The noble apartments were colossal. Even Tala’s was small by comparison, with her multiple chambered rooms.

The ceiling soared, arching high above to meet at a central point, and paintings filled the flat space between the ceiling’s wooden support beams. Tapestries lined the walls so that anywhere one looked popped with colour and intrigue, and any wall not covered with artwork was instead mounted with memorabilia – the stuffed head of a prize marble-furred stag, an ancient sword that hadn’t tasted blood in generations, plaques noting some achievement or other that Hazal didn’t stop to read.

Mounted suits of armour stood on either side of the doorway, hand clasped around the hilts of their longswords. A fine table ringed with plush chairs sat in the middle of the room, with staircases to deeper chambers in the back of the room.

It was all a picture of elegance, and of wealth that Hazal would have scoffed at a few months prior. She still thought it all pitifully wasteful, but having been around Maristead’s nobility for a time, she understood a little better the fears that plagued a noble’s mind.

This wasn’t splendour for splendour’s sake. This was a peacock’s feather display, the bright spots along a dart frog’s poisonous flank, a bower bird’s nest woven to its base with splendid trinkets. This was a message to the world that the Valdez family was stable, and wealthy, and powerful enough to be both a valuable ally and a deadly foe.

It was a bid for survival, just like the knives Hazal had grown up tucking into her boots. A noble’s weapons merely needed to be understood to be seen.

Tala led her through the first couple of floors in the apartments, up spiralling staircases and through a small network of rooms that grew increasingly private the deeper they went. As they protruded further and further into Imelda and Nathaniel’s space, Hazal’s skin crawled with discomfort, with the innate knowledge that she certainly didn’t belong here, but they’d summoned her directly.

There was no escape. All she could do was face what came and pray to a god she didn’t believe in.

Tala led her all the way to Imelda and Nathaniel’s private study. It was barely a floor away from their sleeping quarters – certainly not a place for someone like Hazal. She felt violently out of place. The ground seemed to shift unsteadily beneath her feet, as if the castle itself might reject her and open its maw to drag her back down to where she belonged.

For her entire life, she’d been told nothing but how she was nothing but grit under the nobles’ boots. She didn’t want to know what happened to grit that wound up in a place so private and precious as this, particularly not traitorous grit that had stained something particularly valuable.

Her fingers prickled again, urging her to unleash her powers and let them consume her. She choked them back, and looked up to meet her fate as they stepped out into the study.

Imelda stood across the room with her back to them. She stared out from her window, postured and completely still. Her arms were folded behind her back and her chin was lifted as she looked out at the sky-view of Maristead.

Hazal couldn't see her face, although she knew it would be stony. She didn't need to see her eyes to recognise that she was utterly, wholly furious.

Nathaniel was sitting at Imelda's desk, his jaw in one hand. He, interestingly enough, didn't look angry. His eyes were shadowed and his mouth twisted unpleasantly, and if Hazal had to name it, she'd say he primarily looked tired.

He glanced between Tala and Imelda as Tala entered the room, but he stayed silent.

Hazal couldn't help but wonder how he felt about all of this. In his marriage, he'd been the outsider. They'd married outside of tradition or expectation, and from what she could tell, they were happy together. This wasn't his world, not really, and Hazal couldn't help but give in to her curiosity.

How did he feel about auctioning off his daughter's hand to whoever could offer them the safest allyship? That was only normal to nobles who valued the masses over their own family. Had he forgotten the ethics of where he'd come from?

Hazal, realising she'd been staring, tore her eyes away from him. She pinned her eyes instead to Tala, and followed her with her head respectfully ducked. Until they left this room, she was her only grounding point, her only tether to the earth. Without her, she was entirely out of her depth.

Tala crossed into the middle of the room and mirrored her mother's posture, arms slotting behind her back and chin lifted.

She still appeared tranquil, but Hazal could feel her anxiety, breaking free from where she'd contained it, licking from her like flames. She was doing well to mask it.

"You asked for me?" Tala began.

Imelda stiffened. She set her jaw, her breath stilling in her chest as she fought to contain herself.

She failed.

The Lady of Maristead wheeled around in place, eyes wild and blazing, and she threw out a hand to point, accusatory, at her daughter.

"What were you thinking?"

She was shouting, her voice shrill and cracking. Tala flinched, shaken out of her false tranquillity for only a moment before resuming the mask. She hadn't expected this either, clearly.

"You've ruined us!" Imelda snapped. She began to pace, her breath whistling at the back of her throat as she hyperventilated. Her eyes were unfocused and her hands shook - Hazal bit back her instinctual reaction as she realised she was panicking. She couldn't afford to draw attention to herself when Imelda was this upset.

“I will not be paraded,” Tala curled her lip. “I’m not a prize sow, mother. I will accept a stranger’s hand if I must, but I will not let my freedom’s funeral be a show of disrespect.”

“You were the disrespectful one,” Imelda cut back, cold. “Tala, I have, time and again, conceded to you. I gave you the chance to find someone you could stand to wed. I gave you the chance to know your suitors before courting them, and this is how you thank me for my efforts? I might as well have chosen someone myself.”

“You meant well,” Tala admitted, but the coolness in her voice was faltering. Anger was beginning to rise to the surface now, and it rippled across her face. “But can you not see the humiliation in my advertising myself? I don’t care for any of those perfumed ponies or their gilded stables. I don’t care what they can offer me – I don’t know them!”

“You must know them,” Imelda urged. “I know it isn’t fair. I’ve told you that I know, and I’ve wept for you. I’ve spent countless nights over the course of your life weeping for the future I can’t offer you. You think I don’t care?”

“I know you care!” Tala snapped, her volume rising to meet her mother’s. “I know you love me, I know you want my happiness, and that pains me more than anything, but I cannot ever be happy when my future can only amount to losing myself!”

Imelda bristled, so infuriated that she looked almost like she might burst into flame where she stood. She gritted her teeth, hissing through them, but then she stopped, stepped back, and shut her eyes.

She took a deep breath, and the anger melted from her as quickly as it had come. She settled, like a bird smoothing its plumage, and lifted both hands to run her fingers through her hair. She pressed it flat to her scalp as if she might crush her anger beneath her fingertips, and opened her eyes looking considerably more relaxed.

Her eyes dragged to Hazal, and lingered on her for a moment. Hazal stiffened, unsure of how best to react. Imelda was unpredictable at best, and Hazal was a little mystified at how best to sate her.

“You,” Imelda addressed her. “Miss Eyletmez, correct?”

“Yes, Lady,” Hazal nodded, and as she spoke her mind screamed at her that she’d somehow misspoken, and everything that would happen to her now was entirely her fault.

“You were aware that accepting my daughter’s invitation on that dancefloor reflected on all of us poorly?”

It wasn’t much of a question. Imelda’s gaze, while calm, was flinty, and Hazal knew she wouldn’t be able to lie her way out of this.

“I did.”

“And yet you chose to partake in this treason all the same.”

A chill rushed up Hazal’s spine at the mention of treason. There was usually only one punishment for traitors in court, and she didn’t imagine she’d be so lucky to cheat death a second time.

She didn’t apologise. It would have only been another lie.

Instead, Hazal maintained careful eye contact, and nodded again.

“I felt that I had no choice that could ever be correct, milady,” she said, not quite defending herself. “I have a duty to you as a member of your household, but my loyalty is bound primarily to Lady Tala. Given the choice to protect either her or yourself, I felt that no matter what I did, I’d be betraying someone.”

Imelda narrowed her eyes. She cocked her head to one side.

“And you chose my daughter.”

“I felt that, given how either option was treason, I could only choose the option that weighed less heavily on my conscience.”

“And did you?”

“Yes,” Hazal dipped her head. “Forgive me, Lady. It isn’t my place to speak a word on Maristead’s politics, but when a friend asks for my help, I cannot ignore them.”

Imelda pursed her lips. She was quiet for a time, and she dragged her gaze up and down Hazal as if she were a butcher sizing up her latest carcass.

“I hope you realise,” she eventually spoke. “That in aiding your friend, you’ve put her in greater danger than the threat of a wounded ego.”

Hazal bit her tongue. Imelda took that as a sign to explain, which Hazal hadn’t needed, but at least with Imelda talking she had reason to keep her own clumsy mouth shut a little longer.

“That event was meant to foster allyship,” Imelda began to pace again, this time slower than before. “Dancing is a vital part of politics, which I don’t expect you to understand. It builds relationships. It helps people to become introduced, or better acquainted. It encourages intimate discussions which might be considered too vulgar for any less brazen a setting. It’s a sign of trust and a knife we can twist, if we need to.”

Imelda, still pacing, pinned Hazal with a look.

