Vessaria did not answer right away. The last note of the ceremony still trembled somewhere in her bones, but it was not fear that lingered — it was knowing. Her breath left her in a slow, measured rhythm as her gaze remained on him, studying the subtle shift of his body as he stepped from the circle and the shadows reclaimed him like old lovers.

She did not move, though the space between them lengthened. The word wife still echoed faintly in the air, laced with something too old to be jest, and too heavy to be ignored. Was that humor in his voice?

“I would rather not begin our union by watching you march into the depths of a place even your gods refuse to name,” she said at last, her tone quiet but pointed, carrying none of the courtly sweetness of reassurance. “But if you are going, then you’re not going alone.”

At that, she descended from the altar’s edge, silk skirts whispering like wind over deep water, her steps steady. The silver chain at her throat glinted once — the crescent moon charm now warmer than before, as though echoing her resolve.

“You said dreams and visions wouldn’t suffice,” she continued, pausing before him. “Then take something real. Take me.”

The words were not offered as plea, nor defiance, but as truth — plain and shaped from something immovable. Like her spine. Like her will. Like the vow that had just been sealed in blood and stars, whether the heavens were ready or not. “I’ve already survived one ceremony that should’ve broken me,” she added, voice lower now. “Let’s see what your Hallow does.” Vessaria stood before him now, framed in the residual glow of the ceremony, but utterly unbowed. Her chin tilted slightly upward, not in arrogance, but in assertion — the quiet kind that did not need thunder to be heard. Her gaze, clear and glacial, didn’t flinch from his.

“If the castle listens to me now,” she said, softer, almost musing, “then it should listen when I say I will not be left behind.”

Her fingers brushed along the edge of her sleeve, a small gesture to steady the weight coiling beneath her ribs — not fear, but something older. Some instinct rising like embers stirred by wind. She had no illusions about the place he named. The Hallow. Even the word tasted like ruin.

But she was tired of being told where she could not go.

“I was not chosen just to stand behind you,” she went on, voice tightening. “You said it yourself — Umbrythar is already shifting. That means it’s begun. The tether has formed.” She exhaled. “You might not like it. I might not even like it. But you and I… we are no longer just two separate things.”

The pause that followed was heavy, laced with memory and omen. “So if you intend to descend into the dark… then I do too.” Reaching out she grabbed his hand briefly, before letting go and turning around- "But first- I must change. I doubt this dress will do much good there." She hummed, trying to brace herself for the trials they were surely to endure there. She took another step toward him, closer, though she did not touch him. “Whatever is waiting in the Hallow, it’s not just waiting for you. I can feel that, too.” Her voice had lowered again, thoughtful now. “Something shifted in the sky when we spoke our vows. It wasn’t just spectacle. It wasn’t for show.” She shook her head, curls brushing her shoulders. “That was a warning. Or maybe a promise.” She hesitated, not because she doubted the next words, but because they felt too large to release all at once. “I’ve been alone long enough.” There it was. A quiet confession wrapped in steel. “Maybe I can’t wield the things you do,” she admitted, eyes flicking briefly to the shadows still coiled around him like loyal hounds, “but I wasn’t brought here for nothing." Vessaria’s voice gentled then, but the fire beneath it did not dim. “You asked what I wished to do, husband,” she murmured, the word not mockery, but a tether. “I wish to walk where you walk. To see what you see. To learn what it is you fear, and to meet it with my own eyes. Not just as your bride — but as your equal.”

The silence that followed was not empty. The chamber itself seemed to hold its breath — as if Umbrythar, ancient and watchful, was weighing her words the same way its king was. Then, with a strange sort of finality, Vessaria added, “If the Hallow devours us, then it does. But I will not be left behind. Not when the end begins.” And with that final claim she walked away; back to her chambers to prepare herself for what surely was and could be her very last day here; Alive.

"Well, I'll let you dress privately." Ciaran did not follow her right away, though he figured he ought to change into something else as well. He remained rooted where he stood, staring after her with a stillness of indecision. It was not as simple as refusing her. Even before the vow, he had known there was something in her that would not yield to locks or walls or well-meant protections. She did not ask to be spared, nor did not beg for safety. Perhaps the cruelest bit of all was that she meant every word.

She would follow him to the Hallow, not out of recklessness, but resolve. And if he barred her path, she would find another. She would knock once, politely, and then burn the door down. His hand flexed at his side, tension coiling tight in his jaw.

