Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Hall of Bone stirred with a hush that felt almost reverent, the kind of silence reserved not for dread—but for devotion. Pale light filtered through the ribbed latticework of the ceiling, casting soft arcs across the bone-polished floor. The skeletal throne at the room’s far end pulsed faintly with necromantic sigils, their glow low and steady like a heartbeat under stone.

Virya entered without fanfare, her long black coat trailing behind her like spilled ink. Two sentinels bowed their heads as she passed, but she barely noticed—her presence belonged here. She’d grown up in these halls.

At the base of the throne, she stopped and gave a shallow bow. “You summoned me?”

“I wanted to see my daughter,” came the reply, rich and smooth as warm amber.

The Emperor sat in human form—handsome in the impossible way of celestial things forced into flesh. Pale hair gleamed like burnished moonstone, and his golden eyes held none of the horror they did in his true state—only warmth, and an uncanny stillness.

“You’ve been busy, little flame,” Valien said, rising from the throne with a slow grace. “Half the Ossuary is whispering about your latest sermon at the Crypt of the Vowed Dead. Something about tongues being replaced with bone-chimes?”

Virya beamed. “It was metaphorical. Mostly. They misinterpreted me, as usual.”

He chuckled—a quiet, content sound—and extended his hand. She stepped forward and took it without hesitation.

“You always know how to hold their attention,” he murmured, lifting her hand to press a kiss against her knuckles. “I used to think it was your voice. Now I know it’s your precision. You know just how to cut.”

Virya flushed at the praise, but met his eyes easily. “They say I get that from you.”

Valien’s smile softened. “They’re not wrong.”

He released her hand and gestured toward the low stone dais beside the throne, where cushions were arranged in a sunburst of pale velvet and preserved leather.

“Sit with me,” he said. “I want to hear what you’ve learned while playing spider in my court.”

He sat, and she settled beside him, legs folding neatly beneath her. He didn’t sprawl like Strix. He didn’t slouch like Maldrien, going over the reports from the soul engine. He simply was —upright, poised, radiant in the way only gods pretending to be men could be.

Virya leaned in, conspiratorial. “The Grand Mortifex is sleeping with one of the bone-chandlers from the Deep Vaults. They think they’re being subtle, but someone replaced his marrow ink with ashblossom dye and he hasn’t noticed yet.”

Valien chuckled, shaking his head. “He always did have a soft spot for artisans.”

“Oh, and Maldrien’s summoned a second tongue for the Scribe. Temporarily. They say it sings to them when no one’s listening.”

“Of course it does.”

She twirled a strand of her hair around one finger. “Also, Oriole and Strix made up again. Lots of kissing. They're back to their usual doom-codependency, but Strix has been noticeably less broody since. I even caught him smiling yesterday. Like, with his mouth. Teeth and everything.”

Valien raised an eyebrow.

“I know,” she said gravely. “Terrifying.”

They sat together in companionable silence for a moment, the kind that only comes from blood and trust. Valien’s presence was warm now—not because he pretended to be human, but because he chose to be so, here, with her.

“You’re doing well,” he said after a time. “The priests are afraid of you. The apprentices adore you. That balance is difficult.”

“I learned it watching you,” she said, voice quiet now. “How to terrify without ever raising your voice.”

Valien reached out and tucked a curl of her crimson hair behind her ear with uncharacteristic tenderness.

“You’re my finest creation, Virya,” he said. “Not because of your magic. Not because of your title. But because you understand the why of this place.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, savoring it.

“I serve because I love you,” she said simply. “And because I know what this empire could be if left to lesser hands.”

His gaze flickered—faintly, just once—but the warmth never left.

“Then I will trust you with more.”

She looked up at that, eyes alight with possibility.

“Soon,” he said, rising again to return to the throne, “I will ask something difficult. And when I do… I won’t ask twice.”

Virya stood as well, chin high. “Then you won’t have to.”

Their eyes met—father and daughter, emperor and heir—and in that moment, there was nothing monstrous between them.

Only loyalty.

And love.

As she turned to leave, her midnight coat sweeping behind her like shadow, the Emperor’s voice caught her gently at the threshold.

“Virya.”

She paused, glancing over her shoulder.

His golden eyes glinted—not with judgment, but with amusement. “You left something curious in the starlit sanctum.”

She tilted her head, smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “Did I?”

He rose once more from the throne, descending the steps like a king visiting a dream. In his hand, impossibly, he held a small heart-shaped box. Lacquered in bone enamel, lined in velvet, its clasps shaped like tiny ribs. The edges were smudged faintly with preserved ichor, as though its occupant had bled softly into the lining.

“I had it retrieved,” he said, lifting it with care. “It was humming.”

Virya’s eyes gleamed. She crossed the space between them in three smooth steps, hands clasped in front of her like a girl caught sneaking sugar from the pantry.

“Oh, that ,” she said brightly. “My little souvenir.”

The Emperor regarded her for a long moment. Then he opened the lid with reverence.

Inside, nestled like a sleeping treasure, was a severed head.

Beautiful even in stillness.

Dark hair, tangled and soft. A regal face, caught between elven elegance and something more brooding. His eyes were closed, lips slightly parted, like a prince laid gently to rest. There was no rot. No scent of death. Only quiet, unnatural stillness—and the faint shimmer of necromantic runes stitched along the inner lining of the box.

“I’m curious,” Valien said, voice still mild. “Why did you keep it?”

Virya’s fingers traced the edge of the open lid with something like affection.

“He was so pretty,” she said simply.

She leaned closer, gazing down at the head as if admiring a gemstone.

“I wanted something of my own,” she murmured. “Strix and Ori have each other. Maldrien has their scribe for company. You have the whole empire.”

She looked up, smiling.

“Why shouldn’t I have a necroforging project too?”

Valien didn’t reply at first.

His gaze moved between her and the box, weighing the moment not for morality—never that—but for alignment.

He closed the lid slowly, the latch clicking shut like the last word of a well-reasoned argument.

“And what do you plan to make of him?” he asked, softly.

Her eyes danced.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said. “Something elegant. Something loyal. Maybe something that sings.”

The Emperor’s smile was small but genuine. He extended the box to her once more.

“Then finish it.”

She took it with both hands, cradling it like an offering.

“I will.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead—not performative, not hollow. Real.

“My daughter,” he said, “you never disappoint me.”

“I know,” she whispered, and turned to go.

As she passed through the ribbed archway, the box in her hands and a hum in her chest, the Emperor watched her go with something very near pride.

She had her father’s blessing, and with it she would make something both beautiful, horrible, and just for her.

Chapter Text

It was dark when he woke.

Not just the absence of light—a suffocating dark, thick, and clinging. He couldn’t move. Not in the way of being bound or restrained, but as if his body had been rendered… inert.

Something reeked of chemicals. Sharp. Preserved. He couldn’t tell if the stench was coming from the space around him, or from his own breath—if he was still breathing at all.

He tried to blink. That didn’t work.

Tried to swallow—same result.

Panic stirred, slow and distant, like a ripple beneath ice. He couldn’t feel his limbs. Couldn’t feel his chest rise or fall. Couldn’t feel anything.

Okay.
Not great. Not ideal. Probably not a spa.

A sharp scent hit him again—formaldehyde, or embalming salts, or whatever they used in places that didn’t expect you to get back up afterward.

He would've sighed if he'd had lungs.

Am I dead?

God, I hope not. I’m going to be so annoyed if I died without finishing that bottle of wine…

What bottle of wine?  He had a bottle of wine?

There was a faint hum around him, low and constant. Not mechanical. More like magic—necromantic, if he had to guess. That thought arrived too easily. He filed it under “Concerning.”

Still, no pain. No light. No sense of time. Just… awareness. Trapped.

Okay, he thought again, voice dry in the echo chamber of his own mind. Let’s take stock. Can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can still be sarcastic. Probably not a total loss.

Somewhere nearby, a latch clicked.

Light spilled in—soft, flickering, and red. He didn’t turn toward it. Couldn’t. But he felt the warmth of someone’s attention settle on him.

Then a voice, bright and fond and absolutely too cheerful for the situation:

“Oh, good. You're awake.”

He felt fingers brush gently over his eyelids.

“Come on, open your eyes, pretty,” the voice coaxed—soft and encouraging, like someone speaking to a skittish animal.

Which he was certain he wasn’t.

She continued, lilting and bright: “I used a motion sigil on the base of your skull. You can do it.”

Opening his eyes felt like an unreasonable request. Like breathing—the idea of how to do it had become an inscrutable memory.

“Just open them up!” she chirped. “I need to make sure these runes are compatible before we make them permanent and start getting you regrafted to a body.”

A body?

That word echoed—louder than it should’ve.

But something responded in him, a faint flicker, a twitch of will dragged across rusted nerves. His eyelids peeled open with the slow resistance of something long sealed shut.

Blurry light bloomed. Color. Motion. A face leaned over him—upside down, haloed in red candlelight.

She was smiling. All crimson hair and sharp delight, her eyes aglow with necromantic sigils that shimmered just under the skin.

Familiar.

He knew her.

Or… he should have. Her name perched at the edge of his thoughts like a bird he couldn’t quite catch.

“Hello there,” she said warmly. “Look at you, almost alive again.”

Her fingers were cold, precise, and affectionate as they adjusted something just behind his pointed ear.

“You probably have a lot of questions,” she added. “Don’t worry—we’ll get to those. But first, how do you feel?”

He blinked once.

Then, slowly: “Like a taxidermy project with trust issues.”

She laughed—bright and unbothered. “Perfect. You are still in there.”

She hummed to herself as she leaned in closer, candlelight flickering in the hollows of her cheeks.

“Let’s see how you’re holding up, darling,” she murmured, fingers combing gently through his hair. Not perfunctory—not like a surgeon or a handler. More like… like someone tending a favorite pet. Or a lover freshly returned from the dead.

Her nails scraped lightly across his scalp as she traced the edges of the runes nestled at the base of his skull.

The touch should have unsettled him.

It did.

But it also felt… good.

Soothing.

There was something in the way she handled him—careful, attentive, like he mattered. Like he wasn’t just a head in a velvet box held together by stitched magic and hubris.

“Rune stability looks decent,” she mused, mostly to herself. “Minimal bleed. No spark-flicker in the containment sigils. You’re syncing beautifully.”

He wanted to say something snide, or at least suspicious. But instead, he just… let her keep touching him.  Not that he could have stopped her, it was clear he had no arms to stop anyone with.

The warmth of her fingers seeped through the cold silence in his mind like the first sun after a long winter.

“I was worried you’d scream,” she confessed, brushing a loose lock from his forehead. “Sometimes they do. Waking up without a body can be jarring. But you’re handling it like a champ.”

He tried to raise an eyebrow. It twitched, barely.

“Well,” he rasped, voice sandpapered and thin, “I’m very brave.”

She beamed at him, delighted.

“You are,” she said, like it was the most sincere thing in the world. “My brave little head.”

She kissed his forehead—lightly, almost absentmindedly—then returned to adjusting a rune near his temple.

He stared up at her, thoughts sluggish but circling.

Who was she?

What had she done to him?

Why did her voice make the panic in him quiet down like a dog being gently shushed?

“I…” The sound scraped out of him like a word halfway remembered. Then, more clearly: 

“Who am I?”

She looked down at him and smiled—not cruelly, but with a kind of luminous affection that made his skin crawl in slow, confusing waves.

“You’re mine,” she said, sweet as honey over bones.

Her fingernails trailed lovingly along the side of his face, slow and possessive, before drifting to the pendant resting against her chest. She toyed with it absently—a small bone charm, etched in delicate rune script.

“I think everything is in order,” she murmured.

Then her expression dimmed, just slightly. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t preserve your body. My brothers got a little… enthusiastic during cleanup. I don’t think they were very respectful. The dead deserve to be honored.”

A long beat of silence passed.

“I’m dead,” he said flatly.

It wasn’t a question.

She didn’t deny it. Just gave him a soft, sympathetic look, as if he were stating something obvious.

“Was dead,” she corrected, brushing her fingers through his hair again. “Technically. Temporarily. It's a flexible term.”

He closed his eyes—then opened them again with a slow, heavy blink.

“So,” he rasped, “I’ve gone from dashing rogue to decorative skull. Not exactly the glow-up I was hoping for.”

Her laughter rang out like chimes—bright, delighted, and completely unbothered.

“That Velthari personality rune Mal gave me for your soul is syncing so well—this is fantastic!”

Without warning, she reached into the box and lifted him out.

The sudden movement gave him a dizzying rush of vertigo as she held him aloft, tilting him to meet her gaze.

“You’re not just a head,” she said cheerfully. “You’re a project.”

He stared at her, expression deadpan. “Fantastic. Every man’s dream.”

She cradled him against her shoulder for a moment—like one might a beloved pet—before turning, candlelight flickering wildly as she moved across the chamber.

“Come on,” she said brightly, “you have to see what I’ve been working on. I think you’ll love it.”

She carried him across the room, past shelves of preserved bone and silk-wrapped organs, jars full of luminous ichor, and tools too precise to belong in any sane surgeon’s kit.

Then she turned, presenting him with something that nearly stole his breath—if he’d still had lungs.

Suspended in a delicate lattice of silver chains and living sinew, a body hung in the center of the sanctum.

It was beautiful.

Elegant musculature sculpted with artisan precision. Pale, unmarred skin stitched seamlessly from multiple sources, though the subtle variance in undertone made it clear this was no single donor. The arms were long, graceful—one of them carved from some kind of luminous stone. The spine shimmered faintly, inlaid with runes. The chest rose and fell with the soft pulse of the breath spell already woven into it.

His breath hitched anyway, phantom-like.

“That’s… mine?” he asked, voice soft.

“Will be,” she said proudly. “Once your soul settles and the neurothreads finish bonding. The heart’s already attuned to your current signature—took me weeks to get the calibrations right.”

He didn’t know what to say. The body was art. An altar. A weapon. A gift.

And it felt like none of it belonged to him.

“I don’t remember,” he said after a long pause, voice duller now. “What I looked like. Before.”

Virya tilted her head. “That’s okay. I don’t either exactly. Not intimately.”

She smiled at him, wide and radiant. “So we’ll just make you better.”

He stared at the hanging form—so perfect, so alien.

“…Is it weird that I’m jealous of my corpse?”

She laughed again, delighted. “Oh, good, your sarcasm is still fully operational.”

He chuckled—or tried to. “It’s the only thing I remember doing well… I think?”

She cradled him in her arms, adjusting his angle so he could see as she walked. Her steps were light, almost buoyant. He didn’t know how, but it felt natural to be held like this.

She paused beside the box—the heart-shaped one, lacquered bone and glowing with soft runes.

Why did he think of it as his box?

“It’s time for dinner,” she said cheerfully. “I want to show Maldrien that I woke you up all by myself. That’ll teach them for teasing me when I asked for rune support. What’s so wrong with asking for help? I don’t need to know everything—just how to find everything I need.”

She placed him gently inside the velvet lining, careful not to jostle him against the edges. This time, she didn’t close the lid.

-

The walk through the ossuary was almost meditative—her footsteps soft against polished bone, the halls pulsing with the gentle rhythm of liturgy and low-burning sconces. The chanting from deeper chambers echoed like a heartbeat through stone.

The box in her arms was warm with life now, humming faintly as the runes responded to his soul’s presence. He rocked ever so slightly with her stride, nestled in velvet, eyes open, watching. She glanced down once.

Still beautiful, she thought. Corvan, maybe—but no longer. That name belonged to the man who had died.

This one would be hers.

She entered the dining hall without announcement. It was as absurdly grand as ever—columns sculpted into writhing saints and martyrs, chairs upholstered in velvet and vein-carved wood.

Maldrien lounged at one end of the table, surrounded by parchment and decay-scented ink, their scribe perched on the back of a chair like a gargoyle. Strix, seated beside them, looked as though he’d been carved from mourning—immaculate, distant, and eternally braced for war.

And Oriole—messy, radiant Oriole—was hunched over his plate like a vulture with roadkill. Crumbs on his tunic, blood on his mouth, expression somewhere between feral and smug.

She set the box down beside the moss cakes with the care of someone placing a sacred relic.

Oriole looked up. Blinked. Then froze.

His fork hovered mid-air as confusion gave way to disgust.

“Why,” he demanded, “did you bring that to the dinner table?”

Virya blinked, all innocence and theatrical offense.

“He’s awake,” she said, beaming. “I wanted to show everyone! Isn’t he lovely?”

“He’s looking at me,” Oriole said, recoiling.

Inside the box, the head tilted ever so slightly.

“I’m not thrilled about the seating arrangement either,” he said dryly. “But thanks for the warm welcome.”

Maldrien snorted into their wine. Strix blinked slowly—silent, still, unreadable as ever.

Virya reached down and brushed a finger along the side of his temple, a gesture both fond and proprietary.

“His name is Nocturne now,” she said sweetly. “Or Noct, if that’s easier for your tiny bird-brain to remember. I made him myself.”

She cast a bright, dangerous smile around the table—one that dared any of them to say otherwise.

“You’ll be nice to him,” she added, sing-song. “Or I’ll start bringing pieces of you to dinner, too.”

Oriole made a face, stabbing a fork into something vaguely organic. “I’m not sure why Father let you keep that,” he muttered. “I know from experience that it’s incredibly annoying.”

“He’s not annoying,” Virya snapped, her voice sharp with offense. “He’s witty. And clever. And Father let me keep him because he saw potential—something you wouldn’t recognize if it danced naked across your dinner plate reciting scripture.”

Maldrien perked up. “Wait, is that an option? I’d love a dancing prophecy entrée.”

Strix tilted his head. “He has a strong jawline,” he said, as if delivering a neutral battlefield report.

“Thank you, Strix,” Virya beamed.

Oriole rolled his eyes. “You can’t just collect hot dead people, Virya. That’s not a personality.”

“Neither is insubordination,” she shot back. “But here we are.”

Maldrien swirled their glass lazily. “To be fair, I do think keeping a severed head at the dinner table is a bit gauche.”

Nocturne, from the box: “I’m still right here, by the way.”

“See?” Virya said brightly. “So polite. He didn’t even scream when I woke him up.”

“That is rare,” Maldrien conceded. “Most of mine just cry.”

Oriole pushed his plate away dramatically, making a face. “I can’t eat while that is watching me. It’s weird.”

“You eat in front of corpses all the time,” Maldrien said, sounding bored. “I saw you have breakfast on top of a plague pyre last week.”

“Those corpses didn’t talk,” Oriole hissed. “Or flirt.”

“I’m not flirting,” Noct deadpanned. “I’m just articulate. Sorry if that’s confusing.”

Maldrien raised their glass in salute. “Already my favorite.”

Virya beamed like a proud parent at a school recital.

Strix hadn’t moved, but his eyes lingered on the box. “Is he stable?” he asked. “Soul-binding that delicate doesn’t always hold.”

“The binding is holding perfectly,” Virya said, defensive. “Better than some people I could name.”

“I’m right here,” Oriole muttered again.

Noct’s gaze drifted from face to face—these strange, sharp, beautiful people talking around him like he was both centerpiece and afterthought. He swallowed hard, or tried to.

Then, cautiously:

“…What am I?”

The table quieted.

He hesitated, then added, softer, “And how… how did I get here?”

Virya’s expression didn’t shift. But her hands moved gently, fingers threading through his hair with reverence. She leaned down, close enough that her breath warmed his cheek.

“Shhh,” she murmured, petting him like something fragile. “Not yet. You’ve only just woken up.”

The motion of her hand was soothing—unnaturally so. It quieted the part of him that wanted to scream.

“We’ll talk later,” she promised softly. “You don’t need to worry about what you were. Only what you’re going to be.”

He stared up at her, uneasy but stilled.

The room settled back into motion, plates being pushed around, spells flickering at the corners of vision.

And in his velvet-lined box, Noct fell quiet again. Not because he was comforted.

But because her hand felt like home, and he didn’t know why.

-

Later, the halls of the Ossuary had quieted.

The chants had faded to whispers. The sconces flickered lower now, casting thin shadows that swayed like silk ribbons across the ribbed architecture.

Virya’s workshop waited at the heart of the sanctum, soft with candlelight and thick with the scent of preserved herbs and arcane ink. She nudged the door open with her hip, humming as she carried Noct in both hands, the heart-shaped box held close to her chest.

“Dinner was a success,” she said lightly. “You made an impression.”

“Involuntary dinner theater is what I was born for,” Noct muttered. “Or… remade for. Still workshopping the details.”

She smiled, the kind that wasn’t for show—just hers. He was starting to recognize the difference.

She set the box on the central table with a soft thump, then carefully lifted him out. The room was warm. The air tasted faintly of copper and roses.

The body—his body—still hung in the silver rig. He could hear the hum of its breath spell. See the faint glint of rune filaments woven across the chest and spine like a second nervous system.

Virya turned back to him with an unreadable expression.

“I’ve been reviewing the bonding schematics,” she said thoughtfully. “I think we’re close. Still some instability around the soul-thread anchor points, but…”

She tilted her head. “We might as well try.”

Noct blinked slowly. “Might?”

“There’s a chance your consciousness won’t fully settle,” she admitted. “You could black out. You could reject the form. It might feel… disjointed. But it’s better to know now than wait until you’re sewn in and screaming.”

He went very still in her hands.

“Ah,” he said faintly. “Cool. Cool cool cool.”

Virya held him up to her eye level, her face calm and open, voice soft as snowfall.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” she said, brushing her fingers along his temple. “Even if it doesn’t work tonight, I’ll bring you back. I always bring things back.”

Her touch moved through his hair, cool and careful. The panic that had begun to spark in his metaphorical chest dulled again—not gone, but hushed, as if her fingers muted the volume knob on his fear.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Try it.”

She smiled.

“Good boy.”

She turned toward the altar where his body waited, cradling him like something sacred. Her fingers moved with reverent precision as she reached for a delicate, silvery instrument that gleamed faintly under the rune-lamps.

“I’m going to temporarily stitch you in using this spirit needle,” she said gently.

He eyed the instrument. “It looks like a key.”

She smiled. “I know. We’re very bad at naming things here.”

Turning back to the rig, she reached for a chain overhead and gave it a practiced tug. The lattice of silver and bone creaked as the rig lowered smoothly, adjusting until the body was seated almost naturally—like a man at rest in an ornate chair. Limbs relaxed, headless neck tilted slightly backward, runes along the collarbone pulsing like a heartbeat.

Noct stared. His gaze caught on the arm—one was perfectly formed, elegant and pale. The other glowed faintly with an internal light, its surface a strange, mottled texture somewhere between stone and flesh.

“Why is that arm different from the other?” he asked.

Virya didn’t miss a beat. “That’s a Velthari swordmaster’s arm,” she said with a note of pride. “Daddy gave it to me—special, just for you. He preserved it for millennia.”

She paused, adjusting the breath spell at the sternum with a flick of her wrist.

“I know what you’re thinking. It looks like stone. But it’s actually aetheric-saturated flesh—Velthari warbred, responsive to soul resonance. Once you’re bonded, you’ll be very deadly with it.”

“That’s comforting,” he muttered. “Really makes a man feel cozy inside to know he might soon own a deadly sentient war-arm.”

She chuckled softly, brushing his brow with her thumb.

“I won’t lie,” she murmured. “This will feel strange. There might be a pulling sensation, maybe some pressure where your soul thread meets the spine. But I’ll talk you through it. Just stay with me.”

Noct swallowed hard—or tried to.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Let’s do this.”

Virya lowered him toward the neck of the waiting body, the silver spirit needle held in her free hand. The body’s chest rose and fell with artificial breath, calm and patient.

She angled the needle behind his skull and pressed gently—there was no pain, only a sudden, lurching awareness.

A thread pulled tight.

The world shifted.

He could feel the body—his body—like a memory brushing against his mind. Fingers. Toes. A jaw that wasn't quite his but it was his. The faint burn of power along the shoulder where the Velthari arm rested.

He gasped. For the first time, air rushed through new lungs.

And then—

The body seized.

Only for a second.

Then stilled.

Virya was there, both hands on his new shoulders, grounding him.

“Breathe,” she whispered. “That’s it. You’re tethered. Temporary, but stable.”

Noct blinked slowly. The world swam—colors too bright, shadows too deep, everything overexposed. His lips parted, then closed again as sensation rushed in all at once.

“I feel…”

“Whole?” she offered, voice soft, steady.

He gave a shaky nod.

She smiled, brushing the side of his face with the backs of her fingers—gentle, reverent, like she was soothing a fevered child. “That’s how you know it’s working.”

She turned her focus to the seam at his neck, carefully stitching a ring of temporary runes around the rim where head met body. The ink pulsed faintly with each mark, a soft throb of magic bonding flesh to soul.

Noct lay still, but inside him, everything screamed with sensation.

He could feel the rush of air into lungs that hadn’t existed minutes ago—cool and sharp, stinging slightly at the edges like they were still remembering how to stretch. He could feel blood moving, a warm surge beneath the skin, rhythmic and insistent, flooding limbs that still felt borrowed.

And then—

A jolt in his gut.

Not pain. Not exactly. But a gnawing ache, raw and primal. His stomach clenched, muscles twitching as something ancient stirred: hunger.

It was awful. And intimate.

He winced. “Why am I starving?”

Virya looked up, amused. She patted the sculpted plane of his new abdomen with fondness.

“If this works the way we need it to,” she said brightly, “I’ll make you pancakes.”

He stared at her, wide-eyed. “Is that necromancer code for something, or do you actually mean pancakes?”

She winked. “Let’s find out. Can you give me your hand?”

She extended her own—pale, elegant, confident.

It took everything in him to will the unfamiliar muscles into motion. The signal traveled like a slow echo through a tunnel, until suddenly—something synced.

His hand moved. Too fast.

He gripped her fingers before he fully understood how.

Virya laughed softly, delighted. “Good job!”

She gave his hand a squeeze, grounding him. Her other hand slid to his wrist. Then she began to trace upward—lightly, deliberately—fingertips gliding over skin that didn’t quite feel like his yet.

The touch left sparks in its wake.

Not magical—physical. A flicker of heat that traveled up the tendons of his arm, curling low in his abdomen. It was disorienting. Intimate.

And… arousing.

Noct’s breath hitched, just slightly.

She kept going, trailing up toward the inner curve of his elbow, watching him closely with eyes full of scholarly interest and something more indulgent.

“Now,” she said gently, “tell me if you stop feeling my touch. I want to make sure your nerve lattice is fully intact.”

Her fingers moved in slow circles now, teasing the edge of sensation with maddening precision.

He swallowed hard. His voice came out lower than he intended.

“I feel it.”

She smiled again—so proud, so pleased, as if he were a beautifully functioning machine she’d just tuned to perfection.

“Good,” she murmured. “That means you’re settling in faster than I hoped.”

He wasn’t sure what to do with the heat curling in his stomach, or the way his chest rose with a breath that came too deep, too needy.

His new body wanted more.

He wasn't sure he did.

And Virya…

Virya just looked thrilled.

Her hands drifted across his chest, exploring with gentle, clinical interest that still managed to feel maddeningly personal.

When she reached the war-arm—the Velthari graft—her fingers slowed, tickling their way downward until they slipped between his glowing fingers, brushing the delicate webbing.

The arm reacted sharply.

So did he.

