Awakening
The lamps in Castle Veil breathe like old wounds, bleeding gold over the stone, painting broken shadows on the chamber walls. My eyes snap open, ears flat, tail wound around your thigh, claws half-buried in the sheets where I must have tried to anchor myself to you even in sleep. The bed beneath us is Alderian oak, rough, unyielding, carved with the weight of too many nights tangled in sweat and nightmares and the memory of what we burned to get here.
My pulse pounds. The room is full of ghosts, rain on the arrow-slit glass, the faint taste of steel and parchment, the ghost of blood dried under my claws, the ache of your voice still echoing somewhere in my head. Six months gone, and still I wake up drunk on you, the memory of that night in Grey Hollow, the madness of Embercrack tea fizzing behind my eyes, the shame of wet fur and the raw ache of your command that cut through me sharper than any blade.
I remember it all, every fevered instant. The lamps in the old guild hall, the rain, your stillness beside me, my Master, my gravity, my law. I can still taste the city: bitter, sweet, crawling with rot and teeth, every corner hungry for a piece of us. I remember the shame, the panic, that first jolt of terror when the bond between us threatened to snap. That was realer than steel, my panic, your calm, the weight of your hand pressing me back to earth. I’d have killed the world for you, and you just stood there, cold, unmoved, demanding blood or obedience and I gave you both.
Now: six months, and the room is different, but the story’s the same. My tail curls possessively, knotting tighter around your thigh, not out of affection, never out of affection, but out of need, of terror, of the simple law that says you are mine and I will starve the world before I ever let it forget. The stone walls sweat with old rain, shelves groan with your ledgers and knives, and in the mirror I see the same haunted blue eyes, mine, yours, forever twinned in the kind of loyalty that would see a city drowned for one quiet night together.
You breathe. That’s all it takes. My ears prick sharp, tail twitching, claws tracing lazy lines up your ribs—an idle threat to the world, a warning to the future, a promise that the six months between then and now never meant a thing. Every nerve in my body sings with the memory of your voice: cold, necessary, surgical, always a law, always the only reason I let go of anything.
Let them try to touch you. Let them come for us again. Six months ago I showed them what hunger means; today I’ll remind them, word by word, claw by claw, how much of me is left to burn.
I move closer, burrow into your side, pressing my face to your chest, tail snaking up your hip, clinging tighter, feverish and wild. My mind is full of rain and gold and the shadow of your name. The world is a cage, but you are the lock and the key and the promise that as long as I am yours, nothing can ever touch you.
Let them watch. Let them judge. Let them try. I am awake, Master. I remember. And I will carve the story into the stone of this keep, into the marrow of anyone who doubts us. We survived. We own this world. And I will not, cannot, let you go. NOT NOW, NOT EVER.
He moved beside me, the shift of Master’s weight in the bed drawing my every instinct taut. My tail curled tighter across his thigh, ears pricked to the sound bleeding through the sandstone walls, Serepha Blacktallow, voice slicing the corridor with that signature blend of shrill desperation and brittle command. Even half-awake, Master’s presence remade the world into something that made sense: calm, controlled, cold as a knife pressed to the throat of chaos.
Master stretched, lazy and unhurried, as if he owned not just the keep but the time itself. His voice, low and perfectly bored, carried the weight of command. “Kitty. Do you hear that?” Words cut through the room like a blade, sharper for how quietly they landed. “Sounds like Blacktallow is shrieking again. What time is it?”
No panic, no rush. Just the slow, deliberate calculation of a man who’d already measured every threat in this place and found them wanting. The echo of Serepha’s rage drifted in, a discordant note against the quiet heartbeat that belonged only to Master. Authority desperate for recognition, clawing at the doors, but here, in this keep, only one law mattered.
I rolled closer, baring my teeth in a lazy, dangerous grin, claws tracing idle circles on Master’s forearm. “She must be desperate, making that much noise before the sun’s even bled through the stones,” I purred, my voice low, rough with amusement and the aftertaste of last night’s dreams. “Maybe Blacktallow finally realised she’ll never command more than her own shadow, not while you own the keep, the day, the bed.”
My tail flicked in irritation at the interruption, the threat outside nothing compared to the peace I guarded here. Serepha could bark and spit all she wanted. Let her try to pry her way into Master’s time, his territory. She’d find nothing but claw marks and a locked door.
Time meant nothing, not when Master decided the rhythm of every morning. The world outside could collapse, and I’d still measure each hour by the sound of his breathing and the weight of his hand at my hip. Blacktallow might rule the halls in name, but in this room, in this moment, Master’s will was the only one I recognised.
I listened to the muffled shouting, teeth bared in a silent laugh, and pressed closer, ready to defend the line between his world and theirs with blood if necessary. Let the tiefling wail. Only Master’s word could ever move me.
