❝  Do  we?  ❞  Underneath  the  mask,  the  corners  of  his  mouth  flourished  into  a  crooked  smile.  Nonchalantly  leaned  back,  his  arm  thrown  over  the  back  of  his  chair,  he  now  leaned  forward  with  piqued  curiosity.  If  the  contours  of  his  face  hidden  behind  the  black  fabric  didn't  give  it  away,  his  low,  raspy  voice  did.  ❝  And  you  would  like  me  to  take  the  initiative,  I  assume?  ❞

Key  leaned  in  now,  got  into  her  space,  his  hands  finding  hers  on  her  lap.  Whatever  his  statue  in  her  eyes,  whatever  his  body  had  warped  into  so  she  would  be  drawn  to  it,  he  brought  his  head  low  as  they  sat  face  to  face.  ❝  Let's  be  strong  together,  hm?  ❞  The  back  of  his  hands  rested  on  her  thighs  while  he  held  her  hands  in  his  palms.  There  he  kneaded  them  gently.  ❝  Ask.  ❞

He  chuckled.  This  wasn't  entirely  what  she  had  demanded  of  him,  if  at  all,  but  he  couldn't  help  himself  and  had  to  make  a  game  of  it.

The forest was cathedral-like, its canopies hollowed into great domes. No stained glass adorned these heights, only shafts of sunlight pouring syrup-like through the boughs. No sound broke the stillness but the rhythmic cadence of the horse’s hooves upon mulch-slick earth, the faint breath of wind combing through the trees. Every shadow seemed drawn in ink rather than cast by light.

Faramir rode without haste, his figure a study in tempered strength, repose veined with quiet vigilance. His mantle, the colour of mourning doves, stirred faintly behind him. Clasped about his waist was the slight, delicate figure of Seraphina. Her arms, pale as moth wings, encircled him with unconscious urgency.

He felt her question before she spoke it – the shift in her breath against his back, the subtle change in weight as she leaned closer.

“Where are you taking me?”

A smile touched the corner of his mouth. His voice was low, pitched to match the hush around them.

“To a place the world has forgotten,” he said. “A place where the stones still remember song.”

She said nothing, but he felt her draw closer still, and took that as assent. He guided the horse along a winding deer-path strewn with fallen leaves the colour of garnet and rusted gold, as though the woods bled perpetually from some hidden wound.

In the saddlebags lay their meagre feast. Bread still warm from the oven, wrapped in linen embroidered by unseen hands. Honey sealed in ambered glass. A bottle of elderberry wine that glimmered like blood in the gloaming.

He did not say it aloud, but he wondered – was this what redemption felt like? Not a blaze of glory or the cleansing fire of absolution, but something gentler. The weight of another’s trust, the grace of bearing someone tenderly through a broken world.

At last, they crested the hill, and the forest parted like a curtain drawn back. Before them, a valley dusky and vast, cupped in the hands of twilight. Below, a ruin lay sleeping, swallowed by bramble and bloom. At its heart, a pool glimmered like the pupil of an eye long shut against daylight. A forgotten temple, but tonight it would be theirs and theirs alone.

Faramir reined the horse to a halt. He did not speak. Instead, he turned his face slightly, so that Seraphina might glimpse the gentleness in his expression – the mild-mannered pride of having brought her here, through dusk and memory and the wilds of his own guarded heart, to this place of ruin and reverence.

Stained glass bled the last light of day across the library floor like the mortal wounds of saints. Silence, immense and trembling with unsaid things, pressed between the two figures. He, still clad in the half-armour of his station. She, cloaked in the veils of a courtly existence she loathed as both prison and ornament.

Books surrounded them. Row upon row, a hundred spines begging for human touch. On any other day, uncollared by duty, Faramir might have buried himself in their innumerable pages. Instead, he stood stock-still and at disposal.

He had sworn himself to his lady’s protection. To defend her with life and limb, to covet nothing not freely given. Yet, he had admired her always, the dark river of her hair, the swan-like column of her neck, the defiance that glittered in her eyes.

It was without herald, without word, that she kissed him. A kiss not of girlish fancy nor delicate gratitude, but the sudden, searing exhalation of a long-resisted impulse. It came upon him like a squall, unseen until it was already tearing the sky at its seams.

Faramir stood rooted, as still as the stone beneath his feet. His lips yielded helplessly to the velvet press of her tongue, even as he battled the instinct to return the kiss. Her breath, warm and urgent, tinged with salt and nightbloom, clung to his mouth. In that moment, he saw not a princess, but something older than rank, finer than any coronet – a soul ablaze in a world that demanded she be pale, still and stitched politely into tapestry.

His own heart, loyal and shackled and schooled into obedience, now kicked against its bone cage like a colt, wild and green.

“Lady Seraphina…” he murmured, but the name broke against her devouring mouth.

He failed the noble test, and reached for her – not gently, not timidly, but with the fervour of a man who knew the axe already cast its shadow. A hand caught her waist, trembling not from fear, but with restraint unravelled, and he kissed her in return. Fiercely, devoutly. As though the oath he had sworn twisted itself now into a new covenant, written not in honour and duty, but in breath and blood, in heat and heart.

It was not the kiss of a knight to his lady. They would cut out his tongue for this transgression. They would cut off his hands.

High windows bore witness, indifferent and radiant. Somewhere in the cloister below, a bell tolled the hour, and ravens rose in a thunder of glossy wings.

“I have failed you,” Faramir panted.

What then? Should he surrender his post? Should another be charged with her safety? Even in his despair, the answer rang clear.

❛❛ All magic comes with a price or so people keep telling me. ❜❜

✝ | | | @highfaeried ⁽ seraphina ₎