The door closed behind her with a soft, breathless hush, sealing her into the stillness of the suite. Vessaria lingered near it only a moment, her back pressed lightly against the obsidian wall as she allowed the tension in her limbs to slip, inch by inch, from her body.

She’d carried herself like carved marble through the Eclipse Court—poised, dignified, unyielding—but now, with no eyes upon her, the exhaustion caught up. Her breath released all at once, not quite a sigh, more a quiet exhale of weight.

Her feet ached from the ride, her shoulders from holding too much stillness. She flexed her hands slowly. They no longer trembled, but the stiffness in her joints told her how tightly she’d clenched her own power, her composure. Her jaw ached from grinding her teeth on the carriage ride through veiled light and endless silence.

The ceremonial gown still clung to her frame—a deep violet fabric stitched with thread that caught the false moonlight from the window, its patterns woven in symbols older than Thaloria itself. She was done with it for the day.

She pulled the ties at her back free and shrugged the garment off, letting it slip from her body like falling dusk. It pooled around her feet in a hush of silk and ritual. Beneath it, she wore only a thin underdress: sleeveless, soft, and loose. She kicked the heavier gown aside, letting it sprawl near the chair by the hearth.

Crossing the room with bare feet, she moved toward the bathing alcove, her pace slow, almost reverent. She didn’t want to rush this—didn’t want to break whatever spell kept the silence from becoming suffocating.

The crescent-inlaid stones welcomed her passage with a faint hum, and the pools rippled gently as if aware of her presence. She reached the edge of the largest basin and sat first, her legs folding beneath her on the smooth tile. Steam curled from the water in ghostly plumes. The warmth called to every tired part of her. She dipped a hand in. The heat was perfect.

Moments later, she slipped into the water with a grateful sigh, letting it lap at her collarbones and soak her curls, which loosened around her shoulders. She floated there a while, head tipped back, the curve of her neck arched toward the ever-shifting ceiling of stars. There were no sounds save the water’s breath, no duties pressing at her spine, no eyes calculating her worth.

No one here knows me, she thought. Not truly.

Not the priests. Not the king. Not even the Oracle who had spoken the moon’s blessing over her head. No one knew what had stirred behind her stillness as she crossed into Umbrythar—what cold promises she had made to herself beneath the white light of that final night. No one knew what she intended to do here.

The Night King certainly didn’t. He had looked at her as one might observe the final act of a play already seen countless times, half-bored, half-resigned. He had dismissed her with exquisite indifference. She ducked beneath the surface of the pool with a sudden motion, immersing herself entirely. The warmth swirled around her, rushing past her ears in a muffled hush. Here, she was weightless. Distant. Clean. When she broke the surface again, hair clinging wetly to her cheeks, her pulse was steady. Her thoughts were sharper. Her heart did not beat like prey anymore.

She stepped out, toweling off with one of the strange, soft cloths provided in the alcove—woven from shadowthread, by the feel of it. Lighter than linen. Warmer than wool. She changed into a set of dusky garments she’d found earlier: a long-sleeved tunic with iridescent threading at the cuffs and slim trousers that clung comfortably to her legs. Practical. Quiet. Easier to move in than gowns meant for worship. A silver sash looped loosely at her waist, and she slipped her dagger into it—small, ceremonial, more symbolic than functional. But it gave her comfort. A reminder that she was not entirely helpless, no matter what this realm assumed of its Brides.

She stood before the great window once more, gazing down at the silver trees that shifted and bent in slow motion far below, their leaves flickering like coins beneath some distant, sunless sea. Beyond them rose other towers—some spired and distant, others ringed in impossible geometry, floating slightly above the ground. Umbrythar was a kingdom that had never obeyed the rules of the mortal world. And it was hers to walk, if she dared. The Night King had said nothing of curfews. No locks barred her in. And Elandrin had offered no warnings beyond the Tower of Veils and the wing of silent bells.

Vessaria stepped away from the window. She crossed to the arched threshold of her suite, brushing a curl behind her ear as her fingers touched the wall beside the door. She half-expected it to resist her, but it slid open without sound. The corridor outside was dim, its violet-glass sconces flickering gently with cool flame.

