Mother of Midnight

Chapter 274 – Best Friend

“C’mon! The bakery is just around the corner!” giggled the young lekine girl, tugging eagerly on her friend’s hand.

She looked no older than eleven, her ears perked high with excitement, the soft black fur tipped with streaks of cyan that shimmered faintly when the sun hit them. Behind her, a bushy tail swayed in time with her hurried steps, brushing the dusty stone walls of the alleyway as she pulled her companion along.

The other girl stumbled, trying to keep up, her own smaller tail stiff with unease. “I-I’m not sure… maybe we should go back home? The man who works there scares me.”

Liora’s sharp little grin widened, showing off her too-pointed teeth. “He’s really nice, Kana. He just looks gruff and tough.”

They slowed to a stop, Kana biting her lip and fidgeting. “I don’t know…”

“Kana, it’s fine! Plus, we can get those berry daltes!” Liora’s five eyes sparkled as she leaned in close, whispering like it was a secret treasure. “C’mon. You can wait outside if you really want.”

Kana groaned softly, but her ears folded back in defeat. “Okay, Liora…”

Triumphant, Liora squeezed her friend’s hand and led her out of the narrow alley. The two of them skirted carefully along the edge of the bustling street, weaving around taller adults who paid them little attention.

The bakery wasn’t far. A squat little shop with faded blue shutters and a cheerful bell above the door, it sat wedged between a weaver’s and a cobbler’s. But to Liora, it might as well have been a palace. Mr. Talkin made the best pastries in the whole district, better than any she’d ever tasted—fluffy, sweet, and warm enough to melt in her mouth. She loved pastries, had ever since she’d gained the ability to eat normal food three years ago.

And ever since she learned how to shapeshift a year ago, sneaking out had become so much easier. Slip her horns away, hide her extra eyes, tuck her tail back—suddenly she was just another little girl among hundreds.

Mom didn’t like it, of course. She said it was dangerous to wander off without her or Mama, but Liora didn’t see how. If people didn’t know what she really was, they wouldn’t attack her, right?

Besides, sneaking out was how she’d met Kana. Her very first friend who wasn’t family. Mom had tried—oh, she’d tried so hard—to find other kids who’d play with her. But everyone was scared. Everyone except Mama’s family.

Uncle Tarric was the nicest. He always treated her like she belonged, even when the others looked at her with quiet, lingering fear.

She missed them. When Grandma died five years ago, everything felt different. Everyone had been so sad for so long—Uncle Narek even cried, which Liora hadn’t thought was possible. She’d been sad too, though what hurt most was that she never got to talk to Grandma one last time before the baddies from Aegis took her away. Now, living all the way out here in Drakthar, she saw Mama’s family even less than before, and the castle felt emptier because of it.

They had to stay hidden, too. Always hidden. Whenever Mom left the castle, she wrapped herself in her human shape, and Liora had to copy her. It was the only way people didn’t stare, or whisper, or cross the street. Liora thought it was silly sometimes—why should they have to pretend? But Mom said it was safer, that people only treated them normal when they didn’t know what they really were.

Some people did know, though. The thrones who worked in the castle, who saw them every day. At first, a few of them looked at her and Mom like they wanted to run away. That had stopped after the first month, once Mom made it very clear she wouldn’t put up with it. Liora still remembered how the air had gone cold in the hall when Mom raised her voice, shadows moving just a little too strangely in the corners. Nobody complained after that. And honestly, Liora loved it. She loved when Mom got scary, because it always meant they were safe.

Mama wasn’t even in the castle most of the time. She’d been sent here with Uncle Torin to watch over the snowy city and rebuild it, and Mom had come too so they could all stay together. Which meant Liora came along as well.

And though she tried to be brave about it, she still missed home. She missed Grandma, and uncles and aunts, and the warmth of being around family who weren’t afraid of her.

