Chapter Text
Bren was very young when the marks first appeared.
At first, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of them. Faint pinpricks, pointed and flared in some corners, dotting along his fingertips. Stars, but not quite.
They were...beautiful. And strange. And confusing.
They would only last a few days, sometimes even less, before fading and disappearing. If there were enough, a delicate line would connect the spaces from one dot to another, reminiscent of the imaginary lines that drew the stars together in the night sky. Constellations. And yet, none managed to align quite right with any star map Bren found throughout his studies.
It was odd to say the least.
Briefly, Bren wondered if he had contracted some terrible disease causing the marks to surface, or it was an absurd reaction to a plant he accidentally touched while tending to the field.
But the marks never got worse. His health never deteriorated, and nothing surfaced besides the feeble glittering of these marks along his skin. They always faded, with a few key exceptions. There was something completely unnatural in them, and the more Bren studied the marks the more confused he became.
The first clue was that they were not limited to Bren’s fingertips. After some time, Bren began to notice them in other places too.
A few dots speckled on the back of his hand, on his thigh, on his ankle. The worst was a matching pair on each of his earlobes. Bren stared endlessly in the mirror, poking and prodding. They persisted far longer than any other, and Bren found himself growing his hair out just to hide the strange marks from his father and mother.
They needn’t know. Not quite yet. For now, the marks would remain his and his alone.
The next clue was that the marks appeared in more shapes than delicate constellations and star-like dots.
Sometimes, if covering a large enough area, Bren would find his skin painted with a splotch of faint purplish hue, more like an ink drop in a cup of water rather than a typical bruise. Those were especially hard to cover up, but Bren managed. It became routine, to check each morning in the mirror for any new splotches surfacing along his skin. To hide them. Why? He wasn’t quite sure, but they felt like a secret. His little bouts of research, his search for an answer in a dismally small village, all kept to himself. In a village with far too little books and far too much gossip.
He learned to live with the marks. Bren kept them as his own little secret, and did not pay them much mind.
What was there to worry about? After all, his mother was speckled in countless birthmarks and freckles herself. To be fair, her's were far more rounded and organic looking, tinted a few shades darker than her own skin. In one of the books he found, Bren read that long days working in the sun, tending to the fields, will do such a thing. His father had some as well. Far less in number, but if Bren looked close along the sharp line of his father’s jaw and along the bridge of his nose he could see a few sunspots dotted there. Faint, but still there.
Bren told himself it could've been genetic.
Ignored every sign pointing otherwise.
The more years that passed, the more books that Bren managed to get his hands on, the more the marks seemed like something that needed to be addressed. Something he could no longer sweep under the rug and feign innocence for.
“ Mutti , can I ask you a question?” Bren asked from where he sat, cross-legged on the old wooden bench they kept out by the porch. His hands were shaking.
He was old enough to help with the chores now, but when his father went out on patrol his mother didn’t have the heart to be quite as firm with him. She let Bren sit idly by as she hung the laundry, a basket of clothespins in his lap so he could at least feign helpfulness.
“Permission for questions? This is a new development,” she teased with a small smile, plucking a pin from his hand. “What has you so serious, mein schatz?”
Bren flustered, sifting idly through the basket. “Nothing serious.”
His mother only smiled.
“Do not be afraid. Your mutti knows many things. Ask away, mäuschen,” she replied as she pinned the wooden clip between her teeth, using her free hands to shake out one of the larger tablecloths.
Bren counted to three, and took a long slow breath between each number.
“Can birthmarks be silver?”
His mother froze in place, the cotton sheet in her hand drifting soft and slow to the grass.
“Silver?” she echoed, the clothespin falling to the ground as she opened her mouth.
Bren resisted the urge to tuck his hands away.
“Your birthmarks are...silver?” she repeated, eyes widening. “Since when?”
“Since always, it is nothing—”
His mother was gaping at him, a strange glint lighting her irises like a flame. “This is not nothing, Bren, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
This. This is why he did not tell her sooner. “Bitte , it is nothing to worry about mutter , I promise—”
“Can I see?” she asked, a little breathless.