“In keeping my daughter from her rightful partners, you have effectively displayed that Maristead don’t care for foreign relations, won’t deign to open ourselves to conversation with our invited guests, and have nothing but enough gold for a party to our name.”

Is gold not enough? A sarcastic part of Hazal dryly wondered, but she had the sense not to say it out loud.

“You have both insulted our friends and deterred potential allies,” Imelda slowed to a halt, still pinning Hazal with a stare. “In a time like this, with half of the country’s nobles waiting for an opportunity to sink their teeth into the nearest bared throat, you have left us vulnerable to invasion for the wealth we flaunted, and without the security of emboldened friendships. You’ve left us unprotected and in the country’s centre-stage.”

Hazal held her tongue. She wasn’t sure whether Imelda expected her to apologise or merely to writhe in her discomfort, and she didn’t think it would make much of a difference how she reacted, anyway.

“You must know the appropriate reaction for this,” Imelda’s voice chilled impossibly further, until ice practically dripped from each word.

The hair on Hazal’s arms stood upright. She rolled her shoulders to dislodge her panic.

She didn’t speak. There wasn’t a single wise thing to say in that moment.

“Mother,” Tala’s voice wavered as she cut in. “Leave her out of this. I forced her into it.”

Imelda laughed, but there was no humour in the sound, and that only sickened Hazal further.

Shit, she thought. I’m not making it out of this room without a death sentence.

Imelda looked over at her daughter, something oddly thoughtful in her expression.

“You have feelings for this woman,” she accused, strangely calm, as if she wasn’t suggesting something entirely forbidden. “Don’t you?”

Tala faltered, blinking hard and taking a stunned step back.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Beg all you like,” Imelda cocked her head. “But answer the question first.”

She crossed the room to stand in front of her daughter, looking her dead in the eyes and scouring her face for any hint of a lie.

“Tell me,” she murmured. “Are you in love with her?”

Tala was stunned into silence for a moment. She scoffed, spluttering on her bewilderment, and shook her head.

“You insult me,” she bared her teeth. “I’ve told you nothing this morning but my utter distaste for light discussions of marriage, and you accuse me of falling for my forced retainer?”

“I might,” Imelda narrowed her eyes. “Would that accusation be fair?”

“No!” Tala snapped. Her face had turned ruddy – from mortification or disgust, Hazal couldn’t tell.

Imelda seemed contemplative. She stepped away, eyeing Hazal.

“And you?” she asked her. “You must have known that to help her would mean signing your own death sentence.”

“No, milady,” Hazal answered her coolly. “Like I said – I merely cannot refuse a friend that needs me.”

Imelda nodded slowly. She seemed to sit on the thought for a moment, before turning back to her window. She meandered back over to it, resting a hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder as she passed. Nathaniel lifted his hand in turn, resting it over his wife’s, and he watched Tala with a quiet resignation on his face.

He was hating every second of this. It was clear just from the sullen look in his eyes.

“Don’t chase this, Tala,” Imelda warned over her shoulder. “No matter how tempting rebellion may seem. This is a rocky path to follow, and you won’t like where it leads.”

Tala huffed, her face twisted into a disgusted scowl. Hazal shifted her weight from foot to foot, anxious for Imelda to give the order and call for her guards, but that order never came.

Instead, Imelda gripped Nathaniel’s shoulder tighter, and lowered her head.

“Get out. Thanks to you, I need to plan another way to garner favour with the other nobles.”

Hazal’s eyes widened. She stared at Imelda, listless – she was being let go?

Tala didn’t wait. She stormed away, grabbing Hazal by the arm and dragging her behind her.

Hazal let herself by pulled by the sleeve until they were all the way out of the apartments. Tala released her once they were back in the hall, and gripped her own head in both hands as if she could squash her frustration where it lay inside her very skull.

“She didn’t kill me,” Hazal breathed, still stunned. Her voice came out soft, so startled she felt like she dared not raise it lest Imelda remember her crime and send for her head. “Why didn’t she kill me?”

Tala took several deep, ragged breaths to settle her nerves before she answered. Her face was wrenched in displeasure, but she still answered Hazal gently.

“You’re a dragon rider, and a powerful soldier. You’re a bargaining chip in case we need to play nice to Zyanya. You’re my protector in a time of political unrest. You committed treason, but only to protect me, even if she thinks it was an ignorant decision. To her, you’re a valuable asset she can’t afford to lose.”

“Right,” Hazal blinked, glancing back at the apartment doors. She was listless, her thoughts scattered in the aftermath of her panic. “I understand.”

“Come on,” Tala sighed, turning away and leading Hazal back down the corridor. “Let’s find somewhere to hide until her temper cools. We’d better not push our luck.”

With little else to do and her heart still racing from the adrenaline of her second near-execution, Hazal followed her.

-

Shockingly, things only went from bad to worse from there.

If Imelda's frigid displeasure hadn't been enough, Hazal found the rest of the castle's response to her had also changed.

Most didn't matter much to her. Hazal didn't care what the rotating guard thought of her, or the sidelong glances the other militia shot her which had grown less flinty and more curious over time. It was telling that their initial distaste had turned to curiosity now that she'd grown closer to Tala.

Gossips, she thought to herself as she stared down a particularly bold group of younger soldiers, scowling over her breakfast. They were only interested in her if she had something to offer them, and in their minds, her cosying up to Tala apparently meant she'd somehow garnered herself status, or some other benefit that she dared not think about too deeply.

It was a little violating. She'd never needed the soldiers to like her. It felt oddly sour that they only paid her any heed now because they wanted whatever they could wring out of Tala.

She'd preferred being a ghost.

Hazal stood, lifting her tray, and turned to leave. It was clear the stares wouldn't stop if the soldiers didn't back down under her direct eye contact, and she didn't have the energy to confront them out loud. It was easier to slip away and finish her breakfast where their prying, greedy eyes couldn't reach her.

She could cope with being ostracised for attacking Tala. She could handle being stared at like a hunk of meat, with strangers slavering over the idea of reaping whatever they thought she was sowing in being so close to their Lady. She could shrug this off, the same way she shrugged off every other hunk of bullshit that had been slung in her path.

What really hurt, though, was the way Ollie and Mateo began to treat her in the days after the ball.

She'd seen it in their eyes right away. They'd arrived at her door to check in the night after the ball, and when Hazal ushered them inside, she saw their expressions were shadowed with uncertainty. They both had the same tension in their faces - the same thinned lips pursed tightly, the same uneasy set in their jaws, the same concern that shone in their eyes like a dying torchlight.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," she said before anything else, crossing the room to stand in front of them and grabbing them both by the shoulders. She pushed down, nudging them backwards onto one of her loveseats. "Enough of this. Everything is fine; can everyone please stop looking at me like I might burst into flames at the slightest inconvenience?"

Mateo and Ollie glanced at each other, and then back up at her.

"We're just..." Ollie started, but then stopped, apparently lost for words for the first time in their life.

"Worried," Mateo finished for them.

"Don't be," Hazal tried to argue, but she was quickly shut down before she could defend herself.

"Hazal, do you think we're stupid?" Mateo gestured between himself and Ollie. "We know you, at least well enough to know when you're not acting normally. We saw how you acted last night."

"You saw what I wanted the nobles the see," Hazal scowled. "None of that was comfortable for me, but it was important. I was acting."

"Really?" Ollie argued back, cutting in ahead of Mateo, who was equally outraged. "I'd be curious to know how you thought you were acting, because from where we were standing, you looked head over heels in love with that woman."

That, admittedly, wasn't what Hazal had expected. She took a step back, stunned into momentary silence, and Ollie continued.

"I'm used to seeing you fawn over her. A crush is one thing. You've been blushing over any spare look Tala sends your way for weeks, but that?"

Ollie swept their arm up, pointing at the door to gesture at what had happened the night before.

"That wasnae a crush. That looked real."

They opened their mouth to continue but then promptly shut it, choking on their words. Hazal's chest twisted with discomfort - she knew exactly what they'd been going to say.

That looked real, and real will only get you killed.

She floundered as she struggled to find a suitable response, but she was still lost for words. She wasn’t used to being so thoroughly read.

Annoyance flared in her gut and she gritted her teeth to choke it out. She didn’t want to snap at them, not when they were only trying to help.

“Hey,” Mateo broke the silence, softening his tone. He gestured toward Hazal with a flick of his hand. “Are you all right?”

Hazal bristled. She normally maintained fierce eye contact in moments like this, but she was feeling vulnerable, and she swept her gaze away from him, staring instead, quite furiously, at her opposite wall.

“I’m fine,” she curled her lip. “I’d be better if you both stopped overanalysing me.”

Mateo lifted his hands in surrender, but he continued speaking nonetheless.

“What did Lady Imelda say?”

“A lot,” Hazal snorted. “Most of it wasn’t directed at me. I get the feeling she thinks me a fool.”