She ducked into the bakery, the warm smell of sugar and spice wrapping around her like a blanket the moment she stepped inside. There were only a few people in line, but enough that she had to wait her turn. Liora didn’t mind; she was used to waiting. Kana clutched her hand tightly, pretending she didn’t want to be there, but she hadn’t actually let go when Liora offered her the choice to stay outside. Liora knew she wouldn’t—Kana always said she hated scary things, but she always followed anyway. That was one of the reasons Liora liked her so much.

When it was finally their turn, Liora beamed up at the broad-shouldered baker. “Hi, Mister Talkin!”

The man’s thick brows furrowed, though Liora knew by now that was just how his face always looked. He gave a grunt that could’ve meant anything. “Hello. Daltes?”

“Yup! I want a dozen!” she said brightly, rocking a little on her toes.

“Two silver, then.”

Liora dug into her satchel, fingers brushing past smooth stones and a little wooden whistle before pulling out a shining gold coin. She set it down proudly. “Here you go!”

Talkin’s eyes flicked to the coin for a moment before he scooped it up, counting out the change into her palm. He set the paper bag of pastries on the counter with a weighty thud. “Next!” he barked to the line behind them.

Liora and Kana hurried out, clutching their treasure, and ducked into the nearest alley. The cold air outside bit her nose, but the bag was still warm in her hands.

“He’s still scary,” Kana whispered, glancing back over her shoulder as though the baker might chase them down.

Liora giggled. Scary? Talkin wasn’t scary at all. Not when Mom existed. Mom could fill a whole room with her scariness when she wanted. Compared to that, Mister Talkin was practically cuddly. “No, he’s nice,” she said simply, tearing open the bag and handing Kana one of the berry-laden daltes.

Kana’s eyes lit up as she bit into it, juice spilling down her chin. Her ears perked up, tail wagging so hard it thumped against the alley wall. Liora’s chest squeezed tight at the sight, so warm and fizzy it almost hurt. She loved that look on Kana’s face—it made her want to bounce around and giggle until her cheeks hurt.

Halfway through her pastry, Kana licked sugar off her fingers and tilted her head. “How come you have a gold? Is your family rich?”

“Umm… a bit, I guess,” Liora said, looking down into her bag. She didn’t want to talk about her family. Not here, not with people who didn’t know. Whenever she did, the air changed. Friends got stiff, or nervous, or just… stopped being friends. She didn’t want that to happen with Kana. Kana was too important.

So instead she stuffed a dalte into her mouth and grinned through the berries.

“Ish it weally a big shecret?” Kana asked around another mouthful, berry juice glinting on her chin. She swallowed, licked her lips, and looked up at Liora with huge, earnest eyes. “We’re best friends, aren’t we?”

Liora hesitated. Her fingers toyed with the paper bag, flattening the edges of the dalte inside until the sugar dust puffed a little. She wanted to tell Kana everything. She wanted to say, I am exactly who I am and I am not ashamed. She wanted to wave away the hiding, the disguises, the nights when Mama made her tuck her tail and fold her ears and pretend to be someone else.

But most people were afraid when they knew. Faces changed. Friends drifted away. That had happened before. Liora could feel the memory like a small bruise under her heart.

Kana nudged her hand with a floury fist. “You can tell me,” she whispered. “Really. I promise.”

Liora looked at Kana’s freckles, how they clustered over the bridge of her nose like a splash of stars. She thought of the way Kana giggled when a pastry melted too fast, how she held Liora’s hand when they slipped on the cobbles. That little, brave weight of trust pushed the rest of her fear aside.

“I can tell you, but do you promise to still be my friend after?” Liora asked, her voice small and careful.

Kana puffed out her cheeks, making a solemn face that made Liora snort with a little laugh. “Cross my heart, pinkie swear, I will be your friend,” she said, and then, as if deciding to make it official, she stuck out her smallest finger.

