Main:
Lady Lineia Avenloré, Lord Tavian Avenloré
Other:
Noble Nyrelith Avenloré, Noble Venn Avenloré, Lady Selvarithe Avenloré, Warden Juniper Bryrehart, Lady Syraëlle Avenloré, Lord Elovain Avenloré, unnamed mother of Tavian, unnamed grandfather of Tavian, unknown entity
Where:
The Library, Greenmire, the wild woods between
When:
Present-day Evergild Era
Theme:
Love and fear, legacy, control vs freedom, matriarchy, transformation, survival, becoming oneself, the soft aftermath of trauma
Summary:
Lineia Avenloré, once a quiet scholar in the shadow of legacy, finds an unexpected light in Tavian Bryreheart of Greenmire — a kind-hearted, wild-souled man from the House of Beasts. Their love grows through storytelling, woodland laughter, and unspoken tenderness. But when Lady Selvarithe learns of their bond, it is torn apart — until Lineia, defiant and trembling, runs into the woods to find him, only to encounter something monstrous wearing his face. In its wake, Lineia and Tavian fight not only for each other, but for the future they deserve. Years later, they remain hand-in-hand — older, softer, still walking the line between wild and wisdom.
Before she became Matriarch of the Ethnarium, before her name carried weight across the wings of the Library, Lineia Avenloré was simply a quiet girl in a vast house of voices.
She grew up in the shadowed corridors of the The Library, where the scent of ink soaked into stone and every echo seemed to belong to someone greater. Her parent, Noble Nyrelith Avenloré, was a person of precise silence and piercing intellect — revered for their work on ancestral rites and the taxonomy of myth. Her other parent, Noble Venn Avenloré, gentler in speech but no less sharp, spent months at a time among the lesser fae, documenting their songs and seed-lore with quiet reverence.
Lineia was raised among scrolls and story-cycles, her lullabies sung in dialects older than The Library. She learned to listen before she spoke, to think before she answered. And yet, for all the love that surrounded her, she often felt like a pause between paragraphs — wanted, but not entirely known.
Her parents’ love for each other was radiant in its ease. They moved together like two halves of the same thought, a seamless sentence. But for Lineia, love never felt so simple. She watched cousins and kin fall into affection like dancers into a familiar step — none more easily than her older cousin Syraëlle, who defied tradition with a smile and carved a new space for herself, for her future children, for her joy. Syraëlle’s laughter never seemed to need permission.
Lineia, by contrast, was brittle with self-restraint. She feared missteps, feared softness mistaken for failure. Where others wandered halls with entitlement, she passed like a shadow — observant, wary, deliberate. She earned accolades early for her work in the Ethnarium, especially in the preservation of oral memory, but even praise felt weighted, as if any warmth might melt her carefully shaped resolve.
And yet, there were moments — brief, golden — when she remembered how to breathe.
She found them in her work, among the lesser-known rites: spells whispered over loaves, charms braided into hair, songs that only bloomed when sung beneath the trees. She found them, too, deep in the woods beyond the Library’s reach, where roots curled like questions and wind made music of the leaves. There, she could exist without definition — not as heir or scholar or disappointment, but as herself.
It was in one such place, beneath a moss-hung willow, that she first heard Tavian’s voice.
He was not singing, exactly. More narrating — badly — the tale of a clever fox and a stubborn cartwright, complete with outrageous accents and dramatic pauses. A ring of children, fae and human and those between, sat at his feet, some cross-legged, others perched on roots or leaning into one another, wide-eyed with delight. Lineia, hidden in the green hush, might have slipped away as quietly as she came. But when the fox outwitted the cartwright for the third time, she let out a startled laugh.
He turned. Smiled. “I knew someone was listening. No one ever laughs at my jokes unless they’re spying.”
Lineia stepped out from the undergrowth with the poise of someone trained never to stumble — but her eyes held the shimmer of amusement.
“I wasn’t spying,” she said. “You were simply very loud.”