“Well,” Ollie snorted. “You did attack her daughter.”

“And insulted them all to their faces during your trial,” Mateo added, helpfully.

“And shouted at Tala when you were invited to dine with them.”

“And danced with her in front of all the nobles when she was supposed to be courting them.”

“All right!” Hazal flung her hands in the air, her patience run dry. “I get the point. You can leave now, if you’re only here to poke fun at my mistakes. I recognise them as well as you; I don't need the running narration.”

She slung her arm backwards, gesturing at the door, but neither Mateo nor Ollie made a move to leave. With their point made, they conceded to change the subject, shifting back to their usual gossip about all the ridiculous instances at court, but there was a shadow of uncertainty in their voices.

They were worried for her, although they wouldn’t say so out loud, and from that day on, they entirely stopped teasing her for her feelings about Tala.

It was a little bizarre. Hazal was so used to their quips that going through her day without them made their conversations feel a little empty, devoid of something.

Apparently, whatever they’d seen in Hazal’s face during that ball had rendered the topic completely serious, and whatever had been funny about her supposed crush had died in its sleep.

Hazal hated it. After growing up with Aykut, she was used to being teased. She wasn’t afraid of being the butt of her friends’ jokes, but this felt worse.

This time, they pitied her, and there was nothing worse a friend of hers could do.

She pulled away from them a little. It was easier to stay quiet in conversations when speaking up only brought that unbearably sad look back to their faces.

Instead, she threw herself into her work, and she spent most of her time with Tala.

“You’ve noticed it, right?” Hazal asked one day as they sat in Karabasan’s stall, away from prying eyes.

They’d taken to hiding like this whenever they could. Even in front of Tala, people had started to stare. It made it difficult to concentrate, let alone to relax.

When they sparred in the training yards, they gathered a small crowd, with more passing soldiers shooting them glances over their shoulders as they went. When they settled in the library, they were interrupted more often than not, with people wandering in and out to fetch things they likely didn’t even need.

It was bothersome. Hazal couldn’t retaliate without making them look worse, no matter how badly she wanted to snap at these vultures. If she’d known how bold they’d become so quickly after the ball, she’d have reconsidered even helping Tala to start with.

“Noticed what?” Tala asked her, snapping her back to the present.

She was sitting behind Karabasan’s foreleg, tucked into the joint where his wing folded into his body, just behind his shoulder. Karabasan had curled around the two of them and had turned his face back, tucking it into his side so Tala had access to the back of his neck. Tala, aware that he was only begging for attention but content to give it to him, had both hands buried in the ruffle of scales behind his horns, scratching him in the divots between his spinal plates.

Hazal rolled her eyes at the ridiculous noise Karabasan was making in response. He was rumbling, attempting his best approximation of a dragon’s purr, and his tail thumped loudly against the tile floor as he lazily flicked it. Whenever Tala pulled away, he chirruped like a hatchling, acting like he wasn’t nearly fully grown and begging for attention.

“Your staff,” Hazal cocked her brow. “They’re emboldened. Disrespectful.”

“They’re curious,” Tala sighed. She picked a crumb of debris out from between Karabasan’s scales and tossed it across the stall. “Court is boring, Hazal.”

“And they can entertain themselves without treating you like some kind of attraction,” Hazal scowled. “Is gossip not enough anymore? They need to invade our privacy to scrape up details to feed their little stories?”

“They don’t mean anything by it,” Tala sighed. “It’s irritating, I know, but we can’t stop it.”

“You won’t even try?” Hazal rolled one shoulder. Discomfort was sitting somewhere deep in her spinal cord, and it stubbornly refused to budge, no matter how she tried to shrug it free. “They’re harassing you. Harassing us. I can’t even eat with the rest of the militia without an audience.”

“I know,” Tala lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. I truly hate that I’ve dragged you into this world.”

“I don’t blame you, Tala.”

“You should.” Tala looked up at her, then, fixing her eyes to Hazal’s. “I dragged you into that ballroom with your arm practically twisted behind your back. I did it knowing what it would mean. It was terrible of me.”

Hazal shrugged. She couldn’t disagree, but aside from despising the sudden invasiveness of their fellows, she didn’t regret helping her. She hadn’t had much of a choice either way, and certainly not a choice that wouldn’t have been punishing either way, but she’d chosen knowingly. If she suffered as a result, she could live with that.

“To be honest,” Tala continued, taking Hazal’s silence for an answer in itself. “I’m more concerned about my mother. She’s still barely speaking to me.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Hazal raised one eyebrow, and Tala snorted.

“You may not like her, but I love my parents, and they love me. Even when we disagree, we love each other.”

“I don’t mean that,” Hazal cocked her head to one side, squinting. “I was moreso trying to say that isn’t it better to stay out of her way for now, at least until her anger dissipates?”

Tala heaved a sigh and nodded.

“I suppose you’re right. I wonder if that’s part of her plan in ignoring me – instead of saying something she doesn't mean,  perhaps she thinks it more wise to simply keep me out of her mind altogether until her temper cools.”

Hazal nodded, turning the thought over in her mind. It was a little baffling to imagine parents that considerate. Hers certainly hadn’t been.

“Perhaps,” she answered mildly.

She still hadn’t told Tala much about her history. Tala had never asked, and Hazal wasn’t often the type to volunteer information like that.

Idly, she wondered whether she would, if Tala ever grew curious. With how easy it had become to talk to her, Hazal supposed she would. That thought should have been more frightening than it was.

Where are your instincts, Hazal? She tucked her cheek between her teeth and worried at it. What has this woman done to you?

She kept it to herself, even as that thought grew, swelling in her chest until it pressed against her lungs.

It would have helped to talk about it. She couldn’t bother Mateo and Ollie about it, certainly, especially now they were treating her like she was made of cracked glass on the brink of shattering. The only other person she could ever safely talk to about it, though, was Tala, and it would have been more than idiocy to breathe a word of this to her.

Hazal had been looking after herself for a long time, and the nobles’ search for their missing citizens was still ongoing, officially. It wouldn’t be forever until Aykut was found, and he’d listen to anything she had to tell him.

That time felt distant, but it would come. She could bear the weight of this on her own a little longer.

As the days stretched out, long and only growing longer as the summer sun lit more of each day, they blended into the shadows as much as they could. Their audience didn’t falter, and neither did Hazal's irritation.

She glared at their obvious tails whenever she caught them following, but it did little to deter them. In all likelihood, they were taking her fierce glares as kindling for whatever smouldering gossip was being spread about them throughout the castle. It was hopeless.

Throughout all of it, Tala remained nonplussed.

Hazal couldn't understand it. They were being followed like little more than half-starved does, tailed by a pack of starved coyotes that only seemed to grow in numbers, and Tala didn't so much as look back at them.

She confronted her about it a number of times, unsure of what she was even expecting to get out of her, but frustrated all the same at the way she seemed to totally disregard the intrusion on their privacy.

"Doesn't it make you angry?" she pushed one night as she pulled the pins from Tala's hair. "They're treating us like carrion."

"Of course it does," Tala murmured. She toyed with one of the discarded pins from the growing pile Hazal was leaving on her dresser, flipping it between her fingers like a trick blade. "But I'm used to this."

"Used to it?" Hazal scowled, but she'd already known it was true.

Tala had grown up in this world. She'd been born and raised in the public eye, and not a day of her life had gone by where she'd had true privacy. Even when she'd been shut away to protect others from her magic, she'd still been a topic of public conversation, known about and discussed and perceived in a million ways she couldn't control.

"I'm sorry again for dragging you into this bramble pit," Tala sighed. "These thorns bury deep, and they don't pull free easily. It grieves me that I'm the one who's embedded them."

"I chose to help you," Hazal reminded her, as she always did, and rested a hand on Tala's shoulder. Tala reached up in turn to rest her fingers over Hazal's, and she drew her thumb in a careful back-and-forth over the side of Hazal's index finger.

"You're too kind to me," she murmured. "Perhaps you had the right opinion of me when we first met."

Hazal blinked, damn near shocked enough to recoil physically. She managed to stay on her feet, but her hand tightened around Tala's shoulder.

"That..." she struggled, and cleared her throat. "Tala, that was... I wasn't thinking clearly. I wasn't in my right mind and it's a mistake I've paid for."

"I know," Tala met her eye through her mirror, her face shooting through with concern at having wounded her. "I'm not trying to hold it over your head."

If Hazal was honest, it hardly felt like it. Tala spoke of that night so rarely that to bring it up at all was a jarring shock. She'd assumed it was a memory that neither of them would rather dwell on.

She pursed her lips, trying to swallow the ugliness that threatened to burst from between her teeth, but she couldn't quite choke back all of her bitterness.

