Archive of Our Own

It must have been a beautiful castle once. Perhaps in daylight, it may be considered beautiful still.

At this moment, however, the emaciated spires and belvederes of Fenestala Castle lurched into the night sky from a leering cliff face, tearing a scar through the thick shelter of dark cloud. A razor-shard of moonlight lanced through it, cleaving Fenestala’s towers in two: half dark silhouette, half bone-white stone. To Noctis’ eye, the ribbed walls and flying buttresses seemed to heave like a cadaverous beast over the shivering little village of Ulwaat in the valley below, its breath rolling as a great mist over the feebly-lit houses.

“Noct. I insist you reconsider.”

Noctis checked his chest holster, found the vials of water still intact. He wasn’t used to carrying so much gear at once. With every shift and step, the weight of it played on his mind. “You know better than anyone why I have to do this.”

“Please,” Ignis said, low and urgent, at Noctis’ elbow. “There is a reason that most Houses do not touch this corner of Tenebrae. The peace here is...fragile.”

“Peace built on fear is bull.”

“A fair assessment, if...ineloquently put. But this family has survived so long for good reason. This is not a threat to be treated lightly, they—”

“And I am?”

“You know very well that’s not what I meant.”

Noctis met Ignis’ eye. “One question, Ignis. Are you going to try to stop me?”

There was a crack in the cloud cover. Ignis’ glasses flashed under the moon, his face impassive. They stayed like that for a moment, neither of them wavering.

Then Ignis sighed. “I should not waste my energy on pointless battles.” He pushed his glasses up his nose, thumbing the knife handles at his belt. “And I would be ashamed to call myself your retainer if I allowed you to do this alone.”

Noctis’ heart was a fist in his chest. It squeezed, white-knuckled. Noctis tightened his grip on his sword.

“I know.”

Somewhere to the south, there was a roll of thunder.

Noctis was far too comfortable.

He was warm, and that was the first red flag. He almost begrudged the slow, inevitable march towards lucidity, because—Six above, he was so warm. Even though everything hurt, a dull ache in his bones which only grew more distinct the more Noctis woke up. He likely could have slept another few hours here, particularly if it meant avoiding the steady thump of a headache behind his left eye.

He shouldn’t be comfortable.

He should be dead.

His eyes snapped open. The adrenaline was faster than his sleep-addled brain and he sat up quicker than he could gauge whether it was a smart idea. He was rewarded pretty quickly when the dull ache sharpened abruptly into a half-dozen needlepoints, in his chest and legs and head. Noctis’ brain burst into static. He bit down on a gasp, clutching the headboard behind him while his thoughts slowly reformed into something coherent, which was Did that thing slam me into a ceiling. His—his right leg. And his side, his ribs, one big bruise. And his sword hand, which he realised now had been wrapped up tight like a sprain, which, yeah, that would track (he tried to flex it and had an immediate taste of regret). A lot of little pains, like a split lip and bruising cheek. Nothing broken, as far as he could tell, but—

Noctis pressed his uninjured hand to his neck, probing. It stung. There: two twin marks, still faintly bleeding.

Bastard.

He sat frozen for a moment, the pulse at his neck beating into his palm, a sickening churn in his stomach. Stop. Think. He was—injured and bitten but alive, in—where was he, actually? His rain-soaked coat and boots had been removed, and with a lurch he realised: so had all his gear. No. He shifted, and felt the knives still tucked at his inner thighs. So, most of his gear. Four vials of sunlit water, six knives, one sword, a pair of silver knuckle dusters, two flash grenades, and—and his ring. His father’s silver ring. From his sword hand.

Shit shit shit. Father would spin in his grave.

But this room was...comfortable. Whoever had bandaged and splinted his wrist had tucked him into a king-sized four-poster with gauzy curtains, and though this alcove was dark and windowless there was the faintest scattering of light in the other, larger section of the bedroom, accompanied by the heavy drum of rain on glass. He blinked; his night-dark eyes flashed neon-violet and the room was suddenly brighter, his vision attuning to the shadows. The room was cast in pearly silvers, with gold accents and flashes of blue: vases of rich blue flowers, plush rococo seats, cases heaving with books and a golden telescope angled towards where the windows must be. It was scholarly. It was noble. It reminded him of the suites at his own manor, actually, before...

Well, that was besides the point. He could rate the accommodations after he figured out where he was. Had he been rescued? Surely not by Ignis, or he’d have been lectured by now. Another Hunter, maybe, in the right place at the right time. His face started to burn; Six, had another Hunter really found him like this? And if they’d taken his ring, they’d have seen his crest. As if he hadn’t done enough injury to the Caelum name. And the ring...

He could handle being stripped of his weapons. But the absence of the ring was a stone in his chest. He curled over it. He felt—itchy, and his ribs felt tight and his head started to spin away from him, so he fisted his uninjured hand into the silk bed sheets and tried to remember his breathing exercises, the ones his father had drilled into him dozens of times as a boy. Inhale, four seconds. Hold. Exhale, eight seconds. Repeat. He breathed. He counted. Better. But—but he had to find it. He needed it. He needed that ring, he—

The ornate double doors opened.

Noctis realised, with an icy thrill, that he was so wrapped up in his cursed anxiety attack, he’d let himself forget the danger he was in.