She hesitated only once, her thoughts like coiled thread in her chest. Then, drawing the silver sash a little tighter at her waist, she stepped beyond the room—and into the veins of Umbrythar itself. The palace didn’t stir. It only watched. But Vessaria walked as though it should.

Vessaria felt the shift in him the moment it happened—not loud, not dramatic, but quiet as the weightless hush before snow falls. He could’ve said no. She’d seen the word almost form, balanced on the edge of his mouth like a blade on a wire. And she wouldn’t have blamed him. She hadn’t expected him to agree.

But he did.

The bow was minimal, barely more than a polite nod. The words that followed—“As you wish”—were wrapped in silk but cut just the same. Still, his hand extended toward the corridor, and she accepted the silent offering with a slight incline of her head. She stepped forward. She didn’t smile. Not quite. But something in her posture relaxed, even if her shoulders remained squared beneath the chill.

They walked side by side, and she noticed—of course she noticed—that his stride made no sound now. The absence of his cloak left him quiet as breath, tall and spectral beside her. She was acutely aware of her own footsteps in contrast, the faint whisper of fabric against stone. She hadn’t realized how loud she was until she walked beside something not quite mortal. The castle, as ever, felt like it was listening.

When the shadows shifted ahead—those attendants, if that’s what they were—she slowed for half a step. They were graceful and strange, their forms more suggestion than substance, glittering faintly as if lit from within by starlight. She turned her head slightly as they vanished down a side passage, but made no remark.

Whatever they were, they did not frighten her. Then, his voice came, distant and half-detached as ever. The words were measured, but underneath them was something she hadn’t expected. He went on, naming the old myths she knew well. Brides stolen by night-creatures. Mortal girls spirited away by beings of bone and shadow and stars. The stories that warned of dark castles and darker kings.

Vessaria did not stop walking. But her brow lifted slightly, and she glanced at him from the corner of her eye—not in surprise, but in amusement. Not cruel, not mocking. Just… curious.

He didn’t look at her. She let the silence stretch a beat longer than was comfortable, and then said quietly, “Is that how you see yourself? A creature made to be feared?” Her voice was soft, but not hesitant. She wasn’t being rhetorical—she wanted to know.

She folded her hands before her, her fingers laced loosely over her abdomen as they walked. Her steps were easy now, unhurried, as though this palace were familiar beneath her feet—though it was anything but. She didn’t need to look at him to feel the pressure of his gaze not being on her. He was resisting something, and she wasn’t sure whether that was for her benefit or his. “You don’t unsettle me,” she added after a moment. “Not in the way you mean.” She let that truth sit between them, quiet but firm. “I’ve seen worse things than men with stars in their bones.”

The words might’ve sounded melodramatic coming from someone else, but not from her. There was no performance in the way she said it—only calm, steady recollection. Her voice didn’t waver. If anything, it grew steadier with each step.

“They told me a story when I was little. About the Bride of the Moon.” She glanced sideways at him, just long enough to catch the edge of his profile in the flickering torchlight. “She was chosen by the gods to walk between worlds. Everyone feared for her. But when she finally crossed into the realm beyond the stars… they say the gods feared her.” A pause. Then a half-smile, dry and fleeting, touched her lips. “I don’t think that’s the version the priests liked.”

They turned a corner, and another corridor opened before them—this one lined with tall arched windows, through which the night bled silver across the floor in fractured patterns. She slowed her steps slightly, absorbing the space. The architecture here was otherworldly, delicate and sharp all at once, like someone had carved geometry from moonlight.

“If you were trying to unsettle me,” she added after a long moment, “offering to change your form wouldn’t have been the way.”

Now she looked at him fully, head tilted slightly.

“I think the idea that you’d go to the trouble to spare my feelings is what unsettles me most.” Her expression was unreadable again—measured, not accusing “But maybe that’s the real myth,” she said more quietly. “That you’re made only of darkness.”

Another few paces passed before she spoke again, and this time her tone gentled. “You don’t need to make yourself smaller to comfort me, Ciaran.” It was the first time she had said his name aloud. “I wasn’t brought here to be coddled.”

She didn’t mean it as defiance. Just fact. She was tired of being handled like something fragile. Like something breakable and noble and doomed to shatter. She had been through too much—survived too much—for that.