"You speak easily of that night when it suits you," she muttered, and a small, sick part of her felt gratified when Tala shrank away from her.

Good, she thought. She should flinch from me, if she still sees me the same way she did back then.

It was an ugly thought, and she regretted it almost as soon as it was out of her mind, but she could recognise the familiar squirm of mounting panic in her chest that usually meant her tongue would sharpen itself beyond her control until she could release whatever had triggered it.

She gritted her teeth, taking a deep breath, and turned away.

"Pardon," she excused herself and strode from the room without waiting for Tala to dismiss her.

Forgive me, her brain pleaded, but it couldn't even trust itself, and a deeper, more honest voice spoke louder. Despise me. Cast me out and let me go back to rotting in an empty house, and stop being so fucking terrifying.

She needed to fly. She needed Karabasan, but with the threat of the disappearances still lingering, she still wasn't permitted. Karabasan could fly by himself, and he regularly did to hunt, but his saddle remained hanging from a hook on his stable wall, catching dust, and Hazal's pent-up energy was left to build with nowhere to go but inward.

She couldn't fly, so instead, she spent that night walking until her shins burned. She walked the length of the castle walls and the courtyard, pacing back and forth whenever she found an open enough space, and she didn't spare a second to think about how long she'd been doing it until the sun broke over the castle's walls.

“Siktir,” she grumbled, and slinked back inside with only a slight limp, despite the pain bolting up her shins with each step. She’d mastered the art of masking pain over the years.

Fatigue clung to her with urgent, attention-seeking fingers, but she paid it no heed. She’d needed to lose some of her energy, and thankfully, she had. The unsettled scuttling under her skin had died down to barely a crawl, and now she found herself wracked more with guilt than anxiety.

Tala had looked at her with shock and betrayal when Hazal had curled her lip at her. It was awful to see her upset, no matter the reason.

She made her way to Tala’s apartments, but before she could step inside, a call rang out from down the hall.

“Hazal!”

It was Ollie. They were sprinting towards her from down the hall, eyes wild, and they skidded to a halt at her side, grasping onto her arm for balance.

“Ollie?” Hazal reached out to catch them in their tracks, hauling them back to their feet when it seemed they might overshoot and topple over. “Shit, what happened?”

“You’ve been summoned,” they shook her. “They’ve been looking for you. Tala’s already gone – Imelda needs to see you.”

“Shit,” Hazal said again, her blood turning cold. “Are we…?”

“Not in trouble,” Ollie gasped for breath and bent at the waist. They’d been running to try and find her for a while, clearly. “It’s Zyanya.”

“Zyanya? Is she here?”

“No. Shite, I’m out of breath.”

“Breathe,” Hazal rubbed their upper back, pressing slow but firm between their shoulder blades. “Tell me what happened.”

Ollie gasped, heaving for air, and once they’d calmed down, they straightened up to look her in the eye.

“Zyanya’s court was attacked,” they explained, a haunted look shadowing their eyes. “Her alchemist, Sabine Callas, I think? She was almost killed by someone they’d trusted. The attacker got away, too. Sabine lived, but it was a close thing.”

“Oh, fuck,” Hazal breathed.

“Hazal, it was them,” Ollie urged her to understand, grabbing Hazal’s arms and shaking her again. “The disappearances. They’re getting bolder. They’re finally starting to attack the nobles.”

Suddenly, Hazal was extremely grateful for her exhaustion. If she’d been any less groggy, that news might damn well have shattered her.

-

“You’re serious?” Tala’s mind was scattered. She stared down at her mother’s desk, scanning the letter she’d prepared.

“It’s our best choice, now,” Imelda nodded gravely. She folded the letter, wax-sealing it and holding it up for Tala to take. “We need allies and we can’t afford to be choosy.”

“But the Böhringers are-”

“I know,” Imelda nodded, a pained twinge pulling back the corner of her lips. “It’s not what we’d hoped, but it’s a start. Even if it sours our reputation, their technology is something we’ve already greatly benefited from.”

She drew her eyes down Tala’s arm, down the suppressor armlets, and Tala swallowed hard.

“Of course,” she stepped back, taking the letter and pulling it to her chest.

Footsteps sounded from behind her, and Hazal hurried into the room, bowing low as soon as she approached.

“Pardon, milady,” she apologised to Tala’s mother. “I was walking this morning, my squire only just managed to pass on your summons.”

“I take it you’ve heard what happened?” Imelda lifted her chin. She pointedly didn’t accept Hazal’s apology.

“I have. I’m deeply sorry to hear it. Is Miss Callas all right?”

“Shaken,” Imelda’s mouth tightened. “But alive. I believe she knew her attacker well.”

“If I may, was he castle staff?” Hazal frowned, and Imelda nodded.

“Hired recently, but yes. Dimitri Ventauras, I believe was his name. If I’ve heard the story right, he worked in the scullery, but became something of an aid to Callas over time. Clearly, he was only trying to get close to her for nefarious purposes.”

“Frightening,” Hazal’s face did something frigid and unpleasant. She glanced at Tala, dipping her head in silent greeting, and Tala returned the gesture.

Despite the unfortunate way they’d parted the night before, a memory which still tugged at Tala’s chest, she was glad to see her.

“Yes,” Imelda agreed. She looked at the letter in Tala’s hand, and took a deep breath. “Tell me something, Miss Eyletmez.”

“Of course, Lady,” Hazal cocked her head.

“That dragon of yours – what was his name?”

“Karabasan, Lady.”

“Karabasan,” Imelda nodded. “Is he strong enough to carry two?”

Hazal blinked, clearly stunned by the question.

“Y-yes, Lady, although not much more. He’s still young, only a teenager in dragon terms.”

“Understood. How far can he fly, and how quickly?”

“Quite far,” Hazal narrowed her eyes, scrutinising Imelda. “He’ll travel all day, but will need to rest at night. Even with that rest, I’d estimate he’s about three or four times as fast as a horse.”

Imelda nodded. She hummed to herself, drummed her fingers on the desk, and nodded, having decided something in her head.

“I want you to take Tala on your dragon and fly north to Belarin.”

Tala glanced over at Hazal and found her slack-jawed with shock. She stared for a moment before remembering herself, and shook herself back into coherence.

“…Belarin, milady?”

“You heard me correctly,” Imelda’s voice sharpened. She never had liked being made to repeat herself. “We need allyship, as I told you last. Given how yourself and my daughter have destroyed our first attempt at friendship with most nobles in this country, I need to reach out to our friends in the north. Given how they helped us with Tala in her childhood, I suspect we’ll have the easiest time convincing them that we’re worth trusting.”

Hazal nodded, cowed into silence.

“In the meantime,” Imelda sighed, sinking back into her chair. “I will send out a letter of condolences and well-wishes to Lady Zyanya, and I’ll try to arrange more friendly meetings with other nobles closer to us. I trust you can manage this without drawing too much attention?”

Hazal nodded, lips still sealed, but she struggled to open them and answer her anyway.

“Yes, Lady. I’ll keep her safe.”

Tala’s chest blossomed with warmth. Her cheeks blotched with heat, but she paid it no heed, and turned to leave, still clutching Imelda’s letter to the Böhringers in her hand.

“Bring warm clothes,” Imelda called after them. “Even in summer, Belarin is freezing cold. And Tala?”

Tala paused, glancing back at Imelda over her shoulder.

Her face, stoic as always, broke for just a moment, revealing a sliver of her mother underneath.

“Be safe,” she begged her quietly. “And return to me soon.”

Tala softened. Her chest ached and her throat tightened, and finding herself incapable of speaking, she rigidly nodded.

Packing was a quiet, awkward affair. Tala had warm clothes from her last time visiting – her mother had ordered an enormous winter coat be fashioned for her, and it still fit, even though it was somewhat mortifying to look at.

It was vibrant purple, falling almost to her feet, and was thickly cushioned with furs. The sleeves were huge and stitched into the coat’s waist, and the hood was heavy, so large it enveloped her entire skull and left very little of her face bared to daylight.

It looked ridiculous on her, but Tala had never fared well with the cold, and she’d needed it more often than not.

With a baleful sigh, she packed it into her travelling bag, along with a more respectful winter cloak. She packed an extra set of gloves and nightwear, since even on Karabasan it would take until the next evening to get to Belarin and she at least hoped they wouldn’t be forced to sleep in the elements, still in their winter clothes.

Her nerves were bundled tightly in her gut, and she did her best to choke them down. It had been so long since she’d been allowed to leave, and the first time she’d been sent away without either of her parents at her back, watching her every move.

Hazal was waiting for her in the courtyard by the time she’d finished packing. She’d led Karabasan out of his stall and readied his saddle, and she’d slung her own travelling clothes in a saddlebag across his back.