He snapped to attention, and did his best to ignore the soft edge of dizziness and the sharp stab in his chest. But he sat as upright as he could, legs coiled beneath the quilt like a spring (as if he were in any condition to fight). If nothing else, he had one working hand. And the other was bound stiffly. He was sure he could make it hurt someone else almost as much as it would hurt him.

But the doors opened slowly, as if the visitor were trying not to startle him. It hung open for a moment. Adrenaline thrummed in Noctis’ blood, alongside the faint hum of magic, scratching just beneath his skin.

A gentle glow peered around the door, candlelight. It was followed by a profile: Roman nose, sharp jaw. Wisps of tumbling hair, like pale gold, twisted at the crown into an intricate array of braids and loose curls—the sort of carefully effortless arrangement which must take retainers to craft. He knew. It had been a long time since he had been in any sort of court, but Noctis sensed the tells of nobility like a mother tongue, if half-forgotten from neglect.

And this woman absolutely bore the air of a noble. She stepped into the room, soles tapping gently against the marble flooring, with the deliberate poise of a woman who’d been raised with hands at her shoulders and head and the small of her back, pulling, shaping. And her clothes were tailored perfectly: a billowing white shirt cinched at the waist with high trousers, everything accented with silver—little touches of stardust at her cuffs and neck.

She noticed Noctis. Smiled, close-lipped.

“It is good to see you awake,” she said.

She was—

Noctis hadn’t realised he’d lowered his hands. He managed to snatch a breath, though it was shallow. It was as if someone had breathed movement and colour into marble. A Pygmalion original: rippling, gossamer folds and the soft swells of a human body cut from cool, pale stone.

Her expression, though, was gentle. So was her voice: dulcet, hushed, with a soft Tenebraen lilt.

She closed the door behind her, and it finally occurred to Noctis to be on-guard. He snapped his hands back up, scowling.

“I brought you water,” the woman said. She carried a glass in her other hand, clear at a glance, though Noctis had been raised better than to assume. He realised: there was an odd, ashen cast to her face and hands, something other than the distorting flicker of the candlelight. He still felt a little dizzy from so much quick movement; he couldn’t align his thoughts enough to parse that little detail, too preoccupied by the woman drawing closer, closer. “Lord Caelum, I assume?”

A thrill of shame, burning a hole in his gut: so she had seen the ring.

Another thought: if she had seen the ring, she’d most likely removed it. And, just as likely, all the rest of his gear.

But he was injured, and she hadn’t killed him yet. He lowered his hands again slightly, breathing slowly through his nose until his heart rate slowed a little. Not entirely. But a little. “Who might be asking?” he said. He could have winced at the scratch in his throat. It put a juvenile crack in his voice which made him sound half the man he wanted to. Nothing like his father’s grave, commanding timbre.

Her eyes flickered to his hands, then back again to his face. Something flitted across them, brief as a hummingbird wing, so brief Noctis thought he’d imagined it. Sorrow? But her features settled again into reserved politeness, though her smile seemed different. “A friend, I assure you.”

“I don’t put much weight on the assurances of a stranger.”

She was at the foot of the bed now, placing the candle and glass on a nearby table. Then she sat in the closest chair, hands folded in her lap.

“That is wise of you. I’d expect no less of a Hunter. Nevertheless, I promise that no harm will come to you within these halls.” Hunter. Had this polite, noble woman wrestled him from the arms of a monster and dragged him to safety? His eyes flickered to her arms, but it was difficult to discern any muscle beneath the swell of her sleeves. “Provided, of course, that you bring no harm to us. I believe that is only fair.”

Her movements had been—fluid. Like water, his mind wanted to supply. But no, that felt inapt. He couldn’t quite place what it was that was so strange about the way she’d moved. She’d dodged nimbly around the furniture, like a wisp of smoke in the dark. It was almost—

Unnatural.

Almost human. Almost.

The candlelight. It was barely enough for an ordinary person to navigate by. But the woman’s gaze was sharp and clear and unerring on his shadowed face. Like he was utterly transparent to her. Like he was as clear to her as she, now, was to him.

Noctis’ muscles locked. He felt the phantom sting of teeth at his neck.

He hadn’t been rescued. He probably hadn’t left the castle at all.

“I must also apologise for my brother’s grievous incivility earlier,” the woman said, and leaned forward. The wicked curve of a fang snatched the candlelight. “Although, in defense of Ravus, you were carrying a great deal of silver and pointy objects when you broke into our home.”

Vampire.

Noctis lunged. Not for the woman, but for the knife at his thigh through the hidden pocket of his trousers. Adrenaline spiked his blood and mingled with the crackling of magic, briefly crushing the radiating pain as instinct and training grabbed the wheel with brute force.

Not fast enough.

Something blurred in the corner of his eye and then—

There were hands at his wrists. A knee against his stomach, the shin pressing against his left thigh and pinning it to the bed. The grip on Noctis’ arms was cool and stonelike and impossibly strong, holding them rigid above his head. Noctis pulled against it on reflex only to be rewarded with a stab in his chest.

“I’d advise you not to do that,” the woman said next to his ear. “You have a hairline fracture in your sixth rib.”

She was—very, very close. The woman—vampire—she’d blinked across the gap faster than he could register, faster than most of her kind, even. And now her eyes were inches from his own, and this close he could see that they were pale grey—twin moons, eyeing him with steady patience. Her brow was puckered a little. Noctis didn’t know why that mattered. That little detail.

His heart juddered in his rib cage.

