13. A Tender Embrace in the Moonlight
A Tender Embrace in the Moonlight
Mariana
No matter how many monsters I fought, my body always responded like it was my first: the cursed badger that had bitten my face and left a scar on my upper lip.
Adrenaline hummed through my veins, quick as a river current.
My pulse throbbed in my neck and pounded through my sore ribs; my skin crawled with the buzz of my magic.
The child inside me wanted to shriek and whimper, but as Heris had told me after he ran the badger through, Hysterics will only get you killed.
So, I shoved the emotion down, compacting it in the base of my belly.
Forcing my lungs to draw slow breaths. Strong-arming myself into calm.
The Fates might’ve gifted me with sensitivity, but callousness kept me safe. Steel does not feel, I reminded myself.
“So, first impressions?” I asked Faren as I followed him up the stairs.
The steps were triangular and narrow, spiraling precariously upward.
His shoulders scraped the stone walls as he climbed, forcing him to walk with his chest angled sideways.
He’d sheathed one sword but kept the other aloft and alight; its red radiance reflected in his breastplate, making him look like he wore armor made of flame.
“Have you gotten any good material for your report?” I pressed, keeping my tone mockingly light. It was either that, or the aforementioned hysterics. “Will you wax poetic about Yar’s undeniable charm?”
“The assessment you shared with Lord Haron appears correct,” Faren replied seriously. “Not much to report, aside from perhaps, ‘Complete devastation.’”
“Are you admitting that I was right?”
“I am as shocked as you are,” Faren said blandly.
His armor clattered against the curved walls as he made his way upward.
Welts were already forming on his sun-kissed cheeks, and his face was flushed.
As much as I enjoyed showering him with Mighty Knight slander, I empathized with the fear he must’ve felt during our brief fight with the wolves.
No innocent person deserved to face such horrors—few of the guilty did, either—and I doubted Faren had encountered an abomination before.
He’d kept his composure better than I expected.
At the top of the tower, we came upon a closed hatch in the ceiling of the stairwell.
The steps led all the way up to it, as if they continued beyond.
Faren reached up to unhook the latch, but when he pushed against the door, it wouldn’t budge.
Bracing his feet on the upper steps, Faren shoved against the hatch with his shoulder, grunting as he threw his weight against the wood.
With a squeal of rusted hinges, it burst open with a rush of cool night air.
Faren poked his head out and glanced around. Then he jerked, emitting a garbled sound as he flailed his arms. A small creature—a squirrel or rat, definitely cursed—clung to his upper arm, angling to bite his neck. It squeaked and hissed as Faren tried and failed to shake it loose.
I moved quickly, drawing a dagger from my thigh holster and wedging myself through the hole in the ceiling. It took a mere moment to skewer the tiny abomination, pinning it with my dagger against the back of the hatch door.
“Fuck,” Faren said, his breath gusting over the crown of my head.
We were breastplate to breastplate, face to face. I felt him shudder against me, his nervous energy permeating the metal between us.
It was a squirrel, I noted. I removed my blade from its head, sheathed my dagger, and—gritting my teeth against the ache in my ribs—pulled myself the rest of the way through the hole. Faren extinguished his sword and followed me up, surprisingly agile despite the cramped space.
We found ourselves on a stone walkway, hemmed in by a chest-high balustrade. The walk encircled the hollow chamber in which the bell hung, and the tower’s openwork spire pierced the clouds above our heads.
I peered out at the moonlit town. We could see the entirety of Yar-on-Gray from our perch.
The river meandered to our right, shrouded in low fog.
Thatched and shingled rooftops lined the labyrinthine streets.
The cobblestones—fitted together like snake scales—were mottled with gore.
From this high up, the swan statue in the town square appeared no larger than my thumbnail, nor did the wolves that continued to pace at the base of the bell tower.
Faren rested his forearms on the stone railing beside me and let out a long sigh.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“I’m feeling the romance already,” he deadpanned. “Nothing like cursed wolves circling our hideout to get me in the mood.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” I said. “Lust for life, and all that.”
His short laugh seemed genuine. “You think they’ll give up anytime soon?”
