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It’s a secret they kept locked away as long as they knew that it was shameful, since their mother had first caught them practicing kissing as children and yelled for hours. They were freaks, abominations, and needed to never do such things again or else the whole world might find it out.
They were hollow words for a girl who’d been called a curse and freak since before she could understand the words.
All the same, they learned secrecy and they learned to keep their activities to those times where they knew they wouldn’t be caught doing so. Only at night when she could sneak into his room and climb into his bed pretending she was scared, only when their parents were away and the servants were too busy, only when they could sneak off a trail on a forest walk.
A layer of complexity to their games, but one that often reminded Sophia of the romance she read and the dreams she had. Things Nicol would protest for fear of her honor and happiness and then melt into when they held each other in the dark or practiced kissing. Small comforts for him where she could hold him for a short time and he would begin crying the moment her fingers found his hair.
Things that her dreams would sometimes tell her how to progress, make Nicol love her as she did.
**
Nicol had never pushed the relationship further along, even when Sopia knew he wanted to more than anything. No matter how often she caught him staring at her, how long he took to break their hugs, even as they grew older and she sometimes felt him in their hours holding one another, he would let her make the first move. He’d been pushed into too many things even back then, and never wanted her to feel pushed herself.
He had pledged his love for her the first time he’d realized what a cursed child meant, and he was scared for what his love was. Even when he’d always bring her tea and sweets while she was left with no friends, or read her a novel to sleep when her tears were too thick to do so herself, it was as a protector first.
Her dreams had been the thing to make it change.
Flashing memories of her brother loving another, of the insecurities he held, of the way he put on shows for her with his confidence. It was not long after she’d asked him if he was happy, asked if he would abandon her if he found another. He’d held her as she cried with the worry she’d be abandoned one day, that she’d made him unhappy, and he’d sworn his love for her.
She’d done something her dreams had made her think she’d wanted to do longer than she’d been alive, and asked to kiss him.
He’d been nervous, thought it was wrong, and still couldn’t deny he’d had passing thoughts of it he thought were shameful. He couldn’t deny that he wanted her happy, that even if he married one day he’d still want her in his bed for her to listen to him read.
He’d helped her learn to kiss, shaking and unsure, whispered apologies even as he drew her closer to him, more shame for it than Sophia could ever hope to muster, feeling disgusted as they were caught by mother.
He had still said yes when she’d asked the next week.
And that was how it would go for them for a while, finding a place she could find him comfortable and staying there for a time. Hiding away the worst of what they did, and only keeping enough hidden their parents would never know the truth.
That their mother would never see even the innocent things they did, worried the servants would talk about walking in on them playing as a married couple during tea, the few times they’d slept beside each other till the morning, when she made Nicol bring her on a picnic. Innocent things for their age, they only started to hide the first time a servant made a snide remark about it, but which she would know the truth of.
All the same, it never stopped, and Sophia felt like a life long dream had been fulfilled with each moment spent with him, even in their innocent days.
**
Sophia had no trouble changing the game as they grew older, and never felt more like a witch than when her dreams returned. When she’d discovered new books, Nicol’s appearance changed, when they’d known Katarina for some years. Dreams of a dark room, a black mirror that showed her brother and told her the flirts and words he loved and the frustrations he was dealing with. Words she could repeat, whisper into his ear, ask in the night they blanketed themselves in, and would make him look at her in awe.
Sometimes he changed without her asking, like when he began reading her novels on his own when he heard her praising the men in them. Small little tweaks to his smile, the way he touched her, the way he’d flirt, as he took on that persona of the Devilish Count even as she thought the Devilish Count was him. Maybe for her benefit, a defense for the pain he’d been put through by others, or maybe because he’d taken an interest in other girls and was finding out what they liked.
Sophia didn’t want her heart broken.
It wasn’t much later, during a storm with their parents away and most of the servants gone, she found what she thought was a divine gift. Once more to his room she’d laid beside him in her night’s shift, and he’d not hesitated to hold her.
There, in the night with the rain pelting glass she’d asked “have you read my book about the pirate king?” and he’d responded, “most of it, but I felt…embarrassed to read it in front of you.”
“The cabin scenes?”
“The cabin scenes.”
“Would you like to do that with me?”