The metallic song of his magic—his birthright—echoed in the vaulted chambers of his chest, dulling his pain at the edges and enhancing his strength. But with no weapon and a busted leg, he was as good as a wounded deer under the vampire’s barrel; at this distance, she could snap his neck in a blink. She could tighten her clutch, just a little, and his wrists would be pulverised. She could lean a little harder and snap his femur.

She didn’t. Her hold was solid, but not crushing. Her features were pained, a little stern, but not angered.

He opened his mouth to spit a retort, half-habit. But nothing came. His pulse was jackrabbiting again. She had to feel it, holding his wrists like this. He felt—

Unmoored.

Never forget what they are, Noctis. And never forget what you are, either.

“Lord Caelum. This is a place of healing,” the vampire said. He was being admonished. Like a misbehaving patient. He realised he was gaping at her, mouth half-open, too surprised and disoriented to feel truly scared or angered. “Furthermore, I take my responsibility to my patients very seriously. I consider you among that number, and as I said, no further harm will come to you here. I will not have any blood spilt in my home if I might help it. Do you understand?”

Noctis flapped his mouth a couple of times. Patients. Blood. He…

“What,” Noctis said, “the hell is going on here?”

She searched his face for a moment. Sighed. He felt the soft brush of it against his cheek, saw her fangs, again, flash in the low light. “I’d be delighted to explain. But please, do not attempt to…”

She trailed off, frowning.

“What were you attempting to do?”

Noctis clenched his jaw. His dark eyes flickered to his thighs before he could stop them. The vampire followed their trajectory, blinked.

Just as quickly as she’d materialised beside him, the woman flickered away. Noctis, suddenly free, tumbled gracelessly back onto the pillows with a surprised huff. She was back in the seat, hands folded again in her lap, and she was—

She was glancing away, at the ceiling, the floor. She was—she was bloodless, no shit, she was a vampire. But there was a slant to her eyebrows now, like she was bashful. Like she would blush if she could.

“Ah.” Her eyes flitted to his, then away again. A small, sheepish smile tugged on her mouth. “Well. That is—a clever hiding place for weaponry, I must say. You Hunters are very—resourceful. I suppose—” She raised a hand to her chin. Cleared her throat. “You may, ah, keep those on you. If it makes you more comfortable. Still. Please do not try to stab anyone else whilst you’re here.”

Noctis propped himself up by the elbows, blinking at her.

“Oh! Forgive me—I’ve forgotten my manners. Are you able to stand? Please, do not do so if it would cause you undue pain.” She stood herself, offering a hand. Silver rings glittered in the candlelight. “My name is Lady Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. You may call me Lunafreya, if you wish. It is a pleasure to meet you, Lord…?”

He stared at her hand in open disbelief. He’d been trained to fight from the moment he could lift a sword, and poaching vampires since he was seventeen. They’d been gaunt, ghoulish creatures. Intelligent, at first—until hunger or the edge of a blade left them spitting and clawing and frenzied. He’d expected nothing less when he’d arrived at Ulwaat, a cloistered little village in the shadow of the ancient dwelling of the Nox Fleuret lineage, chasing whispers of blood extortion.

There was a little of that gauntness about her face, he realised, up close. Hollowness in her cheeks. Darkness under her eyes, like shadow on the moon. Tells of the exhaustion of immortality.

But the gentleness in her face was—alarmingly human.

Never forgot what they are.

He scrambled for his guard. Straightened. Tried to recall the posture of a Lord. Remembered to sound unflinching when he said, “And my gear?”

“It shall be returned to you once you are ready to leave.”

He hesitated. Then took the offered hand. Even though every instinct, every teaching, and the very magic in his blood rebelled against it. “Just Noctis,” he said.

It was as if a light had kindled behind her smile: still subdued, still tired, but more...alive. She—Lady Lunafreya—looked almost relieved.

She grasped his hand, tugging him gently to his feet. A spike of pain lanced up from his right leg. He didn’t wince.

“Noctis,” she said, faultlessly pleasant. “Come. I shall give you a tour.”

The rest of the castle was not quite as homely.

It didn’t take long to strike him. Lunafreya led him down a corridor away from the bedroom—she referred to it as her own quarters, and Noctis’ face felt warm—stepping past vases of the same blue flowers from her room, strategically placed to catch the light from the high windows. He’d seen plenty of vampire dwellings, but never with this much...glass. But then they turned a corner, then another, and the arched windows began to disappear: blocked by tall bookshelves or drawn with heavy curtains or even bricked up entirely. And where Lunafreya’s quarters had seemed fairly human, though they didn’t descend any stairs—though Noctis knew, from glancing out of Lunafreya’s windows as he’d passed, that they were several stories high—he couldn’t shake the sensation of sinking into a dungeon. Even the architecture seemed to shift, from the delicacy of Lady Lunafreya’s suite to brutal masonry, arrogant pillars and oppressive archways. It was as if he’d veered into an entirely different building, from a different era. Lady Lunafreya, who belonged to the rich blues and soft silvers of her wing, was a soft anachronism in these halls.

She took the candle with her, though torches burnt in brackets on the walls. It couldn’t be for her own benefit. The candlelight cast a fragile halo around her, lighting up the flyaway hairs Noctis hadn’t previously noticed. He wondered if it had been a while since she’d last had it styled. He wondered who had styled it—whether she had familiars tucked away. He wondered if he was her only “patient“.

