Chapter 2: Following Her Into the Dark
The corridor swallowed him whole.
Tav stepped through the door Shadowheart had disappeared behind, and the darkness closed around him like a fist. The wall-sconces sputtered along the serpentine passage, their flames guttering low, casting just enough light to reveal the wet footprints on the flagstones. Small feet. Bare. He followed them, one hand trailing along the slick stone wall for balance, the other clenched at his side.
The scent hit him first. Night orchids, faint but unmistakable, threading through the damp air like a memory he could not shake. It was her. It was always her. Even when she was not there, she was there, woven into the fabric of every breath he took.
The footprints led him deeper into the cloister, past doors he had never noticed, past alcoves carved with prayers in languages he could not read. The walls wept here, slow tears of condensation running down black stone, and the sound of dripping water was the only companion to his footsteps. Drip. Drip. Drip. Like a countdown. Like a heartbeat.
He found her in a prayer cell so small it barely deserved the name. Four walls. A ceiling low enough to touch. No windows. No candles. Just the dim glow of a single sconce outside the door, spilling weak orange light across the threshold.
And Shadowheart.
She knelt before a statue of Shar, carved from black marble, its features smooth and cold and terrible. The goddess held a single hand outstretched, palm up, as if waiting for an offering. Shadowheart's back was to him, her shift bunched around her hips, the white fabric stained with red and something else he did not want to name. Her braid had come undone, dark hair spilling down her spine in tangles. She was trembling. He could see it from across the room.
She did not turn when he entered. She did not speak. But her shoulders went rigid, and her hands, which had been pressed together in prayer, curled into fists against her thighs.
"Shadowheart."
Nothing.
He crossed the room. His boots made no sound on the cold stone, but she knew he was there. She always knew. He stopped behind her, close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin, close enough to smell the salt of tears she would never admit to shedding.
He knelt.
The flagstones were freezing, the cold biting through his trousers and into his knees, but he did not care. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. She resisted for half a heartbeat—just long enough for him to feel the tension in her spine—and then she broke.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Her voice cracked on the last word, and she twisted in his arms to face him, her green eyes wild, wet, furious. "I told you to leave me alone."
"I couldn't."
"You should have."
"I know."
She shoved at his chest, her palms flat against the scars she had raked open earlier. He winced, but he did not let go. She shoved again. Harder. And then her hands were fisting in his tunic, and she was pulling him closer, and her mouth was on his.
It was not a kiss. It was a collision. Teeth clashed, lips bruised, and he tasted copper on her tongue, blood or salt or both. She kissed him like she was trying to crawl inside him, like she was trying to drown in him, like this was the only thing keeping her tethered to the world.
He kissed her back.
They fell sideways, a tangle of limbs and desperate hands. The stone floor cracked against his shoulder, and she landed on top of him, her weight driving the air from his lungs. Her shift was torn, exposing one pale breast, the nipple already hard against the cold. He reached for it, and she caught his wrist, pinning it above his head.
"No," she said, and her voice was ragged. "You don't get to be gentle. Not now."
"Then what do you want?"
She answered by yanking at his trousers.
The laces gave way with a sharp sound, and he was free, already hard despite the cold, despite the shame still burning in his chest. She straddled him, her thighs bracketing his hips, and she reached between them to guide him inside her. No preamble. No patience. She was still slick and wet, but when he pushed into her, he felt the wrongness of it—the blood, the mess left behind by their first coupling, the residue of something sacred that had been broken.
He felt the proof of what they had done earlier.
She did not care. She took him to the hilt in one brutal motion and began to move.
Holy shit.
His vision went white at the edges. She was relentless, her hips slamming down onto him with a force that bordered on violence. Her nails raked down his chest, reopening old scratches, drawing new blood. He hissed through his teeth, and she grinned at him, a wild, feral thing that looked nothing like the guarded woman he knew.
"This what you wanted?" she snarled, grinding down onto him. "This what you came for?"
"No."
"Liar." She leaned forward, her hair falling around them like a curtain, and bit his lower lip hard enough to make him yelp. "You wanted to save me. You wanted to hold me. You wanted me to be soft and grateful and fuck you like it meant something."
"It does mean something."
"Nothing means anything."