And he had worried and feigned disgust, and she’d held his cheeks and called him her devilish count and said it could be no other, and it had been their first time together. Fumbling and inexperienced, unsure and quick, unsafe as such terms went, and yet still the most romantic evening of their life together. Sophia under him, silver hair held to a chest beating with her favorite song, her whimpers and cries drowned out by the weather around them and his hushed apologies for ruining her and how he worried someone would find out was a strange comfort to her ears.
They’d fallen asleep like that, and not woken until their mom’s screaming cut the morning air.
**
They could never go back, in both senses of the word, and whether they liked it or not their paths had been changed. They were bonded now forever, and even as their mother fought to keep them from being alone or stare as they held hands on a walk they couldn’t be parted permanently.
The worry only settled when Nicol went to school, and Sophia began to spend more time with her friend Katarina.
She loved Katarina, even if not as much as her brother, and she knew Katarina was unable to realize it. That no matter how often they held one another in bed, or Sophia would listen to the girl’s heart and accidentally fall asleep, Katarina would never realize the emotions behind it.
A part of her thought it’d happened before, once in the place where she saw her black mirror of secrets. That she’d once had another brother who she’d shared a hidden love for, that she’d once loved a woman who never realized that fact.
She thought they had all died somehow, though those dreams never made her sad now.
Sometimes it was tempting to kiss Katarina and get it over with in terms of rejection or acceptance, though what would the point have been? Yes, it would have been a love for someone other than her brother, but one romance that could never be public to another wasn’t even an upgrade to make it tempting.
It did make her think though.
First passing thoughts, then slow scheming, and finally a hope that she’d found a solution to their problems as she spent a week trying to be alone with Nicol. Their mother was always watching, a servant assigned to her quarters to “keep her from sleep walking”, and not until they were preparing for Katarina’s birthday party did they have a few brief moments together.
“I love Lady Katarina,” she began her confession, and Nicol’s face had an unmistakable veneer of sadness to it she knew only she would see.
“I’ve been aware for some time, sister,” Nicol admitted, not looking at her.
“I know you love her too.”
He was shocked a moment before forcing it down, a shaking frustration as he tried to explain himself, “I would never leave-”
“I know you won’t leave me,” she interrupted, taking their brief isolation to bring him close to her in an embrace they hadn’t had in some time, “but I’m…I had a dream we were all together, that Katarina loved both of us and knew we loved each other.”
“It does sound like a lovely dream.”
He didn’t believe it.
“We could make it real,” Sophia whispered softly, scared as she hid her face against his chest, a sharp blush to pale cheeks, “I…I shared some of the novels I kept hidden under my bed with her, with the noble siblings, and she wasn’t disgusted. She thought forbidden love was romantic, and she…”
Nicol looked sad, even a little confused, and his fingers cupping her chin he asked, “are you telling me to seduce Katarina for you?”
“For us,” Sophia whispered, scared to kiss him, as though it would break the moment, “If she fell for both of us, even if she only fell for you, you could marry and mother would stop worrying about us. We could live together, and I could be yours, and the world would never know.”
There was a long silence, and Nicol gave his answer with a kiss.
**
To be open about their love of Katarina was a new dynamic to them, even if Sophia had suspected it for a while. She always thought Katarina would be her sister one day, that Nicol could win her over, that it was obvious she was the only other woman Nicol looked at with his smile. Now though they could speak freely, in their limited time together, of all the things that made them love her.
It was also when Sophia truly discovered jealousy.
Not bad jealousy, not a type where she wanted to ask him to stop, but the one that merely made her want to hang onto his arm more and be held close. Things no one seemed to notice as strange among their friends, that as they went to the academy they could do as long as they weren’t too explicit.
The dorms were separated by gender, not easy for her to sneak off to them, but Sophia found her ways. During the day between classes, late at night sneaking past guards, climbing into his bed and letting them embrace as they had before. The same apologies on his lips even as he kissed first, the same worry for discovery even as he removed her dress, the same guilt as he held her until he needed to stop sleep taking her.
Of course, even the most careful of people made mistakes and the two were never careful as they could be.
It was towards the end of their first year, when she knew Nicol would be distant from her again, that they were caught. Perhaps she’d whimpered too loud, her brother’s lips had not sealed the moans as well as they hoped, or plain bad luck. Katarina’s brother had walked in on them still holding one another with very little question of what had happened, and promptly stood in the door shocked until Nicol had lept to close the door behind them.