Bren didn’t understand the reaction, at first. He mentally prepared himself for confusion. For disgust, for concern, for dismissal. He didn’t understand the frantic curiosity and the growing smile and the glossy tears that built in the corner of his mother’s eyes. She turned over his hands in hers, tips of her calloused fingers tracing along the faint silver pinpricks.
She held his hands carefully, cautiously. As if he were to shatter at any moment.
This was not in any of the books he read.
“Is something wrong with me?” Bren asked after a few moments of silence, pulse hammering beneath his mother’s careful inspection.
Her smile faded when he spoke, pausing her ministrations. His mother’s brow furrowed in the way his often did, as she reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. Bren held his hands aloft, despite her letting them go.
“Nothing is wrong with you,” she soothed, her expression softening. “This is very good, mäuschen. Very good.”
Bren swallowed, but his throat was bone-dry. “What are they?”
He knew part of the answer already. If not for the countless books he had scoured through, if not for the folk tales and town gossip he had heard, he would be a fool not to put the pieces together. But even though Bren knew, he also knew there are some things you must hear aloud. Some things can not be trusted through writing and gossip alone.
“It is...it is hard to explain. I do not know the specifics very well. You know of soulmates, don’t you schatz ?”
Soulmates.
Bren nodded despite the violent lurching inside his stomach.
“Well...you are meant for somebody. And someone out there is meant for you. These marks will connect you. And through this life and in all others, you will find each other. They will love you, just as I do. Think of it like…”
His mother paused then, reaching for the basket of laundry.
“Do you see these two socks?” she said, holding a threadbare set of woolen socks before him, large enough to be mittens.
Bren felt a little old for the analogy, but nodded with intense regard.
“They were made for each other,” she said, gently folding them together so that they lined up. “And though you can wear this sock alone, or you can wear any two socks and still have warmth on your feet, it will never fit just right. It won’t be as comfortable, or look as nice, or…”
“It wouldn’t be a pair,” Bren added. His mother’s grin widened.
“Exactly,” she said, setting down the socks.
Bren felt awfully small as his mother’s hands clasped neatly around his own, bringing them to her lips as if muttering a prayer.
“It means you are lucky,” she explained, the sun reflecting bright in her amber-tinted eyes. “Your life will be a happy one, schatz. It is all a mother could hope for.”
Bren was very young, and he could only sit in quiet awe as his own future lay itself out before him.
“Life will bring you great joy. I promise.”
Bren was very young, and very foolish, and he believed her.
"Check again," his mother snapped to the two chambermaids, both meekly flinching at the whip-crack of her voice.
Essek could only stand in quiet, furious embarrassment as he held his arm aloft, surrendering to their inspection. Dutifully, the maids reached for Essek’s arm, casting small motes of light to hover just above his skin.
The lights drifted, stilling just above his wrist, right where a curling pattern of gold flame took form on his skin. Delicate, beautiful, each stroke a shimmering line of elegance.
Essek fought the urge to dimension door himself away right then and there.
"It is just as before, my Lady," one of the maids said, bowing her head. “Soulmarks.”
His mother's expression soured, lips twisting inwards like an apple left out to rot.
It shouldn’t be like this. A soulbond is meant to be a great honour, something celebrated. Not something you must address in the middle of the night with only a select few of carefully chosen attendants, conversing in hushed tones and terse looks.
It shouldn’t be a scandal. And yet, in Essek’s case, it could be nothing but.
"And you are sure it is not simply an illusion?" his mother asked, turning to the attendant at her side. "You know how the lower dens seek to humiliate us."
The man by her side, dressed from head-to-toe in the typical ostentation of a Luxon Cleric, nodded solemnly. "I am certain, my Lady."
In their culture, such marks practically guarantee a long life revered in the drow court. After all, the Bright Queen herself bore the mark of a soulbond. Such marks are treasured. Many tales and stories have been spoken of her and the Dusk Captain, and how their love transcends time and space. Through the light of the Luxon, et cetera, et cetera, their soulbond may persist through each life and grant them eternal happiness.
Essek wished it would be so easy. That his soulmate was just another drow noble, barely a city away. Someone from a well-off family, with a large estate and just enough connections to render them politically advantageous. Essek had no interest in politics, though it would certainly get his mother off his back which would be most advantageous indeed. He could live out the rest of his days in comfort, reaping the benefits of such a blessed union.
