The Gaze That Silenced The Tavern

Chapter 1

The tavern was a cocoon of warmth and noise, the air thick with the scent of mead, roasting meat, and pipe smoke. Laughter swirled around the great central hearth, where Garrett Oakenshield sat, a king holding court among his own. His long, dark hair was loose around his shoulders, his blue eyes tracking the movement of his kin with a quiet, affectionate weariness.

Then he saw it—a flash of pale gold, like sunlight glimpsed through a storm cloud.

There, near the archway leading to the private rooms, she stood. Ei-Letheia, who asked to be called Lethea. Tonight, her gown was a whisper of midnight blue silk, cut so low in the back that the gentle sweep of her spine was bare to the dimple just above her hips. The fabric wrapped and tied around her slender form, the high slits on either side revealing glimpses of her legs as she shifted her weight. Her pixie-cut black hair was stark against her glowing skin, and her eyes, from this distance, held the soft, sorrowful grey of a winter dawn.

She was speaking with Diana, her best friend and Garrett’s sister, her long-nailed hands moving in graceful emphasis. Then her gaze lifted, sliding across the crowded room. It found his.

For a breath, the world narrowed to that single thread of connection. He saw the hope there, bright and fragile, before it was shuttered behind a polite, distant smile. She turned back to Diana, her shoulders dropping almost imperceptibly.

This was the dance they knew too well. She would wear a gown that seemed spun from starlight and longing. She would find a moment, a quiet corner, and her voice, usually so melodic and sure, would grow soft. “Stay with me tonight,” she’d said once, her claw-tipped fingers barely brushing his wrist. “Let me show you how the stars look from my balcony.”

Another time, bolder after a shared tankard of wine: “I am tired of walking these halls alone, Garrett. Your warmth beside me is the only future I wish to see.”

And every time, his own traitorous heart would hammer against his ribs, a joyous, terrified drum. And every time, the old shame, cold and leaden, would rise in his throat. He would find an excuse—a council matter, a forgotten obligation, a sudden, pressing need for air. He would watch the light in her eyes die, replaced by a confusion that slowly hardened into resignation.

Tonight, as the evening wore on, he saw her slip away. Not with the fluid, tracing step she used to vanish, but with the slow, heavy gait of someone carrying a weight. She did not look back.

Later, in the silent, too-large bedchamber of his mountain halls, Garrett stared at the stone ceiling. The memory of her in that blue gown, a lonely goddess in a room full of mortals, was a physical ache. He could still smell the faint, clean scent of her—ozone and night-blooming flowers. His friends' teasing echoes haunted him: *“Just speak to her, you great fool. Anyone can see she’s waiting for you.”*

But how could he? To offer himself, with all his broken pieces? To take her radiant, self-sacrificing heart when he had nothing but a hollowed-out cavern to give in return? It was a cruelty he could not commit, even as his silence became its own brutal kind of violence.

He did not see her, hours later, curled in her own bed, her face pressed into a pillow to muffle the sound of her crying. The intricate makeup around her eyes was smudged, a masterpiece ruined by saltwater. The beautiful gown was a puddle of silk on the floor, a testament to another night where hope had dressed itself up, only to be sent home alone.

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Chapter 2

The mountain’s forges were a distant, rhythmic heartbeat. Garrett stood alone on a high walkway, the wind tugging at his long hair. He came here often, telling himself it was for the view of the valley. It was a lie. This vantage point offered a clear line of sight to a particular balcony, one draped in flowering vines.

He saw her there now, as he often did in the late afternoon. Lethea was a statue of gold against the grey stone, her wings—vast, black, and iridescent—fully unfurled to catch the sun’s last warmth. He watched the slow, powerful stretch of them, the way the feathers caught the light like polished obsidian. Her head was tilted back, eyes closed. Even from this distance, he could see the subtle, sorrowful set of her full lips.

His own lips parted, a silent confession lost to the wind. *I see you.*

The memory of the blue gown, of her turned back, was a splinter in his soul. It joined a gallery of other painful portraits. The crimson silk she’d worn during Durin’s Day, its high neck doing nothing to hide the hope in her eyes when she’d found him by the ale casks. “Garrett,” she’d said, her voice a melody of nerves and courage. “I saved a dance for you.” He’d mumbled something about checking the perimeter guards and fled. The emerald wrap dress, with its daring side cutouts, on a night she’d traced directly to his side in the tavern, her scent of ozone cutting through the smoke. “Walk with me,” she’d whispered, her claw-tipped fingers brushing his knuckle. “Just for a while.” A messenger had arrived, calling him to a council that didn’t exist.

