Chapter Ten
After how vulnerable and earnest Calli had been out in her parent’s tomb it is almost jarring to see her switch back to her bubbly and excitable self as soon as we set foot back in the building, which she refers to as Daegon Manor.
The fact that they do not take up residence in a castle is a little strange to me, but perhaps this is where their parents died and they could not bear to be parted with them, and for that they cannot be faulted.
She takes me back to Lillienne’s room, assuring me that her brother won’t be there when she sees the fearful disgust that creeps up on my face before I can help it.
My mind swims with all the new and conflicting information that I try to make sense of as we walk in comfortable silence down the halls. Their parents died a slow and human death, something I can’t even begin to comprehend the pain of, their people forever crippled by mortality without explanation.
The king helping afflicted citizens of Reyhen. That is the part that I struggle so hard to understand. Yes, Calli explained his helplessness surrounding his parents and his people, but he at some point managed to figure out how to help the afflicted and continued this work to this day.
But if they are as good as human, how does the king have the power he does? How are they both still alive?
I survey Calli as she opens the door to Lillienne’s room, wanting so desperately to ask about how it is they remain so young after all this time without the Relic’s power, how her eyes came to be so devoid of life.
My face softens when she catches my gaze and a smile carves into her features, and I think better of making her delve back into it all, especially so soon after her openness at the tomb.
Of which I remind myself she was under no obligation to do, but she has that fierce kindness in her that helps ease me into the belief that I am right in placing my trust in her.
‘After you, m’lady.’ She bows her head and gestures me into the room with an exaggerated dramaticism that makes me giggle.
‘Why thank you, kind lady,’ I bow my head to her as I pass, immediately making way to Lillienne’s bedside.
There’s a fire lit in the hearth, and its dancing glow projects onto the rosy walls with the colours of a blazing sunrise.
Lillienne lies asleep, still propped up by pillows as she was when I was here earlier today, before the king violated my consciousness.
Her forehead is beaded with sweat, every visible inch of her skin that unusual shade of white, only less wrinkled than it was when I saw her last.
I pull the chair from the vanity and take a seat by her side.
‘You look better, Lillienne. Still a little peaky though, I must admit.’ I say, watching her chest fill and empty of air with the rhythm of deep sleep.
‘It’s the poultice.’ Calli perches on the windowsill. ‘It is herbs and intention combined – with another ingredient that my brother wouldn’t thank me for telling you. But it helps return the skin to the age her body would be in human measurements.’
‘Human measurements?’ I question. ‘Are we talking decades? Years? She has been alive a century and a quarter, surely her body wouldn’t be compatible with human measurements of aging.’
She looks upwards as if the right explanation lingers above her head. ‘Think of it as her body’s growth and development being at a lengthened pace as an immortal, but she hits certain developmental milestones in the correct intervals, there are just longer periods of time between them.’
I nod, but I barely understand how we would calculate Lillienne’s mortal age with this information.
‘So how old is her human body, if it picks up where her immortal body has developed to? I hardly think she would be classed as young.’
Calli scan’s Lillienne’s dreaming body, hand rubbing her chin as if to stimulate thought.
‘At a rough guess, I’d probably say around four-and-twenty or five-and-twenty years old. She’s certainly no older than thirty that’s for sure.’
I shoot her a look of pure disbelief. ‘But that’s but the age of a child, is it not? I mean I don’t know if Lillienne will thank me for saying it but she’s certainly past puberty and has been for a very long time.’
Calli’s shoulders shake with a chuckle, and she palms her face to cover the true extent of the hilarity she found in my statement.
‘I can assure you, going by the development of humans, she is an appropriate amount of time past adolescence.’
I open my mouth to ask her how old she is, and how it is that she still has the countenance of youth whilst being human again, but before the words reach my lips, she slaps her lap with both hands and pushes herself upright from the windowsill.
‘Right, that’s enough lessons for one day.
I might need to think about getting you an Umbrian governess to get you up to date,’ she jokes, heading for the door.
‘Lillienne will most likely sleep peacefully through the night now, promise me you’ll try and get some sleep. ’ She arches her eyebrows at me.
I hold my hands up in defence, laughing. ‘I will, I promise I will.’
‘Good. I heard princesses can get rather grumpy without their beauty sleep.’