I shrugged. “Hard to say. Sometimes I think the curse makes them smarter—or, at least, more dogged in their pursuit. They aren’t as predictable as normal animals.”
Faren’s gaze lifted to the rooftops, the river, the forest beyond. While his eyes traced the landscape, mine traced him with a curious impulse: the prominent apple in his throat, the masculine dimple in his chin, the suppleness of his lips.
During our first few days on the road, I’d tried not to observe him too closely.
He was far too pleasant to look upon, more like a storybook character than a tangible man.
I’d relished the idea of his hair mussed, face dirty, and now, I had it: grime and gore smeared across his armor, welts freckling his face, a careless stubble on his jaw.
I noticed other imperfections, too: smile lines around his eyes, a bump in the bridge of his nose from where it must’ve been broken and reset.
To my dismay, I found that the filth and flaws made his appearance even more pleasing.
They stripped away the fairytale and made him look real.
Somehow, that was worse. Much worse.
When Faren caught me staring, he frowned. “What? Do I have something on my face?”
“Just a bit of caustic ichor,” I replied. “Not to worry, you still look as gallant as ever.”
“Was that a compliment?”
I stared out at the town and trees. “I think the ambiance is getting to me.”
“Mariana,” Faren drawled, feigning shock. “Are you a romantic?” He turned toward me, resting one elbow on the railing. “Do you secretly wish for a tender embrace in the moonlight?”
“I’m more likely to throw you off this tower than embrace you on it.”
He chuckled amiably.
“What about you?” I asked, silently assuring myself that my curiosity was not genuine, but mocking. “Are you secretly a romantic?”
“Oh, it’s no secret. For one, I’m a touch magician. ‘Tender embrace’ is in my nature.”
I stiffened, unwilling to display any reaction to the revelation that we shared the same Fates-given gift.
I’d had a suspicion that his heightened sense was touch—it was important to observe all that one could about one’s enemy, and there had been signs—but the confirmation made me respect him slightly more.
Traveling the countryside was uncomfortable, and he hadn’t complained once.
“And secondly,” he went on, “I grew up with noble parents who were a love match, surrounded by four sisters obsessed with court gossip, in a house filled with romance novels. I come by my romanticism honestly.”
Despite myself, I found Faren’s sentimentality—and his comfort with it—almost charming. In my Order, men didn’t emote—except through violence.
“Four older sisters?” I clarified. “Perhaps you’re tougher than I thought.”
His eyes seemed to sparkle. “Aside from sword fighting, they taught me everything I know.”
His apparent fondness for them struck something in me, like a mallet on a bell.
Down below, the wolves were still squabbling. From the woods, hoots and cracking branches echoed. We were in a terrible, cursed place, haunted by trauma—yet up here, in Faren’s easy and teasing company, the wretchedness felt distant.
A quiet yearning rang through me, one I rarely allowed myself to listen to. “I have two siblings,” I admitted. “A brother and a sister.”
Faren stared at me as if I’d barked. I expected him to make a joke about my opening up—Did you just share something about yourself, Mariana? Have the Fates arrived to bring the end of times?—but all he said was, “What are their names?”
“Bard and Rosie.”
“Let me guess,” Faren said, studying me. “You’re the eldest.”
I arched a brow.
“You have all the qualities of an older sister.” He raised a big hand and began counting on his fingers. “Terrifying. Fiercely protective. Harsh. You think you know what’s best—”
I took a single step toward him, lifting my chin. “I do know what’s best—”
“Natural leader,” he said with amusement. He raised his other hand to continue counting. “Exacting. You care way more than you let on—”
“That’s enough.”
“Tender hearted,” he enunciated.
“How dare you.”
He guffawed heartily. The moment seemed to rise like a tide, lifting us up—but then it receded, leaving us back on solid ground. On a stone tower in the middle of a ravaged town.
Faren ran a hand through his hair and faced forward again. “What happened here, Mariana?”
I swallowed thickly. This was why I rarely allowed myself nice moments—they only made the return to reality more painful. “You read the Valiant reports, didn’t you?”
“Yes. They didn’t explain much beyond the basic facts.”
“Which were?”