She rode him harder. The wet slap of skin on stone filled the tiny cell, echoing off the walls, drowning out the drip of water and the whisper of the goddess. Her cunt was tight around him, clenching with each thrust, and despite everything—despite the blood, despite the shame, despite the cold black eyes of Shar's statue watching from the corner—he felt the coil of pleasure tightening in his gut.
She was using him. He knew it. He did not care.
He grabbed her hips and drove up into her, meeting her rhythm with his own. She gasped, her eyes widening, and for a moment, the mask slipped. He saw it then—the fear, the grief, the desperate, clawing need for something she could not name.
"That's it," he growled. "Let go. Stop fighting it."
"I can't."
"You can."
He bucked his hips, hitting something deep inside her that made her cry out and clench around him. Her rhythm faltered. Her back arched. Her hands flew to his shoulders, gripping hard enough to leave bruises, and she looked down at him with an expression that was shattered and raw and utterly, devastatingly human.
"I hate you," she panted.
"I know."
"I hate what you make me feel."
"I know."
"I hate—" Her voice broke. "I hate that you're the only one who sees me."
He reached up and cupped her face, his thumb brushing away a tear she probably did not know she had shed. "I see you," he said. "All of you. The darkness. The doubt. The woman underneath. I see her."
She crumbled.
Her climax hit her like a wave, crashing through her body with a violence that left her shaking and gasping and sobbing his name against his throat. Her cunt convulsed around him, milking him, and he followed her over the edge with a guttural groan, spilling inside her, his hips jerking with the force of his release.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then she collapsed onto his chest, her body boneless and trembling. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, feeling her heart hammering against his ribs. The flagstones were cold beneath him. His back ached. His chest stung. But he did not let go.
She did not let go either.
"That was—" she started, then stopped.
"Yeah," he said. "It was."
She laughed. It was a broken sound, half-sob, half-relief, and it vibrated against his throat. "That's all you've got? 'Yeah'?"
"What do you want me to say? That was the most intense fuck of my life? That I've never felt anything like it? That I'm pretty sure your goddess is going to smite me for enjoying it?"
"Maybe." She lifted her head, and her green eyes—still wet, still wild—met his. "Maybe she will."
"Then at least I'll die happy."
She hit him in the chest, but there was no force behind it. Just a tired, reluctant affection that made his heart twist in his chest.
"You're an idiot," she said.
"I know."
"A fool."
"I know."
"A man who doesn't know when to quit."
"I know." He brushed a strand of dark hair from her face. "But I'm also the man who followed you into the dark. So maybe that counts for something."
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she kissed him again. Soft this time. Slow. A question, not a demand.
When she pulled back, her expression was tired but softer than he had ever seen it. "I don't know what I'm supposed to feel," she admitted. "The Lady says loss is sacred. She says surrender is worship. But this—" She gestured vaguely at him, at her, at the mess they had made on the cold stone floor. "This doesn't feel sacred. It feels like a wound."
"Maybe it's supposed to."
"Maybe." She laid her head back on his chest. "Or maybe I've been worshipping a goddess who doesn't give a shit about me."
It was the most honest thing she had ever said. The most dangerous, too. If any Sharran heard her speak that way, she would be punished. Possibly killed. Possibly worse.
He tightened his arms around her. "You don't have to decide anything right now."
"I know."
"You don't have to go back to them."
"I know."
"You could—" He hesitated. "You could come with me. When we leave this place. You don't have to stay."
She was silent for a long time. The sconce outside the door flickered, casting dancing shadows across the statue of Shar. The goddess watched them with her cold marble eyes, and Tav could not shake the feeling that she was laughing at him.
"You don't know what you're asking," Shadowheart finally said.
"Then tell me."
She sat up, straddling his hips, and looked down at him. In the dim light, she was beautiful and terrible and broken and whole, all at once. He wanted to memorize every line of her face, every shadow, every sharp angle.
"I'm marked," she said. "By Shar. By darkness. By everything I've done in her name. You can't just walk away from that. You can't just pretend it isn't there."
"I'm not pretending anything."
"Then why are you still here?"
"Because I want to be."
She shook her head. "That's not enough."
"It's all I have."
She stared at him. Her jaw worked, as if she were chewing on words she could not bring herself to say. Then she leaned down and kissed him again. Softer still. Almost gentle.