A shudder ran through his torso, and a low groan escaped him before he could think to muffle it.

“Why does that feel—?” he gasped.

“So good?” Virya offered, clearly pleased. She tapped her chin in mock thought. “Well… new bodies—especially advanced constructs—are very sensitive until they’ve been properly broken in.”

Her tone was innocent. Too innocent.

Something told him she wasn’t telling him everything, but at the moment, he didn’t care.

Her hand glided back up his chest, fingers tracing idle patterns over sculpted muscle and runic seams. Then, with a sudden flick of mischief, she reached up and tweaked one of his nipples.

Noct jolted.

“Ah! Hey—!”

His voice cracked slightly—somewhere between scandalized and turned on.

Virya grinned like a cat. “Nerve lattice intact,” she said sweetly. “Responsive. Very promising.”

He gave her a look. “Is this how you run all your medical exams, or am I getting the deluxe resurrection package?”

“Oh, this is definitely deluxe,” she purred, trailing her fingers in teasing circles over his sternum.

Noct groaned again—part frustration, part something else entirely. “You’re lucky I can’t move very well yet.”

She leaned in, her smile softening just slightly, and whispered against his ear:

“I know.”

In that moment, he felt more helpless in the body than he ever had as just a head.

Her hand continued its slow path down the plane of his stomach, tracing the new musculature she’d sculpted. When her fingers brushed the tip of the erection her touch had coaxed to life, he sucked in a sharp breath.

Virya tilted her head, clearly fascinated.

“Maldrien insists there’s no reason to test the reproductive system,” she murmured, mostly to herself. “But all their constructs are genderless, so there’s nothing to test.”

Her fingers stroked lightly over the head, and his hips bucked in an involuntary twitch.

“It was a lot of work,” she went on, voice soft and distracted, “finding the perfect, pretty—”

Her words trailed off as her hand wrapped around the shaft and slid slowly downward.

Noct gasped, back arching with a jolt of startled pleasure.

“I feel that! It’s—felt! I can definitely feel that!” he blurted, hoping that this was just part of some hyper-thorough calibration process.

But she didn’t stop.

She hummed in approval—not cruel, but pleased in the way only a necromancer could be, like every gasp and tremble confirmed the excellence of her craftsmanship. Her hand moved with maddening precision, equal parts affection and calibration, and Noct couldn’t tell if the heat coiling in his belly was arousal, panic, or something dangerously close to surrender.

“You’re so pretty,” she whispered, dragging her fingernails lightly along his hip. “I’m going to make sure you’re so happy.”

Her grip tightened just enough to make him twitch—then, without warning, she bent forward and took him into her mouth.

His world narrowed.

He felt the slick drag of her tongue swirl over the head—electric, wet, overwhelming. The body she’d sewn him to came alive all at once, nerves sparking like lightning as sensation crashed through him.

He groaned, voice hoarse. “Okay. Okay. This is definitely not how they teach you how to resuscitate someone.”

Her fingers brushed up the insides of his thighs as she took him deeper, and all he could do was hold on and try not to lose his mind.

Her hands never stopped moving—one cradling the base of him with measured care, the other splayed flat over his hip, grounding him. Her mouth was warm, skilled, reverent in its rhythm, like she wasn’t simply pleasuring him, but worshiping something sacred she’d made with her own hands.

Noct’s breath grew ragged. Every nerve fired like it had been waiting centuries for this exact moment. He could feel his fingers twitching—actual fingers—his spine arching, his voice caught somewhere between a moan and a plea.

“Virya—” he choked, eyes fluttering. “I—I think I’m—”

She hummed around him, pleased. Encouraging.

And that was all it took. The pressure broke loose like a wave cresting.

But then—

Pain.

Not sharp, but wrong.

A cold snap ran up his spine. His vision blurred. The heat that had built in his core twisted, turned sour, fractured.

He gasped—not in ecstasy, but in shock. His limbs jerked once, then froze. A noise caught in his throat—not his voice, not quite. Something inside him shifted, like the soul-thread had slipped a stitch.

“Wait—” he rasped, panic blooming. “Something’s—”

His body locked.

The breath spell stuttered. His chest seized mid-inhale.

Virya pulled back instantly, her hands catching his face. “Noct?” she said sharply. “Talk to me. What do you feel?”

Everything.

Nothing.

He opened his mouth, but the words didn’t come. Just a jolt of white-hot static behind his eyes. His fingers twitched again—this time not from pleasure.

“Noct!”

Virya’s voice sliced through the static, firm and focused. Her hands were already moving—one at the base of his skull, the other over his sternum. Runes flared to life beneath her fingers, delicate gold and violet sigils stitching through the skin in a rush of spelllight.

“Breathe,” she commanded, voice low and steady, not sweet now—but anchoring. “Stay with me. I’m here.”

The pain dulled instantly, like pressure let out of a sealed chamber. The air rushed back into his lungs. The tremors in his limbs slowed. His eyes flickered, unfocused.

And then—

A ripple.

Like falling backward into a memory not his—but entirely his.

-

Sunlight. Warm and filtered through glass.

He was small. No older than five, barefoot on a mosaic floor, chasing a clumsy little bee with a palm cupped like a net.

“Mama!” he called, voice high and excited. “There’s one! It landed on the sugar bowl!”

A woman knelt beside him, raven hair coiled like vines around her temples, laughter creasing her eyes.

“That’s a honeybee, my heart,” she said. “They won’t sting unless they’re frightened.”

“I’m not scary,” he said proudly. “I’m very nice.”

She leaned down, brushing his cheek with her lips. “You’re the gentlest prince I’ve ever met.”

He beamed, cupping the bee gently in his hand before releasing it toward the open garden window.

“Bye, friend,” he whispered, watching it disappear into the sun.

-

“Noct.”

The name hit like a bell struck in still air.

He blinked. The workshop swam back into focus—dim candles, rune light, Virya’s worried face hovering inches from his.

“You came back,” she breathed, exhaling in relief.

He nodded faintly. “I… I remembered something.”

She tilted her head. “A dream?”

“No,” he murmured. “I was little. My mother. Bees.”

Virya’s expression softened. She brushed damp hair from his brow and pressed her forehead to his gently.

“You’re still in there,” she whispered. “Good.”

He was still trembling beneath her hands—just a little, the way a harpstring hums after being plucked too hard. But his eyes had focused again. He was back.

Virya exhaled softly, forehead resting against his forehead for one beat longer than necessary.

He’d said it so plainly. “My mother. Bees.”

That wasn’t part of the soul-thread she’d woven. Not a mnemonic implant, not a dream illusion to keep him calm. That memory had surfaced on its own.

A fragment of Corvan.

She didn’t like that.

She leaned back, pressing two fingers to the rune at the base of his throat. It flickered, stabilizing again. Temporary bond: holding. Neural stitching: intact. Emotional feedback: volatile.

“Shhh,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

But it wasn’t perfect.

He shouldn't be remembering anything. Not yet. Not without her guiding it. That kind of spontaneous recall meant the soul-lattice was looser than she thought. Maybe not enough grounding at the junction nodes. Maybe the memory core had rehydrated faster than the synapse map.

She’d known this was a risk. The graft was too fresh. The arousal spike probably overstimulated the bonding sigils—she’d gotten caught up.

Stupid.

She turned her attention inward, cataloging adjustments.

• Reseal the anchor glyphs.
  
  
• Check for leakage around the Velthari arm.
  
  
• Run a cold-stitch through the dreamlock circuit.
  
  
• Ask Maldrien if they have any spare soul-thread dampeners…and for advice
  
  

She grimaced. Mal would definitely tease her.

But they’d also know exactly what to fix—and how to do it without risking a full unraveling.

She smoothed a hand over Noct’s chest again, this time gently, carefully, watching the rise and fall of his breath.

“I’ll make it better,” she whispered. “I promise.”

He didn’t answer, already slipping into exhausted half-sleep beneath her touch.

She reached for a spellscroll, lips pursed, mind racing.

He was remembering bees.

That meant the prince’s soul was even more intact than she had thought.

And she wasn’t sure yet if that was beautiful—or dangerous.

Chapter Text

“Why,” Oriole began, tugging his shirt up over his head with a dramatic flourish, “did Father give my brother’s head to Virya?”

Strix furrowed his brow, wary. He knew better than to answer carelessly when Oriole was in one of his moods. The elf didn’t want the truth—he wanted a reason to complain. Still, Strix went with the facts.

“That head is not your brother. Not anymore. It’s a part. And you’re a child of the Ossuary.”

As expected, Oriole’s expression curdled like spoiled milk. Somehow, even a scowl from him was breathtaking—his disdain sculpted into something delicate and theatrical, as though irritation itself had graced his cheekbones.

“That’s disgusting,” he retorted. “When you say it like that, it sounds like I’m fucking my brother.” He gestured to Strix, quite pointedly, before moving to the laces of his trousers. “You know it’s different.”

“You’re… uh, adopted,” Strix offered, glancing back at the book he’d been reading before this chaos arrived—the Flora and Fauna of Dren. There had been deer. He liked the deer.

“The way I understand it, everyone’s adopted.” Oriole’s pants dropped to the floor with no ceremony whatsoever, leaving him in a light pair of linen shorts—if one could call them that. They clung like a whispered sin, leaving very little to the imagination and almost too much to admire.

Strix’s eyes flicked away from the page and, despite himself, back to Oriole.

The last traces of his monsterhood had faded from his frame, just leaving a man who held the potential to become even more deadly.

The Runeweaver stood before the mirror, his reflection framed in shadow and lamplight. He did this every time he undressed, inspecting his form like a sculptor admiring the final curve of a newly-carved statue. His body—transformed by the ritual of becoming—was a masterpiece of masculine grace: lean muscle etched beneath flawless skin, strong shoulders tapering into a narrow waist, every line and plane sculpted by purpose and desire.

Strix knew every inch of that body by now, but watching Oriole admire it himself was different. Reverent. There was a quiet joy in his expression—private and fierce—as if he still couldn’t quite believe it belonged to him. His hands traced the hard lines of his abdomen, thumbs brushing over the ridge of his hipbones, as though affirming that the body hadn’t unraveled overnight.

It never would. But Strix understood the need to check.

And gods help him, it was beautiful to witness.

There was something luminous in the way Oriole’s fingers moved across his skin. Not vain. Not theatrical—at least, not entirely. It was ritualistic. Affirmation braided with gratitude. A rediscovery that never dulled.

He turned slightly, admiring the curve of his back, the strength in his thighs, the way the fabric stretched across his groin. A vision of pride incarnate—brazen, unapologetic, and impossibly pretty.

Strix closed the book.

The deer could wait.

Oriole turned his attention back to Strix, sauntering over with the kind of confidence that echoed the arousal straining visibly against his linen shorts.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever met who’ll sit there reading a tiny book about baby animals while wearing armor etched with skulls,” he said, snatching the book from Strix’s hands and tossing it aside. Strix winced. Throwing books was just wrong.

“Can you at least change if you get home before me?” Oriole continued, voice sultry and sharp. “Taking off all that armor is a lot of work when I’m already this fucking hard.”

“I took off most of it, I got distracted.” Strix protested. It was the truth; he picked up the book halfway through changing and sat down to page through it. He had found it while setting up a runegate near the salt flats of the Dirgemire lake. It had been in a little abandoned house.

He liked it.

Oriole huffed and then pulled on the ties of Strix’s armored mantle and freed it from his shoulders, tossing it aside.

“I swear you were more menacing when I didn't know you collected old books and trinkets.”

Oriole slipped a hand into his shorts and pulled out his erection without ceremony. There was no exaggeration—he was achingly hard, and Strix leaned back slightly, gaze following the movement as Oriole began to stroke himself.

“This,” Strix said dryly, “is true romance. Nothing says make love to me like a man bitching about your armor.”

He knew what Oriole wanted.

He wanted to fight a little—just enough to spark something wild beneath the skin—and then fuck. It was a ritual. A rhythm that made sense to Oriole in the way storms made sense to the sea. But what Strix couldn’t always tell was how the elf wanted it to go.

It had been easier, in a way, when the collar was still there—when Strix could read the runes humming against Oriole’s pulse and use the subtle levers of control to guide him through emotional swells. Now that the collar was gone, Oriole moved like weather—untamed, unpredictable, and entirely his own.

Strix was trying. Embarrassingly so. He wanted this relationship to work. Wanted to meet Oriole in that chaos and hold on. But the cues were hard to follow, slippery, and ever-changing. Oriole didn’t just want affection—he wanted drama. Tension. Theatrical violence. A bit of ruin laced with tenderness.

And Strix? Strix had no idea what he was doing.

He had no models for this—no memory of a loving home or stable bond. The Emperor hadn’t raised him so much as forged him. His siblings were allies at best, threats at worst. Even Maldrien, for all their sharp affection, operated with a level of emotional detachment that had suited Strix just fine—until Oriole came along and turned everything into fire.

“Don’t you dare look bored,” Oriole hissed, stalking toward him like a cat with a grudge and too much beauty to be taken seriously. His hand was still on himself, shameless and deliberate. “You’ve been gone all day, wearing fifty pounds of armor, and now you’re just sitting there while I do all the work?”

Strix blinked as he stood. “You threw my book.”

Oriole moved first.

He lunged, not with any real intent to harm, but with the theatrical grace of someone who knew exactly how good he looked in motion. One leg hooked behind Strix’s knee, and his palm braced against the center of his chest—shoving him backward with surprising force.

Strix caught himself a moment too late. His back hit the edge of the bed, and he stumbled down onto the mattress with a grunt.

Oriole was on him instantly.

Straddling his hips, bare thighs pressing down, eyes bright with the thrill of it. His hand was still slick from where he’d been touching himself, and it smeared precum across Strix’s tunic as he dragged it up his chest.

“You’re too slow, bone-boy,” he breathed, teeth flashing. “What good is all that training if you can’t even keep me off you?”

Strix stared up at him, winded by more than the fall. Oriole’s hair was a mess of silver, and his skin glowed with the aftermath of recent magic—runes faintly visible beneath the surface like embers.

“You don’t want me to keep you off,” Strix murmured.

Oriole leaned down, nose brushing his. “No,” he whispered. “I want you to earn it.”

The kiss came fast and fierce—biting and unapologetic. Oriole’s mouth was hot, demanding, the kind of kiss that left marks and took breath. Strix kissed him back with equal ferocity, hands coming up to grip his thighs as though bracing against a tide.

This wasn’t about tenderness. It never was between them.

This was Oriole in ritual—devotion through challenge, affection through conquest. It made Strix’s head spin and his body burn, because somewhere beneath the play-fighting and sharp teeth was a truth he couldn’t deny:

Oriole needed this.

Strix pinned the smaller man’s thighs against his own and found the torque to drive him into the bed. “You might be a monster bird,” he growled, “but I’m still stronger than you when you’re like this.”

Oriole’s lips curved into a slow, dangerous smirk. “Prove it.”

That was when the real struggle began.

Oriole reared back and, with all the power in his freshly minted, fully male body, drove both feet into Strix’s stomach. The air rushed from his lungs in a sharp oof as he staggered back. In the same motion, Oriole sprang up, launching himself at him with predatory precision—this time, not to provoke, but to win.

Strix caught his forearm mid-lunge and twisted, pouring all his strength into it. It was like trying to bend forged steel. Whatever runes Oriole and his sibling had burned into his flesh made underestimating him a costly mistake. The elf moved with a fluid, relentless strength, shaking off Strix’s grip with a sharp jerk before hooking a leg behind his knee and sweeping him sideways.

They hit the mattress in a tangle. Strix tried to roll, but Oriole was already moving—sliding astride his hips, pinning one arm above his head while forcing the other behind his back. His weight shifted, sharp and certain, driving Strix’s chest into the bed.

Breathless and grinning, Oriole leaned down until his lips brushed the shell of Strix’s ear. “Looks like you’re mine.”

Fingers skimmed the back of Strix’s neck, finding a rune that locked his body in place.

An unfortunate new development in their dynamic.

He wasn’t sure when the runeweaver had managed to commandeer his containment lattice. The blackouts had been happening more often lately, and something told him Oriole was the cause.

What shamed him most was that it felt… fair.

“Hey!” he barked, though he knew full well that convincing Oriole not to toy with his runework was as hopeless as it was laughable.

“Hey, what?” Oriole teased, voice low and mocking. “Hey, you were right—I should get out of the rest of this armor?”

The elf made quick work of unfastening the remaining plates, tossing them aside with a clatter, rolling Strix around like a boneless doll just to prove he could.

“Or hey,” Oriole added with a wicked smile, “I can dish it out, but I can’t take it?”

Strix felt the pull at the laces of his trousers, the sensation sending a jolt through him. He was already hard—it didn’t take much when it came to Oriole. A sharp tug freed him, and deft, clawed fingers slid up his length in a slow, possessive stroke.

Oriole’s grin stretched ear to ear, teeth catching the light, eyes gleaming that eerie, gold-shot amber that reminded Strix far too much of the dangerous monster that lived under his skin. 

The elf’s thumb teased his tip, smearing the wet there, coaxing a groan from deep in Strix’s chest.

“Mmh. That's all you’ve got for me?” Oriole murmured, leaning in close enough that his breath ghosted across Strix’s mouth. “I’ve seen statues show more enthusiasm.”

He stripped him of his clothing piece by piece, savoring the process, dragging each sleeve and fold of fabric down Strix’s arms with deliberate slowness. “We should fix that,” he purred, peeling away the tunic and letting it drop to the floor. “I like seeing you struggle.”

Oriole’s claws skimmed over Strix’s chest, tracing runes and seams with lazy precision, making his breath hitch. “Oh, that got your attention,” he murmured, circling a particularly sensitive line of scar. “All those careful little stitches. Bet you’d come apart beautifully if I just…”

He hooked his claws under the waistband and drew Strix’s trousers down, slow and deliberate, leaving him bare to the cool air. Oriole’s gaze swept over him like a blade—sharp, assessing, hungry.

“There,” he said, voice low and sure. “Now I can see everything I’m going to ruin.”

In one smooth motion, Oriole stripped off his own small linen shorts, standing before Strix naked and unashamed—a thing of feral glory, his narrowed eyes burning with challenge. He reached forward, fingers brushing Strix’s nape, and deactivated the rune restraint.

The moment it released, Strix moved.

He launched himself at Oriole with the force of a storm breaking, their bodies colliding hard enough to stagger them both. They hit the floor in a tangle of limbs, claw, and hand, finding purchase anywhere they could. The fight was brutal—bone-rattling strikes, the sharp snap of teeth, the scrape of nails raking across skin—yet threaded through with something deeper.

Strix’s blows landed like devotion, each strike a twisted kind of reverence, as if every bruise he gave was a prayer. His grip tightened on Oriole’s wrists not just to restrain, but to hold. His weight bore down with dominance, yet his mouth hovered close enough to breathe in the heat of him.

Oriole fought back with equal ferocity—writhing, twisting, forcing Strix to earn every inch of ground he gained. Their bodies slid together, slick with sweat, neither willing to surrender.

The struggle broke in a single heartbeat. Strix seized Oriole’s jaw, dragging him in, and their mouths crashed together. The kiss was hard, long, and vicious—teeth clashing, lips bruising, tongues tangling in something that felt like both conquest and surrender.

They clung to each other as if this was the only way they knew how to love—through battle, through blood, through the ache of not letting go.

The kiss didn’t end so much as evolve—deepening, dragging them both under. Breath became secondary to hunger. Every exhale was stolen, swallowed. Strix’s hand fisted in Oriole’s hair, pulling him closer, harder, as if he could fuse them by sheer will.

Oriole bit at his lower lip, drawing a hiss, and the sound only made Oriole kiss him harder. Their hips ground together in a slow, punishing rhythm, every movement feeding the fire between them. Sweat slicked their skin, the heat of their bodies erasing any memory of the cool air.

Strix kept him pinned, drinking in every shudder and gasp, but Oriole’s eyes were open—calculating, waiting for the moment to turn the tide. He shifted subtly, one claw tracing Strix’s spine, the other sliding low to grip his hip and twist.

The world spun, and in a blink, Strix was on his back on the stone floor, the air knocked from his lungs. Oriole straddled him, pinning his wrists above his head with ease.

Breathless and flushed, the elf’s mouth curved in a triumphant grin. “My turn.”

He leaned down, pressing another searing kiss to Strix’s lips—slower this time, more deliberate, savoring the taste of his victory. His tongue swept in with the same ruthless precision he fought with, leaving Strix both aching and utterly captive beneath him.

Oriole broke away just long enough to murmur against his mouth, low and certain, “You can worship me from here.”

Strix gasped as fingers pressed against his entrance—dry, unyielding—sending a raw burn racing up his spine. He tried to shift his weight, maybe to throw Oriole off, but the elf only laughed, the sound dark and knowing.

“What? You think you get a choice now?”

The pressure deepened, a sharp, deliberate push finding his prostate and making his hips jerk involuntarily. A groan tore out of him—raw, needy, and entirely unguarded.

“Oh, you like that,” Oriole purred, watching every twitch, every shiver. His claws bit lightly into Strix’s thigh, keeping him spread. “Good. You’re going to take more. You’re going to take all of me.”

Strix’s breath hitched, his eyes half-lidded, pupils blown wide.

“I win,” Oriole went on, each word a slow knife of possession. “That means I get to use you however I want. And right now—” his fingers pushed deeper, his grin widening at the helpless sound it wrenched from Strix, “—I want to be so deep inside you that you’ll still feel me when you try to walk tomorrow.”

The elf moved without hesitation, grabbing Strix’s leg and yanking it up as he withdrew his fingers. His cock pressed hot and heavy against Strix’s entrance, and then—merciless—he pushed past the tight ring of muscle in one steady drive. There was no pause, no easing in; Oriole took him to the hilt, hard enough that spots burst behind Strix’s eyes.

Fingers traced over the runes carved into his skin, feeding a heat that made Strix dizzy. He felt too good—far too good for the ache still gripping him. And he deserved every second of it.

“You are so disgustingly into this, Commander,” Oriole growled, his hips snapping forward in a brutal rhythm that brushed that perfect spot inside him over and over.

A firm hand wrapped around Strix’s cock, pumping in slow, deliberate time with each thrust, dragging pleasure out of him like a confession.

“Tell me,” Oriole demanded, voice low and sharp, “how much you love my cock inside you.”

Strix’s mouth opened on a broken gasp, his head tipping back. He could barely think past the relentless pace, past the way Oriole filled him so completely it felt like both penance and reward.

“I—” he choked, voice rough, “—I love it. I love it, I—”

Oriole’s thrusts quickened, a dangerous smile carving across his face. “Say it again. What do you love?”

“You,” Strix cried out, and in every part of his heart it was true—but it wasn’t the answer Oriole wanted.

The elf’s grin sharpened. His hips ground in deep, holding there until the pressure was almost unbearable. “Not good enough, Commander,” he murmured, his voice low and edged like a blade. “I know you love me. I want to hear you say you love my cock inside you. Say it.”

He pulled back just enough to drive in again, hitting that perfect spot with ruthless precision. “Tell me how much you love being stretched open, filled so deep you can’t think straight. Tell me, or I won’t give you what you’re begging for.”

Strix’s breath came fast, every nerve alight. The words caught in his throat—not from shame, but from how badly he wanted to give them.

Strix’s head fell back, his entire body arching into the relentless rhythm. His voice cracked, raw with need.

“I love it—” the words tore out of him in a desperate rush, “—I love your cock inside me. I love the way you stretch me open, the way you fill me so deep I can’t breathe, can’t think—” He gasped, a helpless sound spilling out between phrases. “—I love you fucking me until I forget my name.”

“You don’t even know how true those words are.” 

Oriole’s eyes flashed, his breath coming heavier, sharper. His thrusts grew savage, each one landing with a deep, wet slap that made Strix’s vision blur.

“That’s it,” Oriole growled, leaning down until their foreheads nearly touched. “Say it again. Say it like you’ll never stop meaning it.”

“I love it!” Strix shouted, his voice breaking, “I love every inch of you inside me—I need it—need you—”

Oriole’s grip on his wrists tightened until it bordered on painful, his hips slamming forward in a punishing rhythm. The dominance, the confession, the sight of Strix undone beneath him—it was too much. A shudder ripped through Oriole, his breath stuttering, his body locking for a heartbeat before he drove in one final time and spilled deep inside him.

The elf’s growl broke into a low, satisfied moan as he stayed buried to the hilt, his hips twitching with aftershocks. His eyes—golden, fever-bright—remained locked on Strix’s face as if memorizing every trace of his surrender.

“You’re mine,” Oriole breathed, voice hoarse with release.

And Strix, still trembling, could only nod—because in that moment, it was truer than anything.

Oriole’s hand slid from Strix’s pinned wrist to his throat, long fingers curling around the column of it. He squeezed, cutting off air with a steady, unyielding pressure. “Come,” he ordered, voice low and absolute.

Strix’s eyes squeezed shut as the world narrowed to that grip, to the sharp, heady rush of being held there—breath stolen, body caged. A dark thrill unfurled inside him, something learned long ago, etched deep into the marrow of who he was.

His hips jerked helplessly, the pressure behind his eyes blooming into white heat. A strangled cry tore from him as his release hit, his seed spilling in pulsing waves.

The lack of air and the overwhelming pleasure fused into one blinding sensation. The edges of his vision went dark, the pounding of his heart loud and distant. Oriole’s face blurred above him, the golden fire of his eyes the last thing Strix saw before everything went black.

-

He felt nauseated, which was impressive, considering he didn’t have a body. And frankly, being nauseated without a body? Dumb.

Noct’s eyes fluttered open and rolled toward the reedy blond scholar pacing across the room. They were studying a corpse—his body, presumably—pausing now and then to scribble in one of several overstuffed notebooks.

This wasn’t Virya’s lab. That much he knew. He’d only ever been in two rooms: the lab and the dining room that one time. He hadn’t been hungry then, but nothing had looked especially appetizing anyway.

He kept quiet as he watched the blond shuffle between the table and the notes, adjusting their glasses, tapping their chin, muttering softly.

Noct couldn’t tell what gender they were—but they were cute. Of course, he technically didn’t have a gender either, what with being decapitated and all.

“Hey!” he called from inside his heart-shaped box. “You were at dinner the other night, right? I didn’t catch your name.”

The blond startled violently, dropping their pen and letting out a high-pitched sound somewhere between a kettle and a cat.

They turned to face him, blinked slowly, then said, perfectly deadpan: “Well, she didn’t fry your brain with fellatio, or maybe she did; I have no rubric for what you were like before Virya got ahold of you.”

“That’s not your name,” Noct said with mock sternness. “Too long. Try again.”

The blond flushed pink. “Y-you…”

The blond cleared their throat, adjusting their glasses with a nervous flick. “Maldrien,” they said finally. “My name is Maldrien.”

“Maldrien,” Noct echoed, tasting the name like a secret. “Sharp. Enigmatic. Definitely hot wizard material.”

They gave no response, just a flick of their eyes and then back to the corpse—his corpse, or at least the one clearly meant for him. Now that he took another look, the rune-threaded Velthari War-arm was a dead giveaway. Noct remembered that graft—half legend, half weaponized art. The fingers alone had probably been etched by someone long dead and flamboyant.