“Loudness is a form of charm,” Tavian replied easily. “Or so I tell myself.”
He wore no sigil. His boots were muddy. His hands calloused. And yet, something about him felt — certain. As if the world hadn’t taught him to doubt himself.
She should have turned back. Instead, she hesitated — and Tavian, without missing a beat, patted the empty space beside him on a low, mossy log.
“The next part’s even better,” he said with a grin. “There’s a goose involved. A very opinionated one.”
Lineia looked at the spot he offered, wary. But there was no teasing in his eyes, only an earnestness that felt strangely rare in her world. And so, against every quiet instinct to remain an observer, she sat.
The goose, as promised, was indeed opinionated — squawking disapproval in what Tavian insisted was perfect Old Vale dialect, flapping into carts and pecking at boots with righteous indignation. The children were breathless with giggles, some of them shouting out warnings to the hapless cartwright, others calling for the fox’s return. Lineia listened in silence at first, her hands folded in her lap, posture upright. But then Tavian gave the goose a dramatic honk mid-sentence — a sound so absurd, so utterly committed, that even she couldn’t hold back a soft, surprised laugh.
Tavian glanced at her then — not in triumph, not seeking approval, but simply sharing the moment. And that made her laugh again, quieter this time, into her hand.
By the time the tale wound to its end, with the fox vanishing into the thicket and the goose somehow in charge of the village council, several children had leaned against Lineia’s side, their small warmths unfamiliar but not unwelcome.
Tavian stood and gave an exaggerated bow to his audience. “That, young scholars of the green, is why one must never underestimate a goose.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Lineia murmured, though her tone lacked any bite.
“True,” he agreed cheerfully. “But you stayed.”
She didn’t answer right away. The children were drifting off now, pulled homeward by older siblings or fading sunlight. She watched them go, thoughtful.
“You weren’t what I expected,” she said at last.
Tavian smiled again — softer this time, less showman and more man. “Good. I hate meeting expectations.”
Then, with a spark of mischief in his eye, he tilted his head and asked, “So, be honest — in that tale, do you think I’m more the fox or the goose?”
Lineia gave him a long, considering look, lips twitching with the beginnings of a smile. Then she lifted her hand and bopped him lightly on the arm.
“Oh, the goose for sure.”
Tavian laughed — delighted, unoffended — and she turned before he could see the full warmth rising in her cheeks. She walked away, the breeze stirring the hem of her cloak, but her smile lingered.
That was the beginning of their friendship.
The beginning of everything.
In the weeks and months that followed, Lineia and Tavian found reasons — and then stopped needing reasons — to meet again. Sometimes it was near the same willow, other times deeper into the woods or beside the quiet streams that stitched the forest together. Their conversations wandered like their paths, looping from folklore to fieldwork, from childhood stories to quiet admissions of fear and frustration.
Lineia, to her own surprise, found herself at ease. With Tavian, she didn’t weigh her words before speaking. She didn’t think about her posture or the way the light caught her robes. She didn’t wonder what her family would think of her company. She was simply herself — sometimes sharp, sometimes shy, sometimes laughing so suddenly it startled birds from branches.
Tavian told her about his family — of the House of Beasts, where his mother served as Warden and his older sister, Juniper, was poised to take over one day. He spoke of it not with bitterness, but with a contented sort of pride. “She’ll be brilliant at it,” he said once, tossing a stone into a stream. “Fierce, fair, and terrifying with a bow. I’m glad it’s her. I’d only get distracted trying to name the wildlife.”
He shared stories of his childhood in the wild reaches beyond the main estates, of wrestling bear spirits, of his ridiculous uncle with a fondness for fermented mushrooms, and how he once tried to court a girl by building her a chicken coop and ended up being pecked out of the village.
Lineia told him about her parents — the love between them, the way it sometimes felt like a story she wasn’t sure she could belong to. He never mocked her hesitations, never flinched at her quietness. Instead, he filled the space around them with warmth, and let her choose when to step into it.
