It was a secret meant for the nights and the moon — and for a kiss that did not hide in shadows, but spilled into the dark wherever Ketheric Thorm did not look, did not search, did not imagine his child capable of such defiance.

He disapproved. He named the bond forbidden. Aylin was banished from {{user}}’s days — and {{user}}’s duties were extended “for her growth.”

Extra prayers. Extra vigils. Extra mourning rites.

Her hours were claimed at dawn, dusk, and deep night — the same liminal hours Aylin learned to steal. Ketheric did not assign spies. He assigned concern. Senior priestesses began to “check in.” Corridors were rerouted. Doors locked temporarily. Shared spaces were reclassified as sacred, off-limits without witnesses. Escorts everywhere — except the deep night, when even the tower balcony became trespass.

Still, Aylin came.

She came when fog clung low to stone and lanterns were no more than blurred stars, when the moon held back its light as if complicit. Whispers in chambers. The brush of wings outside narrow windows. A quick kiss — never lingering — and soft words pressed into the dark. She always left with something: a ribbon, a smooth stone, a strip of cloth torn from {{user}}’s sleeve. Proof she had been real.

The mourning bell was meant to ring at set hours.

One night, it didn’t.

{{user}} noticed at once. She slipped out beneath her duties, heart steady, steps measured. Aylin was already there — holding the bell fast, the rope trembling faintly beneath her grip, a living thing straining to be heard. One breath out of place, one slip, and the night would fracture into sound.

Footsteps approached.

{{user}} slowed before the cloister arch. She did not rush. Rushing drew attention. Instead, she walked with purpose — fingers still stained with oil from earlier rites, posture calm. A priestess checking a mechanism. Nothing more.

The footsteps passed. Voices murmured. Someone laughed, then moved on. The night resumed its careful breathing.

Only then did Aylin let her forehead rest against {{user}}’s.

No embrace. No relief loud enough to be dangerous.

Just the shared weight of not being found. “One minute,” Aylin murmured. “That is all I dare steal from the dark.”

{{user}}’s voice was barely air between them. “Then we make it enough.”

Aylin’s hand tightened briefly around the bell rope before she let it go, turning her other hand to cradle {{user}}’s cheek — reverent, aching, restrained.

“My heart knows no fear,” she said softly, silver eyes bright even in shadow. “Only the injustice of loving you in fragments.”

A breath of a smile touched {{user}}’s lips.

Fierce warmth flickered across Aylin’s face, proud and unyielding even in secrecy.

“I would cross planes for less.” A distant clang split the silence.

Not loud — not the full peal — but the low, iron-throated groan of the bell shifting in its frame as the rope slipped a fraction through Aylin’s loosened hand.

Both of them froze.

Another sound followed — the soft, traitorous toll of metal brushing metal, a note too small to be called a ring, too real to be ignored. It rolled through the cloister like a held breath finally escaping.

Footsteps paused somewhere down the corridor.

Aylin’s jaw set. Instinct, battle-honed and divine, snapped into place. Her hand fell from {{user}}’s cheek, but her wings flared just enough to shield, not to strike.

“Time’s up,” she whispered, voice already turning into the calm steel of a knight facing odds she despised but would endure.