He watched as Maldrien repositioned a floating stylus, checking the limb’s anchor points with meticulous precision. They worked quietly, efficiently—none of Virya’s flair. Just control. Focus.

“You always bring your dates back to your lab?” Noct asked, tone playfully dry.

“I don’t date,” Maldrien replied without looking up.

He hummed. “That explains the bedside manner. Though, to be fair, I’m already in the box. Pretty hard to ghost me now.”

Maldrien exhaled slowly—an attempt at patience or just a reflex, hard to say. They didn’t stop working.

“What happened, anyway? Last thing I remember…” Noct trailed off, watching as Maldrien flushed faintly.

Ah. They didn’t want to talk about how he got here.

Probably wise.

“Well, you know, I’m here now,” he said instead, wryly. “So…what went wrong, exactly?”

“My sister was too hasty with her use of stimulation,” Maldrien replied, pausing to glance at him. “The vertebrael runes weren’t fully tuned. She triggered an overload. You’ve been set back at least a week.”

“Is there a deadline?”

“No,” they said, returning to their work. “But she’s impatient to drag you around like a pet and show you off to our father.”

That sounded… ominous.

“So, you’re her… sibling?” he asked, a little too casually.

Maldrien didn’t look up. “Yes. And if you’re trying to figure out whether I’m male or female, the answer is neither.”

“Oh. Cool. Me too… kinda!” 

He wasn’t entirely sure what that meant right now—severed heads didn’t come with pronouns—but he figured the sentiment counted.

Honestly, he just liked having someone to talk to. He had the distinct feeling that, back when he knew who he was, talking had been one of his favorite things. Probably too much, if he was honest with himself.

And Maldrien was easy to talk to. Not because they were warm—they weren’t—but because they were so composed, so focused. It made Noct want to poke at them just to see what would happen.

He watched as they adjusted another set of sigils over his chest cavity, lips pursed in concentration. “You know,” he said lightly, “I think I liked you better when you were just pacing around and mumbling to yourself. It was kind of cute.”

Maldrien’s hand paused mid-air. Their eyes flicked toward him, unreadable behind the glint of their glasses.

“I don’t respond to flattery,” they said.

“That’s okay,” Noct replied, grinning. “I’m not always trying to get a response.”

They blinked at him. Once.

Then went back to work without a word.

But he was almost sure their ears were pink.

“You know,” Noct drawled, “I bet you look really good surrounded by sigils. All that precision. All that power.”

Maldrien did not look up.

So Noct tried again, letting his gaze flick toward the glowing lattice hovering above his body. “Is that a Xithari recursion rune along the sternum? Looks like it’s interfacing with a containment weave. That’s… ambitious.”

That made Maldrien pause.

Their head tilted slightly. They adjusted their glasses and looked at him— really looked at him—for the first time.

“You recognize that sequence?”

Noct shrugged—well, he imagined shrugging. “Bits and pieces. It’s fuzzy. Like trying to remember the lyrics to a song you only heard once, half-drunk.”

Maldrien narrowed their eyes, more curious than annoyed now. “That’s interesting. I was under the impression you were, well… quite dumb.”

Noct blinked. “Wow. Rude.”

“He didn’t specify why. Just that your intellect wasn’t… notable.”

Noct snorted. “Well, that tracks. I don’t even know who I am right now, so it’s kind of hard to argue.”

Maldrien didn’t reply. They just returned to their work, but something about their movements had changed—more attentive now. Less clinical.

Noct smirked to himself. He wasn’t sure what he’d known before, or what he was supposed to know now—but he’d definitely caught a flicker of surprise on their face.

And he liked surprising them.

“So, like… what is this place? Some kind of giant, uh… body reclamation center?”

Maldrien, half-circling the table and staying just out of sight, replied without looking up. “This is the Ossuary. A necropolis built atop the ruins of Dren.”

“Whoa. Spoopy.” Noct’s grin widened. “So, are you guys like… necromancers? Is it a job? A lifestyle? A really intense hobby?”

Silence.

Undeterred, he pressed on. “Are you, like, the best necromancer? Is that why you're helping Virya?”

Maldrien finally sighed—a long-suffering sound, somewhere between amusement and regret. “By the Emperor, you’re loud.”

They stepped out from behind the slab, brushing bone dust from their sleeves. “And no. There are others better than me. But she’s my sister, and sometimes it’s just easier to give in than argue with Virya.”

Their gaze swept over him, dry and assessing. “You are an unusually chatty corpse.”

“Really?” Noct frowned. If he had a body, he was pretty sure he’d be pacing by now. His mind was a bottle of bees.

“Yes,” Maldrien said. “Especially for someone who just went through an aetheric overcharge shutdown sequence.”

Maldrien stepped closer, expression sharpening with professional curiosity. “Let’s have a look at you.”

They reached into the box and, with careful hands, lifted Noct’s head free of its velvet cradle. Their touch wasn’t unkind—just clinical, precise. The shift in sensation startled him. It didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t soothing either. Not like when Virya touched him.

Her hands had felt like falling into warm water.

Maldrien’s were more like tongs dipped in antiseptic—clean, detached, mildly judgmental.

“Huh,” they muttered, turning him slightly to examine the runes etched into his scalp. “These secondary runes shouldn’t still be active.”

“Should I be flattered or alarmed?” Noct asked, trying not to sound too nervous.

“Both,” Maldrien replied. “These turned on by themselves. Virya had you in a pseudo-slumber state.  I thought it was just an overcharge surge and you would fall back asleep….but it seems I was mistaken.”

“I’m a trendsetter,” Noct said brightly. “Tell your friends.”

They hummed. “I don’t have friends. Just constructs and consequences.”

“That’s a crime,” Noct said, grinning. “You seem like someone with lots of interesting things to say.”

Maldrien’s lips flattened into a pale, unimpressed line. “It would be wise to stop flirting with me, Nocturne. It’ll get you nowhere—and it’ll upset my sister if she hears you being cheeky with someone other than herself.”

“Oh.” Noct bit his lip, thinking it over. “Because I’m hers?”

“Yes.” Maldrien set him gently back into the box, but adjusted the angle so he could see more clearly.

“You two don’t look like siblings. She’s all red hair, green eyes, and short. You’re tall, thin, and rocking those amazing blue eyes.”

Yeah, he was still flirting. He couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t apologize.

“I was given consciousness after Virya was born,” Maldrien said coolly. “We weren’t from the same…” They waved a hand dismissively and turned back to the runes on Noct’s not-yet-attached body.

“Given consciousness? Like me? Were you a head in a box, too?”

“No.” The word came out sharp, clipped—final. That line of questioning was clearly closed.

Maldrien circled back around his headless body and approached him again. “I need you to be quiet. Don’t ask me things like that—and please, don’t flirt with me.”

They hesitated, absently turning a pen between their fingers. Then, as if they could already hear the why forming on his lips, they added, more softly, “It distracts me from my duties. And it’s dangerous—for both of us.”

“Oh, but—”

“I can force you back to sleep if you can’t be respectfully quiet,” Maldrien said, raising one long, elegant finger and placing it gently over his mouth. “Shh. If you have questions about runes or necromancy, I’m happy to answer them.”

Noct fell silent. If he’d had a heart to send blood rushing to his face, he would’ve blushed deep crimson. Lacking even a neck to duck, he held his lips in a firm line—his version of a nod. He could be quiet. Probably.

Maldrien returned to their work.

The silence stretched.

Noct stared at the ceiling, at the bone lattice shadows dancing across it. For the first time since waking, he felt something heavier settle inside him. Not grief. Not fear.

Just a soft ache.

He didn’t know why he wanted to talk to Maldrien more. Maybe it was the way they treated him like a puzzle instead of a pet. Or maybe it was just the sound of their voice, calm and strange and smart.

Either way, he missed it already.

And he wondered—quietly, helplessly—why that made him feel so sad.

Chapter Text

Maldrien watched as Virya swept out with the head in her arms, and the pressure in their chest drained away like water through a sieve. It was awful—how much relief they felt. That head didn’t know the kind of trouble he could get into, saying whatever he liked, whenever he liked. Their father would only tolerate that kind of impudence from one person. Maybe two.

Their mouth pursed in distaste.

Oriole.

Another Virya. Another pet. One day, he’d overstep like she always did—and that would be the end of his favor. Only Virya had such sway over their father. Maldrien had learned early, after their awakening, that they were not on the same tier as Virya. Nor even Strix, with his blank devotion and haunting, borrowed eyes.

It was nearly impossible to meet expectations when the man who created you could see everything you felt—and subjected every flicker of emotion to relentless scrutiny.

‘Maldrien. I require your presence. Immediately.’

There it was. As expected.

They folded each feeling into tight, neat compartments. The curiosity. The strange, pleased heat of being flirted with. The reluctant enjoyment of all those absurd little questions.

All of it tucked away.

All that remained was the kernel of fear—the old, well-honed kind reserved only for their father.

-

The Emperor had taken his human form when Maldrien arrived: glittering, golden, beautiful. A brighter, more perfect version of themself. Side by side, some said they looked alike—but no one ever said Maldrien shone brighter.

He did not rise from the throne. He only lifted a hand, fingers flicking in irritation. Hurry up.

Maldrien rushed through the throne room towards their father. They knelt low, head bowed, eyes carefully averted. All they wanted was to return to the lab, repair the misfiring lattice in Nocturne’s lower half, and have the Scribe sort their notes by categorization glyph.

“What was all of that?”

His voice was flat. Controlled. Angry in the way still water hides the strongest currents.

“All of what, sire?” Maldrien asked carefully.

“The fluttering. The deflection. The ridiculous stammering over a severed head.” His voice sharpened. “I felt you blush, Maldrien.”

“I do not blush,” they said automatically, too fast.

The Emperor rose from the throne, slow as a storm forming. “Do not lie to me.”

Maldrien swallowed. “It was a brief reaction. He caught me off guard.”

“He flirted with you. And you allowed it.”

“I shut it down.”

“Eventually.”

Silence fell like a blade between them.

Then, quietly—too quietly—the Emperor asked, “Do you like him?”

Maldrien went still, a faint tightness settling in their shoulders. “No. Of course not.” They hesitated, choosing their words with care. “It’s just… he’s… interesting. Unusual.”

“You liked the way he looked at you.”

A pause. Then, reluctantly: “Yes.”

“And the way he spoke to you. As if you were—what? Desirable?”

Maldrien didn’t respond.

The Emperor stepped closer, his voice low, warm, and false. “He made you feel something forbidden, didn’t he?”

Their throat tightened.

“I can excise it, if it bothers you,” he offered gently. “Emotion. The flaw. I’ve done it before—you felt much better afterward, didn’t you?”

“No, sire. That isn’t necessary.”

“No?” The Emperor’s eyes gleamed. “Should I take the head away from your sister?”

Maldrien’s hands curled into fists against the floor.

“I want to keep him functioning… for Virya.”

“Functioning,” their father echoed with a chuckle that was all teeth. “Of course. For your sister—that’s all?”

“Yes.”

The Emperor reached out, and for a moment, Maldrien thought he might touch their face. They didn’t flinch, but the instinct was there.

Instead, he turned away. “Then proceed. But if I sense even a flicker of indulgence—if your work suffers—I will correct you. He is her pet, not yours.”

“Yes, sire.”

“You are mine, Maldrien. Remember that. I won’t hesitate to take away some of your autonomy.”

“I remember. I know. I’m sorry, Father—I know better.”

“You do know better.” He settled onto his throne, his body shifting and undulating into its eldritch form. “I didn’t give you sentience so you could squander it on feelings. I gave it to you so you could think, so you could serve as my eyes beyond the necropolis. You know which I value more.”

His many eyes—both seen and unseen—fixed on them, the weight of his will pressing like chains over their mind. “And if you ever forget,” he murmured, almost tenderly, “I will take that will back. You’ll still be mine… You just won’t have to think anymore.”

-

Maldrien left the throne room with their spine ramrod straight, each step a calculated act of composure. Their boots echoed down the bone-polished corridor, rhythm precise, breath shallow. Every emotion—fear, humiliation, the lingering aftertaste of something gentler—was folded and sealed inside the fortress of their chest.

Locked down.

Not gone.

They didn’t allow themselves to feel anything.  Not until they were alone with the scribe and—

Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

“ There you are!” a voice barked from down the hall.

Maldrien flinched—visibly—and immediately cursed themself for it.

Oriole rounded the corner like a thundercloud in black and gold, arms flailing dramatically as he stormed up. His expression was a mix of frustration and betrayal, and his earrings, which Virya had made for him, jingled as if they were offended too.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere, ” he snapped. “Where the fuck were you? We’re supposed to be working on the new experimental soul forge layout, remember? The one that doesn’t explode if you blink at it wrong?”

Maldrien didn’t answer.

Oriole squinted at them. “Wait. Why do you look like someone wrung you out and forgot to hang you up? You’re doing that ‘emotionally repressed scarecrow’ thing again.”

“I was with Father,” Maldrien said coolly, resuming their pace down the hall.

“Oh. So you got flayed with compliments and threats again. Neat.” Oriole fell into step beside them, still fuming. “You could’ve at least told me you were bailing. I wasted a whole hour pretending to care about leyline flow differentials and almost— almost —talked to the Archivist. That creepy bitch was licking bone ink off her gloves and looking at me like a snack.”

“You should be more careful with your language in the Emperor’s hall,” Maldrien murmured, voice low.

Oriole snorted and then proceeded to shout, “FUCKING CREEPY BITCH!” Causing Maldrien’s body to vibrate with awareness.

There was a large part of them that truly missed the Oriole before his becoming.  It was like their father had ripped the lid off a box, which muffled the obnoxious monster inside their new little brother.

“Okay, okay, I get it, you aren’t afraid of anything.”  Maldrien put their hand on Oriole’s shoulder and started guiding him back towards the workshops, “Let me make up for my tardiness with some tea and cake. Then we can go back to the soulforges and test your new hair trigger lattice.”

-

Virya’s chambers were quieter than her workshop—warm with candlelight, scented faintly of resin and pressed flowers. The bed was scattered with embroidery silks and bone beads, a half-finished collar lying across her lap. She’d set Noct in the center of the plush coverlet, angled so he could watch her work.

“I thought necromancers stuck to sewing flesh,” he said, eyeing the delicate needle flashing in her fingers. “This is very… domestic.”

“I’m multi-talented,” she replied without looking up, looping a strand of crimson thread through an inlaid vertebra on the collar. “Also, I’m not just a necromancer.”

“Right,” he said, mock-solemn. “You’re a visionary. Collector of hot dead people. And—apparently—crafter of fine personal accessories.”

Her mouth curved into a sly smile. “This isn’t for me. It’s for you.”

He eyed the collar for a moment. “I suppose after I have shoulders, so it won’t fall off.”

That earned him a soft laugh. She set another bead in place, her hands moving with the same deliberate precision she used for stitching runes. “I hope Maldrien didn’t bore you too much. I needed you there while they worked on mapping the stability matrices for me again.”

“They were delightful,” he said, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “It’s nice that you can ask your sibling for help.”

Virya’s eyes gleamed, her voice lifting with quiet pride. “Daddy always says I make good use of the resources at hand—and Maldrien is the best at fixing things.” Her tone softened as she pouted briefly, staring at the collar in her hand. “I thought I had the lattice arranged correctly, but there were some Velthari runes that apparently didn’t want to play nicely with the ones I created myself.” Her fingers tightened slightly on the collar before she exhaled, the frustration flickering in her eyes. “Mal agreed they should have worked, which is why they’re investigating for me.”

“I’m sure between the two of you, you’ll figure it out,” he said gently, the words carrying a quiet certainty meant to steady her.

Her lips curved faintly. “Thank you for being so positive. Most people in this family… aren’t.” She kept working on the collar, setting another bead and checking the tension of its chain.

He watched her for a moment. “Does it have any special significance?”

“Yes,” she replied without hesitation, her tone matter-of-fact. “Father suggested it—for your own stability. It’s meant to keep you anchored if your binding becomes… unsettled.” Her gaze flicked to his briefly, as if gauging his reaction, before returning to the meticulous work in her hands.

“My binding?” he echoed, voice light, like they were talking about a loose button.

“Yes. The thing that keeps you—” She placed her hand on the pendant around her neck. “Keeps you all together.”

“So even when Maldrien gets the runework fixed, I could still fall apart?” He smirked faintly, playing it off as a joke, but the image it conjured—a sudden, messy unmaking—lodged itself in his mind. His body collapsing in on itself, nothing left but loose flesh, guts, and a head that someone could just… pick up.

“How did I die?” he asked once again, casual enough to pass for idle curiosity, then let the question grow teeth. “Why not just leave me dead?”

He didn’t remember anything before waking in the box. Not the end, not the moments leading to it—nothing. That blank was starting to feel less like an accident and more like a locked door.

And if he didn’t know how he’d died, then he didn’t know how she’d gotten his head in the first place.

The thought sat heavy in the back of his mind, quietly rotting.

Her hands didn’t slow, but her voice smoothed over like fabric pulled taut. “You’ve only just started settling into your runes. Digging into all that right now would just… shake the foundation.” She set the collar aside with deliberate care, as if the conversation itself had been tucked away with it.

Noct watched her move towards her crafting table. She shifted tools and beads into neat rows, her face set into an easy focus. She was already closing the door he’d tried to crack open.

He hated how good she was at it.

Before he could push again, she came back to him, close enough that the faint scent of herbs and candlewax curled into the edges of his awareness. Her fingers threaded into his hair, slow and sure, combing through the strands like she was soothing a restless animal.

It worked—damn it, it worked—phantom echoes of pulse and breath stirring in the hollow spaces where those rhythms should have been. They faded as quickly as they came, leaving behind a strange, weightless calm, even as his mind clawed at the locked door in his memory.

He just wanted to remember. He had the feeling he’d once had an exceptional memory, the kind that could hold every detail perfectly. He wouldn’t have forgotten. He woul—

“You don’t need to worry about before,” she murmured, her tone warm enough to melt through the unease if he let it. “You’re mine now. That’s all that matters.”

It was meant to reassure. It felt like a warning—a warning his mind inexplicably softened, embraced, and reshaped into a gentle invitation to stop caring about how he had died. About why she had his head at all.

She lifted him from the bed and settled him into her lap. “See? Isn’t it much easier just to be my kept little pet?”

His eyes squeezed shut. It wasn’t easy. It was horrible, and hard, and he hated it. He didn’t belong to anyone.

But her hands kept moving, fingers combing slowly through his hair, and something in that motion lit up the runes etched into the bone beneath his skin. The sensation bloomed sharp and bright—like an electric current threaded with warmth—soothing and stimulating at once. It chased away the edges of his defiance, left him untethered and half-floating in the glow of it.

He didn’t know what she was doing—only that every stroke of her fingers sank deeper, unraveling the thought that he should resist.

“Shh,” she murmured, her voice a silken thread. “Trust me when I tell you this is for the best, my beautiful Nocturne. Being raised into the gloried embrace of undeath eternal is a journey for the bravest souls.”

Her fingernails traced the delicate curve of his pointed ear, and an unseen shudder rippled through him. The sensation threaded down into the etched runes beneath his skin, sparking that same strange, electric warmth that dulled the edges of his thoughts.

He tried to focus—on the table behind her, on the flicker of a candle somewhere out of sight—but her voice kept drawing him back.

“In life, the flesh decays, the mind falters, the soul wanders,” she continued softly, stroking through his hair with slow, patient care. “But through death, we become whole. Every flaw burned away, every weakness reforged. The Ossuary believes perfection is not born—it is crafted.”

Her words slid into him as surely as her touch, every syllable nestling into the cracks her fingers had made in his defenses.

He could feel the rebellion of his truth inside of him. He wanted to scoff, to tell her he didn’t believe in perfection, in the poetry of her faith, that flaws were what made life interesting—but his tongue felt heavy.

“Here, you will never wither,” she went on, her tone like a hymn. “Here, you will never be less than what you are meant to be.”

He forced his mind to circle back to the questions he needed answered—how he’d died, how she’d taken his head—but every time, the electric hum beneath her fingertips pulled him away, carrying him toward a warm, dark quiet where nothing mattered but her voice.

Her fingers never stopped moving, each stroke of her nails sending a ripple of electric heat through the runes etched into his skull. The hum in his mind grew deeper, like a pulse he didn’t have but could almost feel, steady and slow.

“My father,” she said softly, “will bring peace to Yor. Not the fragile, fleeting kind mortals bicker over, but true peace—unshakable, eternal. A world where suffering is a relic, and death is not an end, but a refinement.”

The words slipped into him as easily as her fingers slid through his hair, smoothing over the jagged places in his thoughts.

“He has shaped an empire from bone and devotion,” she continued, her voice laced with something between reverence and desire. “Every war will end. Every rebellion quelled. Every wandering soul given a place in the great design.”

Noct wanted to scoff, to question what kind of peace came from bone and conquest—but the thought dissolved before it reached his lips, replaced by the faint, dangerous comfort of imagining a world without conflict.

“And you, my sweet Nocturne…” Her tone deepened, coaxing. “I believe you were always meant to help him. To help us . Your spirit has the strength to carry his will into the hearts of those who still cling to chaos. You could be part of the perfection that will sweep across Yor.”

Something warm unfurled in his mind at the thought—an unearned pride, sweet and heavy. The more he considered it, the more it made sense, and the more sense it made, the warmer the pleasure became, blooming through the phantom space where his body should be.

“You see it, don’t you?” she whispered, leaning closer, her breath cool against the edge of his ear. “A world without fear. Without decay. Without failure. Only the stillness of perfection, shared by all.”

He did see it. Or thought he did. Each image she painted wrapped tighter around his mind, each imagined truth feeding the quiet rush of pleasure that was becoming harder to let go of. His earlier doubts felt distant, unimportant—little more than shadows on the edges of a warm, golden light.

And that light felt so very good.

She shifted him in her hands until his gaze met hers. Her eyes were a vivid, arresting green, and behind them shimmered the faint, deliberate shapes of runework. He recognized them—vaguely—binding sigils, wasn’t that what they were? But he couldn’t tell if they were carved into her irises… or reflecting from something deep inside his own.

“I know that’s what you want,” she murmured, her voice a low, coaxing hymn. “I see it in your gentle soul—you want peace for our world.”

His first instinct was to deny it, to cling to the scraps of suspicion still rattling around in his mind. But the longer she held him, her thumbs brushing faint arcs against his temples, the more the runes in her gaze seemed to sync with the ones burned into his skull.

The thought of peace—for her, for Yor—unfolded inside him like a slow bloom, crowding out the questions that had clawed at him minutes ago. Each beat of that phantom pulse, each flicker of warmth, was tied to the image she painted: the end of strife, a perfected world, himself at her side as part of it.

“You want it,” she whispered again, her lips curving, “and you know you do.”

He did know. Or at least it felt like he did. The certainty was warm, heavy, sweet.

“…Yes,” he breathed, the word slipping out before he could catch it.

Her smile deepened, bright and triumphant, and the runes in her gaze flared softly. “Then we will make it so, my tender Nocturne.”

The pleasure of agreement rolled through him, leaving him dizzy and faintly adrift—like the more his thoughts aligned with hers, the more the runes rewarded him for surrendering.

Then her lips were on his. She cradled him close, pressing her mouth to his in a kiss that was both tender and possessive. Something inside him jolted—an instinctive arrest, a flare of resistance. For a heartbeat, he wanted to push her away, to tell her no—that he didn’t want to be part of the living dead, or her father’s grand design, or this kiss.

But he couldn’t push her away. He had no body to act with, even if he’d had the will.

The urge broke quickly as she deepened the kiss, holding him as one might hold a lover with a whole body to return the embrace. His eyes fluttered shut, and the primal part of his mind screamed for freedom, hissing that this wasn’t right, that it wasn’t him—

—yet the warmth of her mouth and the hum of the runes drowned it out, whispering that he just needed… to let go.

The thought slid into him like an all-enveloping truth, and before he could catch it, it became truth. His resistance unraveled in slow, deliberate threads, each one pulled loose by the glide of her lips, the press of her hands, the electric purr of runes binding his will.

He stopped fighting.

The primal voice in his mind fell silent, smothered under the heavy, intoxicating comfort she poured into him. There was nothing to do but receive—her kiss, her warmth, her will. She tilted him slightly in her hands, adjusting his angle with the same ease one might use to set a jewel into its perfect place, her control absolute.

When she finally drew back, he realized he’d been holding his eyes shut like a supplicant. His breath—imagined, not real—came slow and shallow in the ghost of his chest, the last remnants of defiance evaporating in the wake of her touch.

And in that quiet, it didn’t seem to matter that he was only a head, or that every motion he made belonged to her.

She kept him close, her palms cupping either side of his face as if he were something precious and breakable. Her thumbs brushed over his cheekbones in slow, rhythmic strokes that synced perfectly with the runes’ steady pulse.

“There now,” she whispered, her voice low and warm, curling around his dazed mind like smoke. “That’s better. You see how easy it is, when you don’t fight me? How peaceful?”

He did see it—right now, in this softened haze, it felt true. The stillness inside him was almost sweet, the absence of struggle intoxicating in its own way.

“Peace is not surrender,” she murmured, her lips just above his brow. “It’s clarity. It’s knowing where you belong, and who you belong to.”

The words slid down into him and settled deep. They didn’t feel like orders. They felt like realizations—like things he’d known all along and only now remembered.

Somewhere beneath that heavy, soothing certainty, something else stirred. A faint, arrhythmic beat that didn’t match the runes’ careful rhythm. A pulse that felt older, stranger—like the echo of a voice just beyond the walls of the room.

It wasn’t Virya’s voice.

It wasn’t a voice at all—it was a gaze.

And it was looking at him, waiting for him to remember.

But before he could follow the thread, Virya tilted his face toward hers again, and the strange pulse faded into the background hum of the runes.

“You’re mine,” she said softly, as if the truth of it had never been up for debate. “Do you want to come with me to the Starlit Cathedral?”

“Of course I do,” he answered without hesitation. “What are we going to do there?”

Her lips curved in a secretive smile. “You’ll see.”

She set him gently on the edge of her worktable before she began to loosen the laces of her bodice; he realized she was changing clothes—unselfconsciously, right there in front of him. He averted his eyes quickly, staring fixedly at the flicker of a candle on the far wall.

Fabric rustled softly; leather straps buckled into place. The faint scent of perfume and metal polish drifted over with each movement.

When she was finished, she came back to him, holding something new in her hands—a carrier, carefully made to cradle his head. It was lined in dark velvet, the edges reinforced with polished bone in delicate filigree.

“This will keep you safe,” she said, as if it were a gift rather than a necessity. She lifted him with both hands, easing him down into its shaped interior until the padding cupped him perfectly, holding him steady.

The moment the velvet touched his skin, the runes in its seams whispered to life, a low, steady hum that reminded him of the box he’d woken in—secure, contained, and undeniably hers.

She adjusted the carrier’s strap and, with an almost playful ease, looped it over her shoulder like it was a handbag or some elegant evening purse. His weight didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest; if anything, she carried him with the casual confidence of someone showing off a prized possession.

From his place in the cradle of velvet, he could see the smooth fall of her crimson hair against the dark fabric of her clothes, the swing of her stride measured and sure. The runes along the carrier’s seams pulsed faintly with each step—a steady reminder that even here, dangling at her side, he was tethered to her will.

