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Nocturne descends into silence. The cloister sleeps above, but the chamber of penance waits below. The air here is close, oppressive with dark. Black candles sputter lamely against stone, their flames offering no warmth, only weak flickering light.
Heavy in her hand is the grip of the scourge. Its barbed tails are slick with oil she mixed herself, a preparation she knows the potency of all too well. This is not a weapon for war: this one was fashioned for devotion alone. Her grip is steady around the smooth wood, though her chest constricts with every step she takes.
As Quartermistress of the cloister, she knows Shar's vaults well. Each and every contraption those chests contain. She has tended each blade, each chain, each nine-tailed whip—kept their edges sharp, their leather supple and cruel. She catalogs them, alone, and keeps them well.
Shadowheart had walked those stores with her too, pale hands picking out the most vicious tools. Not for initiates, not for traitors, but for herself. The memory twists in Nocturne's chest like a blade that won't leave.
It is this image that lingers when she opens the door. The room that is revealed is bare by design: no altar, no text. Only slate, only silence, and stone cold underfoot. There is space enough for worship to be written into flesh.
Within it Shadowheart waits already, expectant. Her armor lies stripped away, each buckle and plate folded neatly aside. Dark braid pulled tight, pale body bared in the half-light, her skin holds the unmistakable marks of rites past. She is hardly recognisable as the Mother Superior now. Not the voice of iron that commands priests and novices alike. Spine straight, she kneels, mantle set neatly on the floor before her, hands resting lightly on her thighs.
Nocturne halts, the scourge heavy in her grasp. Her throat tightens at the sight, striking her like a blade to her chest. To see her Mistress like this—offered up, surrendered—it feels less like devotion, more like desecration. She does not want to raise her hand. She never has.
This, she knows, this is why she is chosen. Others might revel in the rite, delight in their Mother's pain. Nocturne never has, and she never will. Her hand does not falter, though her heart breaks. That is the hand Shadowheart demands. Pain is their Lady's sacrament. Her Mistress insists on it.
The silence shatters with words, sharp and clear: "Take me down to the thread. Strip me until only She remains."
Shadowheart does not lift her eyes, but her voice is strong. Nocturne swallows even the ghost of her protest and bows her head. She cannot refuse. She never has.
The first lash falls, sharp, clean, leather biting into flesh. A welt blooms, red and angry. Shadowheart breathes in, steady, as if counting each mark, as if writing numbers in the sanctuary of her mind.
Nocturne's chest constricts. She lifts her arm again, because she must.
The second strike. Then the third. Shadowheart exhales with the discipline of a scholar cataloguing sensation. She does not tremble, does not cry out. She receives.
Nocturne feels her world grow small. This hurts more than she will ever admit. But she has learned to anchor herself in silence, to let the rhythm of the scourge be her only prayer. Each stroke is deliberate, placed exactly as her Mistress requires.
But discipline is beginning to fray before her eyes. Shadowheart hisses between her teeth, then whispers: "Harder."
Nocturne obeys, because there is no other path.
The scourge is ripping into tender flesh now, summoning blood in rivulets that glisten in the light. The sight is a thief, making off in the night with Nocturne's breath. It should not be beautiful, but it is: the kind of beauty that devastates. She steels her jaw, raises her arm again—and Shadowheart's composure shatters. She shouts for more, cries reverberating against the walls.
"Again! Again! Take me lower—make me nothing!"
Nocturne's heart is breaking. The words burn into her bones. Her arm moves, merciless in its rhythm, though each lash is agony in the deepest parts of her. She would give anything to stop, anything to hold her Mistress close instead. But she cannot. To falter would be to deny her worship. And so she strikes on, eyes stinging, lips bloodless with the effort to remain stoic.
The chamber fills with sound: leather against flesh, Shadowheart's hoarse laughter breaking into sobs. Her voice unravels to begging, roaring, then to incoherence. She writhes beneath each stroke, demanding more, demanding to be stripped to her bones.
Blood spatters across stone. Sweat slicks her torn skin. She crumples forward, and then her arms give way too, but even pressed against the floor she whispers with broken breath: "More. More. Take it all."
Nocturne obeys until her Mistress is completely still.
Only then does her resolve give way. She sinks to her knees, the scourge slipping loose. She coils it with care, though her hands shake with it, and sets it aside with reverence she hates. Then folds herself down, forehead to stone, her body bent prostrate beside her Mistress's wreck.
Tears fall hot and silent down her face. She hides them in the dark, though no one remains to see. Every wound is seared into her own flesh; every cry still resounds in her chest.
And yet, this is what Shadowheart wants from her. Pain is worship. Pain is offering. And Nocturne will pay her own tithe in silence and tears.
Her Mistress stirs, lips cracked and red. A whisper comes, ragged but certain: "I am emptied. I am Hers."
Nocturne presses herself lower, but the floor will not yield. She will rise tomorrow and meet it as another day, her face as calm and cold as the cloister requires. But—freedom from this, that will be a long way away.
Every lash, every cry, every wound is hers to keep. When all others are made to forget, she alone will remember. That is her penance, and her privilege.
"Always," she murmurs, though her throat aches with it. Always, always, until the dark takes them both.