It was perhaps lucky then Sophia knew Keith’s secrets, and she told him, “it’s no different than how you wish for Katarina.”
And he’d defended himself, “we’re not related, this is different.”
“We all love her and want to be with her.”
Keith was angry at the thought, sighing as he complained, “Geordo’s not going to let any of it happen anyway.”
They could bond over that, the small complaint, and in the end they were left in silence in the room, two of them hastily clothed, until Keith answered a question never asked, “I’ll keep your secret if we can agree we have a common enemy.”
**
One night they lay in bed together, Nicol playing with her hair, and Sophia asks, “why do you always apologize to me?”
Nicol grunted in confusion, his hands freezing on her as he brought her face to look up to his.
“When we kiss or make love, you say you’re sorry, talk about my honor,” Sophia whispers, drawing the man close to her, her ear against his chest. “Do you…you always apologize for enjoying it, so I never asked, but is it something you don’t like?”
There’s a long pause, nothing to it, until he admitted, “I hate that I love to see you this way, it’s wrong. If anyone found out, your reputation would never recover, no one would ever want to marry you.”
“I’m a cursed child, no one will marry me anyway.”
“Then people will say I took advantage of a lonely sister.”
Sophia nodded, leaning forward to kiss her brother before whispering, “you’re the only one I want, brother, if I could I would marry you above anyone else.”
“I would too, sister,” Nicol whispered with a kiss to her forehead, sadness in his voice, “I just wish this weren’t wrong.”
**
Time away from Nicol, and more with Katarina, and her jealousy turned to something darker in the end. Asked to write a play, she’d known how things were likely to go and knew how she would fix them as time went on. There just needed to be a romance, a place to insert her brother, and a single accident.
More wrathful than she could think was possible she’d prepared her brother’s sword, making sure it was sharp and oiled, and taken the Devilish Count costume she’d made for him months ago.
The play had gone perfect, a duel breaking out between Geordo and Nicol, and it was only later in her room she realized what she’d almost done. When there was a knock at the door, her brother was there with anger on his blank face as he let himself in and asked, “did you mean for me to kill him, sister?”
She could never lie to him, “it would have been an obvious accident.”
“He’s my friend.”
“He’s holding the woman we love.”
“And he’ll never have the woman I loved first,” he offered, and he kissed Sophia as he drew her close, “but we can’t play like that, even you must know it’d be wrong.”
“I want us to be happy,” she whispered, face hidden in his chest, “is it so wrong that I just want us to all be married?”
He kissed the top of her head, held her tight, and there was no answer given even as he left in the early morning.
**
It was a stain on their relationship, a bit of distrust that never went away even as they continued their efforts. Years pass into one another, growing older, and Nicol slowly wins Katarina over with his flirts and comforts and Sophia enjoys her time with the girl. Her engagement is broken with Geordo, and there’s talk about Nicol asking her next even as a shadow hangs on the idea.
One day the two girls lay in bed, and Sophia finally confesses what she’s wanted to for some years now.
“Lady Katarina,” Sophia whispered gently, blushing to her pale cheeks, “there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Hrm? What is it, Sophia?” Katarina asks, setting her romance novel aside with a curious tilt of her head.
“I love you,” Sophia whispered, turning away from the girl, a voice shaking, “and…I mean, I love you like my brother does, I want to spend my life with you.”
There’s a long pause, Katarina blankfaced and staring into space like she did when she was having an emergency council meeting. Too used to it by now, Sophia crossed her legs and watched Katarina for the thirty seconds it took until she answered, “I…I mean, I think I’d like you too, but…I know your brother likes me, and I wouldn’t want to ruin what you guys have.”
“He knows,” she says softly, a knife plunged into her chest and ready to pierce the heart as she admitted their secret, “we…we agreed once we wouldn’t mind sharing you, if you agreed to it, but only if you didn’t mind sharing us.”
“Share you? You mean like, polyamory?” Katarina asks, and Sophia is confused before Katarina explains, “you know, like, loving different people. Do you guys have your eyes on someone else?”
Sophia nodded, eyes closed, voice shaking as she admitted, “I love Nicol, and he loves me, and it’s like we love you.”