As they walked, she pointed out: the library, a great and claustrophobic hall where the low, flickering light turned the bookshelves into rows and rows of teeth. “I allow my patients free roam of this library,” she confessed, “so it is not as—organised—as one may prefer. I have a restricted library elsewhere in the castle,” she added. Her conspiratorial tone made him feel odd.

She pointed out: the art gallery, stretching away into shadow, portraits looming in the lack of light. “Few patients enjoy coming here.” Then various drawing rooms, and the staircase winding upward to the observatory, apparently condemned.

Very occasionally, they would pass by staff.

Humans—that much was clear. It was a small shock each time Noctis spotted them, dusting by candlelight, or halted in a hallway to speak to one another with baskets of linen. They became quiet when the tour party passed, inclining their heads to Lunafreya even as they eyed Noctis with something akin to—suspicion? Some childish part of Noctis wanted to shy at the disdain.

Another part—the one which had staged this half-baked “mission” in the first place, at the first whiff of rumours of bloodletting—burned at it.

Lunafreya walked a few paces ahead, her back to him. He could slip one of his daggers free, plunge it into the fragile stretch of skin and bones between her shoulder blade and spine. Even injured, he was still formidable; he would still pose a threat to an ordinary human adversary.

Lunafreya wasn’t human.

His stomach felt like vapour. His fingers twitched. He needed to find the ring.

And there was something...scummy. About the idea of stabbing Lunafreya in the back. Gladio had taught him that there was no such thing as cheating in a true, life-or-death brawl; Cor had taught him to fight dirty, that any advantage was a fair one when the enemy could dislocate their jaw and rend your head from your shoulders with their teeth. But Father taught him that a Hunter without integrity was no Hunter at all. Never forget what you are. Bearer of the ring, blood of my House. Ambassador of the Caelum name.

Lunafreya was exposing her back to him, willing and knowing. He didn’t reach for the dagger.

“I,” Lunafreya said. Then hesitated, glanced back. Noctis stiffened a little. “I do hope you might consider resting here for a while. I will not force you, of course. Yet I would not advise travelling in your state. Fractures require plenty of respite to heal, even a modest one, and you have other wounds besides.”

His chest hurt. They were walking slowly, as if Lunafreya were trying not to aggravate his injuries. But it fired little sparks of pain with every jostle. Whether he liked to admit it or not—she wasn’t wrong. And yet...

The twin marks at his neck prickled. He almost twitched a hand to his neck, but collected himself just in time and curled it at his side.

“I’ll consider it,” he said.

That sorrowful look flitted across her face again. Then she turned away. “That is…understandable.”

Noctis exhaled slowly through his nose, keeping Lunafreya in the corner of his eye. She didn’t walk through the castle so much as flow, or drift. All the little touches of silver on her clothes and the pale gold threads of her hair snatched fragile strands of firelight, so that the surrounding gloom could never truly touch her. Noctis stalked. Shoulders curved in, hair dark, clothes and scowl darker, meeting her running commentary with wary quiet. He stepped around pools of torchlight.

He felt caged. Even though Lunafreya didn’t seem to mean him harm. Had bandaged him, even, and given him a place to rest.

He couldn’t reconcile this woman.

Better to play along, he told himself. Until he found his gear. Yes. He wouldn’t drop his guard again, not for a second.

Finally, Lunafreya led him down a grand, sweeping staircase which circled a great (and, again, windowless) hall. She swept a hand towards an offshoot to its left: “Through here, you would find our dedicated medical wing. I deigned to place you somewhere a little more private than usual whilst you healed, given your unique circumstances. Nevertheless, the majority of my patients stay here. They have assured me that it is quite comfortable.”

Through the half-open door to the “medical wing”, he saw a plush red carpet, rows of modest wooden doors, even glimpses of natural light— once more at odds with the rest of the castle.

“I apologise. I would allow you to pass through, but we should not disturb the patients’ rest. Though, blessedly, it is fairly vacant at the moment. The village has been in good health as of late.”

Noctis might have asked a question, then.

Yet something stalled him: a sharp, angry spike in his blood. The bit of ice down his back. The twin marks at his neck, stinging.

Noctis looked up. The shadow was thick as a storm in the stairwell above, but Noctis adjusted his eyesight accordingly, and saw—

Flashing eyes. White hair, the white of ash, falling about a face which fixed on Noctis with icy, imperious disdain. In a perfect position to strike, to sweep in like a bird of prey and finish the job.

Lunafreya grabbed Noctis’ wrist before it could reach his knife. The suddenness of her firm grip sent an electric shock to Noctis’ heart.

“My brother,” she said, squeezing Noctis’ wrist slightly, “is on his best behaviour at the moment. Isn’t that correct, Ravus?”

She didn’t raise her voice at all. Yet when Noctis looked back up, it was to see the parting sweep of a pale coat, the vampire melting into the dark.

Lunafreya loosened her fingers. Noctis retracted his hand slowly, eyes narrowed. “Your brother,” he said flatly.

She laughed. It was a quiet laugh, with a slight rasp: it shimmered in the air like sea mist. Noctis would not ever admit the way it skipped his pulse. “That is the official story, yes. And though I have never had a brother myself, he can certainly act like one. I confess that I do think of him that way. Truthfully, he is my...” Here, she paused, brow furrowing. “Twice-great granduncle? I believe that is correct. He became a vampire long before I, you see.”

Noctis rubbed his neck. The face in the dark just now had been, at a glance, very human. He couldn’t banish the image, though, of that same face distorting, stretching open like a snake. “He’s a real charmer.”