"Then I guess it'll have to do," she said against his mouth.
They did not speak again for a long while. They lay there on the cold stone floor, tangled up in each other, two broken people holding onto the only warmth they could find. Outside the cell, the cloister loomed, dark and silent and waiting. Somewhere beyond it, the sun was rising over the world, sending light into places Tav and Shadowheart had long abandoned.
But here, in the dark, they had this.
It was not enough. It was not nearly enough.
But it was something.
And as Shadowheart drifted into an exhausted sleep against his chest, Tav stared at the statue of Shar and made a silent promise.
He was not going to let her go.
Not now. Not ever.
Not even if it meant war with a goddess.
The statue stared back at him, its marble face frozen in an expression of serene indifference. But Tav could have sworn he saw its lips twitch.
The candlelight flickered out, plunging them into darkness. And somewhere in the void, a whisper curled around them both like smoke.
You will lose her, it said. Just as you lose everything.
Tav closed his eyes and held her tighter.
Let it try.
The darkness did not answer.
Tav lay still, his breath slow and even, feeling the weight of Shadowheart's body pressed against his. She stirred after what felt like hours, her fingers curling against his chest, her breath warm and uneven on his skin. He did not open his eyes. He did not want to break whatever fragile thing had settled between them.
But she was already pulling away.
"Don't," she said, before he could reach for her. Her voice was hoarse, scraped raw by tears and screaming. "Don't say anything. Just—give me a minute."
He opened his eyes. The cell was still dark, the sconce outside the door long since burned out. He could barely make out her shape in the blackness, but he could feel her—the heat of her, the tension coiling in her muscles. She sat up, straddling his thighs, and her hands found his chest. Her palms were cold.
"I need to think," she said.
"Okay."
"Stop being so fucking agreeable."
"Okay."
She laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. It held edges, sharp and serrated, and it ended as quickly as it began. Her fingers traced the scratches on his chest, the ones she had reopened, tracing the raised welts with a delicacy that contradicted the violence that had put them there.
"I hurt you," she said.
"You've done worse."
"Not to you."
He caught her hand, stilling it against his heart. "I don't care about the scratches, Shadowheart. I care about you."
She pulled her hand free. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't care about me. It's a waste of time."
He sat up, the movement slow, and she did not pull away. They were close now, close enough that he could feel her breath on his lips. The darkness pressed in, but he could see the outline of her face, the pale oval of her skin, the dull gleam of her eyes.
"Too late," he said.
She stared at him. The silence stretched, thin and brittle, and then she moved.
Her mouth found his in the dark, and this kiss was different. Softer. Almost tentative. As if she were testing something she had never felt before, something that frightened her more than any trial Shar could devise. Her hands slid up his chest, over his shoulders, and then she was pushing him back onto the cold stone.
"Stay still," she said against his mouth.
"What are you—"
She kissed him silent. Her body slid down his, her lips trailing from his mouth to his jaw, to his throat, to the hollow of his collarbone. She bit him there, just hard enough to make him gasp, and then she kept going. Down. Lower. Her tongue traced the lines of his scars, the ridges of muscle, the places where his skin was marked by years of violence and survival.
His breath caught. "Shadowheart."
"Shut up."
Her hands found the waistband of his trousers. He was still exposed from before, still half-hard despite the exhaustion, and when her fingers wrapped around him, he jerked like he had been shocked. She held him there, testing his weight, exploring the heat of him with a curiosity that was almost clinical.
"You've never done this before," he said. Not a question.
"No." She looked up at him through the darkness, and he could just make out the shape of her smile. It was not a kind smile. It was sharp. Hungry. "Do you want me to stop?"
"No."
"Good."
She lowered her head.
The first touch of her tongue nearly undid him. She licked up the length of his cock, slow and deliberate, and he groaned, his hips jerking upward. Her hand pressed down on his stomach, pinning him to the floor.
"Stay still," she repeated.
He did not have the strength to argue.
She took him into her mouth, and the world narrowed to the wet heat of her, the soft pressure of her lips, the way her tongue moved against the sensitive underside of his shaft. She was unpracticed, her rhythm uneven, but there was an eagerness to her that more than made up for it. She learned quickly, adjusting her angle, her speed, the pressure of her suction, until his fingers were fisted in his own hair and his breath came in ragged, broken gasps.
