Where the night listens

There are moments in Elderwyn when the world grows quiet.
When even thoughts seem to soften.
This is one of them.
An excerpt from my novel Elderwyn.

Alba lay in her bed. Listening. To Lyra’s soft breathing in the room beside hers. To the rhythm of the night.
But inside her, everything churned.
Images of the man, his voice, that single word. Ashvale. The look on her father’s face. Tiberius’s silence.
She turned onto her side. And then again.

Restlessness crept along her skin like a cold current. Sitting still was not an option. Movement was.

Without a sound, she slipped from the apartment, along corridors she knew like the lines of her own hand. Her bare feet made no noise. Wind slipped through a gap in a window, whispering past her hair.
She already knew where she was going.
Always the same place when the world grew too loud or too large.
The old observatory.

She pushed the heavy door open, her hand just beneath the star. The creak was familiar, almost comforting.
But when she stepped inside, the room was not empty.
In the silver light of the moon, someone was standing.
A dark silhouette against the stars. Straight posture. Unmistakable.

‘Prince.’

His voice broke the silence, soft but clear.
Tiberius turned slowly towards her.
She paused in the doorway. Cool air brushed her face; moonlight washed the old stone in silver.

Alba saw at once that his eyes were not heavy with sleep. They were clear, sharp, holding that distinctive alertness that told her he had known she would come.

‘Prince?’ he said again, more softly now. Not questioning who she was, but calling her back into the present. He waited until her eyes met his.
‘Your father,’ he said quietly. ‘Dorian Ashvale. The Ashvale.’
She nodded.
‘You hide that,’ he said, stating it as fact.
‘Yes.’ Her voice was calm, but taut. ‘Not because I want to. Because I have to.’

He was silent, attentive.

‘A name can be a shield,’ he said softly. ‘Or a target.’
She turned her head slightly towards him. ‘In my case, it’s both.’
He stepped closer. Not intrusive. Simply there.
‘And now?’ he asked.
She drew a deep breath. ‘Someone knows I’m here. Someone who should not have been able to be here at all. My father is furious. The school is unsettled. And I…’
She shook her head slowly. ‘I just want my mind to be quiet. Even if it’s only for five minutes.’
Tiberius looked at her.
‘That’s why you came,’ he said softly.
She nodded.

A silence fell that did not create distance, but space.
They stood facing one another beneath the stars, speaking without masks.

Alba tilted her head slightly. Her eyes drifted to his hands, enclosed in those smooth, dark leather gloves. She had asked about them once before, on the first night they had been standing here together. He had evaded the question then.
But now there was nowhere to hide. No classmates. No walls. Only moonlight and stillness.

‘Your hands?’ she asked quietly.

Tiberius did not flinch. Something passed over his face, a shadow of memories long kept from view. He looked at the stars for a moment. Then he turned slowly towards her.
‘You don’t give up easily,’ he said.
His voice was not defensive. More tired, with a softness she had not heard from him before.
‘Not when something matters to me,’ she replied calmly.
He drew a slow breath. His hands shifted of their own accord beneath the leather, betraying him slightly.
‘They’re… not nice,’ he said at last. ‘And I’d rather have people looking at who I am than at something that happened.’

She said nothing.
That was not avoidance. It was an answer. Not the whole story yet, but the first crack in his wall.
‘What happened?’ she asked gently.
He glanced at her, sharp but not hostile. ‘Not tonight.’
He fell silent for a moment after speaking, then looked back at her, less closed than usual.
‘Soon,’ he said quietly. ‘All right?’
She met his eyes.
‘All right,’ she said.
He nodded, glanced down at his gloved hands, and one corner of his mouth lifted faintly.
‘For what it’s worth,’ he said, with restrained humour, ‘I’ve never turned anyone to stone with them. And they don’t scratch.’
The comment came so unexpectedly that she laughed, a brief sound, soft and real.

He looked up, and something light crossed his eyes, something she had not seen there before.

She turned and walked to the old cast-iron stove in the corner of the tower room, lighting it with a short spell. Flames caught gently. The glass began to glow with warmth, and slowly the room filled with the deep, crackling quiet only a fire can bring.
Alba sank down onto the low stone ledge by the stove, folding her legs beneath her. The warmth painted her face in soft orange light.
Tiberius hesitated, then sat down beside her. Not too close. Just beside her.
Alba watched the flames, her hands loosely clasped around her knees. There was a depth in her voice he had not heard before.

‘Tiberius…’
She turned her head towards him. ‘You know who my father is now. Dorian Ashvale.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes.’
‘My mother,’ she continued, ‘is Lily Carter. You know how… legendary they were together. They ended the war. Defeated Morvain.’
Her lips tightened into something that was not quite a smile. More bitter than amused.
‘And in doing so, they made friends and enemies. More than most people realise.’

