The living night
Not mere darkness, but a weight upon the eyelid of heaven — stars without comfort, like tears that refuse to fall.
A book after compline, when lamps are low
The Light of
the Living Night
The field lieth void; the moon withholdeth her countenance. Needle and thread labour where thrones delay — yet silence answereth as one that mourneth, and I have not strength to comfort it.
descendUnder the veil of a thousand tears
Colours of the mantle, not the market
Ultramarine for her cloak’s fold, rose for what lieth nearer the pulse, linen for mercy’s edge, gold sparingly as a halo — all upon pitch where the host of heaven wandereth, and we below remember our dead.
Embroidered speech
Finite verbs and ancient hypotaxis: the tongue bent backward that the heart might go forward, though it goeth weeping.
Vigil without triumph
Queens keep watch while kings feast; laughter ringeth hollow against the slain. Here is no boast — only the long holding.
Two verses from the vigil
I — the field before compline
“The field stretcheth black beneath a moon that hath forgotten how to shine. Torches gutter in the distance like the last breaths of dying men. From the castle drifteth faint laughter — drunken, careless, obscene against the silence of the slain.
— Chapter I, The Queen's Vigil
II — Lilian (her voice cracking, but trying for steel)
Brother.
If thou must wed,
then wed a woman who knows thy grief.
Not one who will try to cure it.
One who will sit beside thee in the dark
and ask for nothing but thy breath.
— Chapter IV, The Wedding Decreed
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The Light of the Living Night
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