"Fuck," he whispered. "Oh, fuck."
She hummed around him, and the vibration shot up his spine like lightning. He was close. Too close. He tried to warn her, tried to pull away, but she grabbed his hips and held him in place, her mouth working him with a ferocity that bordered on anger.
"Shadowheart—I'm going to—"
She did not stop.
He came with a shout that echoed off the cell walls, his body shaking, his eyes rolling back. She swallowed him down, every pulse, every throb, and did not release him until he was limp and gasping beneath her.
Then she sat up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, and looked down at him.
His chest heaved. His mind was blank. He could not form words.
She leaned forward, and her lips brushed his ear.
"You are my god now," she whispered.
The words were cold. Hard. A declaration, not a surrender. She pulled back, and he saw something in her face that made his blood run cold. It was not love. It was not gratitude. It was desperation, made cruel by a lifetime of grooming and a night of violence.
"You will save me from her," Shadowheart said. "You will be the thing I believe in. Because I cannot believe in anything else."
He stared at her. The taste of his own release was still on her lips. The scratches on his back throbbed with every heartbeat. And somewhere beyond the walls of this tiny cell, the goddess of loss was laughing.
"That's not—" he started.
"It is." She cut him off. "That's what you wanted, isn't it? To matter to me? To be the one who saves me?" She laughed, and it was a broken, ugly sound. "Well, here I am. Saved. And I'm yours. So what are you going to do with me?"
He should have told her she was wrong. He should have told her he did not want to be anyone's god. He should have told her that he was just a man, flawed and tired and scared, and that she was asking him to carry something he could not carry.
But she was looking at him like he was the only thing keeping her alive.
So he said the only thing he could.
"I don't know."
She nodded, slow and solemn, as if that were the answer she had been waiting for. Then she collapsed onto his chest, her weight settling over him like a stone, and did not move.
The darkness closed in. Somewhere, water dripped. Somewhere, a goddess watched.
And Tav lay there, holding the woman who had just called him her god, and wondered if he had just saved her or damned them both.
The stone bit into his hip. Cold seeped through his trousers, through his tunic, settling into his bones like it belonged there. Shadowheart's weight pressed down on his chest, her breath slow and even, her hair a tangled curtain over his throat.
He did not sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the statue. Shar's marble face, serene and terrible, watching him fuck her priestess on the floor of a prayer cell. The goddess had not struck him dead. She had not sent shadows to tear him apart. She had simply watched, and that was worse.
Shadowheart stirred. A small sound escaped her throat, something between a sigh and a whimper, and her fingers curled against his chest. He felt the exact moment she woke—the sudden tension in her spine, the way her breath caught, the way she went utterly still.
"Morning," he said.
She did not respond. She pushed herself up, her palms flat against his sternum, and looked down at him. In the gray half-light filtering through the cell door, her face was a ruin. Red-rimmed eyes. Cheeks blotchy from crying. Lips swollen and cracked.
"You stayed," she said.
"You asked me to."
"I didn't ask you to."
"You didn't ask me to leave, either."
She stared at him. Something flickered behind her eyes—surprise, maybe, or confusion. Then she climbed off him, her movements stiff and awkward, and began gathering her clothes. The shift was ruined. Torn at the shoulder, stained with blood and seed and whatever else had happened in this room.
"I need to burn this," she muttered, holding up the ruined garment.
"I'll buy you a new one."
She shot him a look. "With what coin? You don't have two coppers to rub together."
"I'll steal one."
She almost smiled. Almost. Then she turned away, pulling the shift over her head despite its ruin, and began lacing her trousers with quick, efficient movements. He watched her, still sprawled on the floor, still cold, still aching.
"We need to talk about what happened," he said.
"No."
"Shadowheart—"
"No." She turned on him, and her eyes were hard again. Guarded. The vulnerable woman from last night was gone, buried beneath layers of armor he could not see but could feel. "What happened here stays here. You don't speak of it. Not to anyone."
"Fine."
"And you don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you know what I taste like."
The words hit him like a blow. He sat up slowly, his back protesting, and met her gaze without flinching. "I do know what you taste like."
Her jaw tightened. "Stop."
"I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen."
"Then you're a bigger fool than I thought."
