Chapter 35 Marienne
Marienne
Bloomhill manor is too quiet.
Not in a peaceful way. Peace, at least, has warmth. This is a hush of unraveling threads, of shadows stretched too long and too thin. Even the air feels hesitant, like the walls are listening.
The children are asleep. Or pretending to be. Siven sobbed herself silent hours ago, curled like a wounded animal in the corner of the bed until Imara coaxed her under the blankets. I kissed her forehead. She flinched anyway.
I told Margot I was going to rest. She didn’t believe me.
Now, I sit in the music room with my back to the door, shoulders bowed over the harp like it might tell me who I am if I just touch it right. One note hums beneath my fingers, then another—fragile, incomplete. A song that cannot quite find its way.
The silence folds around me.
Eventually, I move to the divan by the window. I sit with my hands in my lap, watching the dark beyond the glass. A single beam of moonlight spills through the window. Dust hangs in it like silver pollen. The house doesn’t creak the way it used to. It listens now. It waits.
They’ll take them from me.
They’ll twist the scene in the ballroom—paint Siven as feral, me as negligent, Tamsin as a brute in borrowed armor.
I can already hear Lord Halveric’s voice: “A home built on sentiment is no home at all.”
I press my palms to my eyes until color blooms behind them. I should’ve known better. This was always borrowed time.
Maybe love truly isn’t enough. Maybe my parents were right. Maybe the Court is right.
Maybe I’m the fool they think I am.
When the door opens, I tense. Tamsin’s steps are quiet. She never walks like a soldier when the moon is up. Only in daylight does she keep her chin high, her shoulders squared—as if the sun demands her to.
“Are they settled?” she asks softly.
“Yes,” I say. My voice catches. “Siven cried herself sick. Imara didn’t eat. Liri wanted to sleep with her shoes on in case someone tried to take her in the night. So yes. Settled.”
Tamsin doesn’t reply. She just crosses the room and sits near me on the floor, her back to the wall, legs drawn up, arms braced on her knees.
It’s a long while before I speak again. When I do, my voice is very small.
“I think the Court might be right.”
“No,” she says instantly.
“You didn’t let me finish...”
“You didn’t need to.”
I swallow the tightness in my throat. “They think I’m sentimental. Flighty. Unfit.”
“They’re wrong.”
I turn my head just enough to see her profile. Her scar catches the light.
“I thought if I made them feel safe, if I loved them enough… if I gave them songs and cakes and bedtime stories… they’d be safe. But that’s not how the world works, is it?”
Tamsin is silent.
I laugh, too sharp, too bitter. “My mother used to say I was too soft to hold power. That sweetness was a form of self-harm.”
“She was wrong too.”
I exhale through my nose. “It’s the first time I’ve ever felt like I had a family. With them. With all of you. But, perhaps I’m destined to be alone forever. And Gods— The girls…”
What will become of the girls? My little bats?
“You won’t be,” she says quietly. “Not completely alone. You’ll have me.”
The words land between us like a vow.
I look up at her, startled.
Her expression is unreadable—but her voice is steady. Certain.
Then she adds, as if to soften the weight of it, “And you won’t lose the children either. You’ll see.”
My heart is too full and too fragile all at once. For once, I don’t know what to say.
Tamsin shifts, gaze drifting toward the window. “You’re not the only one who’s afraid of losing what matters.”
Her hand moves instinctively to the side of her face, fingers brushing the line of the scar like she could wipe it away.
“I told you I got this scar on a failed assignment. There was a peace envoy,” she says finally. “A diplomat I was assigned to protect. We were negotiating with a court near the northern border. She was kind. Smarter than the rest of us. I liked her.”
Her voice cracks, just a hair.
“The orders we were given were wrong. She knew it. I knew it. But I followed them anyway. I stood there and let her walk into an ambush I could’ve stopped if I’d just… broken rank.”
My breath catches.
“She died fast. They left me alive. A warning. A punishment. I’ve been wearing it ever since.”
I reach for her hand. She lets me take it.
“You’re not that soldier anymore,” I say.
She meets my gaze. “I’m still the one who didn’t stop it.”
“But you’re also the one who keeps us safe now,” I whisper. “Who kisses scraped knees and finds missing shoes and eats burnt pie without complaint. You’re the one they run to.”
I don’t blink. I want her to see how deeply I mean it.
“That means something, Tamsin. That means everything.”
The room stills. Slows.
Tamsin shifts closer. Her hand slides from my own and rests on the divan beside me. She kneels before where I sit, the movement quiet and reverent, like a prayer being made flesh.
“I meant what I said,” she murmurs. “You have a kind and capable heart.”
