Chapter Text
The village of Briar Valley was the exact same every morning.
The baker slid his first loaves into the oven at half past five. The farmer's wife's cart rattled down the cobblestone path at six. The town's only teacher rang the bell at seven, the fishermen's wives argued about the price of bait by nine, and by ten o'clock everyone had already said everything there was to say and were just saying it again, just a little bit louder, because raising one's voice seemingly made things more interesting.
It was, by all accounts, a perfectly fine, normal village.
Malleus had lived in it for, at least, fifteen years— she didn't remember anything about her early childhood and she could only recall her life from the age of eight.
She knew every path and building by heart, every face, the name of every cat that wandered around the market square, and the exact number of steps between her front door and the well (forty-seven, or forty-four if she cut through the Hendersons' garden, which she did when she was feeling particularly bold).
Even if she knew the place like the back of her hand, Malleus had never felt like she was part of it.
She was walking through the market square when the whispers started— which, to be fair, was a commonplace occurrence.
"There she goes," said the blacksmith.
"The Draconia girl, does she do anything but read?" answered another.
"I don't even know where she learned to—"
She did, in fact, read constantly. The book currently open in her left hand was titled 'A Compendium of Known Curses, Vol. IV' —obviously, its name was not written on the cover, but in the last pages— it was a book which she had already read twice, still, each time she read it, she learned something new from it.
Her bag held two more.
People in Briar Valley, the few lucky ones that knew how to, usually read about farming, romantic serials and the occasional religious pamphlet. They considered this sufficient.
Malleus had, at fourteen, written a thirty-page analysis of the structural differences between blood-pact curses and enchantment-based spells. She had shown it to the town's teacher.
He had smiled, tense and sweaty, and suggested she spend more time outdoors.
And she did— she spent more time outdoors reading.
The town's square opened up around her — a flower stall, a merchant setting up his stand, and the fountain with its population of pigeons — she navigated it all on muscle memory, not lifting her eyes from the words, nodding at the people who greeted her, which were most of them.
That was one of the complicated things about Briar Valley: it wasn't that they disliked her. Several of them were genuinely fond of her, just like you'd be of a stray cat that occasionally knocks things off shelves. It was more that when she left a room, everyone quietly exhaled out of relief.
She had noticed this— it had been like that for years.
She turned a page and kept walking.
"Malleus." A familiar voice called.
She looked up.
Rollo Flamme stood in the middle of the square. He was the son of Briar Valley's magistrate, and he had been told from birth that justice and order was his to serve. His jaw was strong, his coat neat. He looked at Malleus as if she were a problem that, if approached carefully, could be resolved.
Rollo had been looking at her like that for a year at least.
"Good morning, Rollo," she replied.
"You're reading about unusual matters again." It was not a question, but a way to nag her, a way to say 'you're still doing that thing I've asked you to stop doing on multiple occasions'.
"I find them interesting."
"If the townspeople knew what you're reading about—" He paused, thinking about how to rephrase his words. "People talk, Malleus. It makes them uneasy."
"People talk about a lot of things, most of them hold no real meaning."
"That's—" He exhaled through his nose. "That's not the same thing. You could make more of an effort. You could come to the harvest council, attend the chapel more than twice a year, perhaps — not read books about the obscure in the middle of the town's square."
She lifted her gaze to look at him, carefully. Malleus had learned that when she looked at people for too long, they became uncomfortable. She was trying to be considerate about it.
"Rollo," Malleus said. "Are you trying to improve the village's opinion of me, or are you trying to tell me how to be a different person?"
His jaw tightened. "I'm trying to help you."
"I know," she said, and she meant it, which was the worst part. "I know you think you are."
She closed her book and tilted her head up to look at him fully. Rollo did not look away, he had too much discipline for that— even if Malleus was as pretty as she was scary. But, something shifted in his features — a brief crack in his composure — and she thought, not for the first time, that he genuinely believed what he said. That he was helping. That she needed to be helped into being someone easier, someone who'd fit into Briar Valley.