She finished dressing and moved toward the door. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the protests of his stiff muscles, and caught her arm before she could leave.
"Wait."
She stopped. She did not turn around.
"Last night," he said, and his voice was low, careful. "When you said I was your god. Did you mean it?"
The silence stretched. He could feel her pulse hammering beneath his fingers, could feel the slight tremor running through her body. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely a whisper.
"I don't know what I meant."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
She pulled her arm free and walked out of the cell. He stood there in the gray light, alone with the statue and the cold and the lingering scent of night orchids, and wondered if he had just lost her or if she had never been his to lose.
The corridor was brighter now. Torches had been lit along the walls, and the wet stone gleamed in their flickering light. Shadowheart walked ahead of him, her braid re-tied, her spine straight, every inch the devoted cleric of Shar. No one who passed them would guess what had happened in that prayer cell.
He followed her through the cloister, past silent acolytes and dripping archways, past shrines to a goddess who demanded everything and gave nothing. The air grew colder as they walked, the shadows deeper. This was not a place for warmth. This was not a place for anything but loss.
She stopped at a door he did not recognize. Iron-bound. Heavy. She pushed it open and stepped inside without looking back.
He followed.
The room beyond was small and sparse—a cot, a washbasin, a single candle burning on a wooden table. Her quarters, he realized. The place where she slept when she was not kneeling before statues or bleeding on cold stone.
She closed the door behind him.
"Sit," she said, gesturing to the cot.
He sat. She remained standing, her back to him, her hands clasped behind her. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable, and he waited for her to speak.
"I have been with the cloister since I was a child," she said. "They found me on the steps of a temple in Baldur's Gate. No parents. No name. Just a basket and a crying infant and a note that said 'She is yours now.'"
He said nothing.
"The Sharran who took me in named me Shadowheart. She said it was a blessing. A promise. That I would grow up to carry the darkness in my chest, and that it would make me strong." She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I believed her. For twenty years, I believed her."
"What changed?"
She turned to face him. In the candlelight, her eyes were the color of forest pools—green and deep and full of things she would never say aloud.
"You."
The word landed between them like a stone in still water. He stared at her, his heart hammering, and she stared back with an expression that was equal parts terror and defiance.
"I don't understand," he said.
"Neither do I." She crossed the room and knelt before him, her hands resting on his knees. "I have spent my entire life learning to give everything to Shar. My body. My blood. My will. And now—" She stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "And now there is this thing in my chest that hurts when I look at you. And I don't know what it is."
He reached for her. She flinched, but she did not pull away.
"It's called wanting," he said. "It's called needing. It's called—"
"Don't say it."
"Why not?"
"Because if you say it, it becomes real. And if it becomes real, I have to choose." Her voice cracked. "I don't want to choose."
He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing the tear tracks on her cheeks. She was trembling. She was falling apart. And all he wanted to do was hold her until she stopped shaking.
"Then don't," he said. "Just let me be here. Just for now. We can figure out the rest later."
She kissed him. Hard. Desperate. Her hands fisted in his tunic, and she pulled him off the cot and onto the floor, her body landing on top of his with a force that knocked the air from his lungs.
"Fuck me," she said against his mouth. "Fuck me like it's the last thing you'll ever do."
He did not need to be asked twice.
His hands found her hips, and he rolled them over, pinning her beneath him. She gasped, her eyes widening, and then her legs were wrapping around his waist and her nails were raking down his back. He yanked at her trousers, pulling them down her thighs, and she kicked them free, her boots thudding against the far wall.
"Your shift," he said.
She tore it off herself, the fabric ripping at the seam. Bare beneath him. Pale skin. Lean muscle. The marks of last night's coupling still fresh on her inner thighs—blood and seed and the evidence of what they had done.
He did not look away.
"What are you waiting for?" she demanded.
He answered by burying his face between her legs.
She screamed. Not in pain—in shock, in pleasure, in something that sounded almost like fury. Her hands flew to his head, fingers twisting in his hair, and she tried to pull him away, tried to push him closer, tried to do both at once.
"Or you could—oh fuck—do that instead."
He licked up the length of her cunt, slow and deliberate, and she bucked against his mouth. She was wet already, slick and hot and tasting of salt and iron and something darker beneath. He lapped at her clit, circled it with his tongue, and she thrashed beneath him like a woman possessed.