Their friendship grew slowly but surely, rooted in shared wonder and the freedom to be imperfect. And though neither of them said the word aloud, something sacred was beginning to take shape between them.
Back at the Library, Nyrelith and Venn had noticed the change. Their daughter walked a little lighter, smiled a little easier, and often returned from her walks with leaf litter in her hair and stories half-told. They spoke often of this newfound brightness — not with concern, but with quiet, kind curiosity. As ever, they shared everything between them, and both recognised the subtle signs: Lineia’s softened eyes, the lilt of humour in her voice, the fond little excuses she made for time spent beyond the grounds. They did not speak Tavian’s name aloud, but they knew.
The House of Scholars did not forbid friendships with other Houses, but Lady Selvarithe — Nyrelith’s mother and the current Matriarch — had never hidden her disdain for the House of Beasts. She called it unrefined, overly sentimental, too rooted in the wild to contribute meaningfully to scholarly life. Nyrelith, who loved their mother and disagreed with her often, chose silence not out of fear, but protection. Venn, ever attuned to the gentler magics of growth and time, agreed. Whatever was forming between their daughter and the red-haired boy of the woods — it deserved the chance to flourish unspoiled.
That spring, the House of Beasts hosted their annual Glade Gathering — a seasonal festival of music, dancing, and shared harvest. Though usually considered a more rustic affair, it had grown in prestige over the years, and now members of the higher Houses occasionally attended, if only out of diplomacy or curiosity. Lady Selvarithe Avenloré, ever attuned to political currents, was among them that year. Lineia, however, went simply because Tavian had asked her. She arrived near twilight, the glade lit by lanterns strung between trees, and the ground scattered with flower petals and fragrant herbs. Lineia wore a dress of soft umber and green-gold, its flowing skirts catching the light like leaves in early autumn. The colour brought out the warmth in her brown hair and the depth of her green skin — not by design, but by quiet accident, as if the glade itself had dressed her.
Tavian greeted her like no one else existed. The moment his eyes found her across the glade — framed by lantern light and golden-green leaves — something in him stilled. The world blurred. There was awe in his gaze, quiet and reverent, and for one breathless instant, he forgot the rhythm of the music altogether.
Lineia, adjusting a sleeve and smoothing her skirts with a familiar self-consciousness, missed the look entirely.
Before she had time to question anything, his hand was in hers, guiding her into a simple, laughing reel. Lineia had danced before — at formal events, family banquets, rituals — but never like this. Never with feet brushing moss, never with music woven from laughter and strings.
She noticed everything: the warmth of his palm, the way his hand rested at her waist with a touch that was both confident and careful. His cheeks were flushed, whether from exertion or something else, and he looked unbearably handsome in his forest-toned jacket, the collar just slightly askew.
Their eyes met mid-spin. It was only a glance — but something passed between them, wordless and undeniable. Her heart stumbled.
She was breathless by the end, and confused. Something had shifted. Her chest felt too full, and when their hands parted, it was with reluctance.
Later, she watched from the edge of the glade as Tavian danced with another — a young woman from the House of Coin, confident and flushed with wine. He twirled her too, grinning at something she said, and Lineia felt the strange pang of something sharp, unfamiliar.
Unbeknownst to her, someone else had been watching.
When Selvarithe Avenloré saw her granddaughter in the arms of a boy with muddy boots and laughter lines, her expression turned to stone.
Two days later, Lineia was summoned to her chambers. The conversation was quiet, brutal, and final.
The friendship, Selvarithe said, would end. Immediately.
Nyrelith and Venn argued. Nyrelith speaking of Lineia’s happiness, of her growth, of what it meant to feel truly seen. Venn speaking of the boy himself — kind, thoughtful, a student of the wild world with more insight than most scholars. But Selvarithe’s face did not change. Her word, in the House of Scholars, was law.
Weeks passed in silence.