Then, because she felt the silence reaching for her again, she added with a faint note of wryness: “Besides. If I wanted something familiar, I wouldn’t have agreed to be married off to the King of Night.” She let her gaze drift ahead again, her expression thoughtful now, brows slightly drawn. “You walk like someone always expecting to be asked for something. And you speak like someone who’s spent centuries trying not to be heard.” Her voice was quiet, not invasive, almost like she was musing aloud. She wasn’t pushing him. Not yet. “I don’t think you’re monstrous,” she said, eyes forward now. “But I do think you’ve convinced yourself it’s safer if everyone else thinks so.”

And there, in the silence that followed, she offered nothing else. She did not demand a reply, nor a revelation. She did not try to touch him or reach for a piece of him he hadn’t freely given. She just walked.And whether he chose to walk beside her, or disappear into the shadows again, would be his decision to make.

Ciaran remained quiet beside her, saying nothing as her words unfurled between them. Every syllable she spoke was filed away, catalogued in that cold, endless space behind his eyes. She neither trembled nor tiptoed with her words; that alone was unusual enough to keep his attention.

"Is that how you see yourself?”

“I am used to this world and my people,” he said after a short pause. “Humans are not. Your kinsmen generally fear what they cannot understand, no?”

He had observed and concluded as much after centuries of pattern; the reply was only that, not intended as an insult. He didn’t look at her when he said it, either. Even his own kind would grow uncomfortable after being under his gaze for too long, so he had learned to keep eye contact reserved for meetings or when facing someone directly. Ciaran had always found the hysterics of some past brides -- and of visiting humans in general -- a bit unnerving. Vissaria's calm disturbed more than hysteria ever could.

“I’ve seen worse things than men with stars in their bones.”

That line stayed with him, lingering behind his temples like a cold ember. He would’ve ignored it if it were mere bravado, but the woman had said it dismissively and moved on. Yet another thing that made him reassess his estimation of her a second time.

She went on to tell him a story -- some old Thalorian myth, a tale twisted through time and softened by priests. “They say the gods feared her.” At that, he made a sound, quiet and short. A hum just this side of amusement. He debated over whether or not to address the tale as true or false or neither, but he decided to let her go on; it was unimportant, anyhow. However, he turned his head rather sharply at her next words: “You don’t need to make yourself smaller to comfort me, Ciaran.”

His gaze flicked to her with sudden focus, not wide-eyed, but sharp around the edges. She had said his name. His name. It hadn't come with a title or epithet; Ciaran hadn't been addressed like that in... a long, long time. He huffed, the faintest exhale through his nose and didn’t speak immediately. Her words had landed quite spectacularly, and he was trying to determine what -- if anything -- to do with them.

Where, he wondered, did the humans find this one?

He didn’t speak again until her final remark, which stopped him cold. “If I wanted something familiar, I wouldn’t have agreed to be married off to the King of Night.”

He halted mid-stride. He turned, slowly, his expression unreadable, but there was a subtle crack in the smooth composure he wore like a second skin. Curiosity, of all things, put an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

“You agreed to come here?” he asked, voice calm but distinctly disbelieving. His gaze settled fully on her now, the weight behind his look was heavier now, the silence thicker. Brides did not agree. Brides were chosen. Collected. Delivered like offerings. He had watched them weep, beg, and flee, and even die. But they did not just agree.

He studied her closely. There were still no signs of fear. She wasn’t foolish; he would’ve sensed that. But she didn't seem like she had been cowed, either, and that... was unfamiliar.

The silence stretched, but it was no longer dismissive. Ciaran's gaze dropped slightly to the loose fold of her sash, the small dagger tucked at her side. It didn't look ceremonial or showy, but he also doubted it was meant to kill him. He brought his eyes back to her face.

He didn’t answer her final observations, only internally groaning over the fact that this princess had seen too much already. But he didn’t vanish into the dark either. Instead, he resumed walking. He didn’t tell her to follow, but his pace was slow enough that she could, a concession in its own right.

He walked in silence for some time, but where he had once been silent out of indifference, this quiet was different. Now, he was thinking. Calculating. He had to decide whether she was even real, or whether this was some clever mask, or whether Thaloria had, in some desperate twist of fate, delivered a woman who could actually stand in this realm and not crack under its pressure.

