Chapter 9 #3
A smattering of laughter broke out around the hall, but it wasn’t particularly cruel, only surprised at the clumsy break in their ordered routine.
When she snatched up her cane and wobbled back to her feet, glancing around at the soldiers gathered within the mess, she didn’t see the colours of callousness and derision in the air.
Instead, it was wisps of bleached, bone-hued pity that curled like smoke from their mouths, settling into the air.
And a sort of disbelief, too, like washed-out buttermilk.
They simply couldn’t believe that she was there.
Inside their sacred barracks. A mostly useless blind woman amongst a sea of elite soldiers—the most dangerous and revered in all of Lyra.
She hadn’t succeeded in her first task as a recruit.
She hadn’t even been successful enough to fail properly and die in her attempt to succeed, like Ron.
She was just … there.
Astonishingly. Awkwardly.
She searched the sea of faces, their eyes turning away from her in embarrassment. “Where is he?” she asked Rion.
“Uh … what do you mean?” Rion frowned at her question, focusing on the clanging and chattering of the kitchen serving area a few paces ahead of them.
Eiko tried not to get distracted by the ethereal beauty of her best friend, who appeared in that mess hall like a single rose blooming on a thorn-choked vine, even washed out and exhausted, her long, auburn hair a waterfall of tangles.
The mix of her mother’s Stonesigh heritage and the Stormridge blood of her father’s ancestors created a striking meld of the typical, delicate, softly slanted features of Stonesigh with the paler, more autumn colouring of the Stormridge people.
Why had nobody told her Rion was the most stunning woman in the damn world? They had spent all their time trying to convince Eiko that she was beautiful instead. What lying, treacherous friends she had. Also achingly wonderful, but mostly just lying and treacherous.
“Where is he standing in the room?” Eiko clarified, watching as Rion’s pretty frown deepened even further.
“I don’t understand—” Rion’s hazel eyes connected with hers and widened, flashes of golden surprise and molasses confusion briefly muddying her irises and throwing off the clear visual of her face.
“You’re looking right at me,” Rion hissed out quietly, her hand latching onto Eiko’s forearm in a death grip, the statement more of an accusation.
Please don’t tell—Hymn began to beg.
“It’s Hymn’s second sight,” Eiko briefly explained. “I don’t have long before it burns out. Where’s Cairn?”
“Over b-by the doors to the kitchen, to your right,” Rion stuttered, her eyes flicking in that direction.
Eiko followed the long, scuffed walnut benchtop that separated the kitchen from the mess hall, her attention skimming over food piled onto warming trays.
There were stacks of crusty, seeded brown rolls; salads peppered with legumes, olives, and sprinkled with some sort of fluffy, crumbly white cheese; thick, bubbling stews; and glistening roasted vegetables piled onto skewers with grilled meats.
An older man stood at the end of the buffet beside an arched doorway leading into the kitchen.
He had wiry arms, the muscles bunching as he shifted position to lean heavily into a polished cane, easing the weight from his left leg.
The limb was painted in a knotted orange pattern of pain, focused around his knee, the colour browning with age.
He wore all black, tight leather and weave, with a strange symbol on his chest. A slightly debossed, dark circle.
Eiko didn’t know if the symbol was familiar. She had been fed far too many images in far too narrow windows of time. She would need the ability to pause time and thoroughly scour the visions for every detail—sifting and sorting beneath Hymn’s second sight—to really absorb what she had briefly seen.
Cairn had tight black curls, shorn short and streaked with grey, and mahogany skin, with a short black beard. His eyes, contrary to the rest of his dark colouring, were a washed-out green, stark and frightening in their intensity.
He was staring at her, so she allowed her attention to pass right over him instead of fixing and focusing.
“Why is he staring?” she asked Rion.
“I don’t know,” Rion whispered back, as Eiko released the colours, breathing out a small sigh of relief as the world settled back into comfortable darkness.
“Maybe he’s decided to take you under his wing?” Rion asked sceptically. “Since, you know …”
“Nobody else wanted me, and we’re both physically disabled with adorable, matching canes?” Eiko asked dryly.
Rion picked up a tray, and Eiko followed the sound, picking up one of her own and placing it beside Rion’s.
Usually, her friend would have automatically helped her and gathered food for her without even asking.
But Rion wasn’t just devastatingly beautiful; she was also intelligent and unfailingly emotionally literate, because why have a moderate amount of talent and goodness when she could just have it all?
She knew that Eiko wouldn’t want to be treated as unable or special in the middle of a conversation about being unable or special.
Instead, Rion just did everything loudly.
She clanged each serving spoon with a huff, like she was too physically exhausted to place a utensil down in a dignified way.
And she just so happened to feel like eating exactly what Eiko would have picked out for herself, so all Eiko had to do was follow her, stop when she stopped, and then pick up the same spoon Rion loudly set down.
Eiko waited until they were seated before resting her chin on her hand and staring in Rion’s direction. “You already ate, didn’t you?”
“Guilty,” Rion admitted sheepishly.
“Thanks. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
“Is he still staring?” Eiko asked.
“No, he left when you sat down. I think he was making sure you washed and ate like he ordered?”
“Uh … is he my section leader now? Did Prince Chasin palm me off to his apprentice?”
“Feels a bit weird to call the old man an apprentice, but yes, I think he did.”
Eiko spluttered out a laugh, which set Rion off, which had tears springing back to life and falling down Eiko’s cheeks again.
Dark be damned, not this again. She hastily brushed them away.
“I’m glad you’re alive too,” Rion admitted quietly, correctly guessing the reason for the tears, her own voice sounding watery. “Sonnette told me that the strongest monsters take the longest to manifest—and the longer it takes, the higher the chance of death.”
“Sonnette?”
“My monster.”
“That’s a very pretty name for such an evil wench.”
Rion paused a moment and then said, “She would like me to inform you that she looks prettiest when peeling skin from the skinny bones of useless twigs like you.”
“She didn’t say ‘twig,’ did she?”
“Nope.”
“She totally called me a cripple, didn’t she?”
“Yep.” Rion’s lips popped on the word. “She truly is a miserable wench.”
“Is she still causing you pain?”
“No.” This time, Rion sounded smug. “It turns out, successfully manifesting a monster gives you a certain power over them. She’s a little more domesticated now. Still mouthy. Still miserable. But no longer torturing me every minute of the day.”
Eiko could feel Rion’s eyes on her. “What?” she asked. “You’re burning a hole through me.”
“It’s just …” Rion hesitated. “Are you sure your monster is an innocent baby and everything? Just because of the whole … the longer it takes, the stronger they are and the higher the chance of death thing, remember?”
“You said it only a few seconds ago, so yes, I remember.”
“And?”
Hymn? Eiko whispered, but it seemed the little monster was still sleeping.
She shrugged at Rion. “Seems like a baby to me. He’s literally sleeping right now. Wore himself out trying to manifest.”
“Or he slipped back into the Quiet. They can do that, you know.”
Eiko stilled, her brows jumping up. “They can?”
“The stronger ones.” It sounded like Rion was toying with her cutlery. “Mine can—she does, I mean.”
“Interesting.” Eiko frowned, filing away that little titbit of information to deal with later.
First, she had to fill her aching stomach, before she face-planted on the table and succumbed to her need to sleep for the next fifteen years.