“Abominations have been gradually spreading from the Western Wood into townships; Yar being the closest to the forest made it easy prey; the Valiant arrived too late and with limited forces, and the town was overrun.”
I shrugged. “That’s about it.”
“Lord Haron believes this is a failure of your Order, and I can’t say I disagree,” Faren said, taking in the wreckage. “But I’m willing to listen to your side of the story, if you’ll tell it.”
I slipped back into casual animosity as easily as I’d slipped into my sword belt this morning. “Why, so you can glean more leverage against me?”
His smile was weak. “I know you think I’m all talk, Mariana.
I know you think I’m just here for a promotion, or glory, and I admit that the furthering of my career is a motivator, but the truth of the matter is that I care.
” His tone grew forceful, earnest. “I care about peace and prosperity for all the citizens of Fenrir—and I think you do, too. We might disagree on the method, but do not doubt my conviction. I want to make things better. I’m trying. ”
I let out a long exhale, letting my gaze lift to the sky. Pale clouds drifted across a backdrop of deep blue overcast. Every so often, a star poked through, then disappeared. The moon brightened and dimmed, shining through the cloud cover, making everything appear pallid and ethereal.
“The Valiant had been observing increased activity near Yar for months before the infestation,” I said at last.
Faren waited, watching me intently.
“We were mitigating it as best we could, but our Oaths require secrecy, and the closer monsters get to townships, the harder and more contradictory our duties become.”
“How so?”
“It’s difficult to protect someone from a creature they aren’t supposed to know about,” I said.
“If I intervene with civilian witnesses, my presence—with my special armor and magic weapon and lack of fear—all but confirms the abomination’s existence.
” I spread my hands in a shrug. “I can’t claim a cursed wolf is simply rabid if it’s deformed body is bleeding at my feet with a crowd of villagers standing watch. ”
“So the Valiant purposefully waited too long to save Yar?”
“Is that what I just said?”
Faren’s lips pressed into a thin line.
“Eventually, there had been enough incidents in and around Yar to warrant a less…clandestine intervention,” I continued.
“We sent word to the Lord, asking for assistance. More knights or perhaps an official decree for evacuation. Something to get the townsfolk out of harm’s way. But no answer came.”
Faren was quick to jump to the Lord’s defense. “That can’t be right.”
“It wasn’t right,” I agreed. “There reached a tipping point where our duty to keep the secret was eclipsed by our duty to protect innocent lives. We intervened, but with limited resources, we could only slow the destruction, not stop it. It was too late.”
“You were there,” Faren realized. “When Yar fell.”
I nodded. Memory swept over me like a sheet, shrouding my vision.
In my mind’s eye, I could see the Morta—ten of them, at least—sweeping through town with vicious hunger.
I saw shops going up in flames, folks running and screaming.
Cursed animals adding to the chaos, turning more into monsters.
I’d defeated two Morta that night, but it hadn’t been enough to quell the destruction, and afterward, Heris had me beaten for making kills I hadn’t had a right to.
“What happened to the citizens?” Faren asked. “Were they turned?”
“Some were.”
“And the rest?”
That was a detail I couldn’t bring myself to speak. They know too much, Heris had said. If word spreads, it’ll be the end of the Valiant, and all our plans will have been for naught. I had left before it was done, but it still weighed heavy on my conscience.
Whatever conclusion Faren reached by my silence, he didn’t share it. “Fates,” he swore, rubbing his chin again. “Fucking Fates, what a mess.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
He met my eyes. “Mariana, we can’t just—”
A series of cracks—not unlike the sound of a falling tree—cut him off.
The wolves keeping post at the base of the tower scattered, racing into the fog with tails tucked.
My heart began to pound with an instinctual, knowing sort of terror, the tattoo around my neck tingling with anticipatory awareness.
“What is it?” Faren asked. “What’s—”
I gripped his hand, willing him to keep quiet.
Unlike the last time we touched, neither of us recoiled.
His hand was broad, knuckles prominent, palm calloused.
I could feel the veins in the back of his hand, his elevated pulse as he stared over the edge of the balustrade, ticking faster as the abomination came into view from the west.
A Morta.