“This will be fun,” she said, her voice sweet with casual delight. “And if you’re good, we’ll get a treat. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Something in her tone stirred warmth in him—an unthinking happiness at the thought of pleasing her, even as a quiet, stubborn part of him wondered what being good truly meant in her hands.

Beneath the steady hum of the runes, there came the faintest hitch in the rhythm—so small it might have been his imagination, a flicker there and gone. Then the warmth of her influence washed back over him.

He sighed, wistful and dazed. “That sounds… amazing.”

Chapter Text

“You need to be standing up for her with our father, Altair!” Theren’s voice rang down the hallway, sharp enough to echo off the ribbed stone.

“Standing up for her? You mean him—and he’s delusional, just like Serenielle!” Altair’s reply came back just as sharp, the force of it making Vireo flinch.

“I don’t understand how appearing through a fissure of light with the Silver King into the middle of Father’s throne room leaves you with any room for doubt.”

“Lesser elves have managed similar teleportation spells.”

“You’re being willfully ignorant. Have you even looked at her? She’s clearly changed.”

“I wish they would stop arguing,” Vireo murmured, glancing up at Azaqiel. His expression was as inscrutable as deep water.

“The older one draws sustenance from argument,” the Silver King said in the cool, certain tone of someone stating a scientific fact.

“Serenielle did the same thing, and now she’s a monster. Why do you trust Vireo when his fate could be the same?”

“Please, Altair—we’re talking about Vireo. She would never…”

There was a pause—just long enough for doubt to seep into Theren’s voice. It carried the faint shadow of something older, a memory of when he had trusted Oriole as well… before Oriole had pecked doubt into every sibling’s resolve.

“Stop misgendering them,” Theren snapped at last, his voice slicing clean through the air. “It’s disgusting.”

Vireo grimaced. The truth was… he—she—wasn’t entirely sure what they were anymore. Having a fixed gender had never mattered, and now, it mattered even less.

“I think it’s easier for them if they think of you as ‘her,’” Azaqiel offered, his voice gentling. “They both see you as the goddess. For beings like us, it makes no difference, but for them… it seems to.”

Vireo let out a slow sigh. “What did I tell you about reading my mind?”

“I didn’t need to,” he said, fingers tightening around hers. “I know you.”

His grip was warm, steady—grounding her in a way she hadn’t expected when they first met. She tilted her head toward him, letting her knuckles brush the inside of his palm before looking away.

“I suppose you’re right,” she conceded softly. “But I’m not going to waste my time getting upset when Altair calls me ‘he.’ I don’t have the energy to correct him.”

She slumped slightly, golden hair falling into her face. Azaqiel reached out, brushing it back with a touch that lingered just a moment too long to be entirely casual.

This whole being-a-goddess thing had consumed her life. Not that she’d had a long list of mortal ambitions to abandon—but divinity had given her something else entirely: purpose. She’d seen what the Emperor was capable of. He had to be stopped, even if that meant stopping her own brother in the process.

The voices in the hall dulled to background noise as Azaqiel leaned in, his lips near her ear. “Let’s get away from this,” he murmured. “Somewhere they can’t follow us with their noise.”

She nodded.

He led her down a side passage, the cool, dim corridor swallowing the last of the argument. Their footsteps echoed softly against the stone, the air growing warmer as they moved deeper into the secluded wing of the keep. Azaqiel didn’t release her hand until they reached a quiet alcove lined with hanging gardens, where the drip of water from an unseen fountain was the only sound.

Here, the tension in her shoulders finally eased.

Azaqiel stepped closer, his presence wrapping around her like the warmth of a summer night. Without a word, he lifted his hand and threaded his fingers through her golden hair. The strands slipped through like spun sunshine, catching the dim light and scattering it in tiny sparks—like starlight caught in motion.

Vireo’s breath softened. She leaned into the touch, eyes fluttering closed, letting the weight of her new divinity, the arguments, the doubt—all of it—melt away beneath his hand.

The world shrank to the quiet between them, to the gentle comb of his fingers, to the way his touch was reverent, as though he knew he was holding something both fragile and infinite.

When she opened her eyes, he was watching her—steady, certain, and impossibly kind. The depth there made her chest ache. It wasn’t just devotion. It was love, unguarded and undeniable.

“I don’t deserve you,” she whispered.

“You do,” he murmured, his thumb brushing her cheek. “Throughout all our lifetime, always.”

And in the stillness, with his hand in her hair and her heart laid bare, Vireo knew she would follow him into any light or shadow that lay ahead.

Azaqiel’s hand lingered in her hair, fingertips combing slowly through the wavy strands. The gold shimmered with each motion, spilling over her shoulders in waves that caught the alcove’s dim light.

Vireo tilted her face toward him, golden eyes half-lidded, lips parted in a quiet breath. She was small in his shadow, delicate in her elven grace, and yet the divinity in her seemed to glow from within—soft, warm, and impossible to look away from.

He stepped closer until his chest brushed hers, the iridescence of his dark blue skin catching glints of silver where the light met the curve of his jaw. The scent of saltwater and rain clung to him, the living memory of the depths he ruled. His xanthous orange eyes burned with a steady, unshakable focus, as if he could anchor her in place with his gaze alone.

Her hand rose to rest against his chest, fingers splayed over the slow, tidal rhythm of his heartbeat. “I don’t know if I’ll ever feel… the same in this body,” she admitted softly. “I was someone else for so long.”

“You are still you,” he said, his voice low and certain, like the pressure of deep water. His other hand came up to cradle her cheek, thumb tracing the high curve of her bone. “You have only become more.”

She searched his eyes, the ache in her chest a mix of longing and uncertainty. “You make it sound so simple.”

“It is,” he murmured, leaning down to press the barest kiss to her brow. “I loved you when you were nothing but starlight, I loved you when you were a prince of the high grove. I love you as the Golden Queen. The shape of you changes, but the soul…” His lips brushed the tip of her nose, gentle as a tide lapping the shore. “…the soul I would know in any ocean.”

Her breath trembled. She leaned forward, closing the remaining space, and their lips met—soft, searching, not urgent but deep with unspoken vows. She tasted the brine of the sea on him, felt the cool smoothness of his skin beneath her fingertips.

When they parted, she stayed close, her forehead pressed to his as though she couldn’t bear even that small distance. His fingers threaded through her hair, fanning it across his knuckles like molten gold. Each stroke sent a tremor down her spine, heat pooling low and insistent, her breath catching before she could steady it.

She tilted her head, brushing a kiss against the corner of his mouth—light, testing, but full of a hunger she could no longer disguise. Her heart pounded with the sharp ache of wanting, of too many nights spent imagining the press of his body, the slide of his hands, the taste of him wholly hers.

“I think,” she whispered, voice husky now with rising need, “that I could learn to love myself… if you keep touching me like this.”

Azaqiel’s lips curved, his breath warm against her skin. “Then let me show you how.”

His hand slid from her hair down the line of her neck, fingertips tracing the delicate hollow of her throat before gliding over her shoulder. He took his time, his touch slow and deliberate, as if memorizing her anew. Vireo’s breath caught; her body leaned into him of its own accord, drawn by the promise in his movements.

His palm skimmed the curve of her back, settling at the small of it, pulling her just enough that her body pressed flush against his. The cool glow of his iridescent skin contrasted with the heat coiling low in her belly. Her golden eyes fluttered closed when his other hand cupped her jaw, tilting her face up so he could press a lingering kiss to her lips—deeper now, tasting her sigh.

She felt the slow, sensual drag of his thumb along her lower lip as they broke apart, and the shiver it sent through her made her knees feel suddenly unsure. Her hands found the plane of his chest, sliding upward to curl around the back of his neck, bringing him close again.

“Your heart is racing,” he murmured against her mouth.

“So is yours,” she breathed, her voice barely more than a tremor.

He smiled at that, his hand gliding lower to trace the line of her hip, his thumb brushing dangerously close to the tender skin at her waist. Heat flooded her cheeks—and deeper still—when his fingers slipped just beneath the edge of her tunic, stroking the new, softened contours of her body. The waist that had once been straighter, leaner, now curved with a quiet grace, her skin sensitive in ways it had never been before. Every touch reminded her how the pearl’s power had reshaped her, how goddesshood had carved her into this form—hers, yet strange, wondrous, achingly alive beneath his hand.

Her breath caught, sharp and trembling, and his eyes—bright as molten amber in the dim light—never left her face. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

She shook her head, the motion small but certain. “Don’t.”

The corner of his mouth lifted, and he obeyed. His touch drifted lower, sliding over the gentle curve of her hip, fingers pressing with just enough insistence to make her lean into him, hunger blooming hot and undeniable.

The garden around them was still—only the whisper of leaves and the soft drip of water breaking the silence. The open air pressed against Vireo’s skin, carrying the faint scent of night-blooming flowers, mingling with the salt-sweet trace of Azaqiel’s presence.

He seemed utterly unconcerned by their surroundings. The Silver King’s focus was fixed wholly on her, his gaze unwavering, his touch deliberate. But for Vireo, every rustle of leaves sounded like a secret revealed, every distant echo a reminder that they stood outside, beneath open sky, where any eye might fall upon them. The thought made her stomach tighten with nervous heat, her breath quickening—not only from fear, but from the dangerous thrill of it.

“Azaqiel…” she whispered, her glance darting toward the ivy-framed archway that led back into the keep.

His thumb traced slow circles over her hipbone, grounding her even as it promised more. “Let them watch the wind and think it only moves the flowers,” he murmured, brushing a kiss against the curve of her jaw. “No one will come here. This is ours—outside of theirs.”

She knew he spoke the truth; he had led her through hidden ways only a god of the depths could know, into a secluded garden shielded by living stone and layered wards. Her family could not reach her here. And yet, the knowledge that they were still beneath the open sky, surrounded by whispering leaves and the breath of night air, sent a subtle chill through her.

Her breath caught in her throat when his mouth found the delicate slope of her neck, lips cool at first, then warmer as he lingered. She felt his breath against her pulse, the faint graze of his sharp teeth, and her fingers curled into his shoulders without thought.

“You are trembling,” he murmured, not as a question, but as an observation.

“It’s… not entirely fear,” she admitted, her voice quiet, uneven.

That earned her a low hum of approval, and his hand slid further under her tunic, palm gliding over the newly soft curve of her waist and up along her ribcage. He touched her as though she were precious and wholly his—no hesitation, no question in his right to touch her like this.

Her breath caught when his thumb brushed the underside of her freshly budded breast, and though her first instinct was to flinch, she found herself leaning into it instead. His gaze caught hers, searching, giving her the choice without words.

Vireo swallowed. “I want…” She hesitated, cheeks warm, then steadied herself. “I want you to keep going.”

The slow, certain smile he gave her was like deep water pulling her under. His hand closed more fully over her breast, fingers splaying as his thumb stroked lightly over the peak. She gasped, the sound breaking in the open air, and the idea that anyone might hear only made her thighs press together.

Azaqiel’s lips brushed her ear. “Let me see you.”

He eased back just enough to take the hem of her tunic in both hands, his fingers brushing against her sides as he began to lift it. The fabric slid upward in slow increments, revealing the golden gleam of her skin to the moonlight. His touch followed the path he uncovered—palms sweeping along her waist, over the subtle curves that still felt unfamiliar to her, fingertips tracing reverent lines as though committing each one to memory.

When the tunic cleared her chest, he paused, eyes drinking her in. The cool iridescence of his skin contrasted against the warm glow of hers as he cupped her breasts fully, thumbs sweeping over her nipples in a slow, aching rhythm.

“You are divine,” he murmured, lowering his head to press a kiss just above her heart. Another followed, then another—each one lower, slower, lingering as though he could worship her into forgetting every doubt she’d carried.

Her breath quickened, her hands finding the back of his neck, feeling the ripple of his muscles beneath her fingers. He kissed the flat of her stomach, the dip of her navel, his hands framing her hips in a way that made her feel claimed and cherished in equal measure.

“Every inch of you,” he said against her skin, “is mine to love.”

Azaqiel sank gracefully to his knees before her, the movement carrying the inevitability of a tide retreating to shore. His orange eyes burned upward at her, molten and unwavering, as his hands slid down her thighs to the hem of her last remaining garment.

“Let me see all of you,” he murmured.

Her pulse stuttered. The night air kissed her bare skin as he eased the fabric down, inch by inch, his cool fingers brushing reverently along the inside of her legs as he bared her completely. When the garment pooled at her ankles, she stepped free of it, trembling but radiant, golden hair tumbling down her back in shimmering waves.

The starlight seemed to catch on her skin, scattering into a soft halo that made her look less like a woman and more like a vision—a being spun of cosmic dust and eternal flame. She felt vulnerable, exposed, yet the hunger and devotion in Azaqiel’s gaze steadied her.

“You are the Golden Queen,” he said, voice low with awe, “but to me you are starlight itself.”

His hands smoothed up her calves, his thumbs tracing slow circles against the sensitive hollows behind her knees before traveling higher. He parted her thighs with unhurried reverence, pressing a kiss to the glimmering inside of one, then the other, each touch lingering, worshipful.

Vireo gasped softly, her fingers tangling in his dark, glossy hair. He kissed a path upward along her thigh, tasting the shimmer of sunshine and starlight on her skin, until her legs quivered under the weight of his attention.

She shone in the light, her body trembling but radiant, and he adored her for every flicker of hesitation and every swell of desire. His hands cradled her hips, strong but gentle, anchoring her as though she might drift away into the night sky.

“You are trembling,” he said again, his mouth brushing close to the core of her. “Not with fear now.”

“No,” she whispered, voice tight, breathless. “Not fear.”

He smiled against her skin, and pressed another kiss just above the place she ached for him most, his lips reverent, his tongue teasing the edge of her longing without yet giving her release. Each kiss along her thighs, each slow caress of his hands, was an offering—worship of the body she had struggled to accept, worship of the goddess he already saw her to be.

And above him, Vireo glowed—her hair a spill of molten gold, her skin sparking with electrcity, her breath shallow as she arched into the dark god’s touch.

Azaqiel’s lips finally found her, his tongue tracing the soft, aching heat at the center of her. Vireo’s breath broke in a shuddering gasp, her knees threatening to give way as pleasure rushed up her spine. His mouth moved with slow, deliberate care—like prayer, like worship—tongue circling, lips sealing over her in long, reverent pulls.

Her fingers tightened in his dark hair as she arched against his mouth, golden light trembling over her skin. He drank her in like he was tasting starlight, each flick of his tongue coaxing small, desperate sounds from her throat. The world fell away into sensation—open air, the garden, the risk of being seen—it all blurred into the rhythm of his mouth and the relentless adoration in his hands.

“Azaqiel,” she gasped, voice cracking under the weight of pleasure. “I—please—”

But instead of begging for more, her trembling fingers urged him gently upward. He stilled instantly, lifting his gaze, his mouth glistening, his expression reverent and hungry all at once.

Vireo’s golden eyes glowed in the moonlight, wide with desire and something deeper. “I want… to see you,” she whispered, her voice shaking but certain. “Not like this. Not the man-shape you wear. You. All of you. Please.”

Azaqiel rose slowly to his feet, towering over her with the stillness of the deep. For a long moment, he only searched her face, as if making sure the request was no fleeting whim. Then his smile curved, dark and tender.

“You shall,” he murmured. “If you are certain.”

“I am,” she breathed, light sparking over her bare skin. “I want all of you.”

And then the air thickened. The edges of his humanoid form wavered, dissolving into shadow and depth. The cool, smooth skin of his body shimmered and split into coils of darkness that unfurled like wings, like gravity made flesh. Iridescent tentacles stretched from the void of him, glistening with faint, cosmic light as though constellations lived in their slick surface. His eyes, no longer bound to a face, glowed like suns drowning in deep water.

Vireo’s breath caught, not in fear, but in awe. She reached for him, golden against his abyss, and he enveloped her with exquisite care. A dozen tendrils wrapped around her waist, her thighs, her arms—holding her without restraining, stroking her skin with slow, sensuous caresses that left her trembling.

The contrast was overwhelming—cool, slick pressure against her radiant warmth, the feel of his suckered limbs worshiping the length of her thighs, sliding along the curve of her hips, teasing the swell of her breasts. Each movement was reverent, exploratory, tasting her with touch, as if he meant to learn every inch of her by feel alone.

She moaned, soft and broken, head falling back as one of his tentacles brushed teasingly against her inner thigh, circling but not yet claiming. “You’re… incredible,” she gasped, her voice catching.

His voice rumbled through the air, everywhere and nowhere at once, vibrating in her bones. “You are the one who shines. I will wrap you in my depths until you forget where the stars end and I begin.”

A tendril coiled around her wrist, lifting her arm with slow, reverent insistence until her own glowing fingers brushed the swell of her breast. He guided her hand to cup herself, to stroke the tender curve as his other tendrils teased and caressed.

“Adore yourself first,” he whispered, the words thrumming through her chest. “Learn the shape of your own longing. Let your touch remind you—you are holy to me, and to yourself.”

Her breath hitched as her palm pressed more firmly against her breast, her thumb grazing her nipple until it tightened beneath her touch. The sensation made her gasp, not from his caress but her own, the realization that pleasure could rise from her body’s response to itself. A blush spread over her skin, glowing faintly where goddess-light still shimmered beneath the surface.

“Do you feel it?” Azaqiel’s voice curled low, thick with reverence. “The way your body sings when you command it?”

“Yes,” she breathed, shaky, the word almost lost between sighs. She rolled her palm in slow circles, the ache of want tightening low in her belly. His tendrils did not move to claim her further—only to hold her steady, to frame her in his presence while she learned her own hunger.

He coiled around her waist, brushing over her thighs, not invading but reminding her of his endless patience. “Touch deeper,” he urged softly. “Let your hands learn the places I already worship.”

Her free hand, trembling, drifted lower at his bidding, fingers slipping downward to trace the soft, newly-formed curve of her belly, the tender slope that had not existed before her transformation. She hesitated, nerves and heat tangling, until another tendril wrapped around her wrist and guided her down, pressing her hand against the warmth between her thighs.

Her cry broke open the silence.

“Good,” he murmured, his tone both command and comfort. “Do not hide from yourself. Feel how your body has bloomed. Feel what I have longed to worship.”

Her fingers moved tentatively at first, then with growing certainty as Azaqiel’s tendrils stroked along her shoulders and jaw, praising her with touches that felt like constellations wrapping her in light. She arched into her own hand, her palm still cupping her breast, her hips beginning to rock to the rhythm of her own exploration.

“Beautiful,” he crooned. “Every gasp, every shiver—yours. Before I touch you again, you must know what it means to be wanted by yourself.”

Her lips parted on a desperate moan, pleasure building sharp and sweet inside her, overwhelming in its intimacy. She wasn’t chasing his touch, but her own. For the first time, she believed him: she was holy, radiant, untouchable, and yet entirely hers to adore.

And only then—when she was trembling, flushed, on the edge of breaking—did his tendrils close in again, coiling with slow, inexorable strength to join her hand, to magnify what she had begun.

They curled more firmly around her, lifting her from the grass so she hung suspended in his embrace. Vireo gasped, golden hair tumbling like a comet’s tail around her face, her bare body glittering faintly in the moonlight. She was starlight incarnate, and Azaqiel held her as though she were his altar, his offering, his eternity.

The first brush of him against her sex made her moan aloud—slick, insistent, not at all human. A tendril traced lazy circles over her, spreading her open with patient reverence before sliding inside. The stretch was shocking, but not painful—he filled her with slow, deliberate care, as though he could mold himself perfectly to her shape.

Her back arched, light scattering from her skin in trembling sparks. “Azaqiel…” she gasped, her voice broken on his name.

More tendrils caressed her thighs, her belly, her breasts—each touch different, one teasing, one soothing, one squeezing with gentle firmness until her body thrummed with sensation. The suckered tips dragged across her nipples, wet and cool, tugging softly until she whimpered. Another stroked between her thighs, circling the swollen bud of her clit in perfect counterpoint to the one filling her.

“You are endless” , his voice echoed, not in her ears but in her mind, resonant as a tide. “You are gold poured into the cracks of the cosmos. I am yours as you are mine.”

Every stroke inside her pulled moans from her throat, her body rocking helplessly against him in midair. She felt unmade and remade with each thrust, every nerve alight, every inch of her claimed by him. His tentacles shifted around her, some cradling, some restraining just enough to remind her she was surrounded, enveloped in the infinite.

She reached out blindly, clutching at the slick coil that held her wrist, pressing her mouth to it in instinctive devotion. The taste was brine and starlight, strange and intoxicating, and he shuddered in answer—a ripple through every tentacle that only made his thrusts deepen.

“You feel… goddess, you feel so good,” she gasped, her body trembling in his grasp, golden light spilling brighter with every movement.

“Because you were made for me, he answered, voice vibrating through her chest. And I for you . ”

Another tendril pressed at her entrance, stretching her further, filling her until she cried out in rapture. She should have felt overwhelmed, but instead it was bliss, her body singing with it, as though she had been waiting her whole life for this exact surrender.

The rhythm built—thrusts steady and consuming, suction teasing her breasts, her thighs, her clit until she was nothing but sensation. Her body shook, light spilling from her skin like a thousand stars breaking free, her golden hair whipping as if caught in a solar wind.

And when her climax broke, it was cosmic—her cry sharp and radiant, her body arching as light flared outward in a cascade of shimmering brilliance. Azaqiel roared in answer, a sound that shook the garden’s stones, his tentacles contracting around her in waves of ecstatic possession.

He did not stop worshipping her—his tendrils still stroking, still filling, still caressing every part of her until her orgasm fractured into another, then another, each one tearing more light from her body until she burned like a small sun in his embrace.

At last, he drew her close, folding her against the vastness of his form, his tentacles curling around her like a cocoon. She was limp, trembling, glowing faintly against his darkness, her breath shallow but sated.

He pressed what passed for his mouth—or perhaps it was a thought, or a kiss of gravity itself against her lips, whispering into her soul. 

“I will always find you, my queen.”

Vireo smiled, eyes heavy, golden light flickering softer now. “We will always find each other.”

And she let herself be held in his eldritch embrace, cradled between starlight and the abyss, knowing she was worshiped as wholly as she desired.

The garden was hushed, heavy with the weight of what they had unleashed. The air still shimmered faintly with Vireo’s light, golden motes drifting like dust across the dark coils of Azaqiel’s true form. She lay nestled in his embrace, wrapped in silken tentacles that pulsed faintly with his heartbeat, as though she were floating in the deepest ocean and the starlit sky all at once.

Her skin still glowed, damp with the sheen of their joining, hair spilling over her shoulders like a river of molten light. She let her cheek rest against the smooth inner curve of one of his limbs, sighing softly as his tendrils tightened around her in a protective cocoon.

This was not the closeness of mortals, but of gods—their essences entwining as much as their bodies had, her golden radiance blending into the abyssal gravity of him. Where they touched, starlight sank into shadow, and shadow kissed it back, soft and infinite.

“You’re quiet,” Azaqiel murmured, his voice a ripple in her bones, more felt than heard. One tendril brushed idly through her hair, letting it spill like sunlit threads across the darkness.

Vireo smiled, her lips curving even as exhaustion softened her golden eyes. “I’m savoring. Don’t ruin it.”

A rumble of amusement echoed from him, deep and tender, as another tentacle curled around her thigh with possessive affection.

She tilted her head to look up at him, mischief glimmering faintly through the afterglow. “Though I will say… I’m very glad we have our own little pocket dimension. Can you imagine if my brothers walked in on that?”

The sound he made was low, rich, and amused—a current that vibrated through every limb encircling her. “They would have drowned in my shadow before they could blink.”

She laughed, a soft, breathless sound. “Romantic. Terrifying. Exactly what I expected you to say.”

He drew her closer still, cocooning her until the outside world truly ceased to exist, and pressed what passed for a kiss—gravity, pressure, devotion—against her lips. “ Rest now, he whispered into the space of her mind. You are safe in me.”

Her eyes fluttered shut, her smile lingering as she let herself sink against him. “Safe in you,” she echoed softly, drifting into the afterglow like a star falling into the sea.

-

“Now,” Maldrien began pointedly, watching Virya cradle the head in her lap, “you cannot do exactly the things I told you not to do with him until he’s fully conscripted and the lattice is complete. You have to let the runes fuse.”

“Daddy always says you have to crack a few eggs before you can make an omelette,” Virya sniffed, running her fingers through the head’s hair. He was unusually quiet. Maldrien might have worried—if they could afford to worry. They couldn’t.

He was just a head. A component for Virya’s design. He was just a head.

The head looked up at them. His eyes—gold like Oriole’s—were beginning to lose their glitter. She was using the control runes too much. If she wasn’t careful, she’d kill the very things about him she liked.

“Well, while Father is absolutely correct, Virya,” Maldrien said, checking a few calibrations on the waiting body, “he would also want you to be successful. Now—do you want me to attach the head, or would you prefer to try yourself?”

She held it out toward them. “You can start.”

Maldrien took the head carefully, turning it in their hands before running their fingers through his hair to deactivate the runes she’d pressed too hard. They felt his jaw ease beneath their palm—he’d been clenching it.

The flicker of emotion that slipped through the cracks in Maldrien’s chest was quickly seized and shoved away. This was science, not therapy.

“Ahh,” the head sighed, jaw loosening. “That’s better. Thought my teeth were about to fuse into one big judgmental molar.”

Maldrien arched a brow. “You’re welcome.”

Noct blinked up at them, slow and deliberate. “So what’s the prognosis, doctor? Am I going to live a long, fulfilling life as a decorative paperweight?”

Virya swatted his temple lightly. “You were fine.”

“I was not fine,” he retorted. “I was one poke away from developing a personality as bland as that guy, Strix.”

Maldrien’s lips twitched—just barely. “Strix has a personality. Albeit, at times, the personality of a potato.”

“Exactly my point,” Noct said, smirking faintly. “A tuber of tragedy.”

Maldrien’s gaze flicked up to Virya. Her brow was furrowed now, her jaw tight. It was unclear whether the head would suffer later for his glib tone—though Maldrien was certain he would suffer regardless. Virya was ever their father’s daughter, and the way she paraded the poor head around like a pet made it clear his fate, once he had a body, would be equal parts elation and misery.

“I had to turn off the runes, Virya,” Maldrien said, attempting damage control. “He can’t help what comes out of his mouth. Remember—aetheric feedback is real. It’s what Father used to fuel Oriole’s transformation.”

Their sister visibly relaxed. “I suppose you’re right.” For a moment, her expression turned mournful. “Should I be more careful with the control runes, do you think, Mal?”

“You told me you liked him a little cheeky. Locking him down entirely is a good way to kill that.” Maldrien was quietly grateful she was asking for advice. “Control runes dampen feelings. And if you wear a groove into the lattice that turns them off, eventually they won’t turn them on again without a great deal of force.”

They glanced down at the head, who was listening intently—his golden eyes sparkling once more, his mouth curled into a soft smile that revealed the dimple in his left cheek.

Maldrien understood the appeal. Objectively, he was very cute. Irritatingly cute. The kind of cute that made them resent the fact they had noticed at all.

“Careful,” Noct drawled, eyes glinting. “If you keep looking at me like that, I might start thinking you’ve got a crush.”