Katarina was confused, tilting her head as she asked, “wait did I misunderstand? I thought you were saying you were both in love with me, like, marriage and stuff love?”
“We do.”
“But you said you love your brother like that?”
“We’ve been in love since we were kids,” Sophia whispered, backing a few inches, shaking as she tried to explain, “we can’t marry each other though, and our mother has caught us before, so we need to be careful and…we both love you, but we don’t want that love to be without you knowing the truth, and I don’t think either of us could abandon the other.”
Katarina nodded, and she went back to the council for a long time while Sophia settled into the bed and waited.
**
Katarina is hesitant, but they do slowly try to introduce the concept to her and she seems to take to it. Sophia and her share brief kisses and explore their feelings, Nicol and Katarina continue their courting, and when they are together they can be open for the first time in their life. The three of them in a reading room, the doors locked, only Katarina with them, and Sophia may kiss her brother and sit in his lap as they talk.
She’s uncomfortable with it at first, obviously unsure how to react to their love, though eventually the looks stop and she joins the affection. They sit either side of Nicol, heads on his shoulder, or she’ll kiss the both of them while Sophia reads in his lap. When they get closer the three of them will lay in bed, and one will be between the other two to be lavished with attention.
One night Katarina spends the night at their summer home, and it’s only the three of them in the home not counting Anne. It’s the first time Katarina truly catches them, as far as the term goes, Sophia pinned under her brother as he whispers his apologies and love when Sophia notices the light coming through the open door.
Katarina stood there, a surprised look on her face as she watched the two of them, and Sophia could do nothing but stare back. The woman didn’t move, the heat in Sophia grew stronger and stronger as Nicol’s lips danced on her neck. She finishes with a whimpering moan, her nails digging into Nicol hard enough to bleed, and by the time she can think through the fog Katarina is gone and their door closed.
The next morning they sit over breakfast when Katarina joins them, awkward for only a moment before she walks up and rests a hand on Nicol’s back, and he winces hard.
Katarina giggles, and blushing herself asks, “everything alright?”
“I think you know the answer to that, Lady Katarina,” Sophia giggles, and they sit together and eat, hoping Anne doesn’t notice something amiss.
**
They were never careful, and Sophia finds out the news on the best and worst day for it to happen. Too nauseous to attend Nicol and Katarina’s wedding, she only leaves her room when the reception is already in order. Her brother and his wife sat at the head of their table, Katarina sits at their right hand, and both look at her with some concern.
“Are you feeling better Sophia?” Katarina asks, and Nicol hesitantly adds on, “it’s fine if you need to go back to your room.”
“I actually needed to talk to you,” she admitted, a lump in her throat as she looked around them, leaned forward close as she could, her voice a whisper, “my monthly’s not happened three months now, and well…”
Realization dawns, Nicol looks unsure of how to react and Katarina smiles brightly as she cheers, “Sophia that’s wonderful.”
Sophia felt her face was on fire, shaking her head as she asked, “what are we going to do, people might ask, they might-”
“You had a child out of wedlock,” Nicol answered, serious as he leaned forward, risking to hold her hand, “and your brother understood, and still wishes to take care of you and help raise the kid with the full honors of nobility.”
She started to cry, and Katarina had to help bring her somewhere to feel better where they shared comforting kisses and promised to speak more later.
That night the three of them gathered together, and Katarina revealed her own gift to the siblings with four silver bracelets in the shape of cuffs. One for Nicol, one for Katarina, and two for Sophia, each engraved with one of their names. Katarina and Nicol would have their rings, and they would have these for those marriages they couldn’t show to the world.
They shared their vows, their kisses, and the three were married as far as they cared.
**
They move to a smaller manor, where Nicol can easily travel to the palace when his duties are called upon. The three of them live together, and they settle down into a domestic life they can be happy with.
Sophia’s son is born with silver hair and red eyes like her, and Nicol promises he will never know the pain they felt. Not long later Katarina gets pregnant herself, giving birth to a daughter, and then a son. Sophia names her son after his father, and Katarina names her son after her brother and the daughter a name that sounds like from Sophia’s dreams, a name that makes her cry at the way she felt loved for it for reasons she can’t explain.
But that’s the truth of the matter isn’t it?
All of this was beautiful as a dream, and hers to live for the years to come.