He could lie to her. Say yes. Let her think he agreed. Then, when she turned away to change, seal her chambers with the old magic -- bind the stone, anchor the doors, speak the palace's original tongue into the heart of the walls and make them listen. She would likely rage, but he could survive her anger. He had endured worse.

There was a glaring flaw, however -- an unknown variable -- the castle would listen to her now, too.

Umbrythar, ancient and half-sentient, had always known its master. But after the rite -- after her words, after the stars responded -- it was no longer only his voice it heeded. She had changed something, or perhaps awakened something, and he could no longer predict how this place would respond. Would it obey him or her if their commands opposed? Would it lock her in, or open the walls like a mouth to let her pass?

He didn’t know. That uncertainty alone made his chest tighten, though he showed none of it on the surface. He moved slowly now, his steps measured as he turned from the edge of the circle and crossed to the window slit that stared down into the cliffs beyond. Far below, the forest trembled. Shadows moved there, not alive, but not entirely dead either. The Hallow breathed beneath the roots, its entrance marked by a faint veil over a garden sepulcher. He could almost hear it.

And, frankly, he feared it. For the first time in centuries, he had someone else's wellbeing to worry about. The princess had barely survived its touch through a vision. She had not crossed its threshold, had not stepped into the mouth of the wound carved into the world -- but still, it had reached for her. The unwelcome image of the blood from her nose, her skin gone pale and slick with cold sweat, and a curled-in body sprang to the forefront of his mind. For the thousandth time that week, he found himself thinking again on how she shouldn’t have survived that.

Now, she was asking -- no, declaring -- that she would go to it again. In person. Awake. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and felt the weight of the decision pressing at his ribs. There had been a time when he walked alone by necessity. There had been no one to worry about. No one to lose. He’d wandered the broken edge of the sky without tether or consequence. And now… Well, there were consequences, and the primary one had a voice. And a name. And eyes that looked at him not with fear, but expectation.

He could not tell her no. Not because he lacked the will -- but she would not accept 'no' as an answer. And worse, because part of him didn’t want to stop her. Gods curse him, some part of him wanted her there. It had always been a more bearable trip with the knowledge that he wasn't totally alone, but such thoughts were selfish and pathetic. Useless, in fact.

Besides, there was always the chance of the Hallow reaching for her again. It could unravel something inside her he didn’t know how to mend. He still didn’t know what that first touch had done to her, what lingering mark it might’ve left, subtle or otherwise. If it had cracked something in her soul, awakened something, or planted a seed that only now, with their vow, had begun to bloom, he was none the wiser to it.

Ciaran exhaled through his nose, the sound barely audible, and turned away from the window at last. He would not lie to her. When she returned -- and after he had dressed in something more suited for the path ahead -- he would tell her the truth. Ciaran would try reason first, and if negotiations failed, he would test the loyalty of his castle.

First, he would tell her what he feared, of what a second trip might do to her so soon after the first one, which had been comparably quite tame. And if she still insisted, then so be it. He would find a way to keep her standing beside him, even if that meant locking her away for a few hours. Nodding slightly, he disappeared into the shadows, and emerged in his own chambers. The man slid out of the thick ensemble and reached for the light armor that awaited him in the wardrobe.

"Time to dress for the weather," he muttered.

Vessaria stood before the long silvered mirror in the corner of her chambers, still stripped of her ceremonial gown. The white silk lay folded across a low divan like a fallen ghost, faint stardust still lingering in the fine weave from the rite. She did not look at it now. Instead, her eyes were focused on her own reflection — bare shoulders kissed by the pale light slanting in through the high arched window, the shape of her collarbones etched like fragile wings above her heart.

The pendant at her throat gleamed softly, shifting each time she moved — not with light, but with something deeper. A hum. A resonance. She felt it even now, faint but constant, as though the vow had left a thread inside her and pulled taut. Her fingers brushed against it briefly, and then she dropped her hand and stepped back.

There was no fear in her gaze. Not anymore.

The fear had burned off during the rite. Had burned off in the dreams before it, the visions that had left her half-drowned in her own bed, reaching for a sky that wasn’t there. The Hallow had already marked her once — she knew this — had pressed its breath against her soul and found her still breathing. It would not be the last time.