"I'm fine as I am," she said, as calm as she could. "But thank you."
She opened her book once again and walked past him.
Behind her, for one stunned moment, Rollo remained silent. Then, low and frustrated, he whispered: "She is the most— someone needs to — why won't she just listen!"
Malleus kept on walking.
She wouldn't think further on it.
The house at the edge of the village had become hers just because there had been no one else to claim it.
She had been found somewhere near the forest, or so she had been told, and the village had taken her in and passed her around gently— in the way small communities handled children who were abandoned by their parents, and eventually —when she turned sixteen— she had been brought into this empty house to fend for herself.
No one had ever come looking for her.
Malleus had always been a clever girl anyway.
She had grown accustomed to the house and its shelves of old books. To its smell of stone and dried herbs.
What she couldn't get used to, was being alone.
She set her bag down on the table and looked at the kitchen. She had made bread that morning. She had mended some of her clothes. Malleus had done all the small, ordinary things that kept a person trapped in the monotony of a routine.
She pressed her hands flat on the table and sighed.
Briar Valley.
Forty-seven steps to the well. Every cat, every cobblestone, every face. Every careful smile she received from people who were slightly fond of her, but didn't care enough to talk to her.
Oh, how she yearned for more.
She thought about the fisherman's wife who had grabbed her elbow last week and said, low and urgent: 'they say there's a castle up past the woods, the old Shroud estate, they say strange things happen there'.
She'd meant it as a warning, but Malleus had gone home and lain awake daydreaming about it like it was an invitation.
She thought about Rollo, who would come back tomorrow, always approaching with gentle words, slipping in a few suggestions to correct her behavior.
She had been thinking about leaving for two years, she had just never been brave enough to pack the bag.
Someone, she thought, will have to go check on that castle eventually.
It might as well be her, it might as well be now.
She stared at the bag, thinking about what to pack, yet her resolution died once more.
One day, she would finally act on her wishes. But that day was yet to come.
The afternoon took an unexpected turn.
It all started with Widow Hettie— which was how many things in Briar Valley started.
Widow Hettie was seventy-three years old. She had outlived two husbands and a goat she'd been rather fond of. Hettie considered herself the village's great authority when it came to the social matters of the village, a position she intended to hold until death. She stopped Malleus as soon as she stepped into the main cobblestone road, as if she'd been waiting.
"Malleus, dear," she said, taking her arm. "We need to talk about your situation."
Malleus looked at her own arm, "My situation," she echoed.
"You're twenty-three."
"I am, yes."
"Twenty-three," the woman repeated. She pulled Malleus toward the fountain. "I was married at seventeen. My mother was married at sixteen. My grandmother—"
"That's a remarkable family history—"
"You are twenty-three years old and you live alone in that house at the edge of town. You do nothing but read, dear, I've even seen you talk to the statues of the church—"
"Those are called gargoyles—"
"And I understand that you are—" she paused, searching for the right word, ignoring all of her intermissions, "peculiar, but Malleus, my darling, you cannot simply continue like that."
"I'm not sure I follow what you're expecting of me."
"Marriage." Hettie said it like it was an obvious request. "A husband, someone to look after you, and you them- So you'd stop reading those books and you'd come to our church properly and everyone would stop worrying."
Malleus made a small pause, then lifted her gaze from the fountain to look at her. She knew this woman was genuinely fond of her— she had brought her soup when Malleus was ill. She'd taught her to mend stockings at age nine, clicking her tongue the whole time but staying until it was done.
She knew her worry was real.
"I'm alright," Malleus said, carefully. "Truly."
"You're lonely."
Yes, yes she was. But marrying a man who would expect her to be some kind of meek housewife was not what she wanted.
It was not what any woman wanted.
Malleus kept her face very still. "I'm fine," she managed.
The widow looked at her for a long moment, then patted her hand and let her go. It left such a bittersweet taste in her tongue.
There was no use in dwelling on it, so she continued walking.