Each gown was a battle standard she’d raised, and each time, he had surrendered without a fight.

On the balcony, Lethea brought her wings in with a graceful, folding sweep. They seemed to melt into her skin, leaving only the faint, shimmering outline of tattoos along her spine. She turned, as if sensing his gaze from across the chasm. For a long moment, they simply looked at one another. The distance between them was nothing for a tracer; it was everything for a coward king.

Her eyes, even from afar, held a new hardness—a grey like tempered steel. She did not smile. She did not look away. She held his stare until it was Garrett who broke, dropping his eyes to the stone floor of the walkway. When he looked up again, she was gone. Not a trace, not a sound. Just empty space where a goddess had stood.

The silence she left behind was more accusing than any words. It echoed with the unspoken refrain he knew too well: *Give me an answer. Any answer.*

He leaned heavily on the balustrade, the cold stone seeping into his palms. Below, in the warm, lively belly of the mountain, his friends and family were gathering. There would be music, laughter, and the comfortable press of kinship. And she would either be there, a vision in silk, offering him one more chance to break his own heart—or she would not, and the night would feel hollow.

He knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that he was running out of chances. Her patience, like the finest silk, was beginning to fray.

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Chapter 3

The night of the Spring Reunion feast arrived, the Great Hall a symphony of light and merriment. Garrett wore his formal tunic, the weight of his crown a familiar discomfort. He scanned the crowd, his heart a frantic thing in his chest, seeking one particular silhouette.

She was not there.

Diana found him near the ale table, her expression unusually solemn. “She isn’t coming,” she said, without preamble. “She said she had a headache. I don’t believe her.”

Garrett’s stomach dropped. “Where is she?”

“Where she always is when she’s hurting,” Diana replied softly. “Alone.”

The feast felt like ash in his mouth. Every laugh was too loud, every song a discordant note. The ghost of Lethea in her absent gown—he could almost see the fabric she might have worn, something in silver to rival the moonlight—haunted the empty space beside him. His friends’ teasing had long since ceased, replaced by worried glances.

He couldn’t bear it.

Leaving the hall with a muttered excuse, he traced a familiar path through the quiet, upper corridors to her private chambers. The door was slightly ajar. From within, he heard it: a muffled, hitching sound, the unmistakable rhythm of stifled tears.

Pushing the door open, he stepped into her sitting room. It was dim, lit by a single enchanted crystal. And there she was, curled on a low divan, wrapped in a simple silk robe of deep violet. Her face was buried in a cushion, her small frame shuddering. On the floor beside her lay a gown of breathtaking beauty—a stormy grey silk with a neckline that plunged to the waist in the back, the fabric pooled like a fallen cloud. She had dressed for him. Again.

“Lethea,” he breathed, the word a blade in his throat.

She went utterly still. Then, with a force that shocked him, she sat up, swiping at her face. Her eyes, glowing a fierce, wounded amber, pinned him where he stood. The delicate makeup was indeed ruined, dark streaks painting her cheeks.

“Get out.” Her voice was ragged, raw with a pain he had authored.

“Please, I—”

“No!” She stood, the robe parting to reveal the golden skin of her legs. “You don’t get to see me cry. You don’t get the satisfaction of seeing the pain you cause.” She advanced a step, her claw-tipped fingers clenched at her sides. “You tell me you can’t be with me, you dismiss me like it’s meaningless, you’ve pulled away when you say you *wish* things were different. But you won’t tell me *why*.”

Garrett opened his mouth, but no sound emerged, the old shame a gag.

“It’s not fair,” she continued, her voice dropping to a devastating whisper. “You don’t get to make decisions on my behalf without consulting me. If you weren’t interested, you could have told me instead of making me repeatedly humiliate myself. Everyone could see, I know you could too, and you chose to allow it.”

Her words carved into him, each one a true and terrible accusation. He saw the gallery of her beautiful, lonely gowns, each one a testament to her courage and his cowardice.

“Give me an answer,” she pleaded, the anger fracturing into sheer exhaustion. “*Any* answer. If you won’t be with me, then let me go. Give me closure and then stay away from me. Is it me you don’t like? Or is something else keeping you from me?”

She stood before him, a goddess of heartbreak, demanding the truth he had buried for years. The distance between them was a single step. The warmth of her, the scent of night flowers and salt, reached for him. His hands ached to bridge the gap, to pull her against the hollow of his chest and finally speak the dreadful secret. The desire was a physical pull, a current drawing him into her orbit, promising both ruin and salvation.