She tilts her chin, and for once her voice doesn’t sound like stone scraped against stone. It sounds sure.
“The fiercest heart I know.”
I forget to breathe.
The moonlight shifts, catching on the sharp angle of her cheek, the scar running down like a crack in marble. But her eyes—gods, her eyes are soft. Storm-light and sorrow and something else I don’t dare name…
Slowly, I lift my hand. The movement is instinctive, tender. I cup her cheek, the scarred one. My thumb brushes gently across the edge of it, a caress, not a question. And she doesn’t flinch.
Her lashes flutter, but she doesn’t pull away.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she says softly.
But I do.
I lean in, not fast, not bold. Just closer. Closer until I can feel her breath, shallow and uneven, brushing across my lips. My hand is still cupping her cheek, and I feel the tension in her jaw, the tremble she tries to hide.
Her eyes search mine like she’s bracing for ruin.
“I want to,” I whisper. “But I’m afraid I don’t have the words…”
So I kiss her.
It’s not the kind of kiss that begs forgiveness or demands an answer. It’s not fevered or frantic. It’s offered—like a promise. Like a sunrise cupped between trembling palms.
It’s everything I want to tell her, but don’t know how.
Her mouth is soft. Startled. Still.
And then, slowly, beautifully, she kisses me back.
Her hand rises, uncertain at first, then firm, settling at my waist like she’s afraid I’ll vanish if she doesn’t hold on.
The kiss deepens. Not with hunger, but with reverence. As if we’re both discovering something we never believed we could have.
When I finally pull away, we’re still close enough that our noses bump. Tamsin’s eyes are wide. Lit with awe. Her thumb brushes over my waist as if confirming I’m real.
She swallows. Her voice is rough when it comes.
“Marienne,” she says, like it’s both a prayer and a warning.
“I know,” I whisper. “It’s all right.”
She exhales like she’s been holding her breath for months. Maybe years.
And then she kisses me again.
This time it’s different.
Not offered, claimed. Her hand rises to cradle the back of my neck, fingers threading through the loose curls there, and her mouth opens against mine with quiet hunger. The kind that builds slowly, like fire under snow.
A low, smoldering ache that says stay close or I’ll lose myself.
She shifts, pulling me forward gently until our bodies align. My hands find her shoulders, the ridges of muscle beneath her formal wear. She’s shaking.
So am I.
Her other hand moves to my ribs, splayed wide—steadying, grounding, wanting. It’s not urgent. It’s not rushed.
But gods, it’s honest.
My breath hitches as her mouth moves to my jaw, then the soft spot just below my ear. Her lips pause there, and I feel the heat of her next words as they spill against my skin:
“I’ve wanted to do this for a while now.”
A shiver rolls through me. “Why didn’t you?”
Her lips return to mine. “Because I wasn’t ready to love someone like you.”
The room shrinks. The rest of the manor might as well not exist.
“Someone like me?” I ask, voice trembling despite my best efforts.
She leans back just enough to look at me, really look—like I’m a painting she’s trying to memorize.
“Someone so magnetic the whole room tilts when they smile. So full of softness it feels like defiance. Someone who can command a room with a laugh and dismantle a monster with a lullaby. I wasn’t ready for that…”
She takes my hand in both of hers, brings it to her mouth, and kisses the knuckles like they’re sacred. Her breath catches.
Then, softly, she says, “But I am now. I swear it—I’m yours, Marienne. You will not be alone. Not now. Not ever.”
It's unmistakably a vow. The kind whispered over blood and fire.
Heat flushes through me, a shiver chasing it down my spine. My free hand rises to cup her jaw, stroking the line of her cheek with my thumb, slow and reverent.
“Then show me,” I whisper.
Tamsin’s mouth moves to my neck. She breathes sweetly against my skin.
“With pleasure, my flower.”
Her lips leave a trail of goosebumps down the slope of my throat, each kiss an invocation. I tilt my head back instinctively, baring more of my neck to her, offering. Trusting. My breath catches the moment her teeth graze the sensitive skin there.
A flush blooms low in my belly, heat curling tight between my legs. My fangs respond before I can stop them, pressing gently past my lips, sharp with hunger not just for blood but for her.
The desire to sink into her, to mark her, to taste her soul-deep, pulses through me like wildfire.
Tamsin’s hands slide upward, fingers brushing the neckline of my dress until one sleeve slips from my shoulder. Her palms are warm, callused, so careful as they push fabric aside and cup the swell of my breasts.
My hands find her waist, tugging her closer, needing more.
Then she sees.
Her gaze flickers to my mouth. To the fangs peeking through. Before I can stop myself, I turn my face away.