Until, one dusk-touched evening, Lineia heard voices rise through the vaulted stone of her uncle Elovain’s Lexiconum. Her quill froze mid-word. Tavian’s voice — unmistakable, furious — rang through the corridors like thunder cracking through glass.
“You think her life belongs to you? That you can just decide who she is and who she sees?”
Lineia stood so fast her chair tipped backward. The voice was his — but not the version she knew. She had never heard Tavian raise his voice in anger, not even in jest, let alone aim it at her grandmother. For a moment she stood frozen, disbelief chilling her spine.
Before Elovain could say a word, she ran.
Down the polished halls, past startled archivists and the startled echo of footsteps not her own. Two attendants tried to intercept her — calling her name, reaching gently for her sleeve — but she shook them off. Her breath caught in her throat as she rounded the corner.
Guards had gathered near the western archway. Through the crowd, she caught a glimpse — a flash of red hair, his green jacket dishevelled, cheeks flaming with fury. Tavian’s eyes were locked on someone she couldn’t yet see, and the lines of his face were drawn with something fierce and aching.
And then Lady Selvarithe stepped into view.
Her expression was iron. Her voice, not raised, not loud — but commanding. Even the guards hesitated under the weight of it.
“Escort him from the grounds,” she said coldly.
Tavian was already turning, already being ushered toward the entrance.
That was when he saw her.
Their eyes met for only a moment — but it was enough. The fire in him softened. Her feet refused to move.
And then the doors shut between them.
Her chest ached. Her hands trembled. She had known she missed him. But now, she felt something deeper — a hollow that stretched from her ribs to her bones. A grief not just for what was lost, but for what she had not yet dared to name.
It wasn’t just the longing, or the guilt, or the injustice of it all. It was the simple truth: she missed him — wholly, achingly. And she did not know how to be herself without him.
She tried. She buried herself in work, telling herself it was enough.
Then, one rainy morning in the Ethnarium, sorting through old folktale sketches she’d tucked away in a drawer, she found it.
A single pressed flower, pale and fragile.
The one he’d once tucked behind her ear, laughing that it matched her eyes.
She sank into the chair. The sketch beneath it was of him — smiling, half-finished, left abandoned months ago.
That was when she knew.
She loved him.
That night, Lineia packed her satchel with trembling hands.
She didn’t take much — a few spare tunics, her well-worn boots, a journal, a weathercloak. The flower stayed folded in the journal’s cover, its brittle petals cradled in silence.
But as she turned to leave, two figures stood in the doorway.
Her parents.
Nyrelith stepped forward slowly, her expression unreadable. Behind her, Venn appeared, arms folded loosely, eyes filled with something quiet and sad.
Lineia froze, her voice barely more than breath. “I love him.”
Nyrelith nodded. “We know.”
Venn moved first, crossing to her side, setting down a satchel already packed with care. “You were always going to do this,” they said gently.
Lineia’s eyes brimmed. “I thought you’d try to stop me.”
Nyrelith’s mouth quirked, not quite a smile. “We won’t. We love you. That means letting you love who you choose.”
Venn passed her a cloak. Nyrelith offered a pouch of supplies. “Stay on the moss paths until you reach the bend of the river,” she said. “The wardlines thin there.”
Lineia looked between them, wonder breaking through the ache in her chest. “You’re… letting me go?”
Nyrelith reached out, adjusting the collar of her cloak like they had when Lineia was small. “We’re helping you go. That’s what love does.”
In the dark hush of midnight, Lineia slipped beyond the outer halls and into the trees.
Rain kissed the leaves above. Fog whispered between roots. Her skirts were soaked by the time she reached the bend in the river — or what she thought was the bend. In truth, she’d taken a wrong turn. The darkness made familiar paths feel unfamiliar, and the soft trickle of the stream she followed was not the one she knew.
She was already deeper than she should have gone when the storm broke in earnest. Thunder rolled low, distant. She pressed on, but the weight of the woods began to press back.
When Lineia did not appear by dawn, no one noticed — not at first.