"Don't stop," she panted. "Don't you dare stop."
He did not stop. He worked her with his mouth and his fingers, sliding two inside her, curling them against that spot deep within her walls that made her see stars. She came apart with a cry that echoed off the stone walls, her thighs clamping around his ears, her cunt clenching around his fingers.
He rose up, wiping his mouth, and looked down at her. She was sprawled on the floor, chest heaving, hair wild, eyes glazed. Beautiful. Ruined. His.
"You," she said, and her voice was hoarse, "are very good at that."
"I know."
She laughed—a real laugh this time, bright and startled—and then she reached for him and pulled him down.
"Now," she said. "Inside me. Now."
He hesitated.
"What?" she demanded.
"Last night," he said. "I finished inside you. Both times."
"You think I care?"
"You might be—"
"I'm not pregnant." She cut him off. "Shar protects her own. Or curses them. Either way, I'm not carrying your child." She grabbed his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. "I want to feel you. All of you. I want to feel your cum inside me. I want to walk around the rest of the day with it dripping down my thighs, and I want to know that you put it there."
His cock twitched. The words were filthy, and she said them with the same matter-of-fact tone she used to list provisions or map routes.
"You're trouble," he said.
"Always."
He positioned himself at her entrance and pushed inside.
No slow introduction this time. No patience. She took him to the hilt in one motion, her back arching off the cold stone, her mouth opening in a silent scream. He began to move—hard, fast, the way she wanted.
There was no tenderness in it.
There was no love in it.
There was only need.
She clawed at his back, her nails breaking skin, drawing blood. He did not care. He drove into her again and again, each thrust sending a jolt through her body that made her gasp and curse and beg. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deeper, and he planted his hands on either side of her head and fucked her like an animal.
"That's it," she snarled. "Harder. Fucking harder."
He gave her harder.
The room filled with the sound—wet, loud, obscene. Skin slapping against skin. Their broken breath, their grunts, the creak of the door as their bodies knocked against it. A candle fell off the table, and the flame vanished, but neither of them noticed.
"Look at me," he growled.
She looked at him. Her eyes were wild, pupils blown, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"I'm going to come," she said. "I'm going to—"
"Then come."
She did.
She screamed his name—not Shadowheart's name, not Shar's name, but his. It echoed off the walls and through the door and down the corridor where the acolytes walked and the goddess watched. He did not care. He was past caring.
He followed her a moment later, driving deep and spilling inside her, his body shaking, his vision white. He collapsed onto her, his chest heaving, his face buried in her throat.
For a long moment, there was nothing. Just the sound of their breath and the drip of water and the faint, distant sound of a bell tolling in the cloister.
Then she spoke.
"That was—"
"Yeah," he said.
She laughed. It was a real laugh, warm and surprised and almost innocent. "You really need to expand your vocabulary."
"I'm a man of few words."
She pushed at his chest, and he rolled off her, landing on the cold floor. She sat up, her hair a mess, her skin flushed, and looked at him with an expression he could not read.
"We should do that again," she said.
"Right now?"
"Not right now." She leaned over and kissed him. Soft. Slow. Deliberate. "But soon."
He reached up and brushed a strand of hair from her face. "So what happens now?"
She looked at him. The candlelight flickered, shadows dancing across her face, and for a moment, he could see the woman beneath the armor. The woman who had laughed. The woman who had screamed his name. The woman who, despite everything, was still here.
"I don't know," she said. "But I think we're going to find out."
She stood and began to dress. He watched her, still sprawled on the floor, still naked, still covered in sweat and blood and the evidence of her. She caught him looking and smirked.
"Enjoying the view?"
"Very much."
"Good." She tossed his trousers at his face. "Get dressed. We have a long day ahead."
He caught them and stood, pulling them on with slow, deliberate movements. She was already at the door, her hand on the latch, when he spoke.
"Shadowheart."
She turned.
"I meant what I said," he said. "I see you."
She stared at him. The mask flickered. The armor cracked.
"I know," she said. And then she opened the door and walked out into the corridor, leaving him alone with the cold stone and the scent of night orchids and the hollow echo of his own heart.
He finished dressing and followed.
The darkness did not answer. But it was waiting.
It was always waiting.