“I do apologise for that. I assure you, Ravus does as well,” she said. Noctis wasn’t convinced. “Please understand, he was merely defending our home. Family is...”

Something complicated crossed her face.

“Family is important here, especially to Ravus. I’m sure you can sympathise.”

He—he didn’t want to think about that. He broke her gaze, fending off thoughts of—of Father, of Ignis and Gladio. Ignis. Was he searching for Noctis right now? Would he attempt to breach this castle to keep Noctis safe? Did Noctis want that?

There was a reason he came in alone.

He couldn’t afford to dwell on that right now. “You called this a ‘place of healing’,” he said, very carefully.

Lunafreya straightened slightly. When she spoke, she sounded brighter. “Yes, I did. I’m a physician, you see. I dedicate my time to protect those of the village below, to whom my family and I owe a great debt.”

“At a blood price?”

She didn’t even blink. “We accept donations, yes.”

Donations. His mouth twisted.

“Yet whatever you may have heard, Lord Noctis, I do not extort my patients. What I run here is a charitable operation. Medicine is my calling, divinely bestowed.”

“Divine?” Noctis said before he could bite the words back. Idiot. Don’t aggravate the bloodletter.

But she only paused. “I know it must seem…difficult…for you to understand. I know what Hunters think of our ilk. What you…” She bowed her head a little. Noctis wondered, unbidden, whether she had that little crease in her brow again. The thought made his chest tight, so he wrangled it. “What you tell your children about us.”

His hackles rose; Ignis had always warned him about his temper, but the admonishments never stuck when he needed them. “My family,” he forced through set teeth, “have protected innocent people from your kind for centuries. We pass down those stories so we don’t forget.”

Lunafreya looked up again. She still looked gentle, mostly. But there was a stormy edge in her eyes now, a muffled roll of thunder. “I mean no personal offense, Lord Noctis. And I will not deny that there are elements of truth in those tales. I merely ask you to consider that—not too long ago, I was human as well. Not all of us relinquish our humanity so readily.” Her grip tightened on the candleholder. “Nor do all of us relinquish our faith, or our passions. And what of you, sir?”

Noctis stiffened. “What about me?”

“Your passions, your beliefs. Surely they extend beyond breaking into our homes to stake unsuspecting monsters in our sleep?”

He sucked in a sharp breath; it whistled through his teeth like a crack in a wall.

Immediately, Lunafreya seemed to realise she’d overstepped; the storm in her eyes cleared with a lightning-flash of regret, then melted away into careful clearness. She took a step back.

“I...apologise,” she said, very slowly. “That was remarkably rude of me.”

If Noctis unsheathed his knife right now, he could cut the air with it.

He drew himself up to his full height, forcing the cry of his damaged ribs to the back of his mind: shoulders back, jaw set. He flexed his hands, tendons jumping under his skin, then relaxed them. A Lord did not clench his fists, unless around the barrel of a gun or the hilt of a blade. He inhaled deep, the scent of dust and old books and a whiff of medicinal herbs from the vampire’s direction. “I’d like my gear returned,” he said. Please, he prayed. Let me sound half the man Lord Regis was. “I won’t be staying any longer.”

Alarm flashed across Lunafreya’s marble features. “But Lord Noctis, your injuries—”

“I didn’t come alone, Lady Lunafreya.” It was, he realised, the first time he’d said her name—and though he’d tried to inject an imperial authority to his tone, a sharpness, he found himself lingering a little on it. It had sounded different in the Lady’s own Tenebraen accent, like cursive, each syllable elegant and sweeping. His own pronunciation felt like chicken-scratch in comparison. Still, it was difficult to resist the urge to roll it on his tongue, to savour it. Luna-freya. Woman of the moon. It was certainly fitting: between the silver threads of her clothing and the candlelight in her hand and her pale hues, she gave off the cool, distant, quiet glow of a moon in wax. As if all the light in the dim hall came from her. Perhaps that, and the incredible grace with which she held herself, was a sign that she belonged to vampirism as a bird belongs to sky—or, rather, that vampirism belonged to her.

Clarus would swat him for even allowing the thought to cross his mind. Certainly, it was blasphemous. Vampirism was, at its kindest, a disease.

He’d thought a lot of blasphemous things tonight.

Never forget.

He tried to focus on the glimpse of her fang. It was hard not to be drawn to her eyes, silver pools of starlight.

But as he watched, they clouded. “Is that so?”

“Of course not. I’d be surprised if my retainers weren’t planning to rescue me as we speak. They’ll have noticed I’m missing, don’t you think?”

Well. Retain-er, singular. But Lunafreya didn’t need to know that.

In front of him, Lunafreya’s grip had tightened slightly on the candleholder.

“And I trust your retainers are as amenable as yourself?” she said, with the cool, diplomatic politeness of a dignitary in a foreign land.

Noctis only stared.

“Lord Noctis. Do you understand exactly what you’re insinuating?”

“Do you?”

They stared each other down. She was at once too far—out of the reach of his knife, should he need it—and too close, too close. The walls were too close. But this wasn't like being caged in with a wild animal, not as he’d expected. The steeliness in Lunafreya's eye was—very human, and familiar.

He tried to imagine her hunched, clawed, her teeth as knifepoints.

"As you wish," Lunafreya said, an eternity later. "I'll have someone retrieve your belongings."

