A chill seeped into Elara’s bones, more profound than the manor’s perpetual draft. Lord Varden, stripped of his feral raiment, was a ghost of the man she knew. His gait was unsteady, his hand gripping her arm with a desperate, crushing weight as she guided him through the dimly lit corridor toward the cleansing room. His gaze, once sharp as splintered ice, now wandered, a lost thing searching for familiar anchors.
Sounds of their footsteps echoed, a hollow rhythm against the manor’s oppressive silence. Beyond the thick walls, crickets sang their mournful chorus, indifferent to the play unfolding within.
“How long,” Varden’s voice rumbled, hoarse and raw, “have I been… this way?”
Elara’s breath hitched. A tremor ran through her, not from cold but from the sudden, impossible weight of the question. Countless answers, like poison berries, bloomed in her mind. This was a treacherous game, a field strewn with unseen landmines. One wrong step, one ill-chosen word, and the fragile peace could shatter, leaving her exposed.
“Years,” she managed, turning slightly to meet his gaze. His face, though marred by recent wounds, retained an uncanny youth. Smooth skin, unlined by time or worry. He could be a freshly carved statue, an eternal youth. “Two full cycles of the moon, since… since the blight took hold.” She chose the most neutral term for his affliction, a sickness, a curse, anything but the truth of his wild state.
He nodded slowly, his fingers tightening on her arm. “But we… do we always speak with such formality?”
“Ah, yes,” Elara said, the lie a bitter taste. “You were ever a man of great decorum. Precise. Respectful. Even to your… loved ones.” She could feel barbs forming on her tongue, sharp and self-inflicted. Lies, like noxious weeds, germinated with alarming speed, their roots digging deep, their tendrils seeking to ensnare. Once planted, they sprawled, suffocating the truth.
“What was my purpose, then?” he asked, pulling back, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Before… this?”
Elara’s mind went blank. *You hunted witches. You imposed your cruel will. You ruled with an iron fist.* These truths would ignite a new storm. “You were… a custodian,” she stammered, casting about for anything remotely plausible. “Of the manor’s botanical collections. You cultivated… rare flora.” She clutched at the familiar, the safe.
“Flora?” He tilted his head. “What kind?”
“Exotic,” she rushed, desperation lending her words a frantic edge. “Medicinal. Arcane. You were fascinated by their… resilient properties.” She wanted to clamp her hands over her mouth, to silence the torrent of fabricated history before it drowned them both.
---
Lord Varden was a wretched sight after she helped him cleanse himself. The bathwater had turned rust-red with filth and dried blood. Now, seated on a low stool in the small, steamy antechamber, he seemed unnervingly vulnerable. Elara’s hands trembled as she uncorked a vial of her potent mending salve, its herbaceous scent thick in the air. Scratches crisscrossed his pale skin, livid welts from thorn bushes, jagged tears from encounters she dared not imagine.
Each time her fingers, gloved in linen, touched his skin, a shiver ran through her. Varden, however, remained still, his breathing steady, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond her shoulder. He did not flinch, did not groan. Only a placid acceptance, utterly at odds with the terror he inspired.
“Let us rest,” Varden murmured, his voice softer now, almost coaxing. “Together, Elara.”
Her hand froze, hovering over a particularly deep gouge on his forearm. “What?” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hiss of steam.
“We are wed, are we not?” His eyes, though still distant, focused on her. A flicker, something akin to earnestness, played in their depths. “Can we not share the same comfort, wife?”
Elara recoiled instinctively, pulling back from the stool. Her heart began to pound a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She had not truly considered the consequences of her desperate, improvised fabrication. Marriage. It implied intimacy, shared space, shared life.
“I… you are still recovering, my lord,” she tried, clutching at an excuse. “You require rest, unburdened.”
“Yes, I am a patient,” he conceded, his voice losing some of its gentle quality, becoming edged with a subtle, unnerving authority. “But I am no longer a beast of the wilds. And I am still your husband.”
His gaze pierced her, a cold blade. She swallowed, a dry, painful effort. To refuse would be to shatter the illusion, to unleash a darkness she could not control. Her instinct screamed at her to flee, but a deeper, colder logic took hold. He needed to sleep. He needed to be docile. Her safety lay in his unconsciousness.
“Does my altered state displease you?” he asked, his expression clouding. “Am I so changed that my presence repels you?”
Elara couldn’t answer. She simply shook her head, unable to form a coherent denial. Lies were a burden. They created an intricate, fragile cage.
