The next dawn broke with a searing radiance.
Seraph awoke refreshed upon his bed. Upon the bedside table lay a letter of rose-pink parchment, resting beside a mageia crystal locket that shimmered in the morning light. The handwriting was exquisite, each stroke radiating a faint, ethereal sweetness.
The letter from Lenora unfurled within his grasp...
🌸 . ⊱ . ❤ . ⊰ . 🌸
To Lord Seraph,
The one who occupies my thoughts more often than my heart cares to admit.
I do hope this letter finds you well, and that it has been spared the dampening touch of the rain. I find myself wondering how you fare today—whether you've remembered to take your meals, or if you feel the biting chill of the night as we do now in Balyon. I long to ask so many things, though I know I really shouldn't pry so incessantly.
I've been thinking... thinking of that first night we shared dinner in the garden.
My intent, you see, was to treat you with all the formal decorum a noble house demands. Yet, quite by accident, I caught your gaze. And the more I listened to you recount those stories—those agonizing trials of your past...
For reasons I cannot name... my heart raced so violently I feared I might lose my composure altogether.
Do you remember? After dinner, as we walked side by side toward the flower beds? As we sat there together under the moon, beside the pink Rose Anastasia... I felt the night was so warm, even as the late autumn winds began to usher in the cold.
I tried to convince myself it was merely the breeze causing my spirit to waver. Perhaps it was because the silver moon that night was so magnificent. But whenever I look back, my heart thumps as if it might escape my chest... and even now, I haven't the faintest idea what it all truly means.
I can still recall the faint, gentle scent of you. And I remember—quite fondly—how that Lillian petal drifted into your eye so comically (Tee-hee!). Perhaps... perhaps I stole far too many glances at you that night. But you likely never noticed... did you?
Shortly after we parted ways in Balyon, the entire town was atalk with what happened at Desden Cave. It was on every street corner, Seraph.
The Balyon sentries who went down to inspect the mine returned with faces as pale as death. They found the remains of over a hundred undead piled high at the cave's mouth—and among them, the Hyghul.
They say the pack leader was a demon potent enough to slaughter men with ease. Yet, you dealt with them all as if… as if they were nothing more than common weeds. I heard that merely seeing that mountain of carnage left some of the sentries on their knees, their strength utterly gone.
And when word got out that you had vanquished the entire horde alone… well, the people haven't stopped talking about your heroics since.
As for me, I couldn't say a word. I sat in a daze for the longest time, feeling a rush of admiration and astonishment… and then, other emotions I can't quite name began to seep in, until I simply couldn't contain them any longer.
But it's a curious thing… do you know?
I wasn't moved by your prowess, nor your wondrous mageia.
What remains etched in my mind is the image of you in the garden that night—the way you smiled, ever so faintly, while gazing up at the full moon.
Did you know it forced me to look away? I was so terrified you'd see how flustered I was.
Since that day… I feel I've become quite peculiar. If I catch even a glimpse of the night sky, I am reminded of your face. If I hear the wind whisper past, I sense you there, as if we were standing close once more. And when the silver moonlight finds me... I see your smile, until I find myself grinning like a fool in the silence.
I couldn't possibly breathe a word of these shameful things to a soul. I daren't tell anyone, not even Mother—though I suspect she knew from the very start.
After all, I am the daughter of Balyon's Governor.
I am supposed to remain composed.
I really shouldn't allow my heart to wander toward any man with such reckless abandon. And yet...
Yet, the moment I take up my mageia quill—this letter becomes the only place where I can truly be myself, just as I was beneath that full moon. I find I am quite unable to restrain the memories of that fleeting night.
My hands tremble so each time I ink your name upon the parchment. Though this is but our third exchange, I feel as if I could never truly find rest were I to pass a night without writing to you.
I nearly forgot... there is something I have sent along with this letter. A four-leaf clover of my own, my Lord.
I began tending my own flower beds when I was but a small child, and this four-leaf clover is a mageia bloom that grew within my very first plot. I have cherished it ever since; it has become something of a personal sigil to me. I even commissioned a craftsman to forge a small mageia crystal locket, just to keep it safe.
And I bestow it upon you... and you alone.
I don't know if you would welcome such a trifle from me, but... I find I want you to have it. Please, keep it with you whenever you must journey forth or step onto the field of battle.
The elders of Balyon often say... 'The four-leaf clover brings fortune to its bearer.' Yet to me... it is more than a mere charm. It is as though I have entrusted my own 'fragile heart' into your keeping.
If you would be so kind as to accept it... pray, guard it well, as you would the heart of another.
I have let my pen run away with me, I fear... yet I harbor a single hope. It is a wish I should perhaps keep buried deep within my soul, and yet I cannot hold it back.
I hope that, should you find yourself without a mission or any binding oath... you might grace this house with your presence once more. It matters not the reason—even if you are merely passing by, or wish to walk with me in the garden as we once did.
I should be so overjoyed, I shouldn't know where to hide my face.
I vow that... should you return... I will tend to you with everything I possess. I will accord you the highest honour—not merely as a guest of this house, but as a woman would.
Even if the feelings I have tucked away are far more than I can possibly say.
.....
With longing that grows with every moonlit night,
Lenora Florencia.
🌸 . ⊱ . ❤ . ⊰ . 🌸
When the young man finished reading the letter once more, he laid the parchment down with profound tenderness.
Since Seraph's return from Balyon, the two had remained in constant correspondence. In the first Sanctus scroll they exchanged, Lenora had been hesitant, her words few and guarded.