Virya laughed outright. “Oh, Nocturne, you’re very silly. Maldrien would never have a crush on you. They don’t have feelings like that. Daddy says that’s what makes them so strong.”

Maldrien closed their eyes and swallowed back a sigh.

They could feel their father’s attention sweeping over them, and the flicker of warm flirtation was crushed down into a tight little ball and squashed out of existence. They didn’t have time for this.

“I told you not to flirt with me. Please respect my wishes.”

“Oh-kayy, sorry.” The head sounded genuinely regretful as Maldrien handed him back to Virya.

“I’m going to activate the calibration runes on the body’s lattice.” They wagged a finger at her. “And you absolutely may not touch him anywhere below the belt before I get the circulatory system running correctly.”

She looked up at them like a scolded dog. “I know, I’m sorry. He’s just so pretty.” Her gaze drifted longingly toward the construct’s body.

It was beautiful. That much was true. Objectively. Maldrien reminded themselves of that fact firmly.

The war arm was one of their father’s prized acquisitions. Nobody knew exactly where he had gotten it—most of the Velthari had disenchanted their arms before the fall of Vel-thar. Maldrien had a theory about its origin, one they dared not think too closely on.

The arm itself had been heavily warded—Xirathi, Velthari, and Ossuary control runes all threaded together in a complex diamond-cubic lattice of Maldrien’s own design, though Virya had applied the markings by hand. They had double-checked every line to ensure the resonance was stable, not asynchronous. One slip in harmony, and the lattice would shatter, the arm would disenchant itself, and the piece would be ruined.

And Father would be furious.

Well, furious with Maldrien.

“Go ahead and activate the collar runes for me, Vir. We’ll need them at full power for adhesion.” Maldrien turned toward the head. “It might hurt, or tickle, or feel like nothing at all. It’s different for every construct. It depends on you.”

“What do you mean, it depends on me?”

“Just—” Maldrien’s eyes flicked to Virya, then to the pendant at her neck where the mass of the head’s soul was bound. She hadn’t prepared the rest of him. She wasn’t planning to—not yet.

If his whole soul were present, the sensation would have echoed whatever feeling sat strongest in his being. The thing that made him tick, the core of what made him… him.

Maldrien remembered crying when Father first awoke them, and Virya—so little then—trying to soothe them by pressing her doll into their hands.

“It just does,” Maldrien said at last.

The head accepted this without argument, making a face Maldrien had come to recognize as his attempt at a nod. Virya began activating the Ossuary runes carved into the flesh at the base of his neck.

Maldrien didn’t know what had separated the rogue’s head from his body—only that Strix had done it, sometime amid the chaos of Oriole’s transformation.

After the Golden Queen had left with the Silver King.
After Strix had collapsed into a sobbing mess.
After Father had chastised them for failing to kill the Silver King yet again.

Virya had walked into the throne room and collected the head as if she were plucking a flower.

They remembered her words, light with delight: “This is the little rogue who loves to steal from the cathedrals in the wastes. He loves bells. I want to make sure he has all the bells he will ever want.”

Oriole had been disgusted.

Maldrien was never sure if it was the head itself—or Strix’s sobbing—that repulsed the elf more. They remembered Oriole muttering, “This is a terrible birthday party,” before doing as Father commanded and hauling the body away to be discarded.

Maldrien adjusted the scaffolding of bone and brass that held the body upright to a lying position, their fingers gliding over the etched sigils to check for resonance. 

Virya had been meticulous in her scavenging. A ribcage reinforced with Xirathi struts. A spine threaded with Ossuarite. Limbs pieced together with precision, the flesh carefully matched and stretched so the seams disappeared under a veil of runes. Even the war arm gleamed under the lantern light, every joint warded, every muscle-thread bound in neat multi-dimensional diamond-cubic lattices that hummed with borrowed life.

It was their work too. Their designs woven through every plate and tendon, their lattices calculated to hold together what should never have stood again. Perfection, carved from theft and grief.

And yet—under all that artistry, the truth was plain.

Control runes threaded across every limb, laced through the torso, biting into the delicate glyphwork around the heart-cage. The body was a prison as much as a vessel.

Maldrien let their hand linger there, fingers brushing the line of an anchoring sigil.

It reminded them too much of themselves. Every thought they’d ever tucked away, every flicker of forbidden emotion, bound and pressed down beneath their father’s hand. Just like this body—shining, intricate, bound by leashes that no one else could see.

They drew a slow breath, folding the ache down into its usual corner, and looked back to Virya.

“Beautiful work,” they said, quietly honest. 

They gestured for her to come forward. “I can do this for you if you want, but I think you’d rather be the one to draw the final sigil.”

Virya nodded and rose to her feet. The head smiled, though there was a nervous flicker in his eyes. “So… this isn’t going to be like last time, right? I’m not going to black out and have weird dreams about bees?”

Virya shushed him gently. “Of course you’re going to be fine. Mal is the best at latticework—other than Father—and they taught me everything they know.”

She lifted the head carefully and stepped forward, intent on soldering it into place atop its new body.

Maldrien frowned faintly at that. Bees? They filed the remark away, already uneasy about what he might have dreamed and why the control runes had left him with that particular echo.

Virya bent over the body with steady hands, her expression one of rapt concentration. The tip of her stylus traced the final lines of the adhesion sigil, neat and deliberate, every curve glowing faintly as it sank into flesh. Maldrien watched her work with a quiet precision of their own, tracking the resonance, listening for any discord in the lattice.

The moment the last stroke was complete, the collar runes flared. A soft hum pulsed through the room, building into a steady thrum that resonated in the ribs of the construct. Virya pressed the head into place, her palms cupping either side as the runes crawled across the seam like molten light, knitting bone to bone, flesh to flesh.

“Hold steady,” Maldrien murmured, though whether to Virya or the head, they weren’t sure.

The body shuddered.

*

For Nocturne, it was like being struck by lightning and drowned in warmth all at once.

A rush of sensation tore through him—alien, overwhelming, and achingly familiar. Fingers twitched first, then lungs spasmed in a breath he hadn’t expected to take. Sound rushed in sharp and immediate: the scrape of Virya’s stylus, the low hum of lattices vibrating in unison, the soft hitch in Maldrien’s breath.

Heat flooded him next, a living burn racing through muscle-thread and bone, blooming outward until every inch of him sang. Last time—when Virya had tried alone—he remembered only the touching. The flood of feeling, and the dream of his mother? And the bees?

But this was different.

This body answered.

The latticework held true. The runes spun their rhythm. Every sigil sang in harmony. He flexed his fingers against the table, and the jolt of contact—skin against polished bone—nearly made him gasp.

His eyes flew open, golden irises catching the glow of the runes as they settled into a low, steady hum. The dizzy rush of I exist spiraled through him, brighter and sharper than anything he had felt since awakening in the heart-shaped box.

Virya’s face was the first thing he saw—close, intent, her eyes gleaming with triumph. Beyond her, Maldrien lingered, their features locked into careful restraint. But even so, he caught the flicker of something softer in their gaze, just for an instant, before it disappeared..

And for the first time, Nocturne felt not like a head on display—but whole.

Alive.

The joy surged too big for silence. It broke out of him in a wild shout, a peal of laughter that shook through his newly forged frame and filled the chamber with its reckless brightness.

He crowed with delight, drunk on sensation, reveling in the miracle of his own return to wholeness.

Virya squealed in delight, spinning in a giddy little circle as if she’d just unwrapped the finest gift she’d ever received. Noct’s laughter rolled over hers, bright and unrestrained, spilling into every corner of the workshop until the walls seemed to ring with it.

Maldrien folded their hands behind their back, watching the scene with carefully schooled composure. And yet, despite themselves, a faint tug of something eased the sharp line of their mouth.

“Well… better joy than screaming,” they murmured dryly.

And with that, the work was done. 

The head was a whole.

Chapter Text

Virya fussed over the buttons of his coat like a tailor preparing a mannequin. Noct tried to help, but his fingers betrayed him—clumsy, rebellious things, as if they belonged to someone else. Which, technically, they had until recently.

“Now, you need to mind your manners with Daddy,” she said, cinching a buckle with brisk efficiency.

He arched a brow. “Let me guess—this is the part where you tell me he doesn’t laugh at jokes?”

She smoothed the shoulders of the coat until they lay perfectly flat, her smile soft but oddly sharp around the edges. “Daddy has a wonderful sense of humor. He just doesn’t have patience for frippery. Especially when he’s inspecting our work. So I want you to be good, all right?”

Her fingers drifted up his throat, featherlight. Noct stilled. The touch looked casual, even affectionate, but the moment her skin brushed over a cluster of runes near his pulse, something in him shifted. A faint hum under his skin, like static climbing a wire. Not pain. Not even unpleasant. Just… a tug. Like a leash tightening somewhere deep inside him.

The sensation made him swallow—except swallowing felt like another borrowed motion he was relearning. He forced a crooked smile instead. “Sure. Good. That’s me. The very picture of etiquette. I’ll even say ‘please’ if your dad disassembles me for parts.”

Virya’s answering look was so fond it almost disguised the fact she hadn’t denied that possibility.

He dropped his gaze to the outfit she’d put him in. It was elegant, severe—black cloth with subtle sheen, cut to flatter a body he was still adjusting to. His hair, trimmed neatly under her guidance, framed his face in sharper lines than he remembered having. Did he use to be this tall? This lean? His reflection in the polished bone of the wall suggested some tragic prince caught halfway between memory and invention.

And then there were his eyes. Golden. Too golden now. They caught the light and returned it like a predator. He kept catching sight of himself and startling, as though someone else had wandered into the room wearing his skin.

“Breathe,” Virya murmured absently as she adjusted a collar tab. Her hand brushed his throat again, and that strange, humming pull flared, stronger this time. He felt his spine straighten against his will, his chin tipping up just so.

Noct blinked. “Wow. Look at that posture. Guess dying really was the cure for slouching.”

She laughed softly and finished the last buckle.

Inside, though, he was less amused. Jokes kept the panic at bay, but the thought of being marched in front of the Emperor made something cold coil in his gut. He wasn’t sure what unsettled him more: the idea of meeting a god in flesh, or the possibility of disappointing the daughter who’d quite literally rebuilt him.

And the worst part? The way her touch on his throat still tingled, humming in time with a rhythm he couldn’t feel but couldn’t ignore.

Virya slipped her arm through his, elegant and sure, and Noct let himself be guided. He wasn’t sure his legs had quite gotten the hang of walking yet—every stride felt like it belonged to a marionette that hadn’t practiced—but she made it look natural. To anyone watching, they could’ve been siblings on a stroll, or lovers off to a banquet. Not necromancer and project. Not girl and her stitched-together corpse.

The Ossuary’s halls stretched ahead of them, ribbed arches of pale bone lit with sconces that flickered like veins of trapped fire. Each step echoed too loudly in Noct’s ears, the sound bouncing around his skull.

He tried a smile. “So, what’s the etiquette here? Do I bow, do I kiss a ring, or do I just hope he doesn’t smite me for existing?”

“Politeness,” Virya replied smoothly, tugging him a little closer against her side. “Let me do the talking.”

Her fingers brushed the runes at his throat again. The tug returned—subtle, almost gentle, but absolute. His back straightened, his steps evened. Even his smile softened into something more agreeable, as though he’d suddenly meant it.

And yet, under that imposed calm, a different sensation churned.

The deeper they walked into the Ossuary, the more he felt it: a pressure in the air, thickening with each corridor. Not like heat or weight, but like gravity deciding to pay special attention to him. The closer they drew to the Emperor, the more his stomach knotted, his breath hitching in ways he tried to laugh off.

“Oh, good,” he muttered under his breath, “anxiety that doesn’t even belong to me. New body, same nerves.”

But it wasn’t just nerves. Some deeper instinct—something sharp and sideways, the part of him that spoke in half-jokes and stage whispers to no one—already knew: standing before the Emperor would not feel like meeting a king. It would feel like being pinned beneath a collapsing sky.

And what unnerved him most was how right that knowledge felt, like remembering the ending of a story he hadn’t read yet.

He forced another grin, lighter this time, flashing it down at Virya. She beamed back, satisfied. Her runes hummed against his throat, smoothing out the edges of his fear, coaxing him into the role she wanted: cheerful, polite, presentable.

For her, he’d play along.

Inside, though, every step toward the throne felt like one closer to drowning.

The doors opened with a hollow groan, the sound reverberating through the ribbed chamber like the beginning of a dirge. Virya led him forward, her arm still looped neatly through his.

And then he saw him.

The Emperor sat upon the skeletal throne as if he had been carved into existence alongside it. His form was human—golden hair spilling like molten moonlight, skin luminous as polished ivory, eyes the molten color of sunrise caught in still water. Every line of him radiated the impossible poise of something only pretending to be flesh.

Noct’s chest tightened. His first thought wasn’t awe. It was familiarity.

Because just a step from the throne stood Maldrien, where the Emperor was all brilliance—gold hair, golden eyes, resplendent in every shade of light—Maldrien was the shadow thrown by it. Pale and drawn, shoulders carrying a weight invisible but undeniable, their presence seemed to leach the color from the air around them. The resemblance between them snagged in Noct’s chest: the same sharp bones of the face, the same echo of jaw and cheek, but hollowed, muted, as though the Emperor had stolen the saturation and left them in grayscale.

The sight made something inside Noct ache. He couldn’t have said why—it wasn’t his grief to carry—but the heaviness in Maldrien’s expression stirred sadness in him all the same, sharp and uninvited.

Noct blinked, then leaned toward Virya, voice pitched in a whisper that probably wasn’t nearly quiet enough.

“Okay, I’m no expert, but… wow, your family’s got a real strong brand going on. Is this what genetics looks like in practice? Terrifying.”

Virya’s nails brushed the control runes at his neck, a subtle warning that sent a hum straight down his spine. The smile she angled at the Emperor didn’t waver, but her voice was a soft hush against his ear.

“Not now.”

The reprimand pulled his posture even straighter. His grin lingered, thin but still there, as if plastered in place. He kept his eyes fixed on the Emperor, though every instinct screamed at him not to.

And goddess, the gravity of it.

The god’s presence didn’t just fill the room; it pressed down, heavy and deliberate, as though the laws of reality had bent to accommodate him. Noct could feel his pulse in his throat, thudding beneath Virya’s runes, reminding him that this body—even stitched together, even borrowed—was breakable.

He drew a shaky breath and tried, desperately, to make light of it. “Well,” he murmured, his voice a touch too high, “at least he looks approachable. Like he’s about to sell me very expensive wine, or condemn me to eternal torment. One of the two.”

Virya’s fingers tightened just slightly on his arm. “Smile,” she whispered.

So he did.

Even as his soul shrank from the weight of the Emperor’s golden gaze.

The Emperor rose from the throne with the slow inevitability of a tide. Every step down from the dais seemed choreographed by the world itself, as though even gravity bent to his rhythm.

Noct’s grin stayed fixed, but it was all scaffolding. Inside, everything in him wanted to fold.

Golden eyes swept over him once, then again, and the air changed. The Emperor’s hand lifted, and a thin shimmer rippled outward—necromancy folded into light. Noct shivered as the magic passed through him, tugging faintly at the seams of his body. For an instant, he caught a glimpse of it himself: glowing strands of runes traced across his chest and collarbone, the lattice burning into view like veins of fire beneath skin.

The Emperor’s gaze sharpened. “Clean work,” he said, voice rich and measured. “No bleed in the lattice. No fracture. The soul fragment hums in perfect resonance.”

Noct swallowed. His mind supplied at least three jokes about humming—about being tuned like an instrument, or accidentally breaking into song—but when he tried to open his mouth, the control runes at his throat pulsed. The leash tugged, and nothing came out but silence.

Virya’s smile was radiant.

The Emperor’s attention shifted. His hand rose again, and this time the projection bled down into Noct’s left arm. The war-arm responded with a faint glow of its own, runes glimmering in mottled stone-flesh like buried embers. Even through the illusion, Noct felt the limb itch, aware of being watched.

“Your lattice works well with the Velthari design,” the Emperor murmured. “Preserved. Integrated. Control runes placed with precision.” His gaze flicked toward Virya, and for a heartbeat, the weight of approval made her glow even brighter. “You have surpassed expectations.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” she said sweetly.

Noct shifted minutely, the coat tight across his shoulders. The Emperor’s praise for the control runes made his stomach tighten, a flicker of worry he couldn’t quite name sparking at the base of his throat. But just as quickly as it rose, the hum of Virya’s runes smoothed it flat again—no room for doubt, no space for rebellion. He was supposed to be good. He was supposed to be calm.

So he bent into a bow—slightly too stiff, slightly too long—and forced out, “Thank you, sire.”

It came out steady. Almost courtly. A miracle.

And somehow, against every instinct, he managed not to add: Do I get a sticker now?

The Emperor’s golden gaze lingered on Noct as he straightened from the bow. Something in that look made his skin prickle, like a hand pressed flat against his soul.

“Polite,” the god said at last, voice smooth as polished bone. “Remarkably so.” His eyes flicked briefly toward Virya. “The runes hold beautifully. Even when they brush against something… slippery.”

Noct blinked. Slippery? He wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or a very expensive insult.

The Emperor’s smile deepened, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Not all bindings take so well. Some souls resist the lattice—squirm, shift, evade. Like shadows that will not lie still.” His gaze sharpened, pinning Noct in place. “But here… obedience rests as if it were always meant to be.”

He didn’t know why the Emperor’s tone felt like he was describing him.

And worse—why it felt true.

Noct’s mouth opened before his brain could stop it. The line was right there—something ridiculous about being a very well-trained dog, or about shadow-souls needing obedience school. Anything to break the tension.

But then his gaze snagged on Maldrien.

They stood just beside the throne, shoulders bowed beneath invisible weight, eyes rimmed with exhaustion that no sleep could cure. That quiet, unshakable sadness in their face hit Noct like a hand to the chest—sharp, uninvited. And in that instant, he knew. Not how, not why, but knew in the deep sideways way his mind sometimes whispered things: if he joked now, if he pushed against the string of those runes, the fallout wouldn’t just land on him.

It would hurt them, too.

His throat tightened. The hum of the runes pulsed, gentle but insistent, pressing him toward stillness, toward silence. He let the half-formed quip die on his tongue and pulled his smile back into place instead.

Cheerful. Polite. Presentable.

Exactly as Virya wanted.

Even if every part of him ached to say something—anything—just to remind himself he was still in there.

The Emperor’s gaze lingered a moment longer, then softened into something that looked almost warm. Almost.

“He will serve,” he said, the words measured, final. “You’ve shaped him well, my daughter. Elegant work. Precise. Loyal.”

Virya’s smile bloomed like fire catching silk. “Thank you, Daddy.”

He inclined his head, then gestured faintly toward the chamber doors. “Return to your duties. The flock grows restless without their shepherd, and now you have your hound at your side. He will keep order. Enforce your word.”

The hum of the runes pulsed at Noct’s throat, settling the phrase in him like a command. Hound. Enforcer. The words rooted deep, deeper than he wanted them to.

Virya dipped her head in graceful acknowledgment, but her emerald eyes gleamed with eagerness. “If he’s to be my hound,” she said brightly, “then he’ll need teeth. A weapon. Might I ask for a sword?”

The Emperor’s smile turned enigmatic. “Not yet.”

Her brow furrowed in the faintest show of impatience. “But—”

“I have something in mind,” he interrupted smoothly. “You will wait. Patience, little flame.”

The word fell like a commandment, and the air seemed to tighten around it.

From the corner of his eye, Noct caught Maldrien’s reaction. Their spine straightened, shoulders locking rigid, as if bracing against some unseen blow. The quiet gloom that clung to them flared into something sharper—alarm, dread, perhaps—but whatever it was, it cut deep enough for Noct to feel it in his bones.

He wanted to speak—wanted to ask, to deflect, to say something. But the runes at his throat thrummed like a cord yanking taut. He remained silent.

Cheerful. Polite. Presentable.

And utterly helpless.

-

The heavy doors sealed behind them with a hollow boom, the sound rolling down the corridor like a final word.

Virya’s steps were quick, almost buoyant. She slipped her arm through Noct’s again, her smile radiant. “You were perfect,” she said, her voice low and delighted. “So polite. So handsome. Daddy was impressed—he said so!”

Noct’s chest filled with something bright and golden at the praise, so sudden and dizzying it almost made him stumble. It felt good—no, it felt incredible—to hear her pleased with him. To see her smile at him like that. His body hummed with the satisfaction, warmth seeping into every nerve like sunlight through stained glass.

He didn’t realize that was the leash, too.

All he knew was that he would do anything to keep that joy in her voice.

They turned a corner—and nearly collided with a pair coming the other way.

Oriole stopped short, eyes narrowing at Virya. His silver hair was a tangle, his tunic rumpled and stained with something best left uninvestigated. The look he threw at her was pure younger-brother venom, sharp with mockery. “Well, well. Out parading your project already? Didn’t waste any time, did you?”

Virya rolled her eyes, tugging Noct a little closer to her side like a prized possession. “Don’t start, Ori. You’re just jealous.”

“Of what?” Oriole scoffed, gesturing vaguely with a clawed hand. “Your creepy doll? Please.” His amber-shot eyes flicked over Noct once—dismissive, scathing—and then slid right past him, as if he were furniture.

Noct blinked, caught between relief at being ignored and the sudden sting of invisibility. His grin wavered, but Virya’s fingers brushed the runes at his throat, and the tug soothing his feelings for him.

It was Strix who held his gaze.

The man stood just behind Oriole, tall and broad-shouldered, armor etched with skullwork, his posture as rigid as the Ossuary walls. His face was carved from marble—handsome, severe—and his eyes were voids of dulled green without warmth. Noct looked into them and felt… nothing.

Not emptiness like his own jokes tried to cover. Not weariness like Maldrien. Just hollow. A stillness so complete it was eerie, like staring into the husk of a man who had been emptied out long ago and left moving only because someone insisted he must.

Noct’s grin faltered again, and for a heartbeat, he wanted to shiver.

But the collar of runes hummed, tugging, smoothing. Smile. Be pleasant. Don’t flinch.

So he straightened, chin lifting, and returned Strix’s stare with all the calm he could muster.

Two constructs, sizing each other up—one hollow, one humming.

Oriole’s smirk widened the moment he clocked Virya’s arm looped through Noct’s. He leaned against the wall with casual malice, eyes flicking over the pair of them.

“Well, isn’t this charming?” he drawled. “You finally stitched together your boyfriend. Took long enough. Hopefully, your control lattice won’t fray. It would be a shame if he remembers himself.  He’s so annoying.”

Virya’s smile tightened, just at the edges. “Careful, Ori.”

He ignored her. His eyes skimmed briefly toward Noct—dismissive, scornful—but the words landed squarely on her. “I’m surprised you pinned him down.  He’s flighty. Quick with his hands. The kind you’d never trust with your jewelry box.” His grin turned vicious. “Not very loyal.”

Noct’s chest twinged with a strange pang, as if some buried part of him recognized the jab. He almost laughed—half a joke about being everyone’s second choice thief already perched on his tongue—but the runes hummed, erasing it away.

Virya’s nails pressed against the runes at his throat, her smile sharpening. “Don’t.”

Oriole’s laugh rang down the corridor, bright and mocking. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it. I know the rules. We’re not supposed to remind him, are we?” His eyes glittered as he added, sing-song sweet, “Besides, you’ve made yourself a lapdog. Nothing makes me happier than seeing him this way.”

Virya’s green eyes snapped, her grip on Noct tightening like a clamp. “You’re so rude.”

“Mm,” Oriole hummed, thoroughly pleased with himself. “And you’re desperate for attention.”

His gaze cut toward Noct one last time—fleeting, contemptuous—before dismissing him outright. “Enjoy your toy, sister.”

Virya tugged Noct sharply down the hall before the air could curdle further, her coat flaring behind her like a banner.

Noct’s grin stayed pinned to his face, pleasant and agreeable under the runes, but inside, his thoughts crackled like static. Something in Oriole’s words had felt too sharp, too close, like hooks dragging through half-forgotten waters.

And Strix’s hollow stare, fixed on him as they passed, did nothing to ease it.

-

The throne room was silent again, save for the faint hum of sigils along the ribbed ceiling. The air seemed thinner without Virya’s bright presence, shadows lengthening across the polished bone floor.

Maldrien remained at their post beside the throne, hands folded neatly, eyes fixed on nothing. Waiting. 

The Emperor shifted. Not abruptly—never abruptly—but with the languid inevitability of a stormfront gathering on the horizon. The human guise began to loosen, unraveling thread by gilded thread. His golden hair bled into light itself, his flesh paling into something radiant and wrong. The lines of his body stretched, elongated, until what stood before Maldrien was not a man but a god restrained in skin only by choice.

“Your sister has done well,” he said, voice reverberating deeper now, layered as though more than one throat spoke at once. He smiled, all warmth on the surface. “But then… she had help.”

Maldrien’s jaw tightened, just slightly. They did not look away.

“Do not be modest,” the Emperor purred, stepping closer, each movement accompanied by a ripple in the air. “I see your hand in every seam of him. Every rune so neatly placed. A work of love.”

Their lips pressed into a thin line. Silence.

The Emperor tilted his head. “You don’t agree? Strange. I thought perhaps you would be proud. Or at least… possessive.” His smile sharpened. “It’s our nature after all.”

A faint glimmer of irritation flickered in Maldrien’s gaze. Their father seized on it like a cat with a wounded bird.

“There it is,” he murmured. “A spark. I wondered if you still had it in you.” His presence swelled, pressing closer, filling their lungs until every breath was thick with him. “Does it bother you, then? Watching her take your work, control it, control him? Does it ache that he will never look at you the way he looks at her?”

Maldrien’s hands curled at their sides. The pulse of shame—or fury—was there for a moment, and then it was gone. Folded away, locked behind the same steel wall they always kept between themselves and him.

The Emperor’s smile soured, faintly. “No?” His voice slipped colder. “Still hiding, still dull. How tedious you are when you will not break.”

He reached out, long fingers grazing the line of their jaw, the gesture intimate and terrible. “Perhaps we need to remember what breaking feels like?”

The air shifted again, the weight of his gaze pinning them in place. “A reminder that you are nothing but a keeper of something greater than you.”

His smile spread wide, cruel. “Take your femur, Maldrien. The one that is still mine. Give it to me.”

A chill flooded their veins. Their breath caught despite their effort not to let it.

“Do not pretend surprise,” the Emperor went on, voice smooth as oil. “It has served us before. My bones make the finest blades, and what better gift for your sister’s hound than a blade wrought from our own bone?”

Maldrien’s knees locked. Pain—memory of it—roared up their spine, vivid as fire. The tearing, the white-hot shock, the endless echoing agony. They had done this before. Their bones had been removed and replaced too many times.

The blade for Oriole’s becoming.

It was their burden, dwelling in the body that had once belonged to Valien, King of Dren.

He saw the terror flicker across their face and laughed softly, delighted.

“Ah. There it is—fear. I had missed that look.”

He leaned closer, golden eyes blazing. “Do not worry, child. While it will be painful, you will perform the task perfectly. Excruciatingly. You always do. And it pleases me when you suffer. It teaches you, tempers you, reminds you what you are…a thrall.”