She moved across the chamber with precise purpose now, brushing aside the light linen dressing robe that clung to her form and reaching for the garments prepared by the handmaidens — or perhaps by the castle itself, for she had not asked for them. Laid out neatly across a bench were pieces that did not belong to any tradition she knew, but which felt strangely… correct. The tunic was a deep, smoky gray, woven from some weightless material that clung warm against her skin. Over that came the mantle — long and layered, the outer folds of it clasped with a crescent pin that shimmered with something other than metal.

The boots were made of something too soft to be leather, yet clearly durable, lined inside with dense fur from a creature she did not recognize. Her fingers paused there — at the top buckle — and she found herself whispering beneath her breath. Not a prayer, but a tethering. A promise to her own reflection.

You are not afraid.

The castle said nothing, but she felt something settle behind the walls. A murmur. An approval.

Once dressed, she stepped into the center of the chamber and fastened her hair back from her face. It had fallen in long waves since the rite — heavy curls freed from the intricate ceremonial crown, now threaded with small wisps of starlight that hadn’t quite faded. She did not braid them. She left the strands loose, like a banner, like something that should be seen.

As she reached for her gloves — thin, rune-stitched, fingerless — her thoughts moved again to Ciaran.

Would he try to stop her?

Probably. But not out of cruelty. No, she understood him more than he realized. He didn’t hide his fears as well as he believed. When he had stared at her during the rite — after the priests had vanished and the stars had screamed their ancient agreement — she had seen it in him. Not confusion. Not awe. But calculation. And beneath that, concern. Real and terrible.

l It hadn’t unnerved her. It had made her curious. She had not been raised to cower. She had not endured the loss of her mother, the silence of her father, the isolation of court and country, only to be treated like a figurehead wrapped in prophecy. There was a reason the Hallow had reached for her first. It had not chosen wrong.

And neither had he.

She moved to the door then, not rushing, but not hesitating either. The weight of her new garments was strange, but not unwelcome. She felt clothed in something older than silk, older than armor. Like a shadow made tangible, wrapped around bone and will. She didn’t know where he would be waiting — perhaps still in the ceremonial hall, perhaps already readying the path below — but she didn’t slow her stride as the door opened for her on its own.

The castle had already answered. It let her through with no resistance.

The corridors were colder now, though she suspected it was not simply temperature but presence. Umbrythar was watching again. Not in the way a place watches a guest, but the way a body reacts to a change in its blood. She was part of it now, and it was adjusting.

As she passed a tall mirror near the end of the corridor, Vessaria caught her reflection again — tall, cloaked in charcoal gray, the gleam of her pendant at the center of her throat like a third eye. The castle flickered in the mirror behind her, as if unsure what it was seeing. “I’m going with him,” she said aloud, voice calm but resolute. The stones did not tremble. The lights in the sconces did not flicker. But a distant door unlatched, far below.

She made her way down through the eastern stair, not taking the direct path to the throne corridor but instead the older one — a curve that wrapped around a descending tower edge and opened out into the side cloister garden overlooking the cliffs. There, she paused again, the wind catching at her cloak as she turned toward the western edge. Far below, the veil shimmered — faint, almost invisible — but she saw it. The same sepulcher she had seen in dreams, its gate blackened and blooming with dark ivy. The Hallow.

She felt the pull. And she did not look away.

Behind her, a shadow stirred — not threatening, not foreign — and she knew, without needing to turn, that he had found her again. She said nothing at first, only lifted her chin slightly toward the wind. “I’ve dressed,” she said, her voice neither smug nor defiant. “And the castle didn’t stop me.” A pause. “You shouldn’t either.”She turned then, fully, to face him. Her expression was unreadable — not challenging, but ready. Steady. Expectant.

“I know what I’m asking,” she added, quieter now. “And I know what it might cost. But I would rather walk into the dark with you than wait behind wondering if you’ll come back changed — or worse, not at all.”

A breath.

“I don’t want your protection, Ciaran,” she finished. “I want your trust.”

Ciaran had seen too much silver blood on white stone to forget what the Hallow's silence could mean. Even now, as he moved through the garden’s twilight hush, the scent of blooming night-thorn carried ghosts with it -- sharp iron tangs from a different battlefield, where the darkness had watched impassively as its defenders bled out. He could still feel the weight of a dying god's fingers clenched in his own, the rasping whisper of a plea to seal the gates. Apparently, he hadn't done as good a job as he had intended.