She turned briskly on her heel and down a darker hallway opposite the medical wing, where the sconces were empty, before Noctis could respond.

He froze. Should he follow? She was not glancing back to check. Most likely, he should run in the other direction. Find his own way out.

But he didn’t know this strange castle, how deep he was. He hadn’t seen the sky since he’d left Lunafreya’s quarters. He couldn’t even hear the sheets of rain anymore: only the quiet crackle of torches, burning quietly in the stretch between himself and the beautiful woman—creature—the creature wearing the beautiful woman’s face.

And she was trusting him to follow.

Trust? sneered a voice of disgust at the back of his mind. It sounded an awful lot like Gladio. The vampire took all your toys away and got you scurrying after her like an injured puppy. You sound like a kid.

His cheeks burned; he wondered if even at a distance, Lunafreya could smell the rush of blood.

But the fact was, his main source of light was rapidly vanishing down a dark corridor in the vampire’s hands.

Noctis fired a quiet curse, thinking of the knife at his thigh. He followed.

“Your father was Lord Regis Lucis Caelum,” Lunafreya asked. “Is that correct? Or perhaps your grandfather. Forgive me, the affairs of Ulwaat keep me so preoccupied that I have had little time to brush up on current affairs of the Hunting world. Time slips away so easily in these walls.”

She said it so pleasantly, Noctis almost didn’t bristle, though he’d been asked that question often in the last few years—often by other Hunters, sneering down their noses. Their true meaning had been clear: So, this is what becomes of the legendary Caelum line. What a waste.

“Yes,” he said curtly, and hoped she might leave it at that.

They were descending a tight, spiral staircase now. It tangled like vine around a great stone pillar, spiralling down and down into a darkness so thick, it seemed to lap at Lunafreya’s small ring of light like a hungry sea. Noctis sharpened his eyes as he glanced over the railing, but he could only snatch faint details beneath its steady, wine-dark surface. He couldn’t see the walls.

Lunafreya hummed lightly. Noctis snapped his gaze back to her so quickly that the candlelight stabbed his sensitive retina. He winced, readjusting his night vision. What are you doing, taking your eyes off her? For even a second? “For what it is worth, I am deeply sorry,” she said. “I never met him, but Ravus did, decades ago. I have also heard many tales of him from passing visitors. He sounds like a great man. And...I understand what it means to lose family.”

He’d heard that, too.

But more often than not, that, too, was snide. Insincere. Your father was a great man. I’m sure he left large shoes to fill. Let’s see how you compare. Or worse: fawning. Your father was a great man. I’m sure his son is a prince among Hunters. Would you like me to carry your things?

When there was true mourning, it was for Lord Regis, the Silver Reaper of Lucis. It was never for the Regis who held Noctis on his knee when he’d had night terrors as a child, or brought him souvenirs when he was called to distant corners of Niflheim or Tenebrae to battle infestations.

He’d become so used to it, it was almost second nature to rise at such platitudes. Or else, to simply shut down: to close a stone door over his expression, nod, and seethe in silence. But Lunafreya—the vampire—the vampire hadn’t said it that way. I understand, she’d said, and he knew she meant it.

Noctis dug his nails into his palm. He felt welts forming. “He was brave.”

“So is his son,” she said.

“Don’t try to flatter me,” he said. “It’s really fucking irritating.”

Lunafreya glanced back at him—surprised, even a little amused. “To step into a vampire’s den, in a village known to harbour its vampires? That strikes me as rather brave, Lord Noctis.”

Well. He hadn’t exactly known that Ulwaat “harboured” vampires—he’d rather assumed that they were being cowed.

Finally, they reached the end of the staircase and emerged into what might have been a foyer, lit by candelabra. Noctis, chest twinging, realised he had no idea how far down they’d come; he hadn’t been paying attention, again. This injury, this vampire, they’d thrown him thoroughly off his game. If he’d come here to demonstrate his worth as a Hunter, he could consider this entire expedition thoroughly humiliating. There were drawn curtains lining the walls, dark velvet, but they were so heavy it was impossible to tell if there were windows behind them. For all he knew, Lunafreya had led him into a cellar.

“One might even go so far as to assume you might be trying to prove something,” she said.

Noctis’ pulse tripped.

"One young Hunter, braving such a castle alone? If you have retainers with you, as you claim, I wonder why we did not find evidence of another intruder. Unless, of course, you shook them off deliberately. Perhaps in an attempt to keep them safe. Perhaps it is to prove a point."

“I’m here to do my job,” he said. “To protect civilians. That’s all.”

“How wonderful. It seems we have that in common.” Lunafreya stopped at the centre of the foyer, raised her hand to halt him. "Just a moment."

The floor, as far as he could tell, was hard stone lined with a strip of dark carpet. When Noctis stopped, his final, hollow footfall rippled eerily into the dark corners. Compared to the torches from before, the candles lining the faraway walls seemed too delicate. He glanced up, and their light didn't even reach the ceiling. It was as if the stone walls simply faded into a deep and starless nothing, from which an unlit chandelier extended like a great, cosmic claw.

Ahead, there was a great set of wooden double doors.

A way out?

“Ah,” Lunafreya said. “Thank you, Gentiana.”

Noctis started. He didn’t see where the newcomer had entered, nor how she’d materialised so quietly. He skittered back a little, hackles rising like a cat’s, though the woman—dark-haired, ashen-skinned, eyes closed as if in prayer—didn’t seem to react to him at all. She merely handed something over to Lunafreya in silence: a wooden box, wrapped in a mass of black fabric. My coat.

