Chapter 5 — Midnight at the West Fountain
Midnight draped its velvet over the palace, softening the sharp edges of torchlight into pools of ink. The west garden was a hollow of silver and shadow, statues leaning like eavesdroppers, hedges trimmed into obedient ranks. Selene moved through it with the careful silence of one who had once been hunted and had learned to stalk in return. The crescent at her chest pressed against the fabric as if it, too, had sharpened for the night.
She arrived early. The fountain sat at the heart of the garden—age-black marble, its bowl laced with lichen, water that captured moonlight and held it like a secret. Selene folded her gloved hands on the rim and watched the surface tremble. The parchment in her pocket felt like a heavy weight: Eira's looping flourish, the Draven seal, a summons that reeked of betrayal and a sister's handwriting.
Her mind was a ledger of losses. Lucien's touch still burned at her temple in memory, a cool imprint that had wedged images into her mind like needles. The price of seeing had been exacted—a childhood laugh gone, a face slipped from its place. Yet she had traded those things gladly enough for the sake of truth. Tonight, she was prepared to pay more.
She had intended to come alone. Pride and vengeance, the Serpent had said—bait. But footsteps, soft as a second heartbeat, arrested Selene's breath: Lucien emerging from the shadow, white robes wrapped around him as if moonlight had taken form. He did not approach with the preacher's distance he had worn in the garden; tonight his eyes held something rawer—a soldier's caution masked by a priest's softness.
"You will do this," he said without greeting. "You should not."
Selene met his gaze. "I will know. Or I will not be whole enough to matter." There was a fierceness beneath her calm that Lucien could not dull.
He exhaled. "You trade pieces like a gambler trading coins. Do not be surprised when you find you have nothing left to wager." He placed a finger lightly against the crescent at her breast. For a heartbeat, the mark hummed—then settled as if it were listening.
"I know the price." She drew the parchment free and laid it against the marble, catching the lantern light. "But someone who signed Draven's name walks these halls. Whether Eira meant it or was forced, I will know."
Lucien's jaw clenched. "Then let me be the one to keep you from unmaking yourself." He lifted a palm as if to ward off both danger and a flood of memory. "If you call the Moon too often, you will become an echo of yourself."
Selene's laugh was dry. "Then be my ear, priest. If the Moon will have me, she may as well listen through a witness."
They waited. Time passed with the slow patience of trees. When the clock over the hall chimed once, twice, the garden seemed to inhale. At the third chime, a figure detached itself from the darker band of hedges: a man in a cloak, hood hiding his face, steps sure despite the darkness. He moved with the purposeful, anonymous gait of a courier or an assassin; either made the throat quicken.
Selene rose. The cloaked man stopped at the fountain's edge and bowed once, not to her but to the water, as if the marble itself held authority. He drew out a small case and opened it with measured care. Inside, a coin lay bright and cruel, stamped with the Draven crest. The hooded figure reached out and set it on the fountain's lip.
Eira's flourish had promised a meeting. Yet there was no softness beside the coin, no rustle of a sister's skirts. Selene's pulse thudded against her ribs as she scanned the hedges for the smooth silhouette of the Serpent. Nothing moved but the distant flicker of a servant's light. The courier bowed again and waited.
"Why present tokens?" Lucien asked, his voice a thin reed in the dark. "Why not speak?"
The hooded man's voice came low, as if it had been struck from steel and then dulled. "Orders." He inclined his head toward the shadow beyond the statue of the weeping maiden. "A message left in ink. She asked the Moon to bring her seeker."
Selene's hands curled into fists. The coin felt smaller under that explanation but heavier all at once. She reached for it. When her fingers closed around the metal, the crescent throbbed, and the garden stung as though someone had snapped a wet cord. Images, like quick fish, flashed through her mind—Eira's hand passing a letter, a cloak pulled tight, a man's voice saying, "Watch the west fountain." For a moment, memory and vision blurred; she clutched the fountain's edge to steady herself.
"Speak, then," Selene said to the night more than to the hooded man. "If she sent this, tell me why."
The man's head lifted slightly. "She wrote that her father—" His words stopped as if cut. A shadow peeled itself from a leaning cypress: the Serpent of the Court, her silk pooling around her like spilled ink. She moved without sound, close enough that Selene could see the onyx beads at her throat. But it was the woman's eyes that drew Selene in like a hook: not quite the cold, polished cruelty from the banquet, but something closer to regret.
"The coin is proof," the Serpent said. "A pledge. They wanted to test whether the right hands could…"