“It matters not,” Varden said, his eyes softening again, the bleakness returning. “I will not treat you with harshness. I will neither force you nor threaten you, just as… the husband you remember would not.” He offered a small, unsettling smile. “So, rest beside me, Elara. Only until the dawn.”
Her family’s old physician, before he vanished into the fog of the curse, had once told her that Varden, in his fits, could sleep for days, or wake in a terrifying instant. Coaxing him into slumber was paramount. Elara moved, a marionette on unseen strings, and lay down beside him on the narrow cot in the antechamber. It was hardly a proper bed, but large enough for two, permeated with the lingering scent of antiseptic and her salve.
“So many questions bloom within me,” he said, turning to face her, his shoulder brushing hers. His gaze, even in the dim light, felt like an arrow finding its mark. She stared at the rough-hewn ceiling, willing herself to be stone.
“What weighs heaviest on your mind, my lord?” she asked, her voice thin.
“How did I come to be… lost? As you describe it.”
“We… we ventured into the shadowed woods beyond the eastern gate,” she began, weaving another thread into her silken lie. “There was a strange mist. A tremor. A shift in the old ley lines. An ancient blight touched you.” She kept it vague, pliable. Details were pitfalls.
“You too?” he asked, a frown creasing his brow.
She shook her head. “I was spared the worst. Only a lingering chill. You… you bore the full brunt.”
Her heart hammered, each beat a tolling bell. She felt like a tightrope walker, suspended over an abyss. A single gust of wind, a single misstep, and it would all unravel.
“And you have tended me, since?”
“Yes. Though the household staff… they offered greater service.” She downplayed her own desperate, solitary efforts. To admit the truth would invite unwanted scrutiny, perhaps even suspicion.
*He will kill me when he learns the truth.* The thought was a cold knot in her stomach. She had to navigate this labyrinth with exquisite care. She needed him to be calm, to trust the false narrative.
“Focus only on your recovery, my lord. There are other kin, a brother, perhaps, who will soon seek your return.” She grasped at anything to divert his singular focus on her.
“I remember no such person,” he said, his hand finding hers, fingers closing around it. Elara stiffened, resisting the urge to pull away. Though only her hand was caught, it felt as if invisible bonds wrapped around her entire body. “The only face that lingers in this fractured mind is yours, Elara. Only your name echoes in the silence. I must… I must love you very deeply.”
*Love.* The word was a desecration. It brought to mind her own parents, their faces blurred by time and sorrow. Elara bit back a choked gasp, a curse she dared not utter. Varden shifted, lifting an arm to drape the rough woolen blanket more securely over both of them. A surprising warmth bloomed between them. For a fleeting instant, the physical comfort was profound, a momentary reprieve from the day’s relentless strain. She instinctively leaned into the unexpected heat, exhaustion pulling at her.
Their eyes met. Varden’s gaze, momentarily soft, held hers.
“When did we marry?” he asked.
“Two years ago,” she replied, the lie now an automatic reflex.
“Have I ever caused you to weep?”
“What?”
“We were newlyweds, and then this blight befell me. You nursed a shadow, a beast. That is a cruel fate for a new bride.”
“I… I am accustomed to tending to those who cannot speak, cannot reason,” she said, choosing her words with care. “My work with the manor’s cursed flora prepared me. I did not weep often.”
“How long was our courtship?”
“Ah, um…” The questions were growing too specific, too personal. Elara, a woman whose life had been spent in the quiet company of plants and potions, had no experience with the intricacies of romance, let alone inventing a romantic history for another. She had been solitary for so long. What could she possibly say about a love life that wasn’t her own?
He watched her, his brow slightly raised, sensing her hesitation.
“A single moon cycle?” he prompted, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “Or was it… briefer still?”
“What?” Elara gaped, her mouth opening and closing without sound. Her mind raced, the implications of his suggestion horrifyingly clear.
He smiled then, a genuine, youthful curve of his lips. His eyes, for a precious, terrifying moment, lost their cold, distant quality. “It grieves me that I remember none of it,” he said. “You must have been quite… bold, my bride. And I, quite the captivating suitor, to win you so swiftly.”
“No!” Elara choked, a desperate, frantic denial. “That is not what happened!” The misunderstanding, born of her faltering lies, was like a branding iron to her skin. It brought a fresh wave of panic, a sickening lurch in her gut. Yet, she could offer no plausible narrative to counter his assumption.
When she fell silent, trembling, Varden simply tilted his head, resting it back on the rough pillow. His smile faded, but the unsettling light remained in his eyes, a silent witness to the nightmare she had created.
It was only just beginning.
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