After another corridor curved into moonlit geometry, he finally said, just loud enough for her to hear, “You are not what I expected, Princess.”

The floors beneath her boots were glass-smooth obsidian, threaded with veins of silver that flickered like lightning beneath a still surface. Every step she took echoed with a low, musical chime, not unlike the wind chimes that had once swung from her father’s temple porch, back in Thaloria. Back before the stars had chosen her. Before she was draped in white and veiled in silver and sent into the kingdom of shadow.

Vessaria walked beside the King of Night, unhurried. She did not look at him as he moved, but she watched him all the same, noting the fluidity of his stride, the way the air itself seemed to lean away from him, like even the atmosphere held its breath in his presence. That silence of his wasn’t empty. It was dense. Heavy. Meant to unsettle. She imagined it had worked on many before her.

She hadn’t expected to speak so plainly, not tonight, not so soon—but the words had come anyway, drawn forth by the way he moved through the world as though he owned silence. It made her want to fill it. And she had, not carelessly, but clearly. Truths, or at least pieces of them, flung like stones into a still lake to see if he would ripple.

His reaction told her more than words might have. That pause. That flicker of amusement. And then the weight of his gaze, the sudden stillness when he turned to her, every bit of it sharpening when she used his name. Not his title. Not his crown.

And when he asked if she’d agreed to come? She heard disbelief in the question, not confusion. He knew what she meant—just couldn’t yet accept it. Now, as they walked once more in that shifting moonlight of his hall, his last words stirred in her chest.

You are not what I expected, Princess.

Vessaria let the quiet stretch a beat longer. Two. She slowed her steps just slightly, her fingers brushing the stone-carved edge of the wall beside her. Even that was cold. This whole place, this whole world—it pulsed with memory and silence and shadow, and it should have made her bones tremble.

But it didn’t.

“I imagine I’m not what anyone expected,” she said at last, voice soft but even. “Not the priests. Not the people. Certainly not my mother.”

Her mouth twisted slightly at that—bitterness, not pain. She had long since burned out the pain.

“They chose me because I was compliant. At least, I appeared to be. That’s the trick to Thalorian obedience—it’s never about actual obedience, just the illusion of it. I bowed when they needed me to. I learned the prayers. I kept my voice gentle and my steps small. I didn’t cry when they cut my hair or branded the moon sigil onto my back.”

She glanced over at him, eyes catching just a glint of his starlit skin. He wasn’t looking at her now, but she knew he was listening. She could feel it. His awareness moved like a second shadow beside her, always present, always watching.

“They mistook that silence for submission,” she continued. “It was never that. I simply understood that biding one’s time is not the same thing as surrender.” Her hand brushed over the sash at her waist, fingers grazing the small dagger she kept there. Not hidden, not flaunted. Just present. Like her.

“I said yes to this,” she added, more quietly now. “To the ceremony. To the veil. To you. Because I needed to leave that place. And because I wanted to see the truth of this realm with my own eyes.” Her voice lowered, not with fear, but with something more intimate. Intent. “They lie about you, you know. Not just in stories. In sermons. In scripture. They need to. If the people understood what really waits in the dark—what power, what sorrow, what history—they might stop fearing it. And if they stop fearing it, the priests lose control.”

She let that settle between them. She didn’t know if it would matter to him. She wasn’t trying to flatter, and she wasn’t naive enough to think she understood him yet.

But she had seen enough to sense there was more to this realm than black towers and silver eyes.

And more to him.

Her gaze turned forward again as they passed under an archway of dark stone carved with constellations. The sky above shifted in unnatural patterns—no stars, only the faint pulse of glowing shapes that hummed against her skin, like a heartbeat she couldn’t quite hear.

“You’ve had a thousand brides before me,” she said quietly. Not bitter. Just factual. “And none of them chose to be here. You said as much. But maybe that’s what needed to change.” She glanced at him again, chin tilting slightly. “Maybe the dark doesn’t want a trembling offering anymore.”

The corridor curved again, this time opening into a hall of pale glass and twisted moonstone, the windows tall and bare of curtain, letting the silver light pour over the floor like liquid. The moon was strange here—larger, closer, wrong. But beautiful.