Nyrelith and Venn had assumed she’d made it to Tavian. They had trusted her quiet farewell, her determined stride, the path they had both once walked in younger days. But when Tavian appeared at the Library gates — drenched in rain, cheeks hollow, eyes haunted — their confidence cracked.
“I need to see her,” he bellowed, slamming his hand against the metal. “Where is she?!”
A servant ran to fetch them. They stepped into the rain-slicked path, expectant — until they saw Tavian’s face.
“How is Lineia?” Nyrelith asked, her voice already faltering.
Tavian blinked, confused. “She isn’t here?”
The words dropped like stones into silence.
In that instant, realisation bloomed cold and sharp in Venn’s chest. The satchel. The note. The quiet goodbyes.
Panic overtook them both.
She was gone — and no one knew where.
Nyrelith and Venn were at Selvarithe’s door before sunrise.
“She left in the night,” Nyrelith said, her voice tight with grief. “We helped her. She… she was going to Tavian.”
“She never arrived,” Venn added. “He came to us — frantic. And now we don’t know where she is.”
Selvarithe, already half-dressed for the day, turned slowly from the tall windows of her study.
“You helped her leave?” Her voice was cold, cutting. “Without informing me? Without the protection of escort or charm?”
“She is not a prisoner,” Venn said softly. “She made a choice.”
“She is my granddaughter,” Selvarithe snapped. “And now she is missing.”
There was a long silence, broken only by the creak of the library walls settling into the morning.
“I will see what can be done,” Selvarithe finally said, already striding toward her writing desk. “We need information before action. I will send word to the House of Whispers — they have quiet means of learning things even our own wings miss.”
“But the trail—” Venn began.
“Is cold,” she interrupted. “Scholars do not stumble through mud like hounds. We require precision, not panic.”
“And the House of Beasts?” Nyrelith asked carefully.
Selvarithe’s quill snapped in her grip. “They have helped enough.”
The news filtered outward — through the Ethnarium, through the Lexiconum, into the public wings of the Library. An Avenloré was missing. A daughter of the House of Scholars, vanished in the woods.
When Tavian heard that Selvarithe refused to involve the trackers of his House — refused to even name them — something inside him broke.
He didn’t argue. He didn’t beg.
He turned and walked straight out of the Library’s gates.
Tavian rode through the mists before the second bell.
The rain had lessened to a whisper by the time Greenmire rose before him — that liminal stretch of land where city gave way to wild. The trees grew thicker here, the fog clung to roots like old secrets. The air was heavier, but not oppressive — watchful.
Wyrdholt loomed at its heart, its living bark slick with rain, breathing slowly in the half-light. No alarms had sounded within the ancient tree-hall. No one yet knew.
Not until Tavian threw open the moss-slicked doors and called his sister’s name.
Juniper appeared within minutes, lacing up her bracers, her expression calm but sharpened with instinct.
“What happened?” she asked simply, reaching for her bow.
He told her everything — Lineia’s disappearance, Selvarithe’s refusal to seek help from their House, the Scholar’s choice to rely on whispers and runes.
Juniper didn’t pace. She didn’t frown.
But her fingers, once idle, flexed like claws ready to rend.
“I knew something was wrong,” she murmured. “I felt it last night. The forest stilled. The birds near Wyrdholt fell quiet.”
She looked at Tavian then — really looked at him.
His hair was plastered to his forehead, his hands trembling faintly. His jaw was set, but his eyes burned like coals.
Juniper’s voice lowered. “She is your mate.”
The words settled like thunder between them.
Tavian inhaled sharply — too sharply. The edges of him cracked. His shoulders hunched, the sound caught in his throat like a sob or a snarl.
“Yes,” he choked. “She is.”
Juniper nodded, calm and absolute.
“Then she is family. Go, go find her.”
She stepped back and motioned to the stablehand. “We will follow.”
She was soaked to the skin.
Her knees ached.
Her limbs felt carved from ice.