Of course, she had been a fool to think it would just end with the woman's meddling.
The town's merchant mentioned, while cutting a piece of the hard yellow cheese she liked, that his nephew was a good man, very steady, and knew how to work with his hands. The town teacher's wife touched her elbow and said something about roots and the importance of lineage— Malleus didn't have the energy to continue that one. The blacksmith said nothing but gave her a look of such profound, wordless sympathy that she had to stare at the floor, intensely, until she was out of his view.
By the time she reached the other side of the town's square, she felt like she'd been handled.
As she tried to escape the messy situation she had found herself in, a familiar face came to greet her.
"I heard you had quite the morning," said Rollo.
"It seems you've heard right," she said, plain.
He walked right beside her, uninvited, folded his hands behind his back and looked back at the square, where the villagers were quietly stealing glances at them. He seemed hesitant, it was the same face he made when preparing to give a speech.
"I want to say something," he said, "and I want you to hear me until the end."
"I'll do my best."
"I'm not like them." He nodded toward the square, the general direction of Widow Hettie, the merchant and all their gentle, coddling concern. "I'm not asking you to be someone else. I'm not asking you to stop reading or to come to chapel or to— mute yourself down." He made a small pause, eyes lingering on the floors, "I'm asking because I think I can match you. Or try to. I think we'd be well suited, Malleus. I think we'd make sense."
She looked at him.
He met her gaze without flinching, which most people didn't manage. He was intelligent, she knew that. He would be, by any means, a good husband. He believed what he was saying. He'd thought about it carefully and arrived at the conclusion that, if she were to marry a man, the best option would've been him.
And maybe somewhere, under all that 'logic' his true feelings towards her may linger.
Still, even as he presented this possibility as the best decision, Rollo was completely wrong.
"Rollo," Malleus called, as calm as ever. "When you imagine us — well-suited, making sense — what do you imagine I do all day?"
He blinked. "What?"
"In this life you've reasoned out. What do I do?"
"You — we'd have a home. You could read, of course, I wouldn't—"
"And all my quirks? The curse compendiums? The way I say things that make people step back?" She kept her voice even. "Would those fit in your well-suited life?"
His jaw tightened slightly, it was barely noticeable. "People adapt."
"And pray tell, which one of us would be doing the adapting?"
Silence.
She wasn't trying to be cruel or wound him, but she saw how her words hurt. How Rollo just stayed in his place, processing his feelings as if they were mere problems to be solved, and she felt, unexpectedly, a little sorry for both of them.
"I'm not trying to diminish what you're offering," Malleus continued. "I know you mean it in kind, but I would shrink with you. I love me more than I could ever love you, if I ever manage to do so."
He said nothing for a long moment. Then, quietly, he mumbled: "You're very strange, Malleus."
"I know."
"I mean that as— I don't know what I mean it as, I don't wish to be rude."
"I know that too."
She picked up her pace, and Rollo didn't stop her.
The walk home was long enough for her thoughts to spiral, which was, more often than not, a problem.
She walked quickly at first, but when she was far away from the commotion, she allowed herself to go slowly. She stopped altogether when the cobblestones gave way to the dirt path and the first of the old oak trees leaned out over the road.
There, she thought about Hettie's hands on her arm. About the merchant and his steady, hardworking nephew. About the blacksmith's face. About Rollo, who was intelligent and genuinely believed that she would be better off feeling smaller.
She thought about what it would look like.
It was an unbearable thought to bear. A house in Briar Valley, not the one at the edge, a proper one in the middle of the village, close to the chapel. Rollo's coat hanging by the door. Dinner at a reasonable hour. Her compendiums gone from the shelves or pushed to the back, behind the almanacs, behind the romantic serials, behind all the books a woman in Briar Valley was supposed to read instead. Every day, she would look at the same cobblestones, the same faces, the same careful fond smiles from people who could exhale only when she left.