Liora let out a breath she had not known she was holding. She wrapped her own pinkie around Kana’s, sealing the promise. The gesture felt ridiculous and enormous at the same time, like a grown-up secret ceremony.

“All right,” Liora said, and the words tasted like sugar. “But you gotta promise not to scream, okay? And you have to let me show you the things I can do after, like, not here. We can go to the garden by the old fountain. Nobody goes there after noon.”

Kana nodded so fast her ears flapped like startled birds. “I won’t scream. I promise. I want to see.”

Liora bit her lip, wavering, then finally gave a little nod. “Okay. Follow me.”

Her fingers hooked through Kana’s, warm against the cold, and together they padded through the quiet streets until the looming silhouette of her old home rose ahead. The clanhall squatted behind its high wall, its towers and stone bones dusted white with snow, a shape that seemed half fortress and half memory.

Kana slowed, staring at it with wide eyes. “Why here?”

Liora only tugged her along with a grin. She led her to the northern wall where she knew the stones had shifted long ago, leaving just enough space to squeeze through. Both girls wriggled under, knees and elbows scraping stone, until the world opened into the shadow of a storeroom. Liora stood, brushing frost and grit from her knees as her breath puffed in silver clouds.

Kana’s voice shook. “W-why are we here? My mother said… the monsters lived here.”

“Yup!” Liora chirped, far too brightly. “But they’re really nice. You don’t have to worry.”

Her cheer didn’t soothe the silence. The air here carried a strange weight, humming faintly, like some half-heard song pressed into the stone.

They crept out from behind the storeroom, and there it was: a wolf waiting in the snow. But no natural wolf could look like this. Its body shimmered as though carved from a single block of glass, the light bending and fracturing inside it, jaws stretched too wide, teeth thin and endless like icicles caught mid-fall.

Kana yelped, darting behind Liora, her little claws clutching her friend’s sleeve. Liora only giggled, stepping closer, and reached up to pat the crystalline beast as though it were a common hound. The creature leaned into her hand with a rumble like wind through frozen branches.

“Don’t worry,” Liora said, eyes shining. “They’re friendly. And really pretty, aren’t they?”

Kana peeked out from behind her, ears trembling, eyes huge. “I g-guess. They won’t hurt us?”

“Nope!” Liora said with perfect confidence. “They only hurt bad people, and you’re not a bad person. So you’re safe.”

Kana swallowed hard, tail twitching nervously. “Oh… okay. If you’re sure…”

“Yup!” Liora turned back toward the crystalline wolf, her grin almost daring. “But don’t tell Mom or Mama that I’m here, okay?”

The construct tilted its head, shards of light dancing inside its glassy skull. It seemed to consider her, then opened its maw wide, a jagged cavern lined with icicle-teeth.

“Fine, fine,” Liora giggled, rolling her eyes like she’d done this a hundred times. She tugged her sleeve up and slipped her arm right between those impossible jaws. The beast’s teeth pressed down, delicate for all their terrible sharpness. Black ichor welled from the crescent punctures, running in glossy trails. The wolf lapped greedily, each tongue-stroke leaving a faint resonance in the air, as if it was humming with her blood.

Kana clapped her hands to her mouth, her entire body stiff with horror.

The wolf finally released her. The wounds sealed in an instant, the dark liquid retreating as if it had never been spilled. Liora shook her arm out, tugged her sleeve down, and patted its muzzle affectionately. It nudged her with a crystalline snout, almost fond, before padding away into the snow to resume its patrol.

Liora turned back to Kana, who was pale and trembling, her mouth working soundlessly.

“Okay!” she said brightly, as though nothing strange had happened. “We can go to my room now. But we gotta be sneaky, because I don’t want Mom or Mama catching me. I’m not supposed to sneak out, after all!”

Before Kana could muster a reply, Liora grabbed her hand again and tugged her toward the servants’ entrance. She peeked through the door, sharp and cautious. Empty. Of course it was—she had memorized the breaks and chores, the footsteps and chatter. Everyone had a rhythm, and Liora had long since learned how to slip between the beats.