The dragon stretched his nose out at Tala as she approached, and flared his nostrils. Tala petted the soft stretch of skin at the tip of his muzzle, and handed her travel back to Hazal to secure to the dragon’s saddle.

“So,” Tala tried and failed to wet her lips with a dry tongue, parched from nerves. “What should I expect?”

“In the air?” Hazal glanced at her as she fastened Tala’s bags across Karabasan’s back. At Tala’s answering nod, she continued. “It’ll be cold. Very cold, and loud. The wind will be harsh, and it’ll feel like you’re being pulled out of the saddle, but it’s okay. It’s designed to hold you safely.”

Tala’s stomach squirmed, but she trusted her. She nodded, and when Hazal bent at the knee and offered her a hand to step into, Tala used her as a stepping stone to swing one leg over Karabasan’s shoulders and into his saddle.

The saddle was an oddly shaped thing. It was long, designed for two riders but still usable with just one. Hazal helped Tala into the seat in front, and directed her attention to the stirrups.

“There are buckles on these,” she explained as she fastened the loops around Tala’s legs. “They’re one failsafe keeping you secured, but just in case…”

She reached to the back of Neon and pulled more buckles up and over her shoulder, securing them between her legs. Another buckle rose from the saddle’s helm to attack to the front of this makeshift harness, keeping her firmly held in place from both her torso and her legs.

“Oh,” Tala mused, admiring the saddle’s design. “Clever.”

“It won’t protect you from the cold, or from the wind,” Hazal admitted. “But it’ll keep you in your seat.”

Tala nodded her understanding, and Hazal climbed up into the saddle behind her and buckled herself in much the same way that Tala had.

Like this, Hazal’s body was flush against Tala’s. She reached around her to hook her hands into grooves at the saddle’s crest, and she used her body to press Tala’s down, directing her to flatten herself to Karabasan’s neck.

“Pardon,” she murmured into Tala’s ear. “This will make the wind more bearable. You’ll feel stiff, trust me, but better stiff than blasted back in your seat.”

“Will I be able to hear you in the air?” Tala asked, her heart skipping a beat as Karabasan got to his feet. He moved more slowly than a horse, but more nimbly, and he jostled them in his saddle as he prowled out into the clearest section of the courtyard.

A crowd had gathered to see them off. Tala through the sea of faces to see Ollie and Mateo standing near the castle gates. She knew they were Hazal’s friends, although she barely knew them herself.

Hazal she bid them a silent farewell with a tiny wave. Mateo waved back with a smile, but Ollie only stared, their face unreadable. Tala squinted, glancing between them and Hazal, but Hazal said nothing about it as she turned to slot back against Tala.

“Probably not,” she answered her, finally. “If you need to speak to me, tap me on the arm. You’ll need to make it clear. I can get Karabasan to slow down enough to let the wind quiet down a bit.”

“All right,” Tala nodded. She slotted her hands into the grooves Hazal directed her to, and held on tight as the dragon crouched, bunching his muscles tightly.

Until she’d been this close, feeling his muscles shift under her, Tala hadn’t really noticed his sheer strength. He was strength, his body carved and built for endurance, for lifting himself into the air and staying there. His scales glittered in the morning sun, catching the light as his joints rolled, and as he launched into the air, he beat his wings with such an impact that a cloud of dust rolled out from where they’d leapt.

The power of his leap was immediate. Karabasan jumped high and his wings lifted them higher, not quite into flight, but high enough to give himself time to lift his wings a second time and thrust them up into the wind.

Each movement was a violent jostle, throwing Tala the opposite way of whatever direction Karabasan moved. Tala was pinned to the saddle with each upward thrust, with each beat of his wings that carried them higher and higher. With each dip and space between his wingbeats, she felt almost lifted from the saddle, like she weighed nothing and would float gently back to the earth should the dragon beneath her vanish.

Karabasan wheeled. He’d found an air current, and he circled upward, letting it carry them up into the sky, until the castle shrank away and each of Tala’s subjects became little more than faceless dots.

Hazal had been right about the cold. Already, Tala found her cheeks biting.

She nestled her face into her coat, thanking the gods for the intuition to dress up warmly before they’d even left.

Hazal tapped her, and flashed her a thumbs up – a silent way of checking in. Tala found it quite difficult to lift her hand from the divot she was gripping in the saddle, but the difficulty was more psychological than physical. After a moment of steeling her nerves, she lifted her own hand and flashed a thumbs up of her own, signalling back to Hazal that she was doing fine.

Karabasan climbed higher, impossibly higher, and the air only grew colder. Tala huddled against his scales, clinging tightly to the saddle as if the buckles fastening her into her seat had fallen away, and letting go would send her careening to the ground.

A morbid part of her wondered what falling from this height would feel like. They were so high now that she couldn't make out a single person among the smear that was Maristead's castle. The courtyard was difficult to distinguish from the towers - Tala could see little more than vague shapes, and they only shrank as Karabasan crested at his cruising height and levelled out, facing northward

With little else to do but wait, Tala looked up, facing the direction they were going.

She spotted Hazal's hands pedalling back and forth, and as she cocked her head to squint at what she was doing, she spotted two handlebars, one on each side. They were flexible, each pressing down to Karabasan's neck and back up to the saddle, and as Hazal turned her hands this way and that, Karabasan banked, following the instructions she was giving him.

Fascinating, Tala thought to herself with her lip between her teeth. She'd thought Hazal was merely holding on, but this looked far more purposeful. Somehow, without a spoken word or a horse’s reins, she was steering.

Tala puzzled to herself for a while how the mechanism worked. When Hazal pushed her left hand down to Karabasan's neck while pulling back with her right, Karabasan banked to the left. When she pressed down with both hands, he chirruped into the wind and dropped some height, using the momentum to increase their speed. When she pulled back with both hands, he reared, filling his wings with air like a ship's sails and slowing them down.

Surely, there had to be something at the base of each handle, Tala figured. She'd seen enough of her father's inventions to be able to guess at the basic workings of tools she didn't understand.

This looked like something simple - perhaps there was a flat base to each handle that pressed into Karabasan's neck when Hazal pulled backwards, indicating for him to pull back on whichever side was pressing down. Maybe it was something more complicated, but from her angle, Tala couldn't work it out.

There was some genius to working out a silent way of communicating with the dragon. Tala hadn't thought about it, admittedly. Hazal and Karabasan knew each other so well that a great deal of the time, it seemed they worked well together without needing words. Somewhere along the way she'd stopped questioning how they always seemed to know what the other was thinking.

Once they'd reached their full height, Tala relaxed somewhat. She'd been gripping Karabasan tightly with her thighs out of instinct - some desperate part of her was so terrified of falling that she couldn't simply trust the saddle's bindings to keep her in place, but they'd be flying until nightfall, and she certainly couldn't keep her muscles tensed all day.

She experimentally loosened the grip she'd had with her thighs, and when she wasn't sent flying out of the saddle, she relaxed the tension in her abdomen.

The position they were lying in wasn't comfortable, but Tala trusted that Hazal had been right about preferring this over the alternative. She didn't want to be blasted back in the saddle only to be too crushed by the wind to pull herself forward again.

The wind, even like this, was oppressive. When Tala looked up, turning her face in to the breeze, it blasted against her with such force that it was difficult to even breathe, and if she'd thought the cold had been bad before, it was violent now. It leeched down to her bones and festered there, burning hotter and hotter until she was forced to lower her face again, burying herself in the warmth of her coat.

Her coat’s hood flattened forcefully to her skull. It might have been uncomfortable, but Tala found herself grateful for it. The fabric flapped against the sides of her face, but it shielded her ears from the majority of the wind’s shrill cries, and from the worst of the cold.

Karabasan coasted until Maristead was little more than a speck on the horizon. Once they were over the mountains, Hazal tapped him with her handlebar reins, and he curled back on himself, climbing higher, until his spine almost scraped the clouds.

In the mountains, they were sheltered from most who’d see them, but that only depended on there being no travellers making their way through the foothills. Mountain climbers were rare, but not unheard of, particularly in summer, but flying so high made Tala’s breath turn even thinner.

No matter how she gasped for air, her lungs wouldn’t entirely fill, and she was left with a stabbing pain in the centre of her chest and a light-headedness that started at the back of her mind and steadily grew.

She might have panicked if Hazal hadn’t been pressed against her back. If Tala’s chest was this tight, she knew Hazal’s likely was, too, and she trusted her retainer to know when it would be safe to descend.

It would be a long flight. Tala wasn’t hating this by any means, but flying was a thrill her body hadn’t yet adjusted to, and she didn’t expect her stomach to settle anytime soon. Nausea from the jolts of Karabasan’s wing beats and nerves from the sensation of being dragged from the saddle by the wind left her feeling sick to her stomach, and even in the cold, Tala felt her brow beading with sweat.