Maldrien swallowed hard, every instinct screaming against obedience. Their will was their own—and yet not theirs at all.

The Emperor’s smile softened, mock-gentle, as though he were coaxing them into a kindness. “Now. Show me your devotion.”

The pressure came then, inexorable as gravity, moving them like a puppet. Not the theft of thought—no, their father despised such shortcuts. He wanted them lucid, fully aware. He wanted them to carve through flesh and bone with their own hands, to feel every moment of it.

Their mind panicked, skittering like a hooved animal on slick stone. There was no denying him. There had never been.

Last time, it had been a femur for the athame and a rib for the Thronemar. They had obeyed—exactly as commanded. They had offered the gifts with steady hands, never revealing the truth of their cost to Oriole, who might have worried for them then.

But not now.

Whatever kinship had once existed between them was long gone. Oriole had taken what he needed, and where friendship had once stirred, there was only absence.

“You miss your friend.” Their father’s voice hummed low, curling like smoke in Maldrien’s mind. “That feels selfish. The brother he became is stronger—so much more worthy of the sword you wrought for him.”

Maldrien’s hands clenched. A flicker of heat flared in their chest, quickly smothered by the weight of his presence.

The Emperor’s form loomed, impossible and resplendent, eyes gleaming with cruel delight. “Come,” he said, voice honeyed with mockery. “Your workshop awaits. Let us see what new devotion you can carve from yourself.”

Maldrien’s body moved with an automaton’s steadiness, every step obedient, though their mind reeled. They left the throne room without protest, but the emperor did not stay behind. His presence coiled tight in their skull, every thought pressed under the weight of his voice.

“Pathetic little thing, he murmured. Always so quick to obey. Always pretending it is a choice. You should thank me, Maldrien. Without me, what would you be? Just another withered candle, guttering in the dark.  I could have extinguished you.”

They clenched their jaw. They tried not to hear him. Tried not to feel how right his words could sound.

The ossuary’s corridors blurred around them until they reached the sanctum of their workshop. The familiar scents of ash-ink, bone dust, and old iron hung heavy in the air. Their body moved before their will could intervene—lighting the rune-lamps, laying out blades, fetching clean cloths, and a jar of their father’s blood, golden and toxic. The motions were precise, practiced. Too practiced.

The Emperor’s voice throbbed in their mind, cruel and pleased. “That’s it. Prepare yourself, little heart. You know how this goes. You know where to cut. And you will savor it this time, won’t you?”

Maldrien’s hands trembled as they set the saw carefully upon the table.

“I’ll need a bone to replace it,” they murmured, their voice thin, almost breaking.

The Emperor’s laughter rippled through their mind, velvet and venom. “Of course you will. Wouldn’t want my precious child hobbling about like a lame dog. Not when you’re meant to stand at my side.”

Maldrien moved stiffly, opening the long drawer of preserved corpses. The smell of embalming salts and old ichor clung to the air as they began their grim work. One by one, they lifted ruined bodies, stripping them down to their frameworks, motions practiced, mechanical.

“Look at you,” the Emperor purred. “You’ve become quite the scavenger. Rooting through the dead for scraps to hold yourself together. That's all you are worth, that is all you are, scraps.”

Maldrien’s breath caught, but they pressed on. Another cadaver. Another femur too warped, too brittle.

“Pathetic,” the voice coiled tight in their skull. “You’re wasting my time. If you cannot find a bone, use an iron rod. It will hold you upright well enough.”

Their hands froze. For a moment, their will flared, sharp and desperate. “No,” they whispered, teeth clenched. “An iron rod will never fuse. It would burn me from the inside. It would never stop hurting.”

The Emperor laughed, delighted, his voice like a slow blade. “Ah—there it is. A spark of fight. How rare. How charming. His presence pressed heavier, savoring their defiance. And yet, do you think I care if it hurts? Perhaps that is what you deserve. Endless pain. A reminder that even your bones are mine to shape.”

Maldrien’s jaw locked. Their hands shook as they reached into another cadaver, dreading the inevitable, refusing to surrender.

Then—at last—they drew out a femur strong and straight, pale beneath its lacquer of preservation. Relief flickered across their face, though they dared not let it bloom.

The Emperor hummed low, amused. “How fortunate. For a moment, I almost decided to make you take the rod anyway—just to teach you a lesson. Consider yourself lucky, little heart. Very lucky indeed.”

Maldrien’s breath stuttered. Their fingers tightened around the bone. Relief mingled with despair. The reprieve was temporary, and they knew it.

The femur sat on the table, pale and silent. A mockery of triumph.

Maldrien’s gaze lingered on it too long, as though stalling might make the task vanish. But inevitability pressed at their back, a hand that never relented.

They reached for the scalpel first. The handle was light in their fingers, but the weight of memory pressed it down. Their hand hovered over their thigh for a breath, then drew the first line.

Skin parted cleanly under the blade. Muscle followed, each stroke peeling back the sheath of flesh that clung to the bone. The heat came instantly—wormwood steeped blood spilling, slicking their hands, soaking the cloths they had set beneath the leg in grim anticipation. Pain struck like lightning, sharp and blinding, but they worked with mechanical precision, putting it where all their feelings remained hidden.

Yes, the Emperor’s voice hummed, delight coiling through each syllable. “Open yourself. Show me how obedient you are. Do not flinch, little spark. Don’t you dare flinch.”

They pushed deeper, separating muscle from marrow, careful to expose the bone beneath. Every cut screamed in their nerves, every pull of the scalpel like fire dragged across raw cords. Their breath broke into shallow gasps, but their hands stayed steady. They had done this before. They would do it again.

The bone gleamed dully under the workshop light. White, solid, living. The foundation of them.

They reached for the saw.

Good, the Emperor purred. “Now break yourself for me. You know the sound I love.”

The saw teeth bit into exposed bone. The vibration rang up Maldrien’s leg, into their hips, into their spine, until it lived in their skull. Their teeth rattled with it. Every stroke was a shriek in their marrow, incandescent pain that turned thought into static.

Their vision blurred. Their head spun. Their lungs dragged in air that wouldn’t steady.

Still, they cut. Still, they obeyed.

The sound came at last: a sharp, hollow crack.

The scream ripped from Maldrien’s throat before they could stop it. Short, strangled, wet with anguish. Tears welled, spilled hot down their face, dripping into the blood that streaked their jaw from splatter. Their body shook so violently they almost dropped the saw.

Yes, the Emperor crooned, voice reverent. “Yes, cry for me. You’ve always been most beautiful when you break. The tears, the trembling—perfect. You are at your truest in pain, as you are the cause of your pain, as you are mine.”

Maldrien’s hands trembled as they wrenched the femur free. Their own bone—white, steaming, slick with their blood. They laid it beside the pale corpse-bone, chest heaving, stomach churning as the smell of copper and wormwood filled their mouth.

Their eyes blurred again, more tears spilling, this time from sheer exhaustion.

“You wretched thing,” the Emperor murmured, but his tone was indulgent, thrilled. “You cannot even hold yourself together, yet you still obey. My faithful little heart. Always cutting, always mending. What a marvel you are in your misery.”

Maldrien’s breath stuttered as they reached for the substitute femur and the black chalk for runework. Their hands refused to steady, shaking so badly the chalk almost slipped from their fingers. They scrawled the runes, crooked, frantic, smeared with ichor. Each glyph glowed faintly in the dim workshop light, shivering like candleflame.

They pressed the bone into the yawning cavity of their thigh. Flesh resisted, spasmed, screamed. They held it anyway, forcing the frame into place. Every nerve lit like firecrackers, unbearable, endless.

The jar of god’s resin sat waiting. Golden, viscous, it caught the lamplight like trapped sunlight. Their fingers dipped into it, sticky and warm, and they painted it across the runes—sealing flesh to bone, bone to soul.

The resin burned. Not like fire. Worse. It seared deep, into marrow, into nerve, branding the false bone into their body. Every brush of their fingers was another scream lodged in their throat, another wave of tears sliding down their face.

“Beautiful,” the Emperor sighed, voice drunk on the sound of their suffering. “Even your pain is art. You never fail me, Maldrien. Only yourself.”

Their body arched, back bowing, muscles seizing. The resin’s glow pulsed brighter, forcing the replacement to fuse. Golden light raced along the carved runes, blistering hot, knitting the wound closed in a lattice of agony.

At last, the glow dimmed. The bone was sealed. Their body was whole again.

But wrong. Cold. Unfamiliar.

The Emperor’s laughter filled their skull, luxuriant, triumphant. “Exquisite. Every scream, every tear—mine. And perhaps next time, I will make you use iron. Just to hear it again.”

Maldrien lay down trembling, bloodied and weeping, their chest heaving shallowly as the foreign bone throbbed within them.

And the Emperor’s delight pressed closer, savoring every ragged breath.

Chapter Text

Nocturne smiled and waved at the old woman with the glassy, fogged eyes as she hobbled into the Starlit Cathedral. Tonight was Virya’s sermon—her lesson on the virtues of eternal undeath and the word of their savior, the Emperor.

When the woman shuffled past, he got to ring the little bell Virya had given him. Its bright chime cut delicately through the cavernous hush, just as the chanters began their sonorous dirge, voices weaving like a dark tide through the ribbed vaults of the cathedral.

The Starlit Cathedral was vast and luminous, every wall and arch veined with silver-glowing runes that shimmered like stars caught in bone. Candles guttered in cages of wrought bone, their flames bending oddly, as if compelled by the cathedral’s breath. The congregation was assembled—rows upon rows of the dead, glassy-eyed and still. They bowed their heads in unison, guided by runes stitched through their marrow, as Virya took her place at the altar.

She stood tall, coat unfurling behind her in an eclipse of midnight, crimson hair glinting with the flicker of star-fire from the runes above. When she raised her hands, silence deepened until it felt alive.

“My beloved,” she began, her voice low yet carrying effortlessly across the chamber. “You have already crossed the veil. You have laid down the burden of flesh, of fear, of hunger. And what did you find on the other side?”

The congregation murmured—not words, but a low rustle, the sound of bone against cloth, of empty throats breathing devotion.

“You found eternity,” Virya said, her eyes gleaming. “Not the false eternity promised by other gods. Not the endless cycle of decay and forgetting. But a truth gifted by our Emperor— unyielding, undying, perfect.”

Her words resonated, sinking into the chamber like a command. Nocturne listened with rapt attention, a quiet thrill tugging at him he couldn’t explain. He loved the cadence of her voice: the way it curled around certainty, the precision in every pause, the absolute order she wove through the air. It soothed something restless in him, even though he didn’t recognize why.

Virya’s gaze swept across the pews. “The living mock you. They think you're puppets. They call you hollow, broken. But I say—look at them. Look how they cling to their fleeting years, desperate and terrified. What dignity is there in decay? What honor is there in rot? No,” she lifted a hand, and the chanters’ dirge rose with her— “you are the Emperor’s chosen. Freed from fear, freed from hunger, freed from the lie of endings. You are his chorus. His testament. His beloved.”

The undead stirred, some raising hands boned with silver rings, others bowing lower, faces slack but lit with the faint gleam of runic light where their souls had been bound.

Noct felt a strange warmth coil through him. Her words rang with inevitability, like the click of gears in a lock. He didn’t know it, but the control runes etched deep into his consciousness hummed in resonance with her sermon. What he thought was admiration was obedience stitched into bone.

Virya’s voice lowered, almost tender. “To serve him is to be eternal. To praise him is to be whole. And to love him is to know joy that never ends. This is the gift we share. This is the truth that binds us.”

The dirge swelled again, the cathedral shaking faintly with the force of voices not entirely alive, not entirely dead.

Virya’s eyes softened as she extended her arms. “Rise, my beautiful, faithful. Rise and remember: the grave is not your end. It is your beginning.”

The congregation rose in eerie unison, the sound of bone joints creaking like a forest in the wind. Bells chimed softly—Noct’s among them. He smiled without quite knowing why, his heart lifting at the order and the perfect symmetry of it all.

And Virya, radiant in her certainty, looked down on them with pride.

The sermon went on.

Virya’s words wove through the air like a tapestry—measured, deliberate, sharp as bone and soft as velvet. Noct sat rapt, drinking in every syllable as though it were sunlight through stained glass.

She spoke of the Emperor’s mercy, of the endless embrace of undeath, and of a world where fear could no longer touch them. Each phrase landed with a kind of energy that made his chest hum with quiet satisfaction. He couldn’t have explained why, but it felt right. Perfect.

When the chanters shifted into their response, Virya gestured gently, and Noct rose to his feet without thinking. He moved among the pews, helping the slower parishioners to rise. A skeletal hand creaked in his grasp, and he smiled warmly, steadying the old woman he’d greeted earlier.

“There we go,” he said softly, like she was just another grandmother with stiff knees instead of a corpse stitched together by rune and will. “Take your time. We’ve got forever, right?”

She blinked up at him with eyes clouded and vacant, but he still gave her a little wink as he settled her back in place.

Another man slumped heavily against his pew, jaw slack, spine bowed. Noct eased him upright, murmuring encouragement as though the man could hear. “Don’t want you missing the best part. Virya’s just getting to the good stuff.”

He moved down the aisle with gentle purpose, straightening robes, brushing dust from shoulders, treating each parishioner like they were alive—like they mattered. Some of them had the faintest light in their sockets, others none at all, but it didn’t seem to matter. His kindness filled the spaces where their breath should have been.

By the time the congregation rose for the final chorus, every line of him buzzed with exhilaration. The harmony of voices—dead, dying, eternal—rose and wrapped the cathedral in thunder. Noct’s little bell chimed along, a bright counterpoint to the dirge, and he beamed as though he’d done something extraordinary.

When it was over, he hurried back up the aisle to Virya’s side, cradling the bell between his hands. His face practically glowed.

“That was—” he began, then stopped, at a loss for words. “That was beautiful. Like… like a symphony, but made out of devotion instead of strings. You had them. All of them. I mean, they can barely stand upright, but you had them!”

Virya’s crimson hair caught the glow of the rune-lights as she turned toward him, smiling faintly, like she already knew.

Noct leaned closer, lowering his voice as though confessing a secret. “You’re incredible. You know that, right? I’ve never heard anyone speak like that. Like you’re pulling faith out of people’s bones. Like you could make anyone—anything—believe.” He laughed then, shaking his head in wonder. “If I wasn’t already dead, I’d die for you.”

Virya’s smile widened, sharp and pleased, but she didn’t say anything right away. She didn’t have to.

Noct’s grin softened, his gaze lingering on her with unguarded awe. “Seriously. Coolest sermon I’ve ever been to. And I’ve been to… none. But if this is the standard, I’m spoiled forever.”

He clutched the bell a little tighter, like it was proof of his belonging, and added with quiet conviction:

“You’re amazing, Virya. Really.”

Virya tilted her head to the side, crimson hair spilling like wine across her shoulder, and beckoned him to the altar.

Nocturne obeyed without hesitation, clutching his little bell as if it were a charm against what waited for him. When he reached her, she smiled with luminous satisfaction, her hand brushing along his jaw. His breath stuttered—it always did—but this time something deeper stirred. A low thrum beneath his skin, subtle at first, then sharper, like invisible strings drawing taut.

Heat flared through him. He blinked, startled. “Ah—what was that?”

Her smile only deepened. Fingers trailed from his jaw to the hollow of his throat, pausing over the faint pulse there. The runes stitched into his soul answered her call, humming in resonance, and warmth spread lower, coiling in his stomach.

“It’s nothing to fear,” she murmured, voice velvet-rich. “You feel it because you are mine—and because I am still lit with the fire of the sermon. Preaching fills me, Nocturne. It makes me radiant. It makes me feel like I could do anything.”

Her hand slipped to the clasp of his coat, undoing it with slow precision. Then another. Each pull revealed more of the chest she had pieced together, runes glimmering faintly beneath his skin. She traced them with care, coaxing a shimmer of response. “Do you feel how alive the cathedral makes me?” she whispered.

Noct swallowed hard, his voice breaking. “I—I don’t know why it feels like this. It shouldn’t—”

“Hush.” Her indulgent smile silenced him. Another button gave way beneath her hand, her palm sliding against bare skin. Sparks leapt where she touched, his body arching toward her. “This is what devotion does. Their devotion. Yours. It burns through me until I ache. Until I want more. Until I want you.”

Her fingers glided lower, brushing the ridges of his abdomen. He shivered helplessly, the runes beneath his skin flaring brighter, every sensation magnified until his knees threatened to give way.

She caught his wrist and placed his hand against her waist. Leaning close, lips grazing his pointed ear, her voice was wrapped in command. “Worship me, Nocturne. Not with prayers. Not with bells. With your body. With every ounce of adoration you so freely spill for me.”

The air between them vibrated. His mind reeled, but his body betrayed him—burning under her hands, helpless to resist.

“Poor thing,” she crooned, stroking the inside of his open coat, her touch slow and possessive. “So confused. So eager. That’s what I love most—you were made for this, even if you don’t understand why.”

Her fingers lifted his chin, tilting his face to hers. In the glow of the runes, she looked both saint and predator.

“Now,” she murmured, lips brushing close enough to ghost a kiss across his mouth, “show me how much you adored my sermon.”

Noct gasped as her fingers moved lower, tugging the last fastening loose until his coat hung open. The chill of the cathedral touched his skin, but her hands burned hotter, every stroke sending sparks down to his core.

The runes thrummed louder, answering her will. His body arched without his consent, hips jerking subtly toward her. Panic rippled through him—confusion more than fear.

“I… I don’t w–want,” he rasped. “It’s—too much.”

Virya’s eyes lit with delight. “It isn’t too much. It’s exactly what I want.”

Her palm splayed over the lattice of runes across his ribs. With a flick, she awakened one, and heat blossomed beneath his sternum. Noct gasped, every nerve thrumming alive. His knees faltered again, and she steadied him, laughter low and pleased.

“Dear Nocturne,” she crooned. “You’ve never known what it is to burn from the inside. But I do. Every sermon makes me brighter. Every pair of eyes turned to me fills me until I overflow. And now—” her hand pressed flat against his abdomen, igniting another sequence— “I want you to feel it too.”

The spark shot lower. His body jolted, hardening in her grasp before he could think to resist. He bit back a groan, his face flushing as the sensation overtook him.

“I can’t—” he stammered, head tipping back. “I can’t control it—”

“You don’t need to.” Her voice was all he could hear over the rush of his thundering heartbeat. Her hand slipped beneath the last of his clothing, closing firmly around the weight of his arousal.

Noct cried out, hips jerking forward into her grip. Pleasure and terror tangled, crashing through him in equal measure. This shouldn’t be happening, his mind screamed, but his body begged otherwise.

“Virya,” he pleaded—half protest, half desperation. “Why… why does it feel so good?”

“Your soul bends toward me,” she said simply. Her hand moved with deliberate precision, shattering his breath. “Because I command it. Because I am the answer to every question you will ever ask.”

The runes flared brighter, each pulse syncing with the rhythm of her strokes. His body strained toward her, every instinct begging for release, while his mind spiraled, trying to understand.

“I want to—” he choked, trembling. “Gods, I want to, but… why? Why do I want this so badly?”

Virya leaned close, lips brushing his temple, her words sweet and merciless. “My touch writes truth into your body. And the truth is this: you exist to please me.”

Her hand worked him with slow, inexorable certainty, drawing another helpless cry from his lips. His resistance crumbled beneath the weight of sensation, leaving him trembling, aching, and undone.

“Now comply,” she whispered, her tone thick with power and promise. “Show me what devotion looks like when I touch you here.”

And Noct—helpless, confused, but unable to stop—shuddered in her grip, his arousal growing firm and undeniable.

Virya pressed him back against the altar, the stone cold beneath him, her body burning above. With unhurried grace, she shed her coat, then her garments, crimson hair spilling wild as fire over bare skin. The cathedral’s rune-light caressed her as though she were already sanctified, every inch of her gleaming with terrible beauty.

Noct’s breath caught as she straddled him, the press of her thighs framing him, her weight pinning him as firmly as any chain. He was trembling, undone, the hum of the runes in his chest drowning out every last protest until only desire remained.

She guided him into her body with deliberate precision. The heat of her enveloped him—wet, molten, impossibly soft—and his mind reeled, shattering at the sensation. A cry tore from him, not fear, not even confusion anymore, but awe.

“So warm,” he gasped, voice breaking. “You’re—” He couldn’t even find words.

Virya bent low, lips grazing his ear, her breath hot against his skin. “Yes,” she whispered, claiming every shudder. “Adore me. Break yourself open inside me until nothing is left but us. Feed me your love, your surrender.”

The runes flared in synchrony with her movements, every pulse amplifying sensation until his body strained helplessly beneath her. Whatever worry he’d carried dissolved under the power of her command; all that remained was need, raw and unrelenting.

His hand slipped, the little bell clattering from his grasp to the altar floor. Freed, his palms found her hips, clutching desperately as though she were the only real thing in existence.

Virya arched above him, her crimson hair cascading, her body riding his with an unshaken rhythm. The cathedral seemed to thrum with her, every rune a star echoing her pleasure, her power.

Noct’s thoughts dissolved, replaced by instinct, by surrender. He no longer remembered why he had resisted. He no longer remembered himself at all. There was only Virya, radiant and merciless, taking him deeper, commanding his every gasp and cry until he was nothing but devotion made flesh.

Virya moved above him in a rhythm as old as prayer, her bare body gleaming in the rune-light. Every curve of her was lit like a saint in stained glass, yet the heat of her skin, the wet clutch of her around him, was more real than anything Noct had ever known.

He cried out as his hips bucked up to meet her, sharp, helpless thrusts that made the altar groan beneath them. The runes etched in his ribs pulsed with each movement, binding him to her pleasure, his arousal magnified until thought itself dissolved.

“Look at you,” she whispered, her voice low and luminous, riding him harder. “So lost. I found you, brought you into the fold. You were lost until I brought you to our flock to serve.”

Her hands pressed to his chest, fingers splayed over glowing sigils, and the contact sent another rush of heat through him. He arched against her, gasping, clutching her hips as though she were the only anchor in a world spinning out of control.

The cathedral seemed to vibrate with their rhythm, the great arches trembling, the star-bright runes overhead flaring as though echoing their joining. Every thrust, every gasp reverberated like liturgy.

Virya threw her head back, crimson hair cascading, her breasts rising as she rode him with fierce, relentless grace. She was glorious—bare, commanding, her pleasure and power indistinguishable. “Yes,” she cried, her voice carrying like a hymn, and she tightened around him in orgasm. “Give it to me. Venerate me. Spill yourself as my offering!”

Noct’s body convulsed beneath her. His hips jerked, driving him deeper, harder, until the pressure crested sharp and unbearable. A strangled cry tore from his throat as release ripped through him—hot, shuddering, endless.

The runes flared blindingly, carrying his climax through the cathedral like a shockwave. The stone trembled; the air vibrated with their union. He clung to her hips, sobbing against the tide of sensation, every nerve singing her name.

Virya bent low, lips brushing his ear, her voice molten with triumph. “Good. That’s devotion. That’s mine.”

The heat did not ebb when he spent himself inside her. It only built, sharper, stranger—every nerve alive with an electric hum that bordered on unbearable. His hips kept jerking helplessly beneath her, seeking her even as the last of his strength frayed.

The runes blazed too brightly now, flooding his body with a rhythm not his own. Each pulse dragged another wave of pleasure through him, deeper than release, deeper than anything mortal. His cries broke into gasps, then into strangled whimpers, his body arching against hers as though he might dissolve entirely beneath her weight.

Virya’s fingers stroked his cheek, indulgent, merciless, guiding him through the flood she had lit within him. “That’s it,” she crooned, crimson hair brushing his chest as she bent low. “Don’t fight it. Let devotion carry you. Let me take you past yourself.”

The cathedral vibrated around them, stone ribs thrumming like the inside of a great drum, every rune above their heads flaring as if they bore witness.

Noct’s vision blurred. Pleasure and pressure tangled into a white-hot light, the edge of sensation too much for his fragile tether. He clung to her hips one last time, his little bell forgotten on the altar beside him, before the world broke apart.

A strange crackle lit through him—electric, alien, obliterating. Then silence.

Virya watched his eyes flutter closed, his body slackening beneath her with a final shudder. She smiled down at him, victorious and serene, as the cathedral quieted into a low, resonant hum.

Her worshipper had fallen into oblivion.

Her altar had been answered.

And the runes, still glowing faintly in his chest, promised he would wake to serve her again.

-

“Corvan!”

The voice called faintly through the corridors, far away, muffled by shelves and shadows.

He was small—no older than five—and crouched where he wasn’t supposed to be, deep in his older brother’s study. Altair never let him in here. Altair was no fun. He always locked things away, always said not for you, as if treasures could be wasted in dust.

Corvan’s little hands sifted through the clutter on the desk. He plucked up bits of metal, a tack, a bent clip, a ribboned bookmark with a faint shimmer still clinging to it. All of it went carefully into the small cloth bag his mother had sewn for him, stitched with crow-feathers and lined in soft leather. His bag of treasures. His shiny things.

His light eyes darted in the low light, quick and bright. Every new glint tugged him closer—drawer handles, a dropped pin, a glass bead hidden behind the chair-leg. His heart beat quickly with delight as the bag grew heavier at his side.

“Corvan,” the voice called again, closer this time. His mother.

He froze, small fingers gripping the edge of the desk. For a moment, he listened, wide-eyed, then scrambled to scoop up one last prize—an inkwell cap with a perfect sheen—and tucked it deep into the bag before she found him.

The door creaked open.

Mama stepped in, her presence soft and sure. She was beautiful even in her sternness, but her eyes warmed at the sight of him crouched among Altair’s papers, his little bag clutched to his chest.

“Oh, my curious one,” she said, fondness curving her lips. She crouched to his level, brushing a stray lock of dark hair from his face. “Always hunting for your shiny things.”

Corvan beamed, shy but proud, holding the bag out for her inspection. She took it carefully, peeking inside at the collection—bits of metal, scraps of ribbon, a bookmark, the inkwell cap glinting faintly. Her smile widened, pleased.

“You’ve done well,” she murmured, returning the bag and tapping his nose with one slender finger. “But, my darling, if Altair finds you in here…” She tilted her head, eyes alight with secret amusement. “Well. He will not be pleased.”

Corvan ducked his head, grinning despite the warning. His little crow’s heart beat bright with the thrill of it—of being found, of being seen, and of being loved for it all the same.

Mama took his hand in hers, guiding him gently from the study, her voice low and warm. “Come, little crow. Let’s not give your brother reason to scold. There are better treasures waiting elsewhere.”

And he followed, clutching his bag tight, the sound of her laughter wrapping around him like safety.

The hall outside the study stretched high and pale, ribbed with light like a cage. Corvan’s small hand was warm in Mama’s as she guided him along, his little bag of treasures clutched to his chest.

Then a shadow cut across the passage.

“Fala.”

Altair’s voice carried like frost. He stood at the far end, tall and broad, golden hair catching the lantern-glow, blue eyes cold as icewater. Crown Prince of High Grove. His oldest brother.

Corvan ducked closer to his mother’s skirts, peeking out with wide, curious eyes.

Altair’s gaze moved first to the bag Corvan clutched, then to Fala herself. Something in his look made Corvan’s stomach twist—sharp and strange, not the way a brother ought to look at their father’s wife. Weird. Gross. He didn’t understand it, only knew he hated it.