Except now, she wouldn't be the strange Draconia girl anymore—
"Me," she said, out loud, to the small grey cat that had appeared from within the woods and was sitting on the fence, watching her. "Turning into Madam Flamme."
The cat blinked.
She stared back at it, slightly horrified.
Madam Flamme. Her. In thirty years, in twenty, in ten — Malleus Flamme, a woman who had once stayed up until dawn working through a theory about blood-pacts, and who had then married a magistrate's son and learned, gradually, that it was easier not to mention her interests.
Malleus Flamme, a woman who would have children, probably — small, ordinary children who would look at their mother's books with the same unease the schoolmaster had. A wife who would go to the chapel and attend the communal harvest, who stayed quiet and stopped saying things that made people step back.
She'd be more alone than she had ever been in her house at the edge of town. Because, right now, she was at least alone on her own terms, not in a life that was full of people who loved a version of her she had never wished to be.
Malleus pressed the back of her hand to her mouth.
"No," she told the cat.
The cat offered no opinion. It was a cat.
"Absolutely not," she repeated once more, a lone whisper.
She took a step forward, boots becoming dirty. The cat blinked again, then continued its way, minding its own business.
Malleus thought about the castle.
They say there's a castle up past the woods, the fisherman's wife had said. Strange things happen there.
She decided to stop hesitating and, when she reached home, Malleus finally packed her bag.
No one in Briar Valley would notice she was gone before the end of the week. And if she ever came back, everyone would be just slightly relieved and, hopefully, they'd leave her be on her own terms.
She picked up her bag and did not look back at the house.
The woods were not, as it turned out, a welcoming place.
She had known this, in the abstract. She had heard tales of animals and beasts lurking in the dark, of strange creatures who kidnapped children who wandered too deep into the forest, but she didn't expect it to be this unsettling.
It was beautiful. In its own way.
Still, she had not fully planned out for the night.
One moment she was at the tree line with the last of the late afternoon light behind her, and then she was between the trees with the light gone. The wild bushes grew thick on both sides of the path, their thorns long and curved.
She pulled her cloak tighter and kept walking.
This was a terrible idea.
Her feet were already wet. She had not fully thought through the boots situation.
She had also not thought through the food situation, or the sleeping situation, or the 'what-to-do-if-the-castle-is-actively-dangerous' situation.
But then, Malleus thought about becoming Madam Flamme.
She kept walking.
The path— if it even could be considered that— continued forward for far longer than what she'd expected. As she walked on, the woods seemed to become more receptive to her presence: the thorns pulled back when she moved in the right direction and the path closed when she took a wrong turn.
She liked to believe that the forest was guiding her through the dark.
Then, the line of lush trees ended. She stopped dead in her tracks.
The castle that stood before her had no right being as large as it was. It rose from the ground, black stone worn smooth by time, covered in ivy and, strangely, flowers. The towers reached up to the sky, towards the beautiful stars that shed their dim light over the clearing. Every window glowed with a cold greenish blue light, the color of deep waters.
What was more: actual, functional gargoyles guarded the walls of the castle. She had to explore the whole building from the outside, and she had to do so the very next day it rained.
It was the most extraordinary thing she had ever seen.
Malleus stood at the edge of the clearing and looked at it with full, unguarded attention. It was better than she'd imagined, which she had not thought was possible.
Her wet feet had entirely become irrelevant.
She walked towards the gates and stopped in front of them.
They were large, made out of iron, and closed shut.
Malleus lifted one hand, attempting to open them, but, without even making contact, the gates just— opened for her. They stopped when the space was wide enough to walk through.
Malleus straightened up, and stared at it. She looked at the castle beyond it — the courtyard, the main doors, the towers, all of it sitting in its own cold light, waiting.
An invitation, she thought, fascinated.
The courtyard was large and overgrown. A dry fountain stood at the center, dark with moss. The main doors were made out of dark wood, though this time, it didn't seem to be sealed shut.
Without much effort, she pushed one of them open, stepping into the dim, seemingly abandoned castle.