Essek felt the eyes of the maids upon him, eyes dripping with pity and thinly veiled apprehension. He knew those looks. As familiar as the nausea curdling sharp and acidic in his stomach. For a soulmark to appear so late in life...it can be guaranteed one thing.
Essek's soulmate is no drow.
To add insult to injury, they aren't even elven.
His mother should have accepted the facts by now, but she was always such a stubborn woman. Even Essek was curious to find out just how long it would take for her to accept that her son was destined to spend his life with a mortal. A human, most likely. Perhaps a half-elf if the gods took pity on him, as they never have.
Essek watched on as she straightened herself, nursing her expression into something colder.
“Check again,” she commanded, voice straining. “I want him checked again.”
The man opened his mouth to protest, though before he could, his mother held up a single finger, gaze sharpening.
“I am not asking, Imlyn.”
The man seemed ready to push argument further. But then his mother's chin raised, expression schooled into utter calmness yet boding something much darker beneath. Like a glittering river, poisoned down to every last drop.
"Go on," she urged.
There was no hesitation. His mother's staff knew better than to falter twice.
The cleric, Imlyn, stepped forward, and Essek gritted his teeth as he glanced over the mark for the tenth time that day, coming to the same conclusion they all had come to hours ago. Still, the man went along for the theatrics of it all, casting dispel magic and other various curse-removing spells. All to no avail, of course. A waste of magic. The marks remained, glimmering and iridescent as ever.
"These are indeed soulmarks, my Lady," Imlyn said. He wouldn't look Essek in the eyes.
His mother's expression hardened into something smoother than stone.
“And you are sure such marks have not appeared before, Essek?”
He could barely force a nod out of himself. "Yes, mother. Quite sure."
There was impudence in his tone, and Essek was sure his mother caught it. A hint of attitude. Defiance. Contempt. If not, why would she be staring at him just so? Why would her eyes be narrowing in challenge, as if the next question she posed would be a test and a trap all at once?
But the question never came. Her cleric stepped forward, placing a steady hand upon his mother's arm.
“Dierta, you are my Umavi and my Den Leader. You know I only wish the best for you and your kin. As such, I believe it is time to admit the truth. There is no other explanation for the nature of these marks.”
His mother pulled her arm free, movements slow and measured. Cautious, even here. She glanced over to Essek. He broke his gaze away swiftly, wise enough to be silent, especially in moments like these. The same could not be said for his mother’s staff, of course.
Imlyn cleared his throat. “This does not have to be a detriment to us, my Lady. The Light will surely bless your son for possessing such a wonder. If we go about this the right way, spin the story just so, it can work in our favour. Your son could be the guiding light, leading this human down a far more righteous path. We can bide our time until they surface, and from there, use this mortal to elevate our status. Those with soulbonds are treasured, after all."
Of course Imlyn would lead himself to that conclusion so swiftly. As one of his mother's most long-enduring advisors, he may wear the regalia of a saint but Essek knew a snake hid beneath it all.
One of the maids nodded her head, clasping her hands together with a grip forceful enough to bruise. “Indeed, my Lady. Lord Essek will be most revered. Surely the higher courts will offer him consecution in no time at all."
The other maid nodded in tandem with the first, spewing forth the same frivolous rantings that such spineless creatures often do.
Essek did not want consecution. He did not want a soulbond, or a soulmate, or anything to do with this. He wanted to live out his days as a scholar in quiet study.
Of course, his mother did not care for that. The woman had lived through two lifetimes already, and one does not reach a third through quiet study .
Essek could see her patience running thin. And yet the maids carried on, as did the cleric, trying to soothe his mother's wounded pride.
His mother gritted her teeth, glancing over the attendants.
“You are all dismissed," she announced, voice hardened and venomous.
The three blinked owlishly at her, clearly not processing just the grave mistake they had made.
“But, my Lady--”
“Need I repeat myself?”
The three took a collective sharp breath in, bobbing their heads with exhales of no, of course not my Lady, dearest Umavi. Our deepest apologies.