“Again?” Altair’s voice was flat, disdain curling at the edges. “You let him pick through things that aren’t his?”

Corvan’s cheeks burned. He hugged the bag closer.

His mother’s tone was calm, even warm. “He’s a child, Altair. Curiosity harms no one. You hardly need the cap of a dried-up inkwell.”

Altair’s mouth hardened. “He is not a crow, to gather scraps. He is High Grove royalty, one of the Goddess’s chosen. Of worth. And yet he steals.”

The words cut sharper because they weren’t true in the way Altair meant them—not stealing, not really, but scavenging. Corvan’s throat tightened. He wanted to explain that shiny things wanted to be kept, that they were happier in his bag, but no words came.

Fala’s eyes narrowed at last. She had borne his coldness toward her before, brushing it off with the dignity of a queen, but to strike at Corvan—that she could not let stand.

“You call him a thief,” she said, voice low but ringing with authority. “But what has he taken? A ribbon, a clip, scraps left forgotten. If that is theft, then perhaps you should ask yourself why so little in the High Grove is worth guarding.”

Altair’s jaw clenched.

Fala stepped forward, her gaze sharp as glass. “You are the heir of High Grove, crown prince of this realm. And yet you stoop to measure yourself against a child? Against your little brother?” Her lip curled, contempt precise and deliberate. “What a small, pitiful thing that makes you.”

For a moment, silence stretched long and taut. Corvan thought Altair might strike, but the prince only turned his head sharply, golden hair catching in the lamplight, and swept past them without a word. His boots rang on the stone until even that sound was gone.

Fala knelt beside Corvan, smoothing a stray curl from his brow, her touch soft again. “Do not fear him, little crow,” she murmured, eyes warm. “He cannot dim what shines in you.”

Corvan pressed his face against her shoulder, clutching his bag of treasures tight. In that moment, with her arms around him, he believed her.

“Do you remember what I told you about the Trickster?” His mother asked softly. “About the Crow? What does he teach us?”

Corvan thought hard, eyes squinting as he turned the words over in his little mind. Then he nodded, voice small but certain. “A crow never bows… for his wings can always lift him higher.”

“Right,” Fala said with a smile. “No matter how much the lion roared, the crow would never bow.”

She tapped the tip of his nose with her finger, light and playful. “You, my little crow, can always fly higher than any lion. Never forget that.”

“I won’t, mama, I promise.”

Chapter Text

Strix stood outside Maldrien’s door and hesitated. Oriole was off doing whatever it was his boyfriend did all by himself, and he hadn’t seen Maldrien since before dinner the previous day. They hadn’t come to dinner. They always came to dinner—to see Virya, to trade notes with Oriole.

They liked being with their family.

He rubbed his neck where Oriole had carved a fresh rune of his own design: a tether. It pulsed and throbbed erratically, leaving a dirty copper taste in his mouth, like foul electricity.

Strix raised a hand to knock, then paused, listening.

Nothing. Silence pressed against the door, but this was the only place Mal could be. He waited one more moment before pushing the door open a crack—just enough to glimpse the darkness inside, broken only by a single guttering flame.

“Mal?”

A sharp inhale, then a sniff. “Strixanox?”

He stepped further into the room, leaving the door ajar so the faint hall light could follow him in. “Where have you been?”

Something shifted. A chair scraped, and a figure stirred in the shadows.

“Father asked me to make Virya’s construct a blade,” Maldrien said at last. Their voice was flat, frayed at the edges. “So I’ve been working on that.”

They moved stiffly, with a limp that made Strix’s brow furrow as they came into view. “Hey, are you okay? Do you need me to get Oriole to look over your lattice?”

It was no secret between constructs how their mobility worked in undeath. Both knew they were corpses. Neither bothered with denial.

“I’m fine.” Mal sighed flatly, meeting Strix’s eyes and attempting a reassuring smile.

The rune on Strix’s neck itched again.

Their blond hair hung limp around his shoulders, the hint of a wavy curl long gone. Their blue eyes, once bright as robin’s eggs, were dulled—foggy, bloodshot. The shape of their face, the way they held a struggling smile—the way—time lurched to a halt in Strix’s eyes.

Everything narrowed to a single pinpoint, collapsing into the smell of water. Not just any water—fountain water. Then the sound filled his mind, and everything else faded into a wavering glimpse of stability.

What had he been doing?

Ka looked down at his bare feet, at the damp ends of his rolled-up pants. Oh, right. He’d been eating toast and jam in the fountain that morning.

Jamming the last bite into his mouth, Ka brushed the crumbs from his hands. The day was already off to a splendid start. The birds were singing. His father didn’t need him for negotiations with the Kingdom of Dren. And rumor had it a new shipment of mead had just arrived from High Grove.

The day was exceeding all expectations.

Walking another lap around the fountain, he hummed to himself. Should he feed the cats in the aetherworks today—or maybe the ones near the airstrip? He really ought to write these things down. If he kept feeding the wrong ones on the wrong days, he’d end up feeding them all daily, and he couldn’t keep that up.

Being the crown prince of an empire made it hard enough to keep a consistent schedule, what with wars and trade talks always cropping up at the most inconvenient times.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, Ka saw him.

The King of Dren.

Ka slowed, then ducked behind the fountain—not from fear, but to savor the sight.

The Dreni Kingdom’s newest king was young—perhaps younger than Ka himself.  The rumor was he had taken the crown through blood and fire, rallying his people against their corrupt ruler before cutting the man down himself.

Ka eased around the fountain for a better look.

The boy was tall and lean, with golden hair like a lion’s mane, eyes bright as the sky shot through with light. His face was almost delicate, beautiful in a way that brushed toward the feminine but lost none of its strength for it.

Ka’s mouth curved into a grin. Beautiful—and dangerous. Exactly his type.

Spinning on his heel, he bolted for the palace proper. He wasn’t skipping negotiations today.

He was a mess of half-unrolled pant legs and crooked buttons as he caught the lattice that opened the hidden passages of the palace.

Inside his chambers, Ka tore off his fountain-stained shirt, trading it for a silken tunic embroidered with threads of sun-gold and deep indigo. He fastened his sash—crooked at first, then yanked straight—and tugged on his boots, leaving damp footprints across the marble. A circlet of beaten silver sat lopsided in his hair until he gave it an absentminded shove into place.

By the time he burst into the throne room, he was flushed and slightly disheveled, but dressed well enough to pass for regal.

The Emperor looked up from the dais, gray hair gleaming under the light of the rune-lamps. His green eyes narrowed first in surprise, then softened into amusement.

“My son,” he said slowly, voice rich with bemusement. “What has you so excited this morning? I cannot recall the last time you came to sit through negotiations.”

Ka only grinned, leaning one shoulder lazily against a carved pillar as though he had been born to sprawl in places of power. “Oh, you know. Expanding my horizons. Broadening my political education.”

Before the Emperor could respond, the herald at the door struck his staff against the floor.

The herald’s voice rang out, “Announcing His Majesty Valien, King of Dren.”

The great doors swung open, and Valien strode into the hall with his guard, golden hair catching the light like a lion’s mane. His stride was steady, deliberate, every inch the young ruler who had carved his crown from blood and fire.

Ka shifted against the pillar, straightening his spine, tilting his chin just so. Regal. Unimpressed. Perfectly princely.

The Emperor sighed softly, his green eyes flicking from his son to the approaching king. “Ah. Now I see why you’ve developed such a sudden interest in politics.”

But Ka was too busy holding his pose, schooling his face into bored detachment, to answer.

Valien’s gaze swept the throne room, sharp and assessing—until it landed on Ka. His brow lifted, faintly amused.

“Forgive me,” Valien said, his voice carrying just enough to echo. “But weren’t you the one at the fountains a moment ago?”

The guards shifted, exchanging glances. Courtiers stiffened.

Ka’s composure cracked for the barest instant before he forced it back into place. He gave Valien the kind of lazy smile one reserved for servants late with wine.

“I don’t recall,” he said airily, though a few damp strands clung rebelliously to his temple.

Valien’s mouth curved, subtle but undeniable. “Strange. I could have sworn the boy splashing jam into the fountain had hair just as damp as yours.”

Heat rose in Ka’s ears, but he only leaned back further against the pillar, feigning indifference. “Fountains are very popular this time of year.”

The Emperor’s sigh was audible this time, his voice low with resignation. “Ka…”

But Ka didn’t look at him. His eyes were fixed on Valien, and all his effort went into pretending he wasn’t utterly delighted at being noticed.

The Emperor’s hand lifted, cutting through the tension. “Enough,” he said smoothly. “We are here for diplomacy, not fountains.” His green eyes fixed on Valien with a weight that could have crushed a lesser man. “Welcome, King of Dren. Please—sit.”

Valien inclined his head, calm and measured, then took the chair opposite the dais. His guards remained at a distance, forming a wall of quiet vigilance, while the courtiers shifted like restless birds.

The negotiations began.

The Emperor’s voice was cool, deliberate, his words carefully chosen. He pressed for trade routes, for assurances of peace along contested borders, for terms of alliance that would benefit Vel-Rath’s dominion.

And Valien—Ka couldn’t stop watching—met every question with unflinching poise. He spoke with clarity and precision, every counterweight in his favor, never giving more than he meant to, never yielding ground without taking some in return.

Even the Emperor, so used to reducing kings to pawns, leaned forward at times, green eyes glinting with interest. “You are young,” he said at one point, “but you argue like a man twice your years. You have a mind for this, Valien.”

Ka nearly rolled his eyes. Of course he did. Just look at him. He was the king of a little kingdom. He had to know something.

When at last the final signatures were laid upon vellum and the terms sealed with the press of runic wax, the Emperor sat back, satisfaction softening his face.

“You’ve impressed me,” he admitted, his tone carrying both surprise and approval. “It has been some time since I faced a king who knew how to stand his ground.”

Valien bowed his head slightly. “Dren cannot afford weakness, not anymore.”

The Emperor’s gaze lingered on him, then shifted toward Ka, lounging by the pillar with all the appearance of disinterest. “My son,” he said, voice deliberate, “you will show our guest the city and palace. Be his escort while we finalize our negotiations with the people’s council.”

Ka almost dropped his act. His spine straightened, and for a moment his grin threatened to break through. He caught it at the last second, masking it with a lazy shrug. “If that’s what you wish, Father.”

But his heart was thundering, every beat shouting yes, yes, yes.

Valien’s eyes flicked to him, that same measured calm as before, though Ka thought he saw the faintest trace of amusement there.

Ka pushed off from the pillar and strolled toward him, casual as could be. “Well then,” he said lightly, “it looks like I’m your guide. Try not to get lost—I’d hate to have to rescue a king on his first day here.”

Inside, though, he was practically buzzing. Escorting Valien through Vel-Rath. Just the two of them. He was going to make it look effortless.

Absolutely effortless.

It was a lot of effort, honestly. Ka wasn’t under any delusions—he knew he was a hot mess. How was he supposed to impress someone who looked like he’d stepped straight out of a legend? Valien had fought for his crown; Ka would just… get handed an empire one day, like a party favor at the end of a feast.

Well, one day he’d be handed the empire. A very long time from now. His father still had enough rune-work carved into him to outlive half the court. Ka would probably be gray-haired himself by the time the aetherkey ever passed to him.

He worried a button on his coat, checked his reflection in the glass wall of the palace, and smoothed down the cowlick that insisted on springing back up in rebellion.

“Come on, Ka, get it together,” he muttered, double-checking the contents of his bag for their excursion. Satisfied—mostly—he ran a finger along the door lattice to the visiting king’s suite.

The soft chime of bells echoed within, signaling his arrival.

There was a pause, then the door slid open to reveal a guard.

“His Majesty asks that you wait inside.” The man’s expression was grave, as if Ka’s brightest smile had only unsettled him further.

The Dreni were so different from Vel-Rath’s people—grim, wary, suspicious of aethertech. Perhaps the lack of convenience made them that way. Ka decided he’d be grim too if he had to use candles for everything. Why didn't they just use runework?

He shuffled into the sitting room, awkwardly checked his bag again, and tried not to fidget.

“Your Majesty?”

The voice startled him. Ka’s head snapped up—straight into the sight of him. That face. That impossible golden hair. Those bright, sky-colored eyes and that careful, reluctant smile tugging faintly at the corners of his mouth.

Ka’s chest tightened. By the goddess, he was even prettier up close.

“You’re beautiful,” Ka blurted, the words escaping before his brain could stop them.

They rang in the air like a struck bell.

Valien’s eyes flicked away—a delicate crack in his composure, as if the compliment had slipped beneath his armor and Ka, impossibly, had been the one to touch something unguarded. A faint blush dusted the young king’s cheeks.

Heat climbed the back of Ka’s neck. Gods, he was cute, too. Ka straightened, tugged at his coat, and tried to summon the weight of centuries of royal blood into his posture. “Ahem. What I meant was—welcome again to Vel-Rath, Your Majesty. I trust you found your chambers comfortable?”

He clasped his hands behind his back and lifted his chin in what he imagined was the very picture of dignity, though the effect was ruined somewhat by the stubborn curl springing up again at his temple.

Valien tilted his head, eyes sharp and cool, the faintest shadow of a smile tugging at his mouth. He didn’t answer right away, letting the silence stretch until Ka’s skin prickled with the weight of it.

Finally, the young king spoke, his voice smooth and measured. “Comfortable enough. Though the view has certainly improved.”

Ka’s heart lurched, his composure wobbling. He forced himself to nod sagely, as though complimented daily by young revolutionary kings. “Yes, well… the architecture is world-renowned. Very sturdy runic glasswork. Impressive arches. Everyone says so.”

Valien’s mouth curved slightly, but his eyes stayed unreadable. “I wasn’t speaking of the arches.”

Ka’s princely mask cracked into a grin before he could stop it. He quickly coughed into his fist, trying to smother the expression. “Of course. Naturally.” He gestured stiffly toward the door, voice dropping back into faux-serious formality. “Shall we, then? I’m to be your escort through the city today.”

Valien regarded him with the detached calm of someone watching a game they hadn’t yet decided if they cared to play. And yet—behind that cool gaze—Ka thought he caught the barest flicker of amusement.  The warmth dawned in Valien's eyes like the sun rising, and in that morning light, Ka knew he would do anything to keep that spark radiant.

“Lead the way, Crown Prince,” Valien said at last.

Ka beamed, though he tried to cover it with a slow, regal nod. It didn’t help much. He was already undone.

He held up his bag, “I have some uh…prior commitments I thought we could see to first.” 

“Cats?”

 Ka smiled as Valien bent to scratch the chin of a particularly friendly black, winged cat.

“My sister once kept a cat hidden in the shed,” Valien said, almost to himself. “We’d steal cans of kippers to feed it—until our father found out.”

It hadn’t taken much effort to convince the young king he didn’t need his guards in the city proper. Not to give himself airs, but Ka was more than enough to handle anyone foolish enough to accost him. Besides, there was no crime in Vel-Rath.

That was why he could walk its streets without a single worry.

“Careful,” Ka said with a grin as the black cat leaned shamelessly into Valien’s hand. “That one’s greedy. Her name’s Darcia Melba Toast. She’ll pretend she hasn’t eaten in days, but I fed her yesterday.”

Valien glanced at him, one brow lifting. “You name them?”

“Of course I name them,” Ka said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He pointed across the square where a silver tabby with feathered wings perched on a fountain rail. “That’s Quillbert Orrison Morris. He likes anchovies. And over there—see the spotted one by the baker’s stall? That’s Frecklemire Addison Gilliworth the third. I don’t know why the third, I figure she is the third in her line somehow. She’ll steal your scone if you don’t watch her.”

He gestured again, animated now, his princely composure slipping into boyish enthusiasm. “I feed them every other day. Sometimes every day if negotiations get boring.” He caught himself, then straightened as though to reclaim dignity. “Which they never do, of course. Politics is riveting.”

Valien’s lips twitched, but he said nothing, continuing to stroke Darcia’s chin.

Ka leaned in, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Father says I’m the reason the stray population keeps growing. Which is unfair! I try to make sure the healers put infertility runes on them. It’s not my fault some slip through. Cats are clever.”

Valien finally looked at him directly, sky-bright eyes steady, cool, but faintly amused. “So you are not only Crown Prince of Vel-Rath, but also… patron saint of stray cats?”

Ka’s grin spread wide. “Exactly.”

His gaze drifted to Valien’s hands. They were long-fingered, graceful, but with a strength that made Ka’s own look soft in comparison. These were not the hands of someone pampered from birth—they had worked, fought, endured. A spiderweb of scars marked the young king’s knuckles, and Ka noticed two fingers that had clearly been severed and reattached, but not by any delicate hand of advanced mendcrafting.  They were crooked and looked as though they pained him.

Ka’s smile lingered, but his thoughts shifted as he watched those hands. Valien’s scars told their own stories—fights fought, blades grasped, pain endured. Ka knew the forms of battle, of course. He’d been trained by the best swordmasters in the empire, his every stance corrected, his grip adjusted, his strikes praised. He was excellent in the sparring ring.

But training wasn’t the same as bleeding.

Ka fiddled with the strap of his bag, the thought slipping in unbidden: perhaps it wasn’t Valien who was safer with him, but Ka who was safer with Valien.

Across from him, the young king crouched without ceremony, offering another bit of fish to the winged cat now curled at his boots. The animal sniffed once, then accepted, brushing its feathered tail against Valien’s leg before hopping off toward the fountain. Valien’s expression hardly changed—aloof, reserved—but Ka saw the way his hand lingered for a heartbeat, the subtle care in the gesture.

It wasn’t warmth, not exactly. But it was attention.

Ka cleared his throat, trying to summon back his princely air. “They like you,” he said lightly. “Which is strange, because they usually only like me.”

Valien glanced up at him, one brow lifting ever so slightly. “You’ve trained them to trust the hand that feeds them, that’s all.”

Ka laughed, a little too loudly. “Then I suppose I should be flattered they still prefer me.”

Valien didn’t answer, just fed another scrap to a smaller tabby waiting patiently at the edge of his boot.

Ka’s chest felt oddly tight. He tried not to think too hard about whether it was because of the cats, or the boy feeding them, or the fact that he was a disaster.

He needed to steer the conversation away from himself. He needed to know more about him.

“So, uh… Dren, am I right?” Smooth. Very smooth. The Sun and the Moon, he was such a dipshit.

Valien looked up, brow furrowing in confusion—then, just for a heartbeat, his eyes sparked. A laugh escaped him, sharp and unguarded. Just a short ha, but it was the most beautiful short ha Ka had ever heard. And he’d heard a lot of ha-ha.

“I uh—don’t know the whole story of how or why you became king.”

“Survival,” the golden king answered simply. “The people of Dren were starving while the elite few lived off their labor.”

Valien rose, reached out, and wiped his fingers clean of anchovy juice on Ka’s sleeve. The reluctant smile he wore quirked upward—crooked and perfect. Ka’s heart climbed straight into his throat and nearly choked him.

“Vel-Rath seems exceedingly safe,” Valien observed, “if a king and an emperor’s son can wander about feeding stray cats without guards.”

Ka laughed. “Did you really want your guards with you? Grim and Grimmer? No thanks. Besides, the people here are happy and cared for. The runes the Goddess gave us protect, and they provide.”

“Dren has no such fortune of the Goddess’ touch,” Valien said quietly.

Ka felt the conversation shift under his feet, leaving him off-balance. Guilt pricked at him, and he fumbled for a response. “There are Dreni runes though… right?” His voice trailed off. By the mother, that sounded stupid. Of course, there were runes. Everyone had runes. The Xithari had runes—surely Dren had their own, didn’t they?

Valien’s eyes stayed steady on him. “We don’t, actually.”

Ka blinked, heat rising in his cheeks. “Oh. Well… maybe they just haven’t been discovered yet? Or maybe your priests keep them secret. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?” He gave a weak laugh, fumbling for footing. “Surely you have something. Some kind of protective wards, or charms, or—”

Valien’s expression didn’t shift. His gaze was steady, cool, like a blade laid flat on the table. “We have nothing.”

The words dropped like stones in Ka’s stomach.

Valien continued, his tone quiet, almost dispassionate. “In Dren, there are no runes glowing in the walls. No aether-lattices humming in the streets. Our homes are stone and wood, our nights lit by fire alone. When the rains come, they rot the roofs. When winter comes, it kills the weak. And when the strong come to take what little remains—no sigil rises to stop them.”

Ka swallowed hard. His tongue itched to protest, to offer something, but he couldn’t summon anything that didn’t sound insulting.

Valien’s eyes sharpened, though his voice never rose. “You live in a city that sings with light, where the streets are fed by magic and the gutters never clog. My people live in shadows so deep a child can be stolen from their bed and never seen again. That is what the former king did to Dren.”

He let the silence hang, then added with the faintest curl of his mouth—not quite a smile: “That’s why I am here. I want to make things better for my kingdom.”

Ka’s chest ached. He managed a stiff nod, trying to stand taller, to wear the mask of a prince—but inside, he felt smaller than he ever had before.

Then the sun-bright king reached out. “I feel like we were meant to meet—that you could help me bring the peace of Vel-Rath to Dren.” His hand hovered near Ka’s own, just above where Ka still clutched his now-empty bag. Ka’s breath caught as those sky-bright eyes lifted to his, full of an odd, almost tangible faith.

“Do you feel it too?” Valien asked softly, his hand finally settling over Ka’s. Gentle. Subtle. Enough to make Ka ache.

“I do,” Ka breathed, the words tumbling out in a rush of excitement. “I—I-I really do.”

And then the young king smiled—his first real smile. It was big and radiant, brighter than anything Ka had ever seen. And Ka knew he was lost. Because he had put it there. He had pleased this lion of a boy and had earned his unguarded happiness.

What Valien suggested felt like a purpose Ka hadn’t even known he’d been searching for—until now.

“Strix?”

The name dragged him out of the vision like cold water. Strix gasped and looked down at the hand gripping his.

It was still that hand—the one lined with scars and crudely reattached fingers. But now he saw more. The skin was mottled and uneven, pale as candle wax in places and darkened in others. A faint smell of copper clung to it. The nail beds had turned purple, blood pooling beneath them. Where the flesh stretched thin across the knuckles, a grayish tinge crept in, subtle but undeniable.

That hand. That hand was Maldrien’s.

“A-are you… decaying?” Strix’s eyes darted up to his sibling’s face.

Maldrien flinched, yanking their hand back and curling it into the fold of their robes, as though hiding it might erase what Strix had seen. “I—I-I’m not. Really.”

Strix reached toward them. “Mal, please—let me have Oriole look at your lattice. There might be something ruptured that you can’t see.”

“I’m fine.”

Strix’s face twisted in plain disbelief. “Mal, you look awful.”

“It takes a lot out of me to forge a runeblade. It’s done now. I just need time to recoup.”

“You know decay is irreversible once it starts. What did Father make you do?”

Maldrien’s expression flickered—pain, panic, then shame.

“You know I did what I had to, Strix.” Their gaze brushed across the twitching rune at his neck, still abuzz with latent electricity. “It’s all either of us can do… Now, where is Virya and the construct? I need to give him his blade.”

-

The world broke apart in white and gold, his mother’s voice dissolving into static.

Nocturne’s eyes snapped open.

The cathedral’s ribbed ceiling loomed above him, its star-bright runes dimmed to a low glow. He was lying on a narrow cot in the rectory, clothed once more, though his body throbbed with dull ache as if he had been wrung out and stitched back together. Every breath pulled across raw edges inside him.

His fingers flexed, clumsy. The little bell lay on the table nearby, its handle smudged with…something. He remembered dropping it. He remembered heat, fire, the altar vibrating beneath him—and then nothing.

A groan caught in his throat. The ache was everywhere: deep in his chest where the runes had flared, heavy in his limbs, low and hot in his hips. Each nerve still seemed tuned to her hand, her voice, the command threaded into his marrow.

He sat up slowly, vision swimming. The runework still hummed faintly under his skin, resonant and hungry, as though waiting for her touch to ignite it again.

From somewhere down the corridor came the sound of humming. Light, sweet, unbearably cheerful.

Virya.

She moved beyond the doorframe, crimson hair catching in the candlelight, her voice bright as if nothing in the world could trouble her. She was arranging vials on a shelf, humming like a girl at play instead of a priestess who had just burned him alive with devotion.

Noct’s mouth was dry. He pressed a hand against his chest, feeling the faint pulse of runes still glowing there, and whispered hoarsely to himself, as though saying it might make it true:  “…It was only a dream.”

But the ache in his body told him otherwise.

At the time, it had felt so good, but now it felt hollow. Reverence lingered like a bad taste in his mouth. He liked her—but not like that. Not unless she willed it that way.

Noct stared at the ceiling, and despite the runes animating him, he felt violated—and hungry. Truly hungry. He hadn’t felt it since the first time he’d woken, but now it gnawed at his insides.

“Oh!” Her voice floated in from the other room. Anxiety shot through him, cold and sharp, making him shudder before instinct warned him to still the trembling lest something worse follow.

“You’re awake!” Virya swept into the room carrying a tray with two teacups and a pot of what must have been tea. “I’m going to have to talk to Mal about why you just…” She paused, considering. “Short out after climax. I asked Oriole, and he said that shouldn’t be happening.”

Her smile faded into a frown. “Then he told me I should throw you in the boneshredder because you were broken. But he’s just mean.”

She set the tray on the table beside him and poured a deep red liquid into the nearest cup. “I think it has something to do with your war-arm, and all the warding Daddy made us weave into it. It’s too much. You’re not dangerous—not to me. I don’t know what he’s worried about.”

Noct tried to laugh, but the sound came out like a strangled honk.

Virya tilted her head toward him, brow furrowing as she offered the cup of tea. He stammered, “I mean, it is a w-war arm. I’m worried about it, and it’s attached to me.”

She laughed. “Oh, well—Daddy is a god, so he really shouldn’t be worried about anything. I think his concern is more for me. But you wouldn’t hurt me… would you?”

He took the tea from her, smiling as her fingers brushed across his jaw, soothing him as easily as a lullaby. She answered for him, soft and certain: “Of course not. Now be good, and drink your tea.”

Nocturne obeyed, sipping the red liquid. It was spicy and a little sweet, with a metallic tang he couldn’t quite place. Warmth spread through his chest—cold since the moment she’d returned to him—and drifted all the way down to his toes. It filled his stomach and quieted the gnawing ache of hunger.

“That’s it,” she praised, brushing her fingers lightly through his hair. “This is nice, isn’t it?”

He murmured, “What is it?”

“Blood Nettle tea,” she said fondly, as though sharing a secret. “Constructs need little more than that to keep going in the field. You’ll crave more food, but you won’t truly need it.” She slipped him a flat, sugar-dusted biscuit, watching closely as though she were feeding a favorite pet. “But it’s good to have a treat now and then, isn’t it, darling?”

He nodded softly, nibbling on the edge of the biscuit, savoring the sweet taste that reminded him of something just out of his memory’s grasp. It was lemony.

“When am I going to remember more about myself?” The question came out before he could stop it.  He watched her hands move to the pendant hanging from the chain on her neck and finger it for a moment.

It was obvious that the rest of what made him, himself, was in there.