She slowed her steps as they entered, letting the silence stretch again before she spoke. Her tone, when she did, had softened—just slightly, but there was something in it now that hadn’t been there before. “You’ve lived too long, haven’t you?” she asked, voice quiet and distant as she looked out the glass wall to the jagged silver peaks beyond. “Not like a king. Not like a man. You’ve lived like a story no one finishes.”

She didn’t turn toward him this time. Didn’t press. Her breath fogged the glass, and for a moment, her reflection overlapped with the moonlight beyond. “I’m not here to run,” she added. “And I’m not here to tremble.” Then she did turn, gaze finding him again—and this time there was no calculation in her eyes, only clarity. Resolve. She tilted her head, the faintest motion, but something in it echoed the question he had asked before.

You agreed to come here? “I agreed,” she said simply. “And I don’t regret it.”

She let that be the last word, turning back to the moonlit window and letting the quiet come again—not the awkward hush of strangers, but something else. A stillness. A weight shared between two who did not yet trust, but who had begun—maybe—to see. Because despite what the priests had whispered in their temples, she did not come to kneel. She had come to meet the night. Vessaria let the silence linger between them after her final words, her reflection still faint in the glass. The weight of what she had said—of all that had passed between them since they’d left the threshold of his throne room—hung thick in the air like morning fog. But it didn’t smother her. If anything, it steadied her more.

Still, the tension between them was coiled, tight and pensive, and she could feel the cold of it resting along her shoulders, ghosting down the back of her neck. Ciaran’s silence was no longer hollow, but brimming. And as much as she had surprised him, he was doing the same in turn. Every minute she spent in his presence, she grew more certain that she had no idea how deep this shadowed ocean ran. But the ocean wasn’t going to speak first. That much was clear. So she shifted her stance, just enough to ease the weight off her heels. her expression still composed, but with a different curve to her mouth now. A softer one. Maybe even the ghost of a smirk.

“I have to ask,” she said lightly, breaking the silence like a stone skimming across a still lake. “Do you starve all your brides, or am I just special?” The corner of her mouth tugged upward, a touch wry, but not unkind. Her tone was different now—playful, yes, but edged with sincerity.

“It’s been a full day’s journey through a death-stilled forest and half a tour of your monument to midnight. And while I’m sure awe is a fine meal for the soul, I don’t imagine it’ll keep me conscious for much longer.” She turned to face him more fully now, the moonlight catching in the strands of her hair and the cool gleam of her eyes. There was something easier in her gaze, something unafraid to be human now that she had shown him she wouldn’t shatter. “I’m not picky,” she added, deadpan. “I’ll take dried bat jerky or glowing moss or whatever shadow-kissed delicacies you keep tucked in your royal pantries.” A pause. Then her voice dropped into something drier.

“Though I should warn you—I bite when I’m faint with hunger.” She blinked up at him, holding his gaze for a beat, before lifting one shoulder in an unapologetic shrug. “I figure you deserve fair warning, my lord.”

And with that, the tension between them broke just enough to let breath move again. She didn’t smile wide, didn’t laugh, didn’t dance in circles to fill the space. But there was warmth now, not heat—a slow-burning ember instead of a challenge. A flicker of something alive.

She wasn’t here to tremble. But neither was she here to spend every moment guarded and cold. Let him think her bold. Let him think her mad. Either way, she needed something to eat.

Vessaria stood still for a moment after he disappeared through the folding doors, a single brow arched faintly. She could have said something—something light and irreverent, or biting, as she often did—but she remained quiet. There was too much weight in the air already. And now, a surprising one: food. Her stomach had not quite turned on her yet, but there had been a hum beneath her skin since she’d stepped foot in Umbrythar, something hollow and distant that was growing louder.

She followed him, steps soft but not hesitant, her hand brushing the velvet of the wall as she passed, a sensory anchor in a world that seemed intent on making her forget where the ground was. The corridor sloped downward in subtle curves, like descending into some lunar mausoleum, and she could feel the pressure in her ears begin to shift—like the very air bent around this place.

The doors they came to were… imposing. She slowed just slightly as Ciaran approached them, expecting him to command or signal in some dramatic way. He didn’t. The doors simply opened, and she realized with a small flicker of amusement that they probably feared him too.