Essek waited until the room was cleared and the air was hollow lest for the sound of his mother’s quiet, rageful breathing. He finally let his shoulders drop.
“The news will spread, Mother.”
She rolled her eyes, lips curling in disgust. Ah, how quickly the mask falls.
“Gossip is of no concern to me.”
Essek fought to control his temper. "Then I assume you have a plan for how to proceed."
She moved to her vanity then, taking a seat on the plum cushion. She began pulling the silver pins from her hair, letting strands of white drape downwards. Each one thin as spider silk. "Of course I do."
The pause of Essek's silence must not have been what she expected, because she looked up then. Her eyes narrowed.
"I expect your cooperation, Essek. You are a lord now, after all.”
Ah, yes. His lordship. What a farce. He wished he escaped the household earlier, as Verin did. Perhaps he wouldn't be so tangled in his mother’s web. Even now he could see her spinning more and more strands to wrap him, to trap him in the diplomatic life she has lain out in waiting. A spider, venomous and vicious, stalking out her prey.
The metaphor was a bit treasonous, but Essek found it amusing nonetheless.
“Unless you’d rather have me take care of it for you,” she said languidly, watching him through the mirror’s reflection. “Of course, that would reflect poorly upon you and your authority. Having your mother clean up all of your messes.”
Essek bit his tongue hard enough for the taste of copper to pool in his mouth. “I understand, mother. I will handle it on my own terms.”
A grin stretched across her face. Essek half-expected fangs to poke through her rouge-tinted lips. “Excellent. I thought I would have to spell it out for you, though it seems you are capable of catching on after all.”
He could follow his mother down this rabbit hole the entire night, taking one step forward and allowing her to shove him two back in return. They performed that dance often enough, as much as Essek loathed it.
But he was in no mood to play the pleasant and patient son. Not tonight.
“If that is all, I will return to my study,” he spoke, and perhaps it was too eager. Her expression hardened.
“I am not finished,” she said.
Essek stood very, very still.
“Now, back to these marks. I would rather keep it between us for now,” she continued, as if speaking to herself alone. “As they say, consecution is practically guaranteed if word were to get out. We could announce it to the court and they could perform the ritual within the week. But I do not wish to be so hasty. I will not waste such a high honour on some low-life human, let alone run the risk of donning it on an Empire rat.”
Essek could feel his jaw tightening, feel the marks burning his skin. As if branding him. He took a deep breath in, schooled his temper back, and gave his mother a slight bow.
“Of course mother. As you wish,” he said. Paused. Then took a risk. “What of Verin and Father? Are they to be notified of my...change in status?”
Sometimes, it was easier to simply shift her aim.
She nearly scoffed, expression souring. “Your father wouldn’t understand. I wouldn’t want him jumping to the wrong conclusions. And as for Verin...well, it is of no consequence. He has no business in these halls, not anymore. It would be best to keep this as quiet as possible.”
Essek bowed once more. “Understood. I will take my leave now, then. Thank you for the counsel.”
She watched him turn, eyes tracking each step. Even without looking back, Essek could feel her eyes judging every little wrinkle in his cloak, every strand of hair that fell out of place. What would she have done, if Verin had been in his place? Would her perfect little solider, honour flowing through his veins, have been so easily swept in by her ministrations? Of course not. The role of confidant always fell to Essek. The role of lord. The role of heir. The role of puppet. He could tell she was waiting for him to reach the door, because just as his hand touched the handle, her voice spoke once more.
“Oh, Essek? One more thing dear,” she said, so passively cloying it was sickening.
Essek’s steps paused. He took another breath. “Yes, mother?”
Her lips stretched once more, a twisted sort of thing.
“Try to avoid getting...sentimental. It would be unfortunate to get attached before proper judgement can be made.”
Essek’s hand tightened on the silver doorknob. He could feel his tendons stretch and burn, and even in a feeble grip like his, the sound of his fingernails scraping against the metal echoed loud enough to ache.
Whatever judgement you come to, they will still be my soulmate. And nothing you do or say can change that.
Of course, Essek did not say this. Instead, he replied--
“Yes, mother. As you wish.”
And, after a moment, she smiled.