Chapter Thirty-Two
It is not in the corridor that I wake, but in the parlour, sitting upright in an armchair near the fireplace, head lolling back on my neck.
My throat is scratchy and dry, probably from my mouth hanging open for who knows how long.
The stiffness in my neck becomes more apparent as I scan the room for Calli.
I wince, instinct throwing my hand up to the tender spot.
‘You’ve been out cold for like three hours, Eira.
I was beginning to worry you’d never wake up.
’ Calli sits on the armchair to my left, setting a tray with a pot of tea, and what appears to be toasted bread, down on the table.
She catches me eyeing up the toast. ‘I told Odette it was for me. She made a fresh loaf last night.’
‘Bored of meat and potatoes?’ I ask, my voice nothing more than hoarse mumble. Calli pours tea into the chipped white teacup, spilling some into the tray – and the bread – without any care. ‘She likes to treat us from time to time.’
She stirs milk into the tea, the spoon clinking on the edge of the china, morphing into the echo of a sword being unsheathed in my mind.
The choking noise. The boy. The death. I squint at Calli, who holds out the cup of tea, waiting for me to take it.
She blinks at me, eyebrows knitted together with a thread of confusion.
‘Did you use Neyktar on me?’ I blurt.
Calli takes a short breath inwards, and she nibbles at the skin on her lip before placing the cup back on the table. ‘You can make people dream too, correct? You are capable of corrupting someone’s senses just like Eliaz, are you not? Did you do it to me, just then?’
Her shoulders slump, not with the tense embarrassment at being caught, but with the melting movement of relief.
‘No, I don’t have such an ability. To make you dream like you say, nor would I employ it if I did,’ she laughs breathily, turning to me.
‘But there is something I would like to confess, and I hope you don’t find it too invasive of me. ’
This catches me off guard. What could she possibly mean by that? Surely nothing can be as invasive as what Eliaz has done to me, certainly not worse.
‘I’m afraid I don’t follow.’
Calli sighs. ‘I don’t want you to think of me differently. A lot of people would find it wrong or immoral. But, I couldn’t stop it even if I tried.’ She picks at the skin of her fingernails, beady eyes fixed on the air behind me.
‘Calli, you’re scaring me.’
‘It’s no shock that something happened with my eyes when I first used Neyktar.
It didn’t go quite as it should’ve, and my eyes have been this dreadful red since then.
The Neyktar gave me the ability to live, to remain young and somewhat healthy, but unlike Eliaz, the Neyktar took something from me in return for its…
gifts.’ She closes her eyes, a single tear falling down her cheek and onto her lips.
I reach out and place my hand upon hers, rubbing my thumb across her white knuckles. She blinks down at our hands, lips parted. Cheeks flushed with upset.
‘Whatever it took from you, it is not your fault. You and your brother did what you had to, to survive. I understand.’
‘My sight,’ she whimpers. ‘It took my sight from me and—’ Her voice breaks off and she shakes her head.
I squeeze her hand tight. ‘You can tell me anything. There is nothing you could say right now that would change my perspective of you.’
She takes one deep breath and exhales slowly, head bowed.
‘The Neyktar took my sight from me, and whenever I am with another person, it gives me theirs.’ My chest grows tight.
That is not what I was expecting. For the Neyktar to be a leech of a magic source, I am not surprised.
But, for her to be forced into blindness, into stealing sight second-hand from those around her, that is a terrible cost for eternal life.
Calli swallows hard before continuing. ‘I have learned to adapt to living with no sight, and my life is just as full without it. But to invade the minds of everyone I am with, to show me myself in every repulsive angle. To force me to see myself all rat-eyed and small through someone else’s eyes, is a specialised kind of torture. I’m sorry to use you in such a way.’
‘I am sorry that you have had to endure something so horrid for so long. You can share my sight with me whenever you need it, it’s not invasive if I'm willing.’
Calli smiles weakly at me. ‘Thank you for being so kind to me. You’re the sister I should have had.’
‘What? In place of your over-protective, selfless lump of a brother?’ I tease. Her lips twitch as her smile falters briefly, but she laughs nonetheless.