He said nothing. He did not need to.

‘No one is allowed to know who I am,’ she said softly, but with emphasis. ‘That they have children. No one.’
She held his eyes.
‘Do you understand?’
There was no plea in her voice. No fear.
Only clarity. Trust.
And an undertone that said: this is larger than you and me.

Tiberius looked at her for a long moment without looking away.
‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘I understand.’
‘Truly?’
‘Your parents lived through a war,’ he said. ‘And won. People forget that victories like that always leave remnants behind. This isn’t secrecy for pride or ego. It’s survival.’

She was quiet for a moment, visibly moved by the fact that she did not have to explain.
‘Thank you,’ she said softly.
He shrugged slightly, but his expression remained serious. ‘I don’t ask questions you don’t want to answer. And what I know stays between us.’
She nodded slowly. And for the first time since the encounter with the intruder, her breathing truly seemed to settle.

Alba stared ahead for a moment, her eyes fixed on something that hovered just beyond words.
Then she turned towards him. Her eyes glowed softly in the firelight.
‘Tiberius… what is this between us?’
He raised an eyebrow slowly, his seriousness matching the weight of the question.
‘Most people…’ She searched for words she normally found without effort. ‘Everyone. They only see me as the brilliant student who sees further than the rest. Who speaks too fast, knows too much, is always one step ahead.’
Her voice dipped slightly. ‘They treat me like an instrument. Something useful. Or admirable from a distance. But not…’
She looked straight at him. ‘Not someone you sit next to. Not really.’

Silence followed.
Tiberius did not speak at once.

‘I don’t see you because you’re brilliant,’ he said quietly. ‘That just happens to be true.’
A faint smile touched his mouth briefly, but his eyes stayed serious.
‘I see you because you see things the way I do. Because you don’t just observe, you understand. You move differently. You think differently. And you hide things. Just like I do.’
She swallowed, almost imperceptibly. His words struck somewhere she rarely allowed anyone to reach.
‘What this is between us?’ he continued. ‘I don’t know. But I do know that it’s real. And rare.’
Alba held his eyes for a few seconds, taking in every word with care.
Then she breathed out slowly and let her head rest against the cool stone wall behind her.
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘Rare.’

They both turned back to the fire. Nothing more needed to be explained.
Whatever it was, it now hung between them, clear and unspoken, like starlight that does not fade.

Outside, the world was still. The universe seemed to listen without interfering.

Tiberius leaned forward slightly, his elbows resting on his knees, the fire reflecting in the leather of his gloves. He stared into it for a long moment, lost in thought.

‘Alba?’

She turned to him at once. Something in his tone had changed.
‘My hands.’
He exhaled slowly, making room for words long kept locked away.
‘It started with my father.’

She said nothing.
No questioning look. No interruption. She knew silence was necessary here.
His fingers moved unconsciously against one another, leather brushing leather. He stared at the floor between them.

‘He called it discipline,’ he said quietly. ‘Ways to learn obedience. To be silent. To be perfect.’
He gave a short, rough laugh without humour. ‘And I wasn’t perfect.’

The silence after that sentence was so sharp that even the stove seemed to fall quiet.

He turned his hands slowly, conscious of every movement. ‘It began when I was young. Spells that went wrong. Hands that didn’t move fast enough. He had his methods. They left marks.’
Her heart climbed slowly into her throat.

He spoke like someone who had lived with something too long without ever sharing it.

Tiberius looked up then, straight into her eyes.
‘That’s why I wear the gloves. Not out of shame. Out of control. I decide who sees it. And when.’
His final words lingered in the warm stillness of the observatory.

I decide who sees it. And when.

Alba moved slowly.
She reached out her hand towards him.
For a fraction of a second he seemed about to pull away.
A reflex.
But she met his eyes, open, without pity, without questions.
And that broke the tension.

She placed her hand in his.
He remained still for a heartbeat, caught between retreat and acceptance.
Then he turned his hand slowly so their fingers laced together.

No words. No promise.
Only their hands, entwined, in the silence of the night.

The warmth of his skin underneath the leather, the firm certainty of her grip. Something simple, so charged that nothing more needed to be said.
And between them, in that single gesture, lay something that could not be undone.
Their hands remained entwined for a few breaths longer, neither willing to break the quiet.
Then Tiberius drew a slow breath and stood. His voice was gentle, but sure.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘I’ll walk you home. You’re sleeping at your parents’ place tonight?’
She glanced once at their hands, released the moment, and rose.

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

Together they went down the stairs, along cold stone corridors that echoed their steps in silence.
They did not say much more on the way. They did not need to.
Because whatever had begun between them that night did not need to be spoken aloud. It lived in the silence. In their steps beside one another.