There was nothing to do except bear the journey. Her mother’s letter stared at her from where it was safely stowed in her travel bag, and Tala felt it burning a hole in her back even through Hazal. It was precious cargo, a way to make up for her betrayal, and one last ticket to keeping her city safe.

She wouldn’t fail. She just had to make it through the flight.

She tucked her face neatly against the saddle, cushioning herself with her hood. She angled her face down and back toward her own shoulder, which strained her neck, but it shielded her face almost entirely from the wind. It was the most comfortable she was going to get.

She shut her eyes, and even though she’d never be able to sleep this far above the earth, she let herself drift.

They flew until nightfall, with only a few short breaks. They stopped once to change into even warmer clothes, once to eat, and twice more for bathroom breaks, and to stretch their aching legs. Each time she dismounted, Tala wavered on her feet, almost woozy from the jarring difference in altitude and her feet numb from being buckled in place for so long.

By the time they stopped for the night, they’d already passed the point where the brilliant colours of summer had masked over with a permanent blanket of snow. They’d crossed the mountain range north of Maristead and flown over another massive stretch of flatter earth, but they flew along the flank of another mountain range now. These crags clawed at the sky, harsh and uninviting.

Karabasan touched down on the snowy side of one of these mountains, and crawled into a cave that Tala hadn’t even spotted nestled amongst the rocks. As soon as they slipped past the cave’s mouth, the wind suddenly cut off, and Tala found herself oddly jarred by the stillness, and the silence that almost seemed to scream.

Hazal lifted from her back and unbuckled herself first. Tala stayed pressed flat to the saddle; her spine had turned stiff after so many hours holding the same position. Her hips ached, and as she gathered the courage to push herself upright pain lanced down both of her thighs.

“Shit,” she hissed through her teeth, and Hazal shot her a sympathetic glance.

“I know,” she grimaced. “Finishing a long flight is a bitch. How are the insides of your thighs?”

“Excuse me?” Tala shot her a sharp look, and Hazal lifted her hands in surrender.

“Do you have saddle sores, I mean? I have a poultice for that in his saddlebags.”

“Oh,” Tala lowered her bristling scruff, her cheeks heating. She was irritable and sore, with her body stiff and freezing cold even wearing her ridiculous coat. “No, I’m all right. Are we pitching camp here?”

“We’ll have to,” Hazal nodded, grabbing one of the travelling bags and hauling it to the ground. Karabasan shook, his scales rattling, and snowflakes drifted from him in a flurry. “This is the only sheltered spot in the foreseeable area, and Karabasan was faltering. He needs to rest.”

“Of course,” Tala looked up at the dragon, and trailed over to scratch him underneath his jaw while Hazal unbuckled his saddle and unburdened him.

Karabasan seemed pleased by the attention. He lazily shut his eyes, pressing his face into Tala’s hands, and only pulled away to stretch once he was released from the saddle.

“A fire isn’t wise,” Hazal glanced out at the mouth of the cave. “Even covered, I don’t trust that we won’t be seen. Can you manage the cold?”

Tala’s shoulders sagged, crestfallen.

She’d never tolerated the cold particularly well. There was a reason she’d been sent north as a child only in the summer, when it was freezing, but much more bearably so.

“Fine,” she smiled weakly, and Hazal squinted.

“You’re struggling,” she pointed out. Of course, she could read her better than that.

Tala’s mood, already soured, dipped a little more. She hated her own lack of subtlety, but it was a skill she’d never been given the chance to learn.

“We’ll share a blanket,” Hazal decided. “It’s unprofessional, I apologise, but it’s the best solution I can offer to keep us both warm.”

Tala’s cheeks flared. She cleared her throat, but she was much too tired to argue, and in truth, she didn’t mind sharing such close proximity with Hazal.

In a way, part of Tala thought that dancing was something far more intimate than simply sleeping next to someone.

Hazal stretched out a thick roll of fur across the cave floor, and then a second. She grabbed a third from where it had been wrapped around one of the travel bags, shook it free of snow, and lay it strewn over the first two.

“This will need to do,” she announced as she stepped back. “We’ll sleep on two to mask the cold of the ground, in our clothes, and we’ll use the third as a blanket. Sound feasible?”

She looked over at Tala, but Tala only saw her from the corner of her eye. She was staring at the blankets, exhausted, sore, and a little flustered at the idea of waking up next to Hazal.

Control yourself, she told herself. You see her every morning.

She nodded, striding over and stretching out across the blankets, and she fiercely ignored the blazing in her cheeks as Hazal lay back next to her.

You see her every morning, without fail, she told herself again, but she knew it was only halfway true.

She saw her every morning, but not when they were both bleary-eyed and softened from sleep. The idea of seeing Hazal like that was quietly thrilling, as much as Tala willed herself to be nonchalant about it.

Hazal tucked the blanket around the both of them and sidled up against her. Tala turned to face her – most of her face was hidden in shadow this far away from the cave’s mouth, but Tala could see the highlighted cut of her jaw and the hawkish curve of her cheekbones. She looked quietly back at her, and Tala swallowed hard as she willed her heart to stay its pace.

A stray lock of hair was lying curled across Hazal’s cheek. Tala’s fingers itched, and she was too weary to ignore the urge to reach up and brush it away.

She hooked it behind Hazal’s ear, and warmth blossomed in her chest like fire. She turned away, facing the opposite wall, and tucked both hands under her face, telling herself that her body was only reacting like this out of sheer exhaustion.

“Goodnight, Hazal,” she bid her, and for once, Hazal’s voice wobbled as she answered her.

“Goodnight,” she hesitated, and Tala heard her gulp. “…Tala.”

-

Tala woke in the middle of the night. She was restless sleeping on such a hard surface; even with the blankets, her spine and hips ached where they pressed into the stone.

She woke nestled into something softer. It was warm, and it smelled of leather, of some kind of smouldering herb, and of something bitter, but pleasant. It was comfortable under her cheek and pleasant under her fingertips as she dragged them sleepily back and forth.

It was moving.

She froze at the realisation.

Fuck.

During the night, in her instinctive search for heat, she’d turned over and rolled right on top of Hazal. She lay pressed with her cheek against her breast, feeling her chest rise and fall with her breathing, and she could hear her heart beating steadily as she slept.

Tala’s instinct was to panic, to scramble away and wake her, but instead, she found herself rigid.

She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to leave this. She didn’t want to pull away from this warmth, which was only this warm because it was her, or that heartbeat that echoed painfully in Tala’s chest because of who it belonged to.

She wanted this. Tala didn’t know what it was, or why, or how or when it had started. She knew almost nothing except for how severely she wanted.

Tears burned in the corners of her eyes. She couldn’t wake her, and she couldn’t give up this moment. It was far too precious to waste.

She wouldn’t get another chance like this.

Tala closed her eyes, steadied her breathing, and pretended to sleep until morning came.

Hazal woke with the sunrise. She froze as she spotted Tala on top of her, but she didn’t cause a panic. She slinked an arm around her waist, cupping her, and rolled them gently until Tala was sleeping on her side again.

Tala kept her eyes shut, continuing her charade. She expected Hazal to shake her shoulder, to wake her, but for a moment, nothing happened. She waited in the drawn-out silence, her heart hammering in her chest, until Hazal’s fingers brushed gently over her cheek.

She trailed her fingertips lightly down her cheek and along the curved arch of her jaw, and she cupped her chin between her forefinger and thumb, as light as anything.

She stayed there for a moment, caressing Tala with the full belief that she was fast asleep, and Tala fought her hardest to keep her act convincing.

Hazal moved after a time. She took Tala by the shoulder and woke her as Tala had previously expected, and they ate a quiet, modest breakfast of hard bread and cheese. Tala said nothing, hoping that she could use the excuse of a poor night’s sleep, but Hazal didn’t push her.

“Are you ready?” Hazal asked her a while later, once she’d strapped Karabasan back into his saddle. “The weather looks clearer today, so we at least have the benefit of a gentler sky.”

“I suppose that’s something,” Tala sighed, but she accepted Hazal’s offer of help into the saddle all the same. Her body, still aching from the previous day, wept as she settled back into the flattened position against Karabasan’s neck, but there was nothing to be done about it except grit her teeth.

True to Hazal’s word, the day was clearer. It made for slightly less violent wind and cold that wasn’t quite as bitter, even as they drew further north.

Tala didn’t know whether she was getting used to this or whether the weather made for a smoother ride, but she didn’t feel quite so wretched as she had the day before. She was grateful for it; meeting the Böhringers with an upset stomach sounded like a mortifying recipe for disaster.

As it was, they made it to Belarin in the late afternoon. Hazal pulled Karabasan back, instructing him to circle a fair distance from the city, but close enough to be seen.

