Chapter 15 #2
Yes, and probably, she answered. Do the other monsters not use sarcasm in the Quiet?
They mostly just talk about how hungry they are.
She bit down on her lip, suppressing a shudder. And they eat people, right?
And each other.
Light above. She winced. You could have made something up, you know. Wait, does that mean you—
He’s coming, Hymn warned quickly. The king is coming!
She dashed back to the library, slipping into the hall just as she heard the door to Chasin’s office open. King Grigori slammed it so hard, her teeth clattered together, and then he was storming off down the hall. Thankfully, in the opposite direction.
She remained where she was for a long moment, just trying to will her heart to stop racing.
She was painfully aware of what she had overheard—of course she was—but she also didn’t have the room in her head to sort through that particular shitstorm just yet.
It was … too much. Too unbelievable. Too far above her head in terms of what she thought she would ever have to deal with.
She waited and waited, and when it finally felt like she had filed all her complicated emotions away for later and willed her heartbeat back to normal, she made her way to the closed door of Chasin’s office.
She lifted her hand to knock … before lowering it again. She needed to settle her second sight first, just in case it exploded into her head in a painful flurry and she wasn’t able to mask her reaction in front of the commander.
She coaxed the vision back to her eyes, keeping the colours at bay, and found herself mostly still in darkness. Just a little more … She pulled the vision further, until it reacted with the golden rays of sun streaming in from the skylights above, falling down to illuminate …
An open door.
Chasin stood right there, a mere handspan away.
It took everything inside her not to flinch and stumble back a step.
The way he had opened the door and moved so close without her noticing had goosebumps exploding along her arms. She stood there frozen as his eyes dropped to her hands.
The sun slanted right across his face, throwing his fierce countenance into sharp relief.
If she ignored the chill cooling her blood and the scent of death that clung to him, it would be easy to say that he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
Up close, she could make out the tinges of gold he carried everywhere, marking him as one of the princes.
His eyes weren’t truly black, but a very dark amber, so shadowed they appeared pitch, but the tendrils of gold were just enough to separate his iris from his pupil, which appeared swollen.
His hair wasn’t truly onyx, but a gold burned and charred almost to black.
There wasn’t a single scar on his face, but the terrible mutilation of his throat peeked above the high collar of his gambeson. A gambeson she hadn’t been given with her uniform. Perhaps because he wanted her arms and hands bare for constant inspection.
This is getting awkward.
Tell me about it, Hymn agreed.
Am I supposed to lift my fist and knock against his chest?
Chasin was observing her closely, cataloguing her with that dark stare again.
Free to roam across her person with the false understanding that she couldn’t see him in return, his eyes inched over her face and traced the set of her jaw, the nervous press of her lips, the lines of her cheekbones.
His attention swept down her neck, his eyes narrowing slightly as he surveyed the fit of her uniform—even her boots.
His stare darted back up again, his head cocking infinitesimally at the curls breaking free to spring about her face.
She had been so preoccupied with her uniform that she really had done an atrocious job of taming the wild tangle of her hair.
He had no expression on his face, no emotion behind the coldly appraising, sharply intelligent survey of her person. She couldn’t tell if he was displeased, disgusted, or if he quietly approved.
He reached out, like he would touch one of the riotous curls breaking free around her face, and something in his stare darkened, his pupils expanding further.
A terrible cold sank deep into her stomach.
It was a flash of violence, of sudden tumult, there and gone so swiftly she could have imagined it, if not for the shiver of power rubbing the wrong way against her skin.
It sent ice shooting through her veins, and she rubbed at her arms, unable to fight the sensation or the shiver that took over her body.
Chasin eased back, more shadow than man, and closed the door in her face.
It made no sound.
Not even a creak or the softest click.
Her breath trembled from her chest, and she tucked her cane into the crook of her left arm, raising her fist to knock on the door.
It opened again, and this time, Chasin barely even looked at her.
He took the bell piece from her left hand and gripped the top of her cane, drawing her bodily into the room, just far enough that he could push the door shut behind her again.