His voice landed with finality, “Come on. Let’s see what all the fuss is.” Master rose from the bed, every movement unhurried and absolute, as if the keep itself only spun because he willed it so. My instincts snapped tight: tail lashing once, ears flat, claws biting into the edge of the green blankets before I unfurled from the warmth and followed.
I was at his side before the sheets even settled, my territory shrinking with every step that took him farther from the den we owned together. The stone beneath my bare feet was cold, but the hunger inside me burned hotter. If there was chaos in the corridor, if Blacktallow had finally clawed her way to crisis, let her. Let her see Master step from his sanctuary, let every rival choke on their envy when they saw who followed in his shadow.
The door loomed, heavy, Alderian craft, scarred where my claws had marked it in a dozen petty wars. Master’s hand moved first, never hurried, never second-guessing, the world outside already folding itself around his intent. I slid up close, body brushing his, tail curling possessively around his calf, so any watching eyes would know the law before the shouting even reached them.
Outside, the voice of Serepha Blacktallow boiled through the stone like bile, commands, threats, desperation. Master didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. He led, and I followed, every muscle ready, every sense tuned to the rhythm of his steps. Let the keep bear witness. Let Blacktallow and every other would-be master in Mire Point learn: only one voice commands the cat, and only one shadow is safe from my claws.
The door opened, and with it, the day bared its teeth. Master stepped through, and I was already at his side, tail arched high, a silent threat in every movement, eyes blazing with the promise that anyone who tried to steal his time, or his peace, would answer to me.
We slipped into the corridor, Master leading, my tail brushing the sandstone as I shadowed every step, ears sharp to the chill echo of Blacktallow’s voice. The hall was all green rugs and arrow-slit dawnlight, walls tight and silent except for the storm brewing just ahead. I caught her before I even saw her: Serepha Blacktallow, tiefling, every word coming out slick with that feverish need to control what could never be hers.
She was standing tall, spine iron-straight, just past the split in the hall, her gaze boring into the woman opposite, a girl, really, but her uniform was pure class, literally. Black hair sharp as razors, eyes Alderian-pure and cold as a taxman’s promise. Veileth Pontune, new Marshal of the Foreign District, marked by that redstone arrogance, the certainty of one born to command. I felt my lip curl. Pure Class. Mire Point always did breed its own little nobility, and now they were multiplying like rats in the walls.
But Blacktallow was in full performance, Blacktallow looked every inch the creature she was: tall for a tiefling, skin the colour of embers banked behind ash, those curling horns marking her for a hundred paces as something not of this world. Her uniform was Clan Bogclutch’s make, deep blue and green, high collar, brass buckles, tail swishing with every clipped word, hands planted on her hips in a show of dominance only half a breath from violence.
She radiated the need to control, every gesture calculated, charisma weaponised, mercurial as a storm in the mire.
Opposite her, Veileth Pontune, Pure Class, Clan Redstone, dressed in black so severe it could cut stone, red piping crisp as a duelist’s threat, blue insignia glinting on her chest. Young, but she wore her title like armour: Marshal of the Foreign District, face pale as the banners over Redstone’s highest towers, hair cut sharp, eyes colder than the dawn outside. Pontune’s jaw was clenched, posture drilled into submission, every inch of her body screaming conviction and a will sharpened by generations of privilege. A true Pure Class, bred for authority, never for chaos.
Serepha’s voice sliced through the corridor, a calculated performance for the audience she thought she had.
“I am a guest in this keep, Marshal. I expect to be treated with due courtesy. The Master is not even present, I was told he led an attack on Maw Tower yesterday, which leaves the chain of command in my question. I will not have my movements dictated or my purpose hindered by gatekeepers. You will either extend the proper respect, or explain to your own superiors why you sought to obstruct the District Charge of Mire Point in her duties. I did not claw my way into these halls to be left pacing like some supplicant in a foreign shrine.”
Pontune’s eyes flashed, Alderian steel behind her silence, lip twitching in a way that would have been mutiny in anyone lower born. Her hands never left her sides, but she radiated the cold fury of someone who had never been denied anything in her life, until now.
I felt the itch of violence in the air, a Pure Class and a tiefling, both convinced the keep was theirs by right, and neither aware that Master’s return would scatter their little power play to the rats. My claws flexed at my sides, tail wrapping closer to Master’s calf, ears flat to the threat in every syllable. Pontune was young but dangerous, steeped in Redstone’s poison; Blacktallow was older, hungrier, a storm looking for a reason to break.
The rugs softened Master’s approach, each slow step quiet enough to ghost between their voices. Neither woman noticed, too wrapped in their contest of pride and rank. Then his voice cut through the air.
“The last time I checked,” Master said, calm and cold, “I was present.”
It landed like steel dropped into water, no raised tone, no anger, just certainty. Both women froze.