I tilt my head at her. ‘And where might you have gotten that kind of information?’
She shrugs. ‘Just from the most charming and delightful person you’ve met in Umbra.’
With a wide, childlike grin sent my way, she closes the door behind her.
My gaze turns back to my best friend, temporarily lost to the unconscious world, and I find myself desperate to rip her from sleep and tell her all the information that has been thrown at me since we crossed the Divide.
But I know how important it is that she rests and – despite how much sleep has been forced upon me in the last few days – that I need it too. Especially if I am to be on the lookout for more answers tomorrow. I lean over onto the bed, resting my head on my arms, forcing my eyes shut.
I ignore the low rumble of my empty stomach, pushing any thoughts of food out, and letting every thought of drifting to sleep, in.
But the descent into dreamland comes to a clashing halt, as Lillienne’s fingers suddenly clamp on my arm, nails piercing deep into the skin like the claws of a beast.
I recoil with an alarmed yelp, tearing my arm back from her grip and feeling the warmth of blood oozing into my palm as I try and quell the pain with pressure.
My eyes dart to the now wide-awake Lillienne, her jaw slack with shock, panic shooting out from her wide and beseeching eyes.
‘Oh, gods. Lillienne,’ I choke out. ‘What’s happening, do you need help?’
‘We all need help,’ her voice is rattling and detached from her throat. ‘They will die, everyone we know, death will come.’
‘Lillienne I—’
‘We will be made mortal!’ she screams, her jaw still locked open. Her whole body tenses as she screams out.
‘Mortal! Mortal! Mortal! Mortal!’ Her face is a flowing river of tears that connects to the stream of saliva dribbling from her gaping mouth.
‘No!’ I cry out, the chair falls backwards as I jolt to my feet. ‘You are not real. This isn’t real.’
She only rises up further from the bed, full-body tremoring with the force of her screams.
‘Mortal! Mortal! Mortal! Mortal!’
I back away, clamping my eyes shut and almost shaking my head from my neck.
‘Stop!’ I yell at her, thrusting fingers into my ears, ignoring the sharpness of my nails as they bite into my skin.
‘Stop. Stop. Stop.’ I plead into the air, knowing full well she will not listen.
‘Get out of my head!’ I scream to the person that might. He’s in my head again, digging his disgusting fingers into the folds of my brain and twisting them to his will.
Burning hot rage spurts from my lips as I let out a throat-bursting scream of pure fire and fury from the furnace of my lungs. With arms thrown wide, I push it out from me until my body comes close to exploding into flames, like a phoenix with wings spread initiating their own cremation.
My body does not turn to ash, because I am struck with something thin and solid, causing my spine to shatter into pain. I fall to the floor, my head hitting the carpet with a muffled thud, but my ears still ring at the force of it.
My neck snaps behind me to find the door flung open, a wide-eyed and flushed man stares back at me with confusion.
All in black, I see the Umbrian crest on the breast-pocket of his uniform, a white crescent moon. The man’s shocked expression melts into apology, his forehead creasing, his lips pulled taut into a line.
‘I- I am so sorry to have startled you, miss. I only mean to find the king. There’s been an influx of reports of new afflicted, it seems we may need to expand our facilities.’
New reports, facilities? There must be more patients than Lillienne in Umbra, more than Calli and the king let on.
It’s only then I realise it. The only voice in the room is the Umbrian guard.
A gasp expels from my exhausted lungs, when I catch sight of Lillienne laid on the bed in a blissful sleep, no signs of stress or tension contorting her body. Light trickles in from the window, illuminating the pallor of her skin with a false immortal glow. Daytime.
‘Let me help you, miss.’
I feel the guard’s fingers breach my personal space and I swat them away. ‘Not necessary. I can manage fine myself.’
My legs are like two stiff logs as I try and push myself from the ground, and after much straining and grunting, I finally get to my feet.
The Umbrian guard bows his head apologetically, holding his chest as though to quell a hurt. I let out a sigh.
‘Forgive me for being so rude, I am only a little dazed is all.’
His features soften, the carved lines of his face becoming less defined without the tautness of worry. He must be considered old, for a mortal, but there is a youthful glint in his eye that tells me that he does not feel the passing of time. A young soul.
‘Not to worry, Miss.’