So when he appeared — at the edge of the glade, cloak flung open, hair plastered to his brow — Lineia ran to him.
Tavian.
She nearly collapsed in his arms. He caught her easily, and for a long, beautiful moment she let herself believe it was real. That he had come for her. That she’d made it. That her ache had guided her true.
“I knew you’d come this way,” he said, voice low and steady. “There’s a cave not far. Come on. We’ll be warm soon.”
She nodded, silent. Shaking. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and led her through the misted trees.
The cave was there, just as he promised — a moss-choked mouth in the hillside, dry and sheltered from the worst of the wind. He laid his cloak down for her, stripped twigs and damp leaves from the mouth of the hollow, and built a fire.
She huddled close, shivering, watching the way he moved — swift, capable, focused.
Tavian had always been like this, she told herself. Gentle when he could be, fierce when he had to be. She didn’t question that he didn’t smile. Or that he didn’t scold her. Or that he didn’t say how he had found her.
She must have dozed. The heat lulled her too fast.
When she opened her eyes, he was seated across the fire, staring into the flames.
“Did I fall asleep?” she asked softly.
He looked up. Smiled faintly. “Only a little.”
She glanced outside. “Is it still storming?”
He nodded. “For now. But it’ll pass.”
They lapsed into silence. The fire crackled, the wind outside whined between branches.
Then — a sound.
A small pop, like a sap-burst.
She looked down.
A beetle, glistening dark green, had wandered too close to the fire — fallen in.
She gasped, instinctively reaching forward — but it was too late. The fire hissed. The beetle curled and blackened in the coals.
She turned to Tavian, expecting a wince. A grimace. Something.
But he only watched it burn.
No reaction. Not even a blink.
She stared. “You saw it.”
“I did.”
“…You didn’t stop it.”
He tilted his head. “Why would I?”
Her stomach turned.
But then — no. NO.
He was tired. So was she.
She was reading too much into it. Tavian wasn’t always soft. He had sharpness, too. She’d seen it. She was cold. She was scared. She was—
“Thank you,” she said instead. “For finding me.”
His eyes lifted to hers. In the firelight, they looked darker. Deeper.
“I always will,” he said.
She smiled — but something in her chest fluttered sideways. Something off-beat.
Still… she leaned toward him, seeking his warmth again. He held her close. Too close. One of his hands rested lightly on her thigh, and she startled slightly at the boldness — Tavian never assumed. But again, she pushed the thought aside.
You’re overthinking. You’re tired. You’re safe.
But when he looked at her again, the heat in his eyes was too sharp. It wasn’t desire — not really. It was focus. Like he was measuring her.
Lineia sat frozen, her body rigid against the warmth of the fire and the heat of his gaze.
The longer he looked at her, the more something inside her recoiled. Not visibly. Not yet. But a thread of unease began to wind itself around her ribs.
His eyes moved over her face — her throat — lingered too long at the line of her collarbone where her cloak had slipped askew. His expression didn’t shift. No softness. No reverence. Just… focus. Calculation.
Hunger.
It struck her then — sharply, stupidly — maybe this is lust.
She’d never really known it. Not like this. She and Tavian had laughed, teased, touched in passing. But they’d never even held hands before that night dancing in the glade. Even then, it had been chaste. Tender.
Perhaps this was what came next.
Perhaps this was desire — wanting, needing. Taking.
But why did it feel so wrong?
Why did it feel like she was being measured instead of loved?
Why, beneath the warmth of the cave, did her skin feel cold?
She stood suddenly, brushing her skirts. “I need air.”
He stood too, immediately — no hesitation. Too fast.
“It’s not safe out there,” he said. “Stay.”
The word landed like a weight. Heavy. Unyielding.
She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. She turned toward the cave mouth, heart beginning to hammer.
And that’s when she noticed it — a faint shift in the sky. Beyond the black canopy of storm-cloud and branches, the horizon was lightening. The rain had dulled to a whisper, and a pale hint of rose and gold clung to the very edges of the world.