From within the mass of fabric, within the wood of the box, something hummed soundlessly to the song in his blood.

The ring!

His heart spiked into his throat. It hit the back of his teeth.

“This is rather a lot of hunting paraphernalia.” Lunafreya unwrapped his coat, opening the box. All his gear was inside. The vials. The sword. The knuckle dusters. He itched at seeing someone else handle it, even indirectly. The woman—Gentiana—had vanished again. Was she so old, so ancient a vampire, as to be able to dissolve into shadow like that? “Some of it seems rather old. More heirlooms?”

Six, he wished she’d just attack him. “You said you’d give it back.”

“That I did. You seem rather anxious without it. Though I must wonder if you truly want it back.”

What he wanted was to snatch the box from her slender hands. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Lunafreya simply handed it out. Noctis eyed her for a moment, as if she might pluck it away like a common bully, but she met his eye steadily. Noctis reached out. He wanted so badly to snatch at it, to clutch it to his chest like a comfort blanket. He forced himself to move slowly instead. His hand brushed Lunafreya’s as he did, a touch so light and quick he should have barely registered it. But his mind captured and lingered on it: cool, voltaic.

Danger, sang his blood.

The coat was still a little damp, still heavy. He kept an eye on her as he shrugged it back on, sticking a hand into his pocket. There. He curled a hand around the ring, tight, tight enough to feel it press a hard, red groove into his palm. Ah. The cold silver settled the rising chorus in his blood, calming it to a hymn; immediately he stood straighter, as if a hand had pressed to his back, broad and kingly and familiar. Like a balm, the magic trace its fingertips along his ribcage, his wrist, healing bone and muscle. He traced a hand each and every piece of gear, tucking it back into its sheaths and holsters. His sword hand was still wrapped up tight, but he rested it on the hilt of the engine blade anyway. Lunafreya watched him evenly the entire time.

When he’d finished, she smiled. “Consider this a gesture of good faith.”

After you stripped me of weapons in the first place and trapped me deep in your home?

Of course, now that he had his weapons back, it occurred to him that he had no idea what to do with them. He supposed it did make him feel better, to know he might stand a fighting chance should Lunafreya’s “brother” wanted another round.

If this was a foyer, should he just...leave?

But the mission. Clarus, Gladio, Cor—they would already kill him for running away to Ulwaat in the first place. To return with his tail between his legs, to have so utterly failed, besides…

Yet. As much as it burned him to admit—as much as his pride bucked at the suggestion—it was true: he’d seen no evidence since he’d arrived here that Lunafreya Nox Fleuret was an active threat.

“I hope this gives you a sense of security in my home,” she continued. “I know it must be unnerving for a fledgling Hunter.”

His uninjured hand tensed around the handle of a knife. “I’m no fledgling.”

“Oh, forgive me. I might be making assumptions again.” Idly, as if she were merely inspecting the place, Lunafreya wandered away, taking her little circle of light with her. Noctis narrowed his eyes, staying put in the dark. “Only, I have heard many things about the late Lord Regis. Not only of his prowess as a Hunter, you see. I heard he had...regrets, later in life. Rumours passed through these halls that he wanted to raise his son to be different. I think that would be admirable, don’t you?”

Noctis stood very, very still.

(Lord Regis, exhausted, blood-streaked: Noctis, worry not about training tonight. I had Cor reschedule it. Please, your other studies are more important. Lord Regis, pulling him aside at a Hunter’s gathering, anchoring his large hands to Noctis’ shaking shoulders: There is more to life than tradition, son. We should not allow the weight of legacy to become a yoke around our neck. Do you understand?

Clarus, muttering behind a pillar draped in funeral cloth: He was always too soft on that boy.)

Was it so obvious?

“That woman,” he said instead. He couldn’t think about that. He couldn’t think about any of that. Memory was a hungry pool, whirling at his feet; he couldn’t afford to slip under, not now. “Gentiana. Another of your kind?”

“Yes, and a dear friend. She has been with us for a long time, nursed back to health in these halls. I do not close our doors to anyone in need, Lord Noctis—whether they are my own kind, or yours. All are under my protection. And all, I swear to you, are bound to the same rules as I or my brother so long as they remain under our roof."

She turned to stare him down across the space—as bright and sharp and distant as a star. Her hand around the candle, his upon a knife. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was being assessed.

On his father's honour, he would not be found wanting.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Lunafreya.” He exhaled, deep and slow, and slipped the knife from its sheath enough for its snarl to catch the candlelight. “But I know my duty. If I hear that you, or any vampire under your care, have broken that oath..."

In Lunafreya’s hands, the candlelight flickered. So did the delicate flames lining the stone walls; so did the starmetal-silver of her eyes, the halo of her hair, guttering.

Then—she sighed.

“I expected no less, My Lord. And I take such warnings very seriously—as I hope you will take mine.”

His grip on the knife tightened. “Your warning?”

All at once, it was as if a powerful wind had ripped through the still curtains—twisting down from the gaping black maw above like a great tongue. Noctis threw up his arms and stumbled as it snatched at his coat, his hair, squinting against it to see: Lunafreya, at the centre of the burst of wind like the eye of a twister, unmoving and inevitable. Her hair loosening, twisting, pale gold in the wind like a sylph. Her loose shirt whipping, rendering her shapeless. She looked—like the old tales, an Astral Messenger, a slip of holy light in the imprint of a woman, against the cold unfeeling dark. Be not afraid.