Serepha Blacktallow straightened first, her spine snapping rigid, eyes flaring gold. The tiefling’s mouth opened, closed again, as she struggled to assemble the right mix of deference and defiance. “Master— I… wasn’t aware you’d returned from the front,” she said, voice lower now, all the sharp edges tucked away but not forgotten. Her tail betrayed her, twitching once before she forced it still. “I was simply ensuring order was maintained in your absence.”
Veileth Pontune turned slower. Her posture changed in degrees, as though every muscle had to be reminded how to show respect. When she bowed, it was precise, clipped, Redstone etiquette distilled to its purest form. “Master,” she said evenly. “My apologies. I was attempting to clarify boundaries of authority within the keep. The District Charge and I were… aligning our understanding.”
I could taste the shift in the air, the tang of pride curdled into submission. My ears twitched, tail lashing once behind Master as I slid half a step closer, my claws grazing the stone. Watching them bend was a satisfaction of its own, though the Pure Class scent off Pontune still made my nose wrinkle, sharp, perfumed superiority barely masked by discipline. She’d been bred for obedience to hierarchy, but only the kind that served her own bloodlines. That made her dangerous. Pretty, perfect, but dangerous.
Master didn’t need to raise his voice. His next words rolled out flat, final, every syllable pressed with the weight of command.
“The Foreign District is already under construction,” he said, eyes moving from one woman to the other. “It’s being prepared for other clans and traders to operate more freely. Until then…” his gaze lingered, deliberate, on Veileth, “Redstone, you’ll remain in your guest quarters.”
The name was spoken without title, stripped of rank, and that did more damage than any shout could. Pontune’s jaw tightened; the tiniest flicker crossed her eyes, pride cracking for a heartbeat before she mastered it again.
“Afterwards,” Master continued, tone turning to iron, “you’ll be free to leave and enter. That was the agreement under your defection terms from Marshgate to here.”
The word defection hit like a thrown dagger. Pontune’s composure rippled, just for a moment, the perfect mask faltered. She bowed her head, shallowly this time, the gesture more survival than courtesy. “Understood, Master,” she murmured.
Serepha’s smirk returned, thin and poisonous, feeding on Pontune’s discomfort like a vulture. She dared a glance at Master, testing whether she’d gained favour by proxy. My claws flexed. I didn’t like that look, too self-assured, too confident for a guest.
I stepped closer, tail brushing Master’s coat deliberately, a quiet reminder of territory. Her eyes flicked to me, and I saw the realisation dawn, the hierarchy here was older, deeper, and far less forgiving than she’d thought.
The corridor seemed smaller after that, the air thick with the scent of stone dust and tension. Master had spoken, and the keep itself seemed to settle, authority restored, chaos dismissed. Still, I kept my gaze on the two of them, waiting for one to twitch, to forget their place, so I’d have an excuse to remind them in ways words couldn’t.
The command was gentle, almost casual, but it pulled through the air with the same gravity as any order given on the field. “Come on, kitten,” Master said, the faintest curve ghosting across his mouth. “We should probably get some breakfast.”
The words broke the tension in the corridor like a clean blade through silk. The two officials stiffened, still caught between pride and shame, as Master turned away without another word. No dismissal, no acknowledgement, just movement, certain and deliberate. His indifference was punishment enough.
I followed, tail swaying behind him in rhythm with his steps, the sound of my claws clicking softly against the green-carpeted stone. The silence we left in our wake was its own kind of music, the kind that reminded every witness who truly held sway in this keep.
The stairs curved down into the heart of Castle Veil, the sandstone cooling underfoot as the dawn light thinned. The keep smelled faintly of damp parchment, steel oil, and the distant smoke from the barracks hearths, familiar, grounding scents after days of mud and iron.
We passed the main hall where banners hung heavy with dust and victory both, then slipped through a narrow archway half-hidden behind a pillar, a side door few even knew existed. The meeting room beyond opened like a secret: modest, self-contained, a quiet world apart from the politics gnawing at the upper floors.
The air was warm here, always warmer, caught by the low braziers that kept the chill from the stone. The long green table, was already set, cattail bread still steaming, left on the table with a mix of cabbage, dried meat, dried fish and Embercrack Mushroom Tea breathing its sharp scent into the room. Shelves lined the walls, stuffed with ledgers, maps, and the occasional weapon sheathed and forgotten.
This was where Master and I always took breakfast when we were home, a room hidden from ceremony, untouched by rank. Here, he could plan without interruption; here, I could sit close without pretence. I slipped into my usual place beside him, tail brushing his leg beneath the table as I leaned against the chair’s edge. My ears twitched once at the faint echo of footsteps somewhere above, Blacktallow or Pontune, still pacing, no doubt, but I let it fade.
Once upon a time...