Memories curled at the edges of his awareness like taunts, unbidden and unwelcome, and he shoved them back down, past the quiet hum of old oaths and older regrets. The dark leather armor shifted with him as he walked, nearly silent, save for the slight crunch of gravel beneath his boots as he reached the sepulcher entrance.

She was already there. Vessaria stood framed by the wind and the ivy-laced mouth of the Hallow's first gate, her cloak snapping once in a sudden gust. The sky behind her held the color of darkened wine, and though the stars had not yet risen, the garden lights cast a silver sheen along the stone. The pendant at her throat pulsed faintly, like it had a heartbeat of its own. Perhaps it did, now that he thought about it.

He exhaled through his nose, quietly, a sharp breath of frustration that didn’t quite become a sigh. He had hoped -- in vain, it seemed -- that the castle might keep her within its walls a little longer. She was no longer just a guest here and certainly not a mortal held by his command. The ancient agreements had shifted, and she walked through the keep now with the same weight he did, the same terrible permission. Of course.

She turned at the sound of his approach, her words already waiting for him. He said nothing as she spoke, simply standing a few paces back, his hands clasped behind his back, expression unreadable. The pale strands of his hair moved slightly in the breeze, silver glinting where the garden lanterns touched it.

She finished, quiet but firm, and her eyes didn’t flinch from his. She wanted trust, not protection, she said. He studied her in silence, the moments stretching long. His calculating gaze moved over her, unblinking, reading the set of her shoulders, the steadiness in her jaw. She was not bluffing or pleading. She was telling him what was and what would be, unless he made her stop. Ciaran tilted his head slightly to the side, eyes narrowing a fraction as the wind played again with his hair.

“It will take me more than a week of knowing you to trust you,” he said finally. “I require your patience on that matter, I'm afraid.”

He paused again, all the words forbidding her to accompany him dying on his tongue. His tone did not warm, but it did not harden either when he added, “But you may come.”

His gaze dropped for a beat to the gate behind her, then returned. “On one condition.”

He took a step forward, body and voice now suggesting control rather than invitation or relenting. “If I tell you to leave, you leave.” A flicker of steel passed behind his words. “Without question. Without hesitation.”

Despite his mild exasperation, there was no anger in his voice, but there was gravity. He did not want to frighten her, but he could already feel the Hallow stirring beyond the sepulcher gate -- pulling at the edges of his will, testing the seams of his being as it did every time. There were things down there that even he did not understand fully. Things that remembered him in ways he did not always wish to be remembered.

He would not argue with her about bravery. He would not call her foolish. But the moment she slowed him down -- hesitated, tried to save him, or worse, questioned his judgment -- could very well be the moment that got her killed, possessed, or otherwise destroyed.

His eyes lingered on her one moment longer, taking in the starlight that hadn’t quite left her hair. Then he turned, walking past her toward the blackened mouth of the sepulcher. The dark ivy trembled as he neared it, shifting as if to make way for the both of them. Ciaran did not look back.

“I’ll not carry you out,” he said, quiet and final. "This is the first gate. The second is at a river; don't touch the water. The third is the gate to the Hallow itself."

Vessaria did not flinch when he stepped forward.

She did not lower her gaze, did not shift her weight, did not speak. She watched him—his expression, the subtle tension in his shoulders, the wind-touched strands of silver that whispered across his brow. Her chest rose with a slow breath, though she made no attempt to speak over him or interject. The pause he left was deliberate. The steel in his voice, too. But she did not shrink from it.

Instead, her eyes glinted—not with defiance, but with something far quieter. A vow, perhaps. An understanding accepted in silence.

“I understand,” she said softly when he finished, her voice low as the ivy rustled in response to his nearness. “If you tell me to leave, I will.”

There was no sarcasm in her tone, no needling edge. It wasn’t submission, either—it was agreement. Not because he demanded it, but because she chose it. And that was the difference with her, always. She obeyed no one blindly. She offered her will like a blade laid across open palms: not surrendered, but shared.

She turned after him as he passed, her hand briefly brushing the edge of her cloak as she followed him toward the sepulcher gate. Her steps were soundless. Not out of caution, but from habit. The stones beneath her were slick with moisture, their black surfaces veined with a strange silvery sheen—like the bones of something long buried beneath the ground now grown cold.