He blinked, and the light shifted: eyes flashing flat like a wolf in the brush—her jaw—stretching—

—teeth—

—the lights stuttered, and the dark crashed in.

The knife was free in his hand. He didn’t know when he decided to draw it. His pulse spiked to his throat. He dropped into a ready stance, ignored the screaming in his sword hand to grab a flash grenade. His blood sparked. He saw it pop in his retinae.

He spun in a slow circle. Tried to quiet his breathing. To listen, listen.

Where did she go?

The curl of his fists tightened, guided by years and years of training. The cold part of his brain locking down into battle mode. The other part, reeling. What just happened to the woman who’d brought water to his sickbed?

She didn’t lead me here to let me go.

How deep was he?

His eyes flashed neon. But there was too little light. He couldn’t even see the door anymore. He caught only the ghost of a candelabra, a pillar, and something else, moving closer—

Noctis flung himself aside. The air crystallised around him—blue sparks rebounding off stone—magic warped his outline to carry him further. The ring hummed. Something clipped his ear.

He rolled up into a crouch. The sparks flickered out. The dark was thick enough to choke.

Listen.

A vampire could be quiet. But nothing could ever be truly silent.

Vampire. Of course, she wasn’t human. Of course, he’d been a fool to forget, to get complacent, even for a second.

He pricked his ears. There.

His ribs cried out. But he slashed anyway, knife singing through the darkness, and felt it snag on clothing. Riiiip. A shape like hair, writhing like something alive, and Noctis raised an arm and blocked an incoming arm and felt claws graze the fabric of his sleeve and swiped again but the blade only met air. He raised the flash grenade and prepared to toss it, to squeeze his eyes shut against the burst, but—

Another gust of wind, stronger, so strong that he stumbled. The heavy curtains burst forward.

The burst of pale light through the windows stabbed his hypersensitive eyes—the washed-out blue of early light.

Light.

So close—only a wall away.

Morning!

But that brief moment of hesitation was enough.

Noctis didn’t register the hand at his throat till his back was against the door.

It was the great, hollow BANG, the slight give-and-groan of wood—not the unforgiving thud of body-on-stone—that told him it was the door, mere inches between himself and daylight. His head juddered against it and sparks popped against his eyelids, and he grasped for the knife again but he wasn’t healed yet, not fully, and a fresh wave of dizziness gripped him. It slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.

Claws lightly scraped his throat.

“I apologise for the theatrics, Lord Noctis. But I did not wish to do this to you unarmed.”

Her voice was unchanged, not even out of breath. But by the newborn sliver of light from the shifting curtains, he could see the truth of her, if faintly.

The pale gold hair, distorted in the unnatural wind. The flat shine of her silver eyes. The teeth and teeth and teeth. No longer the delicate little fangs from before—these were teeth that could rend and tear and killkillkill.

Like so many vampires he’d seen. Like nothing he’d seen in his life.

It caught the breath in Noctis’ throat. He froze under her grip.

He wasn’t afraid. He wouldn’t be much of a hunter if he was. But he couldn’t explain the clear, singing note of awe he felt to behold it. Like standing in the shadow of an arching tsunami: glassy, powerful, glittering in the sun.

She’s beautiful.

He tried to wrestle the thought down, to bare his teeth and spit venom into his voice. “You thought I wouldn’t be able to put up a fight?”

"Far from it. I do not doubt your strength. Rather, I do not attack unarmed men—and I would like to make my point clear.” He had no idea how she could speak so clearly, so velvet, around teeth like that. “I have no wish to make you my enemy. But regardless of whatever you may have to prove, I have something to protect. I take the safety of my brother, and of the humans in my care, very seriously. If I hold any suspicion that you might harm them…”

She leaned in, mouth open. Noctis’ heart juddered against his ribs.

But her teeth only grazed his neck, just deep enough to score a shallow cut, skating by his fluttering pulse point. He felt the slow bead of blood.

Lunafreya pulled back, locking eyes. “I trust we have an understanding.”

Before Noctis could gather his scattered mind, the sky opened up behind him.

Suddenly, he was awash in the pre-dawn light. For an oh-so-brief moment, he was suspended in it: weightless in a pale sea with Lady Lunafreya’s hand at his throat, her teeth withdrawn, solemn eyes still shining, mid-chrysalis, neither woman nor monster.

The moment ended. Noctis tumbled backward in the merciless grip of gravity, Lunafreya shrinking away from him, framed by the great, open doors of Fenestala Castle.

His back slammed into stone.

Noctis lay there for a moment on the steps, witless, blinking at the sky. Water soaked into his clothes, the dregs of last night’s storm, now passed. A few dying stars still winked valiantly in the retreating dark, but to the east, the sun was creeping its hand over the horizon, brushing cobwebs and dewdrops from the rooftops of Ulwaat. His still-healing ribs made weak cries of protest.

Minutes or hours later, when Noctis’ thoughts coalesced into something coherent again, he propped himself up slowly on his elbows. The ring: still there. The sword: still there. One flash grenade lost. The doors to the timeless Fenestala Castle, which in the slow-growing daylight stood over him with the dignity of an ancient scholar, were firmly shut, as if it had never been disturbed at all.

At his neck, he felt the thread of beading blood become a trickle—the ghost of Lunafreya’s breath, still lingering on his pulse.