‘He is pretty overbearing, but someone has to keep me right I guess.’
‘There is one thing I’d like to ask about your… condition.’
Calli leans back, more comfortable, our hands slipping from each other. ‘Ask away.’
‘You say you get your vision from other people, when they are present,’ I say, and she confirms with a nod. ‘When you’re in a room with multiple people, does it flit between everyone or just one person in particular?’
‘I’m unsure as to why, but it usually comes from who I am most connected to emotionally.
So, if Eliaz was here I would most likely see from his perspective.
But, if I concentrate hard enough, I can switch to someone else, a small mercy awarded by the Neyktar – or an oversight rather – pardon the pun. ’
I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me slightly uncomfortable to know that she is gifted Eliaz’s sight when I am in the room, and his eyes are on me. It feels wrong, somehow, but I cannot put my finger on why.
‘Here, you better eat.’ Calli picks a slice of bread from the tray and throws it to me, most likely in order to change the subject. I catch it, my fingers now greasy from the butter.
‘Thanks,’ I say, before taking a huge bite from the crust, the deliciously warm oozing of the butter as it coats my tongue.
Oh, how I have missed real food. All Odette’s slop does is fill the stomach and keep you from starving, but this has real flavour.
It brings the enjoyment back into eating, makes it, and rightfully so, an experience again.
I chew a little slower as I think of how many Umbrians have never experienced food as anything but a way to combat mortality, Bem and his daughters, the screaming children on the outskirts of Lessom, eating small amounts of bland chunks of meat or potatoes, or simply potatoes and bread unless a beloved animal has died.
The bread sticks in my throat, and I have to gulp a full cup of tea to get it down. Calli refills the cup as soon as its empty, and I can only marvel at how she can accurately direct the spout of the teapot to the cup when seeing it from my angle.
Only her care not to spill any tea is made pointless as a loud crash makes us both almost jump out of our chairs, the tea spilling out the spout and splashing over the rim of the cup and into the floor – and my feet.
The parlour door bursts open from its hinges, a sweaty Eliaz pants from the doorway before dragging a girl into the room with him.
She’s dressed in a sapphire gown that’s a little too small for her tall, curved figure, her face fully blanketed by the blonde lengths of her hair.
She squirms and pulls her arm from his grip.
‘I heard you were looking for someone,’ Eliaz huffs out, and the girl curtains the hair from her face, revealing an incredibly irritated Lillienne – her nostrils flaring and her lips pursed tight. Oh, by the Relic, she is pissed.
‘Lillienne!’ I spring from my seat to throw my arms around her, but when she jerks her shoulder back from me, I remember I am yet to apologise to her for my earlier cagey-ness when I found the letter.
‘She was found traipsing around the road to Lessom, with absolutely no idea where she was going.’
‘I was going wherever I ended up,’ Lillienne crosses her arms, turning her head from us. ‘I just hoped that I’d find Diarmid there. It isn’t fair that I get special treatment from the king, and he is stuck down there in that glorified hospital.’
‘And you just had to raid my wardrobe to do so?’ Calli complains, slumping back in her seat. ‘Unbelievable. I bet Odette helped you, didn’t she? That conniving little—’
‘I was brought here barefoot in a nightdress, what choice did I have? I’d lose toes. And I am very much attached to my toes in all senses of the word.’
Eliaz grunts. ‘Sorry, I’ll remember to grab a pair of slippers next time I save your life, any preference of colour?’
I have to bring my hand over my mouth to stifle a giggle, which only intensifies Lillienne’s glaring.
She rolls her eyes. ‘Anyway, a couple of guards spotted me tangled in a bush like five minutes from the city – my balance still isn’t great, by the way – and they happened to be heading to where I thought Diarmid might be. ’
‘And?’ I implore, finding it ridiculous enough that she’d be so adamant to find the stable manager, who up until now, has been the object of her jokes and second-hand embarrassment.
Lillienne doesn’t answer. Eliaz tips his head back and sighs. ‘Bring him in.’