Dawn.
She’d been with him all night.
No. Not with him.
With… something.
“You ache. I do too,” he said behind her.
“We could end it. Make one of us whole again.”
Her breath caught.
She turned.
And he was no longer Tavian.
The thing was changing.
It moved with new weight now, limbs cracking as they lengthened, eyes gleaming where before they had been only shadows. The spirit, feeding on Lineia’s fear, no longer mimicked Tavian — it wore him, until the skin of illusion burst and gave way to something beastlike and terrible. Antlers split from its skull. Its spine hunched with muscle. Its mouth peeled open too wide, as if to swallow her whole.
Lineia ran.
Branches clawed at her arms, thorns tore at her legs, but she ran. Her breath was fire. Her vision blurred. Still — she ran.
Behind her, the beast howled. Its voice was no longer hollow — it was full, thick with hunger, vibrating the ground with each pounding step. The forest, once quiet, now echoed with that unearthly sound. Every creature had fled. Only she remained.
She tried to remember something — a ward, a tale, anything from her studies that might help. But her thoughts were sludge, her mind fogged with exhaustion. She was too tired. Too afraid. She could only run.
And then — a sound ahead.
A shout. A flash of steel. A real voice.
Tavian burst into view like the morning itself, cloak trailing behind him, blade already drawn.
He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t question. He threw himself at the thing with a cry that cracked like thunder.
Steel met shadow. Flesh met fury.
The fight was brutal, fast, wild. Tavian knew the forest. He knew the weight of his sword. He knew how to kill. Even so, the beast was nearly too strong — nearly.
When at last he drove the blade through its form and it shrieked — a sound like the death of a thousand regrets — it did not vanish. It dissolved. It slumped to mist and ash, a wail rising from it as it vanished into the roots of the trees.
Tavian stood there, panting, blood-slicked, shaking.
Lineia had collapsed nearby, too weak to move, too afraid to cry.
He dropped beside her.
She screamed — flinched — pushed at him with trembling hands.
But he caught her wrists. Not harshly. Just enough.
“Lineia,” he said, voice low. “It’s me.”
She couldn’t look at him.
“Lineia,” he said again, softer. “Look at me. Please.”
And then — she did.
She looked into his eyes and saw them.
Warm. Familiar. Full of tears.
Not shadow. Not hunger. Him.
With a sob, she threw herself into his arms, and this time, she did not pull away.
Some weeks later, beneath the Library’s oldest arches
The chamber was silent but for the scratch of a quill recording minutes in the corner. Lady Selvarithe Avenloré stood beneath the long arched windows, shadow streaked across her brow. Across from her stood Tavian of Greenmire — bruised, resolute, and unbowed.
Nyrelith and Venn flanked Lineia, who kept her chin high, her eyes only for him.
“You understand,” Selvarithe said at last, “that our House does not recognise wild declarations made in moments of chaos. You may love her. But the House of Scholars requires legacy. Stability. Proven loyalty.”
Tavian nodded once. “Then let it be proven.”
“You will become Avenloré?”
“I will,” he said. “But I will do it on my land, in Greenmire, beneath the branches of Wyrdholt. Where I was born. Where we met.”
Selvarithe’s gaze sharpened.
“And,” he added, “the role of the House of Beasts — and my family — in Lineia’s rescue be acknowledged. In official record. In memory.”
For a moment, Lady Selvarithe said nothing.
Then, almost imperceptibly, her shoulders dropped. “You are either the most arrogant boy I’ve met in years,” she said, “or the only one with enough sense not to kneel before thunder.”
Tavian said nothing.
She turned to Lineia. “Your wedding may take place in Greenmire, child. You deserve joy.”
She turned back to Tavian, eyes narrowing faintly. “And as for you…”
She stepped closer, voice low. “There is strength in you. Not only in how you fought, but in how you stood. Not many face me with bare teeth and a steady voice.” A pause. “Your grandfather did.”