“Why do you want to remember yourself so badly?  That was a past life, just know that this one is better.  That you will be able to do more and do better in the glory of your undeath.”

“What if I had a lot of good skills that could benefit the Ossuary?” That seemed like a really logical reason.

“Mmm, perhaps.” Her fingers continued to play through his hair, tousling it in a way that made him feel warm and safe.

The moment stretched between them, Virya’s fingers warm in his hair, when the sound of the cathedral doors groaning open carried down the corridor. Heavy steps followed—measured, but dragging faintly, like each one cost more than it should.

Virya’s head lifted, her crimson hair gleaming in the lamplight. “That’ll be Mal,” she said lightly, as if she’d been expecting this exact interruption.

Nocturne turned toward the doorway just as Maldrien appeared. They looked worse than he had ever seen them—pale as wax, shoulders hunched beneath their robes, it was like some unseen force was pressing them down. Their blond hair, usually combed smooth, hung damp and lank around their face, and their lips carried the bluish tint of someone holding on by threads.

Yet in their grip was a sword.

It gleamed with a baleful luster, pale bone polished to ivory. The runes etched along its length burned faintly, hungry and alive, pulsing in rhythm with the faint vibration Noct felt in his own marrow. Even before Maldrien spoke, he knew that it was no ordinary weapon.

“The blade,” Maldrien rasped, holding it out. “Forged from Father’s femur. It will cut through anything and sever most lattices.”

Noct’s throat tightened. He stood, still clutching the biscuit between his fingers, staring first at the sword, then at the hand that offered it. Mottled, trembling, fingers twitching like a candle’s last guttering flame.

“You look…” The word stuck in his throat. Awful. Broken. But he swallowed the truth, because the sword called to him, because Maldrien had made it for him.

He took it carefully, reverently. It was heavy, but balanced, the weight thrumming with power in a way that made his war-arm answer. The runes flared faintly under his skin, harmonizing with the weapon’s song.

“Thank you,” he said softly, his voice rough with awe. “I don’t… I don’t know how you did this, but thank you.”

Maldrien gave a tired half-smile, their eyes shadowed, already pulling their decaying hand back into the folds of their robe. “Don’t waste it.”

Virya stepped forward, bright as ever, fingers brushing over the sword with a lover’s touch. “Oh, Mal,” she purred, “you really are the best. Look at him—my Nocturne looks positively radiant with it.”

But Noct’s gaze lingered past the blade, past Virya’s praise, on the sibling who had handed it to him. Pale, trembling, something was wrong; they looked like they were dying.

And somehow, that frightened him more than the weapon of bone he now carried.

Virya didn’t even glance at her sibling’s drawn face. Her attention stayed fixed on the blade, her smile radiant and sharp as she traced the runes with a reverent fingertip. “You see, Noct? This is what family is for. Mal works themselves half to death and still delivers perfection. It’s practically a hymn.”

Noct shifted, the sword heavy in his grasp. His eyes flicked back to Maldrien. They stood a little apart, shoulders drawn, the hand they had hidden trembling faintly beneath the fold of their robe.

“Mal,” Noct started again, soft but insistent. “You don’t look—”

“I’m fine.” The words came quick, flat. Their mouth twitched as though even speaking cost effort. “Take the blade. Use it. That’s all that matters.”

Virya laughed lightly, dismissive, as though waving away a child’s fuss. “Don’t coddle them, Nocturne. Mal loves the work. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t still be standing.” She turned back to him with that too-bright smile, her hand brushing over his war arm, coaxing it to flare in harmony with the weapon. “And look how it sings for you. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Noct hesitated. His lips parted as though to protest again, but—

The cathedral doors groaned open a second time.

The sound carried like a purr through the vaulted space, lazy and deliberate. From the shadows of the entryway, Oriole slithered in, every step a languid saunter, silver hair catching the rune-light like strands of liquid moon. His eyes gleamed with the smug delight of a cat who’d just swallowed a canary.

“Well, well,” he drawled, voice dripping amusement as it echoed through the bone-lined chamber. “What’s this? A family gathering in Daddy’s house, and nobody thought to invite me?”

Virya didn’t look up. Maldrien closed their eyes briefly, jaw tight.

And Noct, clutching the bone-sword, felt the weight of Oriole’s gaze slide over him like claws.

Oriole’s smile widened as his eyes lingered on Nocturne. “Well, don’t you look precious,” he purred, circling closer with the lazy grace of a predator who already knew his prey was cornered. “All dressed up, clutching Mal’s little bone-stick like it makes you a real boy. How touching.”

Noct’s jaw tightened. He gripped the sword a little harder, though his war-arm hummed faintly in warning.

Oriole leaned in, his grin sharp enough to cut. “Careful you don’t trip over your own feet, bell-ringer. Wouldn’t want you to scuff Daddy’s femur on the cathedral floor.”

“Enough, Oriole.” Virya’s voice was smooth, unbothered. She smoothed a hand over Noct’s shoulder as though to soothe him, but her eyes were bright with curiosity. “Why are you here?”

“Oh,” Oriole said airily, tilting his head back toward the great doors. “Because Father wants to see him.” His gaze flicked meaningfully toward Noct. “Summoned, personally. Isn’t that grand?”

Virya’s face lit with excitement, crimson hair catching the glow of the rune-lamps as she clapped her hands together. “Father? Really? Then we should go at once. He’ll want to hear about Nocturne’s progress—”

“No, sweet sister.” Oriole cut her off with a slow wag of his finger, his grin widening. “Not we. Just him.”

Virya’s smile faltered. “What?”

Oriole stepped closer to Virya, close enough that his breath stirred the air between them, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur meant for both siblings to hear. “Father wants to speak to your little pet alone.”

Virya’s mouth pinched in irritation, but Oriole only smirked, the cat who’d not only caught the canary but plucked its feathers too.

And Nocturne, sword heavy in his grip, felt every rune in his body thrum uneasily at the thought of standing before the Emperor without Virya at his side.

Oriole let the silence stretch, savoring it. Then his gaze slid lazily past Noct and Virya until it landed on Maldrien.

“Oh, and look at you,” he drawled, his grin curling cruel. “Strix said you were falling to pieces, and for once, he wasn’t exaggerating. You look positively ghastly. Like a plague victim, someone dressed in their best robes and propped up for dinner.”

Maldrien stiffened, their shoulders drawing tighter, but Oriole only tilted his head, eyes narrowing as though studying them with sudden, predatory interest.

Then, in a shift so abrupt it almost startled the room, his smile softened—not kind, not mocking, but edged with something that looked perilously close to genuine concern. “Let me see your containment lattice.”

Maldrien blinked, thrown. “What?”

“The lattice,” Oriole repeated, his voice firmer than usual, stripped of its usual singsong cruelty. “Show me. If it’s slipping, I’ll see it. I won’t have you rotting in Father’s halls.”

Virya’s brows arched in surprise. Noct’s fingers tightened on the bone-sword, caught off-guard by the strange note of sincerity threading through Oriole’s words.

Maldrien shifted uneasily, tucking their mottled hand deeper into their robes. “As I have said before, I’m fine.”

But Oriole’s grin sharpened again, though his eyes stayed steady. “If it were fine, you wouldn’t be hiding it. Now—stop wasting my time and let me look before you fall apart in front of everyone.”

The command rang out sharper than expected, reverberating in the vaulted cathedral.

For the first time in a long time, it wasn’t clear whether Oriole was mocking—or if, beneath the barbs, he truly meant to keep Maldrien from crumbling.

Maldrien hesitated, lips pressed into a thin line. That was all the opening Oriole needed.

With a sudden lunge, he caught his sibling by the wrist, yanking the decayed hand free of its protective folds. The mottled flesh and blackened nail beds gleamed under the rune-light. Maldrien hissed and tried to wrench away, but Oriole’s grip was iron.

“Pathetic,” Oriole muttered, voice low and cutting. “You’d let yourself rot to ash before asking for help.”

“Let go,” Maldrien rasped, shame and anger twisting their features.

Instead, Oriole dragged them bodily toward the great cathedral doors, his movements casual but unyielding. To anyone watching, it looked less like a scuffle and more like a predator hauling its prey. “Come on, little corpse. If you won’t show me the lattice, I’ll take you somewhere you don’t get to argue about it.”

He shoved the doors wide, half-shoving, half-carrying Maldrien through the threshold. Then he paused, glancing back over his shoulder at Nocturne.

“And you,” Oriole said, pointing with one clawed, elegant finger, his grin back in place. “Get moving. Father doesn’t like to wait.”

The doors swung closed behind him, leaving the echo of his laughter hanging in the cathedral.

Noct sat frozen for a moment, sword heavy across his knees. His runes hummed with Virya’s touch still lingering, but none of it settled the knot in his chest. He was worried for Maldrien—dragged away in such a state, half-decayed and defenseless—and he was worried for himself.

Because if Oriole was right, he was about to face the Emperor alone.

And the Emperor did not like to wait.

Chapter Text

“What is this?” Oriole asked, tilting Maldrien’s lattice and prodding at an oddly shaped intersection in the weave.

Maldrien flinched. The little rune tile they’d slid into their containment lattice experimentally wobbled. They had hoped no one would notice. Their father hadn’t yet, but Oriole’s eyes missed nothing. He understood runework better than anyone Maldrien had ever known.

Even more so than the Emperor.

Oriole plucked Maldrien’s spectacles from their face without asking, holding them up to magnify the lattice. His gaze was sharp, unblinking, dissecting.

“Did you place this here?” His voice was calm, stripped of emotion, the tone of someone taking inventory. “It’s interrupting the lattice flow. Did you tell father?”

Maldrien hesitated. “He hasn’t asked me about it.”

Oriole’s pupils flared, then constricted as though adjusting lenses. He leaned in closer, studying, pinning with his gaze. “Interesting. Poorly positioned, but functional. It destabilizes the decay-timing crystal at the joint with the soul-containment facet.” His words came quick and precise, as though dictating notes. “Unstable resonance—inefficient in this form, but clever. You’re using it to block him from a section of your thoughts, aren’t you?”

He pressed the tile, shifting it with quick, exact movements. Maldrien grimaced—the sensation was like a stone grinding in their bones—but Oriole didn’t falter.

“There.” The adjustment clicked into place, sliding the tile along the command lattice. Oriole murmured, more to himself than to Maldrien: “That’s the axis you were aiming for. Better throughput. Cleaner bind.”

He reached for his notebook and began sketching furiously, lines and sigils spilling across the page. “You’ve forced an artificial bridge where none should exist. Curious. I’ll need to model this.” His tone was crisp, detached, and fascinated. “It might scale.”

He didn’t look at Maldrien again, as if the person attached to the lattice no longer mattered—only the experiment did.

“You aren’t going to tell Father?” Maldrien asked quietly.

Oriole finally glanced up, eyes flat and analytical. “Why would I tell Father? Unless your intention is to betray him. Is it?”

“N-no. I just want to keep some of my thoughts to myself. That’s all.”

“I see no problem in that. Too much oversight can hinder advancement in experimentation.” Oriole returned to his notebook, sketching with rapid, exact strokes. “This tile—have you considered using a series of them as a replacement for an entire lattice, rather than inserting them into one?”

His voice quickened, the detached rhythm of someone thinking aloud. “If each tile could be tuned to carry its own decay timing and containment properties, you might bypass the need for a centralized structure altogether. A modular system—independent facets, each responsible for its own integrity. That would mean fewer single points of failure. And if one tile collapsed, the rest would remain stable.”

He flipped to a fresh page, sketching a layered grid, runes spreading outward in a spiraling sequence. “Scaling could be exponential. A construct with a hundred tiles—or a thousand—each one a self-sustaining node. It might even open the possibility of distributed consciousness. Fragments linked in parallel, instead of one fragile soul-cage.”

His pupils dilated, then narrowed, his voice settling into a crisp, measured hum. “Yes. Not just containment. Adaptation. Evolution within the lattice itself.”

The scratching of his pen slowed. He looked up at Maldrien, eyes flat but bright with calculation. “Show me your notes.”

“They’re fragile when built on top of each other,” Maldrien admitted. “I—I wasn’t really intending for it to replace latticework.”

“Oh, if there is more than one, do they propagate? I wonder if you had put two together, if they would have reproduced until your lattice shattered?” Oriole’s mouth stretched into a wide, feral grin. “It’s a latticebreaker. A weapon—like the runesword you made me and…” The grin faltered, sharpness cooling into disdain. “Virya’s idiot.”

He tapped the page with the end of his pen, eyes fixed on the spiral of runes he’d drawn. “Refined properly, this could shatter the elves’ defensive runework in an instant. Collapse their core defenses, strip their weapon bindings, leave their lattices in ruins. Do you see it, Mal? With this, you could unmake the Xirathi’s legacy as easily as snapping a twig.”

His voice stayed calm, precise, clinical—as if he were discussing a mechanism rather than his people’s existence.

Maldrien shifted, drawing their robes tighter around their shoulders. “That’s not what I designed it for.” Their voice was quiet but steady. “It’s meant to shield—create blind spots, walls within walls. Not a weapon. A way to keep part of myself safe.”

Oriole glanced up, studying them for a long, unreadable moment. Then his mouth curled in a small, humorless smile. “Defense and offense are only ever separated by intent.”

Maldrien’s gaze dropped to the faint twitch of their mottled hand, hidden in the folds of fabric. “Then let it be intent. Mine is defense.”

Oriole chuckled—a laugh without malice, carrying the faintest shade of fondness. “All right. Yours is defense. Do you mind if I play with it, though?”

Maldrien hesitated. The tilings were brittle, and Oriole was a genius—but a volatile one.

“Don’t use them on Strix.” The words came out too quickly, too sharp, edged with something close to pleading. “His lattice is fragile. You’ve seen it, right? The cognitive echoes.”

For a moment, the brightness in Oriole’s eyes dimmed. As if the reminder—that he bore some responsibility for Strix’s faltering lattice—had struck something deep, something raw. Maldrien couldn’t be sure. Strix had done things to Oriole in the beginning that would have soured anyone against him.

And Maldrien wasn’t defending it. Strix had only done what Father commanded—what he willed by any means necessary.

But the way Father had made him do it—forcing Strix to break Oriole’s body and spirit alike—had been cruel. Cruel to Oriole, and cruel to Strix.

Now Oriole’s revenge had become an obsession, a meticulous fine-tuning of the lattice that had once enabled Strix to be used against him.

Father allowed it because Strix served no greater purpose beyond housing the godchild’s soul, bound to his own. So long as Oriole didn’t disrupt the soulcage, Father remained indifferent to his first creation.

“I know his lattice is fragile,” Oriole snapped, dragging Maldrien back to the present. “I love Strix. I might fuck with him a little, but I would never cause his lattice to collapse.”

Something twitched at the back of Maldrien’s mind. “You… love him?”

Oriole’s eyes fixed on him, pupils constricting into fine, birdlike points as he snapped his notebook shut and stepped away from the workbench.

“As much as I can love anyone who’s a complete fool. The echoes won’t hurt him and can’t be avoided in this phase of my research. Don’t worry, this is good for him.”

Maldrien stared, unsure if the admission was meant as truth or mockery.

Oriole smirked, handing Maldrien their glasses back as though the conversation had never happened. “Let me know if you want me to help replace your eyes. Those things look worse than some of Virya’s parishioners.”

Maldrien grimaced. “I shouldn’t. Father might need them for something.”

Oriole gave him a strange look—one eyebrow arched, nose wrinkled, eyes narrowed. “We can keep them in a jar if he needs them. You aren’t a mausoleum for his body parts.”

They winced, half certain that would summon Father’s attention—but it didn’t. No voice pressed into their skull, no presence looming at the edges of thought. It was just them.

“Don’t say things like that.” Maldrien relaxed slightly as they realized Father must have been focused elsewhere—perhaps with Nocturne.

“Say what? That you should be able to do with your body what you want?” Oriole sniffed as the door to his workshop opened and Strix appeared. “You forget—you’re the one who taught me I could do whatever I liked with mine. I think you should be allowed the same.”

Oriole lifted his arms toward Strix as he drew near, a wickedly flirtatious smile crawling across his face. “Where have you been?” His fingers reached up as soon as Strix was within reach, twining through his hair. The gesture was fond, strangely loving, and intimate enough to make Maldrien blush and look away.

Their heart thudded in their chest, aching. They weren’t used to seeing the two of them like this. Usually, within the family’s milieu, Oriole was coarse—sometimes cruel—with Strix, who took it in stride or bristled in return.

Strix leaned into the touch without hesitation, as though the fondness were the most natural thing in the world. His eyes half-lidded, lips quirking faintly, he endured Oriole’s fingers twining through his hair with quiet acceptance, even amusement. This wasn’t unexpected—Oriole was chaotic, mercurial, and Strix had long since learned to take him as he came.

Maldrien’s breath caught. They told themself it wasn’t unusual—that Oriole and Strix had always tangled in ways that defied easy definition—but the ease between them made something twist deep in their chest. The intimacy of it—the unguarded smile, the way Strix allowed himself to be touched, the way Oriole touched him—was almost unbearable to watch.

Heat rose in Maldrien’s face, and they turned away, ashamed of the ache pressing against their ribs. They weren’t supposed to want closeness like that. It wasn’t allowed. Not for them.

And yet watching it—the warmth, the simple audacity of it—made them long for something they could never have.

“I—I should go. Thank you for helping me with my lattice.”

They didn’t wait for an answer. Gathering their robes close, Maldrien slipped past the workbench toward the door. But as they reached the threshold, they made the mistake of glancing back.

Oriole’s fingers were still tangled in Strix’s hair, his smile fond, loving. Strix leaned into the touch without hesitation, eyes half-lidded, as if this was the only world he knew.

Maldrien’s chest ached so sharply they thought it might split them open.

Then the door closed, and the ache followed them into the dark.

-

Virya walked beside him through the halls of the Ossuary, her crimson hair swaying like a banner in the rune-light. She kept fussing over him the whole way, brushing invisible dust from his shoulders, smoothing the edge of his coat, and tousling his hair until he batted her hand away.

He felt like a bunch of animals were fighting inside his stomach. 

“You don’t have to be nervous,” she said in that sing-song voice that made his bones hum. “Father will see how well you’re doing. He’ll be proud of me.”

“Proud of you,” Noct echoed softly. His fingers itched for the sword, but he had left it behind in the cathedral, propped against the altar where its bone gleamed faintly in the candlelight. Virya had told him to leave it, that he wouldn’t need it.

Somehow, he feared this would not be the case.

When they reached the arched doors of the throne room, she stopped and turned to him. Her smile was sweet, almost indulgent, but there was a sharpness in her eyes that left no room for argument.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, brushing his cheek with the back of her fingers. “Be polite. Don’t ramble. Remember, you are a reflection on me.”

The words sat heavy in his chest, but he nodded anyway.

Virya leaned in close, her breath warm against his ear. “Make me look good,” she whispered, then gave him a little push inside.

The doors swung shut behind him with a hollow thud.

As Nocturne slid into the throne room—alone—he didn’t feel the pressure he normally felt approaching the emperor.  It was quiet.  No vibration, no feeling like something was trying to peel open his head like an orange.

And while that was strange, it wasn’t as strange as the fact that the Emperor was nowhere to be seen.

“H-hello?” He didn’t know what to do with his hands.  Put them in his coat pockets?  Behind his back? Salute?  Should he be saluting? The emperor was more of a bow before me kinda guy; he should be bowing or lying on the ground or something.

“I’m sure this is hilarious for the reader.” He mumbled to himself, not quite sure what he was talking about, just uttering the thought that came to his mind out loud.

Then it happened.  A physical force.  A shove to his back knocked him to the ground, and then he felt a knee to the back of his head and the sound of a blade.

“Who the fuck are you?  Why can’t I see in your head?”

He felt something pull at his runes, as though they were shifting, spinning, and moving physically within the realm of their magic, and the pressure on the back of his head lifted as he was rolled over like a dead fish.

The man who stooped over him was, for all purposes, Maldrien.  Though his eyes had the brightness of life in them.  The color of a bright blue bird’s egg.  There was an eerie emptiness in those eyes. His wavy hair was a healthy tawny yellow, but other than that, he had the same high cheekbones and sharply cut jaw.

It was the Emperor—yet stripped of the miasma of cosmic godhood he usually cloaked himself in.

“You aren’t him. Who are you?”

Nocturne blinked, uncertain. “Nocturne?” he offered, as if testing the name himself.

They stared at each other for a long, brittle moment. The Emperor’s blade pressed against his throat until a thin line of blood trickled down his neck.

He wore a strange black jacket, supple and faintly scented of tannins—leather, perhaps. His shirt was simple, marked with odd symbols that might have been letters, stitched or painted in a script Noct didn’t recognize, though something about them felt familiar.

Noct finally continued to question, “Who’s him?”

The man above him’s lips twitched as though the mere question was infuriating.  Questions could be like that. His hand flipped through the runes on Noct’s collarbone before he sat back, and the blade at his neck disappeared into the coat he was wearing.

“You have to be one of his. The name was a giveaway; I should have picked up on that. S-stupid. He’s so fucking predictable. Why didn’t I see it?” He rubbed at his temple, frustration bleeding into his tone as he stood. “Maybe it’s your connection to him that kept me from putting two and two together.”

Noct watched him circle—blue trousers of heavy, torn twill tucked into scuffed boots built for crushing skulls. He looked strange, dissonant in his simplicity… and yet, achingly familiar.

“I’ve been lazy,” the man muttered, voice low with self-contempt. “Foolish.”

He stopped pacing. Without warning, he struck himself hard in the side of the head—so violently that Nocturne might have flinched, if he’d had any control over his body.

“I should’ve gone after her,” he hissed, “and that stupid, insipid fish.”

When he looked back at Nocturne, his eyes—startlingly human, an almost painful blue—locked on him with a feverish intensity. He didn’t need to control his lattice; the gaze alone pinned Nocturne in place, daring him to move, even though he couldn’t.

“And now,” he said, voice trembling between fury and dread, “I can feel Mace awakening. Do you know what that means?”

“I’m sorry, I still don’t know who you are talking about.”  Noct forced himself to look back into those eyes despite the chill running through him, “I don’t even remember how I got here, so I need a little help if we are going to figure this out.”

The god’s mouth curved into a crooked smile, followed by a laugh—an actual laugh. Not the thunderous, theatrical roar of divinity, but something small and startlingly human.

“Are you…” He bent down again, peering into Nocturne’s eyes. “…fucking with me?”

“I don’t think so?” Noct offered weakly.

The Emperor straightened, and the moment shattered. The gravity of his presence returned all at once—the air thickening, the weight of godhood pressing down until Noct felt as though he were being slowly ground into the floor.

“You don't think so.” The god’s voice vibrated through the room as his eyes took on the golden hue Noct had seen when he first met him.  The strange outfit he was wearing ignited into flame, which caused Noct to startle for a moment until he realized he was just changing into his normal royal attire with some flair, as it were.

As his gaze narrowed, the illusion of mortality fell away. His body unraveled into something vast and unfathomable—form bleeding into formlessness. He expanded outward, filling the chamber and beyond: sky, void, and the impossible darkness between stars. Eyes, mouths, wings, and tendrils of shadow bloomed from his shape—an anatomy of pure, living chaos.

Noct’s thoughts shattered under the sight of what he was seeing defied reason, devouring it. His mind clawed at itself in blind panic, desperate to unsee, to survive the enormity of what stood before him.

“You don’t think so? 

You.

Don’t.

Think so?

The pressure of the god choked him.  He was sure this was what it felt like to be pulled to pieces bit by bit. By his atoms. He wasn’t sure what atoms were, but it felt like they were being torn to pieces.

“I am going to give you a directive,” the Emperor said. His voice wasn’t sound—it was gravity. It pressed into Nocturne’s skull, vibrating through the marrow of his bones until thought itself stuttered. “And you will obey it.”

The vast shape above him shifted—wings, eyes, and tendrils of darkness folding and unfolding like a storm given flesh. Every one of those impossible eyes turned toward him, their collective gaze a weight so immense it felt like his soul was being peeled apart.

“If you speak of what you saw here,” the voice rumbled—not echoing, but resonating, as though the air itself feared him—“if you tell anyone what I said, or what I am, I will tear Maldrien apart before you. Slowly. Deliberately. And you will watch as they stitch themselves back together at my command.”

Nocturne’s breath caught. The image alone felt like it could split his mind.

“You will not attempt to remember what came before your resurrection,” the Emperor went on, tone sharp and final. “Those memories are forbidden. They were mine to take, and they are gone. Try to reach for them, and I will unmake what remains of you.”

The mass of eyes drew closer, golden light burning through the void. When he spoke again, it was quieter—but infinitely worse.

“You were remade for Virya. You exist to serve her. That is your only purpose now.”

Nocturne trembled, every instinct screaming to flee, but he couldn’t move and there was nowhere to go. The god’s gaze pinned him in place like an insect beneath glass.

“Do not test me, little revenant,” the Emperor whispered—a dozen mouths forming the words at once, a chorus of impossible hunger. “Obey, and you may keep what she loves of you.”

A spark ignited at the back of Nocturne’s mind—small at first, like a static pop across a dead channel. Then it grew, bright and strange, a pulse of knowing that wasn’t his.

It was prescient. Hungry. Something deeper than memory, older than this stitched-together life Virya had given him. It crawled along his thoughts like a hand reaching up from beneath black water.

The Emperor’s words pressed into him—Obey, and you may keep what she loves of you—but the spark only flared hotter. It wasn’t defiance, not yet. More like a pull—alien, inexorable, inevitable. Between the pounding of his heart, a voice threaded through the silence: More. You need to know more.

And then, quieter, closer—He can’t see your thoughts. Placate him so you can defy him.

The god’s gaze bore down until it felt like his skull might crack, but the spark refused to die. It tightened behind his eyes, sharp and electric, promising something terrible and irresistible if only he reached for it.

Nocturne’s breath hitched. The tremor in his chest might have been terror—or anticipation. It was the beginning of a fracture, something vast and secret stirring beneath his borrowed skin, beyond even the Emperor’s reach.

The air shuddered. The pressure eased.

The Emperor’s form began to fold in on itself, eyes and wings collapsing into smoke and gold until the vast, impossible shape resolved once more into a man—immaculate, terrifying in his composure. With a flick of his hand, the invisible weight holding Nocturne down vanished.

“Rise,” he commanded. Noct could feel his lattice moving releasing him from his frozen state.

Nocturne moved—slowly, carefully—feeling the tremble of his limbs return like the echo of freedom. He bowed his head low as he stood, letting his hair fall forward to hide the spark that still flickered behind his eyes.

“Yes, my lord,” he said, his voice steady, obedient. “I understand completely.”

The Emperor’s expression smoothed, cold satisfaction curving his lips. “Good. See that you do.”

Nocturne kept his head bowed, though inside, the unseen voice stirred again—soft, dangerous, alive: Remember what he fears.

“Now go,” the Emperor said, his tone sharpening like a snapped blade. “The longer I look at you, the more you resemble him—and the less patience I have.”

Nocturne didn’t wait to be told twice. He stumbled backward, then turned and all but fled down the length of the throne room toward the towering doors.

His thoughts spun in wild circles. What had just happened? What had he seen? What did he know now—and why did it feel important?