The gentle-faced Bem appears in the doorway, sending me a warm smile as soon as he spots me. He tugs on someone’s arm, and there, by his side appears the bumbling Diarmid, his hat crumpled in his clenched fist.
‘I- I’m afraid, Your Lady Greatness, that she was very insistent that I return here with her.’
Lillienne narrows her eyes on me, tongue in cheek with the utmost smugness. ‘Diarmid is my new best friend, he does not withhold the truth, he tells me everything—unlike some people.’
It’s like we’re girls again. ‘Lillienne, that’s not fair.’
‘It’s not i-in my nature, Your Humble Highness, I cannot lie,’ Diarmid offers, his face earnest, yet with its usual hint of social discomfort.
He must have hated having to raise his voice enough to be heard over the chaos of the nurses and guards as they tend to the moaning sick.
An image pops into my head of Morven’s timid daughter cowering in her bed in the chaos of it all.
‘Where’s Myla, is she okay? I promised her mother she’d be kept safe.’
Eliaz sighs, his fingers pressed into his temples. Lillienne shuffles awkwardly in her stolen boots. Diarmid drops his hat and fumbles to pick it up.
‘What is it? You’re all acting strange. What aren’t you telling me?’ Eliaz stares into my eyes, his mouth a tight line. The flurry inside me begins to build again.
‘She didn’t wish to come,’ Eliaz says finally. ‘She was – afraid.’
I frown at him. ‘Afraid? Afraid of what exactly.’
His attention does not shift from me, his pupils wide and his eyebrows high on his forehead, his pink lips part with a single breath. My pulse throbs in my neck, dizziness casting its spell on me. And I realise why he looks at me that way.
‘You can’t be serious? She’s frightened of me? You have fucking mind control for goodness’ sake.’
Eliaz holds back a laugh. ‘It would seem the girl has a fear of fire.’ He tilts his head towards me. ‘I mean, who can blame her after your little show the other day.’
I scoff at him. The smug bastard.
‘Someone can’t handle being disliked for once.
’ Cole appears behind Bem and Diarmid at the door, both arms around the guard and the stable manager, looking between them to the three of us in the room with that insufferable smirk.
Diarmid turns green at the contact. ‘It seems to be getting a little crowded around this place. You really do love to collect strays, don’t you Eliaz. ’
I expect this to anger Eliaz, but he just chuckles. ‘You being the first, Cole. The original pain in my ass.’
‘And I thought that title belonged to your sister.’
Calli tuts from her armchair. ‘I cause way less issues than you, Cole. Eliaz has had to rescue you from those dingy brothels at least three times this week already. You really should start to pay for the services you receive.’
‘Quit your bickering. You both get on my nerves in an equal amount,’ Eliaz says.
‘Now, I think we all need to talk. Eira has found something and we might get a little further if we discuss it together, as a group.’ He looks past Lillienne to his guard in the doorway.
‘Bem, could you ask Odette to bring out some refreshments?’ He sneaks a peek at me, and winks. 'Whatever she deems us worthy of.’
I screw up my face, and mutter, ‘Prick.’
‘You really do have such a sweet tongue on you. So tender in your opinions of me,’ he jests, before gesturing towards the round table at the far side of the room. Bem bows his head and takes his leave. ‘Now, please, everyone take a seat, even you Mr Erskine. We have a lot to discuss.’
Cole pushes past Diarmid as he bends down to retrieve his hat from the floor for the second time, standing on the hat and almost sending the poor stable manager face first into the floor.
Lillienne proceeds to lecture him about spatial awareness, Calli calls him some derogatory term that apparently means ‘fish-kisser’ in his native language, earning her a crude gesture.
All the while Diarmid tries to reassure them all that it was somehow his fault that Cole had bumped into him, and that his hat is only partly squished.
Eliaz and I stand side by side as the arguments swell, watching them squabble like feral children.
‘This should be fun,’ I say into his ear, and he laughs softly, the corners of his eyes creasing as his smile takes over his features. He leans down to my ear, his breath warm on my neck.
‘Oh, you have no idea what fun is, Princess.’