The room beyond was not what she expected. There was no warmth here, no golden light or long banners stitched in family colors. It felt like entering a tomb carved from starlight and shadow. The walls bore silver flames that cast no heat, only illumination; the crescent-shaped table below seemed more like a council chamber for forgotten gods than a dining hall. Her eyes drifted to the mural above, and her breath caught. Stars moved there. Slowly. Endlessly. Some ancient dance no mortal tongue could name.

She didn’t ask questions. She knew better.

Instead, her gaze flicked over the darkened room with quiet, feline alertness. She was not so arrogant as to imagine herself in control here—but nor would she shrink to fit the shape they wanted her to be. Not anymore.

She watched the strange, spectral chef appear, his presence half-glimpsed, like a reflection in moving water. She had seen ghosts before—true ghosts, from the temples that bred visions and madness—but this was different. The way the creature moved across realities, the trail of frost behind him, the shimmer of his robe—it was delicate and sharp, like ice beneath silk. And the language Ciaran used to summon him? Vessaria didn’t flinch, but she felt it in her ribs, the way one feels music too low to hear properly. It was as if someone had plucked a harp string inside her bones.

She tilted her head when he spoke to her again, not sitting but remaining statuesque at the head of the table. The phrase he chose—allergies—sounded strange in his mouth, and she almost laughed, but her expression remained composed.

“No almonds,” she said finally, her voice even. “Or cherries. And nothing that once slithered, if it can be helped.” A pause. “Unless that’s all Umbrythar has to offer. In which case, I suppose I’ll simply bite you after all.”

She turned then, skirts whispering along the floor, and approached the table slowly. She didn’t sit, not right away. Instead, she looked up once more at the constellations above, their paths so different from the stars she’d known back in Thaloria. These stars moved. These stars were alive. She doubted many mortals had ever seen this ceiling. Fewer still had stood beneath it and been offered a meal by the creature at the room’s helm.

Her fingers grazed the back of one of the too-tall chairs. Cold. Slick like obsidian. Still she did not flinch.

“I wonder,” she murmured, almost to herself, “if they ever meant for me to last beyond the first night.”

Her eyes slid to him then, not hard or accusing—but curious. Wary. “The priests made it all sound quite romantic. The choosing. The sacrifice. The journey into the dark.” Her fingers traced the carved edge of the chair. “They said you would take what was yours. They made it sound like a punishment I might survive only if I kept my eyes down and my prayers whispered.” A brief, bitter smile touched her lips.“They were wrong, of course. But not just about you. They were wrong about me.” She turned, slowly lowering herself into the seat, back straight despite the exaggerated height. Her boots, scuffed and worn from the road, barely brushed the floor beneath.“They sent you someone obedient,” she said, resting her arms lightly on the table, fingers interlaced. “But I buried her back in the desert.”

A silence stretched between them, one she did not rush to fill. Then, after a beat: “I didn’t expect a meal. I’m used to being hungry.”

The truth was plain, but not pitiful. She spoke it like a fact. It wasn’t a plea for sympathy, or even a rebuke. Just truth—quiet and firm, like a thread woven into the air.

“But I’ll eat it,” she said, tone lightening, eyes flickering up toward him again. “If only to keep from sinking like a stone in all this elegance.”

She leaned back, the chair creaking faintly under her, though it did not dare collapse.

“And I hope your chef knows what mortal stomachs can tolerate, because I’ve already seen what lies beyond this realm’s walls and I’d rather not meet my end choking on some sea-dwelling horror from Umbrythar’s sister seas.”

Her hands dropped to her lap. Despite her lightness, her body remained subtly poised—shoulders high, neck long, like a dancer who had not yet heard the music but anticipated it. Vessaria looked at him, truly looked at him, for the first time since they’d entered.

He was a silhouette in moonlight, a man carved from dusk and silence. And yet—he had apologized. The Night King. Apologizing. It wasn’t much, but it was more than the priests of her world had ever done.

“I’ll admit,” she said, quiet again, “I’m surprised. You’ve a reputation in the temple halls as a monster who feeds on fear. And yet here I am, and you’ve offered food and starlight instead.”

Her chin lifted slightly. “Should I be worried? Or is this simply the lull before the storm?”