HOW THE SHADOWS FEAST || ONC 2024 ✔

x. death of a fawn

HOW THE SHADOWS FEAST
x. death of a fawn

fifth night

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ORPHANED, THE DINING HALL SEEMED MORE LIKE A GRAVEYARD. The long table looked shambles to fill the Wolf's growling stomach. Silvan was the last one to sit at it when Gesa entered and sip his wine, face thoughtful.

"May I have a word with you?" the high priestess asked.

The prince's gaze flicked to her, before resting on his cup again. "Of course. Speak freely. We are alone."

Gesa wrung her hands uncomfortably. "You know you never gave me a reason to doubt your decisions. I won't start to do it now. Still, I don't understand."

"You mean your cursed girl?" Silvan von Winterthal asked lips twitched up into a smirk that displayed nothing but dismissal of any concerns.

"Yes." In her opinion, there was nothing left to be said. The objection was clear enough.

Tilting his head and raising his brow, Silvan looked at her, resembling more the boy Gesa had known than the soldier he had become. "Isn't saving her reason enough? That was what the dead prince came for, after all?"

In his dark innocent eyes, lay a mischievous glint she had not seen since he had been a boy of thirteen, still playing youthful tricks. Now, however, on this grown man, it appeared unsettling and wrong. Like a demon bathing in the light of a halo.

"If you are concerned about her, you could have had her married to one of your men." You have responsibilities, first and foremost.

"I see ..." Slowly, he swirled his goblet. Some kind of danger Mother Gesa could not quite grasp simmered in the wax-redolent air. "What times are we living in if Sons of the Order marry cursed women and even Daughters of Perhta turn to demons?"

Not quite understanding yet, Gesa listened, ignoring the dark foreboding resonating in every word.

The silver goblet came down with a violent clunk. "These Wolf Nights are different. If there ever could be a time to turn a curse into a blessing to us, it is now. I fear not all my men will survive—and I fear for your Daughters, too. We already lost one."

Lost. Something about the way the prince said those last words alerted Gesa. "Lost?" she repeated flatly.

In his eyes, she could only read a weak imitation of repentance that made Gesa's blood freeze. It gave more answers than Silvan intended to, betraying something very dark that spoiled his soul from within.

For the powers of the curse he feared and detested, he was ravenously hungry, too.

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The candle she had lit just yesterday had already burned down.

"Aren't you going to bed, daughter?" Mother Gesa asked, watching her carefully from the entrance of the chapel.

"I am not tired," Saskia answered. Shrugging, she turned back to the candles, lighting two of them with whispered prayers.

In fact, the idea of returning to an empty cell was too dreadful to even think about it, still. Staying here and praying until the morning light would fall through the colored glass seemed to promise a more peaceful night.

The high priestess let out a hissing breath before choosing her following words with more caution than usual. "So, you will leave the convent?"

"As you wished it," Saskia said, not even the ghost of contempt in her voice. Nor in her heart. Somewhen, she didn't know exactly when or how or why, the young priestess had come to terms with the others' disdain.