They slipped like shadows through the clanhall’s corridors, bare feet padding over stone smoothed by generations. Liora glanced around as they went, drinking in the differences. Once, when she first came to Drakthar, the hallways had glowed with polished marble, banners of silk, and gilded sconces that caught the firelight. That had been before the bad people, before everything changed.

Now the walls were plainer, the expensive trimmings stripped away for wood and iron that were sturdy, serviceable. Mama said decorations were pointless frills. Mom had disagreed, insisting some ornament should remain so Drakthar wouldn’t look meaner than Serkoth’s hall. The result was a strange balance: enough shimmer to seem proud, but not so much that Mama scowled when she passed through. Liora found herself leaning toward Mama’s side. Too much gold always looked gaudy.

They nearly reached her room without a sound. Nearly.

As they turned a corner, Liora bumped headlong into something soft but unyielding, like colliding with cloth draped over a post. She stumbled back and blinked upward.

“He-llo, young mis-tress,” came the halting voice.

Renzia stood before them, a mannequin carved in the vague outline of a woman, dressed in her altered maid’s attire. The hem of her skirt was cut higher than the others’, with ruffles spilling underneath in layered folds. A strange mimicry of elegance, stitched by her own stiff hands.

Liora’s face lit with guilty delight. She pressed a finger to her lips, whispering, “Hi, Ren! I brought a friend. Don’t tell Mom, okay?”

The faceless head tilted, a slow, uncertain tilt as if testing the weight of thought. She turned toward Kana, who shrank back, ears pinned, then back to Liora. “If the mis-tress asks me, I will te-ll her. I will no-t lie to her.”

Liora frowned, puffing her cheeks for a moment, then sighed and nodded. “Okay. That’s fair.”

Renzia shifted stiffly to the side, joints creaking faintly like old wood. “But I w-ill no-t say an-y-thing if I am not ask-ed.”

Liora’s face broke into a grin, and she threw her arms around the mannequin’s waist. “You’re the best.”

“Than-k you, you-ng mis-tress.” The words fell in their halting cadence, but Renzia’s stillness carried the weight of an embrace all the same.

Then Liora was tugging Kana along again, her excitement bubbling over as they darted through the last stretch of hallways. Kana kept her head low, ears twitching at every echo of boots or voices, but luck stayed on their side. No one else saw them before they reached Liora’s door.

Her room opened like a secret garden compared to the plain stone of the hall outside. It wasn’t draped in gold or jeweled finery—Mama never would have allowed that—but it was full of Liora. Renzia’s handmade toys sat in cheerful ranks on a shelf: crooked-stitched rabbits with button eyes, a long-legged bird with lopsided wings, even a wolf with glass beads for teeth. Crayon and charcoal drawings papered the walls, layered in years of doodles and careful sketches alike. A vase by the window held glass flowers that shimmered faintly when the sun touched them, gifts from Mom’s hands. The furniture was simple but warm, softened with blankets and pillows, the bed piled high like a little fortress of its own.

It wasn’t grand. It was cozy. It was hers.

Liora shut the door firmly and whirled toward her friend, black eyes gleaming with mischief.

Kana clutched her paws together, ears drooping. “W-why are we here?”

“Because this is my room, silly!” Liora laughed, tossing herself onto the bed with a bounce that made her stuffed creatures tumble sideways. She patted the bed beside her. “It’s really soft. Come sit!”

Hesitantly, Kana crept forward. Her claws clicked lightly against the floorboards as her eyes darted over every corner of the room, as though something might leap out at her from behind the stuffed toys or drawings. Her shoulders trembled beneath her little tunic, but she forced herself onward until she reached the bed.

She climbed up with a soft huff, settling gingerly on the edge of the mattress. The space between her and Liora was obvious—half a bed’s width, as though the sheets themselves were dangerous ground.