The ivy parted for her as it had for him, trembling in anticipation, or perhaps recognition.

She felt it too—that pull.

It was faint at first, like a thread tugging at the back of her mind, but already the air changed the closer she stepped toward the opening. The scent was different here: older, darker. Something like petrichor and blood and forgotten prayers. It crept into her lungs, thickened in her chest. But she did not slow.

The moment her foot crossed the shadow of the archway, the temperature dropped sharply. It was not merely cold—it was hollow, as if something inside the stone had been stripped away. Vessaria let her fingers brush the edge of the wall as she passed, and a shiver flickered up her spine.

Inside, the sepulcher opened downward—wide stone steps descending into blackness, though a strange, silver-dusk light glimmered faintly along the walls, guiding the path ahead. Not torches. Not even mage-light. She didn’t know what made it, but it pulsed slowly, in time with some rhythm deeper than breath or blood.

Ciaran walked ahead of her. She could see only his silhouette now, framed by the unnatural light. Regal, still. And yet she could tell already: whatever waited for them beyond this first threshold was something even he approached with caution.

She reached the bottom step.

The air shifted again, and Vessaria inhaled without meaning to. Something stirred beyond the corridor—too far to see, but not too far to feel. She paused, eyes narrowing slightly, the muscles in her jaw tightening. Her breath steamed slightly in front of her, though no frost lined the walls.

Something unseen had noticed them.

She glanced to Ciaran then. “Tell me what I need to know,” she said quietly. “What to watch for. What not to speak to. What not to believe.”

There was no tremor in her voice. No false courage either. Just steadiness. Preparation.

Because she knew. Already she knew this was no temple and no tomb. It was something far more dangerous than that.

When no answer came immediately, she did not press. Instead, she began to walk again, keeping a careful pace behind him. She did not touch the wall again. She did not whisper, did not hum to herself the way she sometimes did in eerie places to keep her balance. No. This was not a place that welcomed song. This was a place that listened.

As they passed the first bend in the corridor, she saw shapes begin to emerge. Carvings. No, not carvings—impressions, like something had pressed through the very fabric of stone itself. Like fossils, but alive. Memory rendered into architecture. She saw outlines of faces—some stretched in silence, others weeping. A few looked far too like her.

She did not stop. But her fingers twitched at her side.

The corridor widened, then opened into a cavernous chamber. Pillars jutted from the floor like ribs, crooked and spiraled. A black river cut through the middle of the space—wide, utterly still, and shining like a mirror of obsidian ink. She recognized it immediately.

The second gate is at a river; don’t touch the water.

Vessaria stepped to the edge of the stone path and gazed down at the dark surface. She saw her reflection there—but it did not move in time with her breath. It stared back, starlight in its hair, eyes hollowed. It smiled.

She stepped back immediately.

Her voice came quiet. “It’s watching.”

Not the river. Not the shadow. The place. This whole place knew her now.

The path continued across a narrow bridge, no wider than two feet across. On either side, the black water rippled faintly—though there was no breeze here, no tremor of earth.

Vessaria walked it without pause, her arms at her sides. She kept her gaze forward, not down. But as she reached the center of the bridge, something pulled at her again.

A voice. No. A memory.

Her mother’s laugh, soft and sudden, impossible.

Her step nearly faltered.

Ciaran’s warning roared back in her thoughts: Don’t touch the water.

She grit her teeth, exhaled a tight breath, and walked faster.

On the other side of the bridge, the stone darkened further. The silver light was fading. Something ahead of them loomed.

The third gate.

The air was different here—heavier, thicker, and yet faintly humming, as though the very veil of the world had thinned. Vessaria stopped beside him as they reached the threshold. Her eyes lifted to the gate.

It was not made of stone or wood. It was shadow. Wrought shadow. Like something had torn a hole through the world and held it open with bone and fire.

Vessaria stood still before it.

And slowly, her hand went to her necklace—just lightly, the pad of her finger brushing over the surface of the stone. A memory again, but her own this time. A tether. She let it pass through her like breath.

Then she looked at him, her voice soft. “You said not to slow you down,” she said. “I won’t.”

And she meant it.

Not because she had no fear, but because she did—and would not let it rule her. Not here. Not before the Hallow.

Her chin lifted slightly.