Thank goodness for the sun, Tala thought to herself as a blaring horn sounded in the distance, and Belarin’s gates heaved steadily open.

Hazal instructed Karabasan to touch down where they were circling, still a long way from the city, and helped Tala out of the saddle.

“In my bag,” Tala instructed her. “There’s a pin marking who we are. Would you-”

“I’ll fetch it,” Hazal nodded, already turning to fish through the bags.

Belarin sent out a small army of soldiers on horseback to greet them. They took their time – an arrogant gesture, certainly, but not a hostile one. It was a mark of defiance, to show off that they were not to be frightened so easily.

Tala respected it, even if she recognised it for the blatantly performative show that it was. With Hazal’s help, she fastened the Maristead pin to her breast, fetched her mother’s letter, and stood a small distance from Karabasan to meet their entourage.

“Stay where you are,” one of the riders instructed, once they drew close enough to be within earshot. “Who goes there?”

“Lady Tala Valdez, from Maristead,” Tala waited patiently while the riders formed a circle around them. “I come bearing a message from my mother, Lady Imelda. This is my retainer.”

“State your business,” the rider called. “What is the nature of this message?”

His face lifted to Karabasan, who was waiting patiently where Hazal had left him. He followed the horses with his eyes, snorting – he was likely hungry after such a long flight, but Tala knew he wouldn’t attack a horse with a rider. Hazal had trained him better than that.

“A friendly bargain,” Tala lifted her letter. One of the soldiers drew close, snatched it from her hand, and carried it over to the soldier addressing them. “After what happened to Lady Mondragón, we wish to barter for allyship, if the Lord and Lady Böhringer will see us.”

The soldier took the letter, turning it over in his hands, and examined the wax seal carefully. He glanced up at them, and then back at Karabasan, and Tala offered him a patient smile.

“Please, pay him no heed. We wanted to travel quickly, and out of sight. He’s well-trained and won’t attack; he was simply much faster than a horse, and allowed us the benefit of cloud cover.”

The soldier seemed satisfied with that. He nodded, wheeling his horse around.

“Come with us. Your beast will be fed and watered, and we’ll deliver your letter to Lord Böhringer.”

Tala’s heart skipped a beat.

“May we-”

“It’s past the time where milord will usually see guests,” the soldier glanced back at them. “But you’ve come a long way. Come and wait in the dining hall, and I’ll send someone for you once we have any more information we can spare.”

It was the best they’d get. Tala nodded, thanked him profusely, and they got back into Karabasan’s saddle to travel the rest of the distance to Belarin – this time at a walk, following after the horses with Karabasan’s wings neatly folded to his sides.

The city was just how Tala remembered it.

It was large, with spacious streets and building that stood tall, and broad. The walls here were thick to combat the cold, but the interior of the city was far warmer than the outside, with arcane thrumming rumbling through the streets.

Tala didn’t know what kind of enchanted artefact they’d made to protect their city’s streets, but she wasn’t surprised to see it. Klara Böhringer was a genius, and she’d always been especially skilled at combining magic with clever bits of machinery.

They were led to the castle, and Hazal untacked Karabasan before sending him away with the soldiers who’d come to collect him. He seemed confused, but trusted his mother, and prowled away down one side of the castle to enjoy whatever accommodation they'd prepared for him.

Tala and Hazal were led inside. Tala fully expected to be brought to the dining hall and then directed to a local tavern for the night, but as it was, they didn’t even made it to the hall before they were spotted, and seized.

“Tala!” A familiar voice ran out, and Tayane Alves, Klara’s wife, was in front of her before Tala could even realise she’d appeared.

“Tayane!” Tala greeted her. Tayane threw herself into her arms, hugging her tightly, offering her as far from a noble greeting as she could. She’d always hated court. “How are you?”

“I’m great!” Tayane stepped back, examining them both. “What brings you here?”

“We must speak to Lord Böhringer,” Tala nodded towards the soldier leading them. “We’ve brought a letter from my mother. Maristead wishes to make our friendship more official.”

“Oh, yes?” Tayane cocked her head, her eyes sparkling with interest. “I think they’ve retired for the night. Things have been hectic here.”

“Of course,” Tala nodded, casting her eyes downward. “I can only apologise for our sudden arrival. We’d have sent a messenger ahead of time, if only we’d the time to spare.”

“Don’t worry,” Tayane reasoned with her. “We have the room, and the resources. I’ll make sure you’re given a room for the night, and you can speak to them in the morning.”

Tala could have melted from relief.

“Are you sure it wouldn’t be too much trouble?” she asked, frowning, and Tayane waved her away.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Tala. Come, eat something, and get some sleep. You look exhausted.”

Tala went to argue, but Tayane shut her up with a firm look.

“Enough,” she told her seriously. “You can talk politics in the morning. For now, rest, and try to take a night without feeling the entire world relies on you.”

-

Tayane’s advice was easier to say than it was to follow.

With a full stomach, Tala felt a little calmer, but a low-hanging unease still clung to her as they were shown to a guest room and left for the night.

They’d be sharing a bed again. Tala supposed it didn’t matter much, now they’d already done it once.

She bathed, dressed herself in her night shift, and found herself entirely too antsy to go to sleep. Her body was a spark just waiting to brush against something it could ignite, and she preferred not to sleep in a flaming bed.

Instead, she wandered out to the balcony.

It was… a beautiful night. The moon hung fat and round in the sky, brightly glittering against the distant snow flats. The mountains were barely visible from this distance, melting almost entirely into the night’s horizon, but the city was aglow, lit with gorgeous shades of red and gold.

She leaned against the balcony, watching people pass by in the street and listening to that rhythmic humming of whatever magic was keeping the city warm, and wishing this hollow, ragged feeling in her chest would seal over and fade.

There was a low breeze. It mussed her hair, dragging it against her cheeks and throat, and she let it, even when it got in her eyes and tickled her nose. She’d take physical discomfort easily over this low, growing anxiety in her gut. It was mounting into panic, spreading further every day, and she didn’t like it.

Her instincts were screaming at her, but she couldn’t even read what they were saying. More than anything, if she had to guess, it felt like they were telling her to run.

Hazal joined her after a while.

“Tala,” she murmured, and crossed the balcony to stand at her side, back to the city. She slung her elbows over the balcony railing, watching Tala from the corner of her eye, and Tala did much the same, keeping her face turned out, towards the heart of Belarin.

“Hazal,” Tala murmured.

“Are you well?”

“Quite,” Tala pursed her lips. “Today was significantly easier on me. I’m not sure why I suffered so much less, but I shan’t complain, either way.”

“Mm,” Hazal hummed. She examined her for a while, cocking her head to the side, and frowned. “Something’s on your mind.”

“Oh?” Tala swallowed the urge to glare at her for the sin of reading her body language. “You seem very certain.”

“I suppose. Are you going to tell me about it?”

Tala snorted.

“Wouldn’t that be easy?”

Hazal didn’t answer her. She only watched, calm and quiet, and Tala sighed.

“It’s nothing of importance,” she brushed her off, staring out into the night. “I’m only tired.”

Hazal hummed again, clearly doubting her. Tala’s stomach prickled with annoyance.

“I am,” she lied, and Hazal raised one eyebrow.

“Do you want to know a little bit about how my magic works?”

Tala trailed off, and her anger died. She hadn’t expected that.

She looked over at her, glancing between Hazal’s face and her hands. Hazal lifted one hand, turning her palm up towards the sky.

“It’s fear,” she murmured. “I sense fear. I feel it, as intrinsically as if it were my own. I see your dreams, your ambitions, your hopes… and everything you can’t bear to imagine.”

Tala was stunned into silence. She supposed it made sense. It certainly put how they’d met into context, and explained how Hazal had shown her visions so pointedly horrifying.

“I understand,” Hazal paused to swallow, some nerves showing through her calm mask. “That it’s not an enviable power. Most find it repulsive. I do my best not to let it show, but it’s… always hungry.”

“Hungry?” Tala frowned, turning to face her.

“Nothing to concern yourself with,” Hazal dipped her head away. “I only bring it up to make a point. I know you’re scared of something, Tala. I can feel it, and I know fear well enough to understand that it won’t go away unless you let it out.”

Tala chewed on the inside of her cheek, as if she could bite away what bothered her and spit it out. She weighed the cost of talking to her when even looking at her felt dangerous, but Hazal’s eyes were piercing and soft all at the same time, and they penetrated her in a way that so few ever had.

She looked at Tala and saw right through to her soul. Tala thought that if Hazal had asked her for the world in a bowl, Tala might have summoned an army and ripped the very suppressor armlets from her skin to ensure she got it by the day’s end.

“You,” she curled her lip. “Are highly irritating.”