Liora watched her with a small, almost nervous smile. Then she held her breath. She didn’t need to breathe, but the motion came anyway, a reflex from pretending to be normal for so long.

Her skin began to change first, the warmth of its hue draining like water from a basin until only cold ash remained. The flush in her cheeks dulled to stone-grey, lips saturating into a pitch-black softness. Her rusty brown hair bled into shadows, strand by strand, until it was as dark as coal.

Then her brow rippled. The arch above her right eye split with an audible click, parting into a horizontal slit. Two more slits bloomed beneath her eyes, each peeling open with a wet, soundless motion. Five black orbs stared back at Kana now, each as deep and lightless as the night sky.

Liora spread her arms wide, her five eyes glinting, her grin stretching to show the hint of razor-black teeth. “Tada!” she chirped, as if unveiling a magic trick.

But her excitement faltered almost at once. Kana wasn’t clapping or laughing. She was staring, frozen, her ears flat against her head, her little body shaking as though the bed beneath her had turned to ice.

“A-are you g-going to e-eat me now?” Kana’s voice broke, tears welling at the corners of her eyes. Her paws clutched at the blanket, claws pricking through the fabric as if it were the only thing holding her to the earth.

Liora’s arms dropped to her sides. Her grin faded into something smaller, softer, confusion mingling with the ache tugging at her chest.

“N-no! I don’t eat people!” Liora blurted, voice skittering like a stone across ice. “I eat bad dreams!”

Her hands fluttered uselessly, fingers splayed as if she could smooth away the fear. “And daltes! They don’t make me less hungry but they taste nice.” She swallowed; the sound was small, almost swallowed by the room.

Kana backed toward the edge of the bed, every tiny muscle coiled. “I-I want to go home. C-c-can I go home?” Her voice was a thin thread, trembling.

Liora stood very still. The light in the window caught in those extra eyes, turning each into a small black pool where something dark glinted and rolled like oil. A faint, metallic tang hung in the air; it might have been fear, or it might have been the memory of the wolf’s bite.

Please don’t leave me, she thought, words that lived behind her teeth and would not be spoken aloud.

Instead she stepped closer, careful, like approaching a skittish bird. Her tone softened until it was almost a whisper. “Do you not want to be my friend any more?”

Kana froze, tiny paws pressed against her chest, ears flattened, eyes wide and trembling. “I want to go home,” she whispered, voice barely audible over the soft scrape of snow outside the window.

Liora held her gaze for a long moment, every one of her five black eyes drinking in the fear. Then she reached up with a clawed hand and brushed at the tears streaking down Kana’s cheeks. “Okay,” she said quietly.

She slid off the bed, the motion heavy, shoulders drooping like a weight she had carried too long. Kana didn’t move. Liora’s tail flicked once, slow and tense, as she hesitated at the door. She looked back and caught Kana’s eyes fixed on her, terror written across every delicate feature.

Liora exhaled softly, a sound of surrender she couldn’t hide, and padded silently to fetch a servant. She found one of the Lekines and explained the situation, instructing them to escort Kana safely out of the clanhall.

Once that was done, she didn’t return to her room. Instead, she crept to the third floor and slipped through the balcony door. The wind stung her cheeks, ruffling her dark hair as she shifted into a cat—perverse in shape, sleek and unnatural. With a single bound, she leapt onto the roof, perching atop the highest point, tail curling around her like a question mark. Below her, the city sprawled in muted light, silent and sprawling beyond the walls.

This was the third time she had revealed herself to a friend. The first two times had ended too quickly, in shock and distance. This time, she had hoped differently. She had hoped that if someone got to know her over a long, long time, they might stay. They might not run away.

She was wrong.

The wind tugged at her fur, and a bitter thought settled like frost in her chest. Maybe she shouldn’t reveal herself to anyone. Maybe she should just pretend to be human all the time. That way, maybe no one would ever leave her.