His office had bookshelves built against one wall, tomes ordered so neatly that she assumed it had to be a system, though it certainly had nothing to do with size or colour.
Subject, then. The other wall displayed so many weapons that she had to force her eyes to keep aimlessly wandering, instead of sticking and widening in shock.
She caught the sharp edge of an axe, rows of daggers, strange arrows of dark stone, and maces.
Everything was black, made of glittering obsidian.
Against the floor-length window at the far side of the room was a desk facing the door. Two faded armchairs were turned towards the desk, beside them a breakfast cart.
Everything was designed for practicality over comfort, but the wood of the furniture was richly oiled, the grain twisting in beautiful patterns, and the dark stone of the weapon-wall reflected the sunlight in a strangely beautiful way.
The scent of parchment and leather permeated the space. The rug was new.
Hopefully not because someone bled on the old one.
Hopefully, it wasn’t the last recruit Chasin’s monster had decided to hunt.
Chasin walked to the breakfast cart. On it was a clay pourer with steam curling from the short spout, two short, clay cups on small, matching saucers, and a random sprig of … blueberries? No, not blueberries.
“Careful, Eiko.” The memory hit her in a rush, the feeling of dirt coating her fingers as she crouched beside Rion’s mother in her garden causing something in her chest to ache.
“Those are bilberries,” Mei said, as Eiko traced the little berries growing close to the ground.
Mei took her finger and traced a tiny, bell-shaped flower. “They produce the same flowers, but the bilberry flower is slightly rounder, see?”
“Yes.”
“Blueberry flowers are usually pink, but bilberry flowers are more of a greenish-pink. And see, the berries are much smaller …”
That was a bilberry sprig on Chasin’s tray. The rich scent of coffee danced with the barely perceptible tang of the berries as Chasin filled the two cups, pushing one of them into her hands.
Books, leather, death, berries, and coffee.
Chasin wasn’t exactly an aphrodisiac. More like a Venus flytrap.
She tried to contain her excitement as she pulled the hot clay cup up to her lips, inhaling deeply.
Rion always saved up to buy her a small bag of coffee beans for her birthday.
It only ever lasted a week, especially as she was forced to share it with her brother.
And whoever walked past and caught a whiff of the expensive drink she was brewing.
It was always Ren walking past.
He would rearrange his entire day to make sure he accidentally strolled by their cottage at the exact time she woke up. He just happened to have this urge for the entire week following her birthday.
By pure coincidence.
Thoughts of Ren had her stomach flipping nervously and some of her frozen blood heating again.
They probably needed to talk, but neither of them were really the “talking” type.
That was why they had been sleeping together in secret for two years and still hadn’t discussed whether they were in any sort of relationship.
Chasin was staring at her, his nostrils flaring gently.
Everything about him seemed to be in direct conflict.
His size contradicted his gracefulness. His height and the impossibly broad line of his shoulders contradicted the streamlined cut of his muscles, revealed by the tight wrap of his leathers.
His power was so vast she could feel it, and yet it was somehow contained inside him.
A mere man. The immense span of his power, his body, his glare, his presence—it was all contradicted by his inability to speak—or choice not to speak.
She wasn’t sure which it was. Perhaps a balance of both.
Perhaps he could, but it cost him. Like with her second sight, maybe he only had a limited reserve of speech inside him, and he was more comfortable in the silence, just as she was more comfortable in the dark.
They had both been regarding each other quietly for several moments now, as she drank the coffee, squirming a little as the bold liquid warmed her belly. This coffee wasn’t like the stuff Rion bought her from the Stonesigh market.
She could taste dark chocolate, molasses, and something woodsy like walnut or toasted grain. She could easily drink that entire little jug he had on his tray, but she tried not to stare directly at it as she drained the cup.
As soon as she was done, Chasin pushed off his desk and approached her again, taking the cup from her hand. He leaned down, planting his face close to hers, his eyes narrowing on her lips.
What the fuck is happening here?
I know what this is! Hymn was zipping around in a sheer panic. He’s about to kiss—
“Poison,” Chasin whispered, that damaged voice lifting the hair across her exposed arms to stand on end.