Something flickered in her then — grief, perhaps. Memory.
“I hated him,” she said quietly. “Then I didn’t.”
Weeks later, beneath the canopy of Greenmire
The wedding was not grand, but it was joyous — woven through with scent of wildflowers and lanterns glowing warm in the dusk. Wyrdholt shifted above them, its ancient stone and wooden branches arching like cathedral spires.
Beastcallers brought food and song, the Scholars brought books of blessing, and somewhere in the middle, between firelight and fiddle, Lineia and Tavian laughed.
Even the Lady Selvarithe — so rumour claimed — smiled once, as Lineia danced barefoot with her younger cousins and Tavian toasted Venn and Nyrelith with a blush on his cheeks.
The vows were spoken beneath the old tree, Tavian’s hand in hers. “You are my wild,” he whispered. “And I will never stop running to you.”
Before they made their home at the Library, they spent several nights at Wyrdholt.
One evening, Tavian had fallen asleep by the hearth, his features soft in the firelight, while Lineia sat nearby — awake, thoughtful, a slim journal open across her knees.
Juniper arrived without sound. She settled beside her, lifting a carved wooden cup of something spiced and strong.
“You’re thinking about it again,” Juniper said.
Lineia nodded. “It’s still here. In my thoughts. I keep trying to name it. The thing in the woods.”
“You want to know what it was,” Juniper said. “But sometimes all we know is what it wasn’t.”
“I keep replaying it. That hunger in its eyes. The way it wore his face. The way I almost let it…”
“You were tired,” Juniper said softly. “You’re still healing.”
Lineia shut the journal. “I survived it.”
Juniper nodded. “But it may not be gone. There are theories — old ones. About spirits the Evergild tried to destroy but only made angry. Hollow things. Memory-drinkers. They wait. And ache.”
Lineia wrapped her arms around her knees. “I ache too.”
A pause.
Juniper bumped her shoulder. “You’re a fox, you know.”
Lineia blinked. “What?”
“Quiet. Quick. Always watching. Fierce when it counts.”
A sleepy voice from beside them: “She is.”
Tavian, blinking blearily awake. He reached for Lineia’s hand, tugged her close.
“She’s a fox,” he murmured, eyes drifting closed again, “and I’m her silly goose.”
Lineia laughed, soft and real. “My silly goose,” she whispered.
She kissed his temple, tucked herself in beside him, and let the dark slip past them for now.
Now, years later, beneath the soft light of the Ethnarium’s high windows…
Lineia still laughs.
Not the shy laughter of her youth, but the open, unabashed kind — loud and sharp and sudden — the kind Tavian has always been proud to earn. He sits beside her now, elbow deep in a scroll he swore he wouldn’t touch, muttering wild commentary under his breath. She feigns focus on her notes, until he murmurs something ridiculous — something about squirrel-folk diplomacy and a three-day dance treaty — and she doubles over, her quill slipping from her fingers.
“Well don’t encourage me,” he says, though his eyes gleam with mischief.
The forest calls to them still. They walk its edges when time allows, side by side, her hand in his, the wind tugging at their cloaks. The wild runs quieter now, but they never go without charms stitched into their sleeves.
Tavian, once all lean lines and swift movement, has grown comfortably rounder with age — a softness Lineia claims to love more than any lean figure. “You were carved like a stag,” she tells him. “But now you’re a bear. And I always wanted a bear.”
He snorts. “I’m a goose, remember?”
Her smile gentles.
They hope for children — have hoped, for some time — but the years have passed slow and silent on that front. Some days it aches, a quiet, pressing thing in Lineia’s chest. Other days, she watches Tavian listen patiently to a rambling apprentice, and wonders if this is already a kind of parenting.
They do not speak of it much. But sometimes, in the evenings, she will find him staring at the fire, a slight crease between his brows. He never says it aloud.
He only pulls her close.
And Lineia, her fingers curled in his, whispers, “We are still growing.”