Hazal’s mouth twisted into a small smirk.

“Am I?”

“Yes. You vex me.”

“I vex you.”

“You vex me,” Tala scowled, stepping closer to her. “By somehow always managing to wrestle the upper hand out from under me. I can’t even suffer a morose evening on my balcony without you knowing about it.”

“Pardon,” Hazal looked her in the eye, her smirk only growing. “Would you ask me to stop, milady?”

Tala floundered.

If she were honest, no. She wouldn’t change the way Hazal spoke to her for all the sunrises she had left in the world.

Hazal’s smirk became downright smug. She settled back against the balcony, much too pleased with herself.

“I didn’t think so,” she flashed her crooked smile, one of her pointed teeth poking out from her lip.

Tala stared at her, something painful and warm and terrifying writhing in her chest, screaming louder and louder at her the more she tried to ignore it.

She heaved a sigh.

“I’ve been thinking about that vision you gave me,” she murmured. “The night we met.”

Hazal’s smile faded.

“…Ah.”

“I’m not angry,” Tala clarified, softening her voice. “It just touched on something personal, and I’m struggling to forget.”

She remembered the way Hazal had reacted the last time she’d brought this up, but it was important for them to talk about it. If they didn’t, it would only hang between them like a carcass, dripping blood until it rotted through the floorboards underneath.

“I regret hurting you,” Hazal murmured. “I won’t say it was an accident. I meant to do it, but I did it without knowing you. If I’d known you then like I do now, I’d never have blamed you for the way he vanished.”

Tala’s chest ached. It fucking hurt.

“You don’t know me,” she murmured. “Not all of me. Almost no one in this world does.”

Hazal narrowed her eyes.

“What does that mean?”

Tala held her breath, and then she dared to answer her.

“Do you want to know a secret?”

Hazal stared, quiet but intently listening, and Tala broke eye contact, staring out instead at an ice crag in the distance, turned silver-blue by moonlight.

“I’m not really my parents’ child.”

Once she’d said it, the world seemed to shudder. Tala had never spoken those words aloud to another living soul outside of discussing it with her parents.

Hazal’s eyes widened. She looked like she wanted to speak, but she thought better of it, and Tala swallowed hard before she explained.

“They tried very hard to conceive,” she winced at the thought. “For years, they tried. My mother quickened a number of times, but none of her children ever lived through her pregnancy. They were young, married improperly, alone; they needed an heir, and they couldn’t make one.”

Hazal huffed, too shocked to react silently but clearly not wanting to interrupt.

“They found me in a village one summer,” Tala’s cheeks warmed. “They’d sent out a scout to look for orphaned babies young enough and similar enough in appearance that they could play them off as their own. They smuggled me home, claimed I was a surprise miracle, and when they travelled back to Maristead in the winter, they brought back a new heir.”

She glanced back at Hazal, whose face had turned slack.

“I had no idea,” Hazal stared.

“Good,” Tala glanced away again. Eye contact was far too stifling. “They didn’t want anyone to know, even among their own staff. Only about… four people know? Maybe five?”

“Shit,” Hazal blew a steady stream of air out, digesting, and Tala shivered.

“I don’t think she realises it, but I think my mother blames herself for the fact that she couldn’t carry her own child to term. It was difficult for them to find a solution that worked, and highly dangerous. Even now, if this got out, we could be raided for the heir being illegitimate.”

“Does it really matter?” Hazal frowned, and Tala shrugged.

“In a time like this, and when your marriage is as politically unstable as my parents’ was, unfortunately yes. My mother wants me to marry and have an heir of my own, not just for Maristead’s sake, but for mine. She wants so desperately to protect me from what she suffered, but in her fear, she’s only planted a different seed in my mind.”

A chill ran up Tala’s spine, and she shuddered.

“Her making it such a frequent point of discussion has meant it’s never left my mind, and there are a million different things to fear about motherhood. Pregnancy alone is terrifying, but… being a mother is a trial I don’t think I could ever be truly ready for, and it breaks me that I was never even given the choice whether I got to partake in it or not.”

Hazal listened with her head cocked, and Tala’s breath quickened in her chest.

“It affects more than my own life. I’ll need to raise children, to teach them to survive in this awful world that takes and takes and takes. I’ll need to birth them knowing they were sown by a stranger that I’ll loathe just for virtue of taking what little freedom I have, and I’ll resent them simply for existing. It isn’t fair and they deserve better, but I can’t help but hate them already, before they’re even planted inside me.”

She reached up to clutch a hand to her abdomen.

“I hate it. I hate all of it. I hate that in spite of all the suffering my mother went through trying to save me from her fate, all I can do is fail the children I don’t want to have.”

Her eyes burned, and she heaved for breath.

Mortification boiled in her cheeks, and she gasped, her breath hitching as she fought to keep from sobbing.

“I don’t think I’d loathe the thought so much if it only felt like more of a choice, and that’s almost worse than anything. If my mother had only fought a little less for my sake, I might not hate my own children.”

She squeezed her eyes shut to fight back the threat of her tears, and she clenched the hand on her belly into a fist.

“I know it’s a pitiful excuse for a struggle,” she murmured. “As you’ve said, so many would kill to be in my position. It’s vile of me to feel this way, but-”

“Tala,” Hazal cut her off. She pushed away from the balcony railing, closing the distance between them, and reached out to hold Tala’s arm in her hand. “No. Regardless of the circumstances of your birth, you’re a person first, not a noble.”

She smoothed her hand over Tala’s arm, and that terrible void in Tala’s chest wailed, clawing further open.

“It must be a lot of pressure,” Hazal murmured. “A great weight to carry by yourself. I don’t blame you for feeling so frightened by it.”

Tala gasped softly, and looked up to meet her eye. Her vision was blurred with a thin film of tears that hadn’t quite fallen.

“Do you mean that?” she trembled, and Hazal nodded.

“It must be crushing to have no say in your own future, especially when it makes you feel like you’ve little more use than the function of your womb. I’m sorry, Tala.”

Something inside Tala cracked, and then fell to pieces.

She’d expected mockery. She’d expected Hazal to shrug and call her entitled for the audacity of feeling pressured, but instead, she’d met her with kindness.

It felt so remarkably new to be treated like a woman alone, and not a noblewoman surrounded by an endless field of broken glass and shards of gold.

She ran a hand up Hazal’s chest, following the buttoned line of her shift.

“I sometimes wish I could know what it felt like to be normal,” she admitted, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “One of you.”

“Believe me,” Hazal murmured. “It’s not that fun.”

Tala ached so terribly. Her fingers lifted, running their line up to the hollow of Hazal’s throat, up her carotid, and then across the jagged scar that crossed her face.

“I know,” she breathed.

Hazal’s breath shuddered in her chest.

“Tala,” she wet her lips. “What are you doing?”

Tala had been terrified for days, but as she looked Hazal in the eye, her fear suddenly stilled, falling away until she could bear to ignore it.

She opened her mouth to answer her, but no words came.

Instead, she gripped Hazal’s shift in one hand, pulled her down to her height, and she kissed her like she might weave them together from the lips outward.

Hazal froze, flinching, but not flinching away.

Her lips were warm, and soft, and they quivered as Tala pulled away just enough to let her speak.

“Tala,” she almost begged, her whisper breaking. “We shouldn’t.”

Tala traced their lips together. Already, she was hungry for her breath, her lips, her tongue, every inch of her that Hazal would let her touch.

Hazal cocked her head to one side, mirroring Tala’s. Even while she argued for Tala’s virtue, she was just as starved, and Tala almost whined at the feather-brush of their lips as she answered her.

“Do you want to stop?”

Hazal’s breath rolled warm against Tala’s. She was holding herself oddly still – holding herself back, Tala realised.

“I…” she swallowed, struggling to find the appropriate words to answer her. “I don’t know.”

Neon pressed closer, kissing her again, and this time, Hazal kissed her back. She swept her lips over Tala’s and the trail she left lit up like a line of newborn stars twinkling into the night sky.

“Tell me to stop,” she whispered, and it was almost a plea.

Part of her hoped that Hazal would. Part of her hoped that she’d wrench away from her, call her a fool, and drag her to bed to sleep off whatever this was.

The larger part of her ached so terribly for her that she feared she might fall to the floor and weep.

Hazal waited for a moment, and let go of whatever had been holding her away. She rushed against Tala, kissing her hard, and her arms looped around her waist. She clutched her like Tala was her lifeline, her final tie to the earth, and Tala buried both hands in Hazal’s hair, holding her equally close.

They were starving. They were desperate. They were bloodthirsty and primal and stubborn.

If Tala couldn’t change her future, she could at least make this one choice for herself.

With suffering and with elation, she held Hazal tight, and she pulled her back into the bedroom.